Bad Advice

If anyone is still in the dark about what is wrong with the Democratic Party, look no further than this:

I just got off the boat. For the past week my family and I have been guests on the R Family Vacations cruise created by Rosie and Kelli O’Donnell. Along with 2000 other people – gay, straight and lots of kids – we sailed to Halifax, Nova Scotia and back down to NYC through Boston and Cape Cod. And I was a cynic. Truth is, since I get both claustrophobic and seasick, I had to be brought kicking and screaming on this trip. I just wasn’t in the mood for an onslaught of gayness.

I was wrong. It was a magical vacation…But sailing in international waters gave me a different perspective to the news of the moment. The distance I felt from the hype was much akin to the everyday attitude of a majority of Americans.

Over and over people on the ship asked me why the Democrats are focusing so much attention on Karl Rove and not, instead, providing a better alternative story for the American people to hear. It is a good question.

Karl Rove won’t resign no matter how many blog posts, front page stories or speeches from the floor of Congress take place…So why are Democrats wasting the chance to talk to people about what they really care about? As long as the political conversation is about Karl Rove, the Republicans win. Sure, the President’s current allegiance to Rove is damaging but the White House has obviously made a calculation that it is better to keep Karl around than to get rid of him and have the subject changed. That alone should give Dems a clue as to how important it is for us to change the subject.

It is no sure thing that Democrats will be able to get people to focus on politics at all during these few weeks. But our only hope is to talk about something more relevant. Summer vacation is family time. It is also a time for anxiety for parents. Because instead of worrying about our jobs, on vacation, most parents worry about their kids.

[…]

(And lest anyone doubt that the gay and lesbian parents on our cruise have all the same anxieties and commitment to their children as straight parents, rest your concern. In fact, the normalcy of the conversations was soothing.)

Democrats have more answers to the problems faced by families in America today. Now is a good time to try and dominate the conversation with those concerns. When people across the country feel certain that the Democratic political leadership cares more about these issues than scoring political points, we will finally benefit from the President’s dropping approval ratings.

Hold on to your hats folks. This person is a Democratic political consultant. In other words, Democrats pay her for political advice. I’m not kidding.

First of all, her attitudes toward gay people seems to be something closer to an anthropologist finding the lost tribe of Borneo. She wasn’t ready for an “onslaught of gayness” but was eventually soothed to learn that gay people are normal. Good for her.

But, of course, the other huge sin is this fucking insane, deranged, bass-akwards, idiotic advice that we should stop talking about Karl Rove so we can swing the conversation toward child care. She actually said that as long we are talking about Karl Rove, the Republicans win.

Oh yes, by all means let’s drop this hot potato and schedule a press conference about parental anxiety. The cable shows and the papers are clamoring for that kind of copy. They can’t get enough of it. Perhaps we can get all the elected Democrats to stand on the steps of congress and sing “I’m a little teapot, short and stout” for the evening news. Meanwhile, let’s just let the criminals in the White House blow up the world. After they’re done, we’ll have a helluva parental leave policy to enact. Unfortunately we won’t have a country.

Seriously, as long as we have this white house off balance, not controlling the message and the agenda, the Republicans lose. Really. The Democrats can’t “win,” you see, because we have no power to legislate or mandate fuck-all. Our only job is to stop the Republicans from destroying the country any more than they already have and lay the groundwork for winning elections. Taking on Republicans is a vital part of that job.

I’m sure that Rosen had a lovely time with the liberals on the ship who all were parroting the conventional wisdom “but the Democrats don’t have any ideas!” or “nobody knows what the Democrats stand for” which Rosen, the professional political consultant, took for some sort of homespun wisdom. If she thinks being on a cruise with 2000 people who can afford to spend a week with Rosie O’Donnell and her family is like being an average American she needs her head examined.

Here’s a clue for the professionals who hear this shit at cocktail parties: people say this because they don’t have anything else to say. These mantras are conversational elevator music, things that people say in social situations that are uncontroversial, genteel and guaranteed to result in agreement. These political platitudes are conversational filler that are often used to obscure the fact that the speaker isn’t really conversant with the details or because they really, really don’t want to get into an argument. And it’s exactly the type of bullshit that you see among super liberals who feel they have to temper their overwhelming feelings of shadenfreude with public tut-tutting about the terrible waste of it all in light of all the real problems in the world.

I don’t understand how anyone can become a political consultant without having some instinct for the manners of even her own social class. Ms Rosen should probably re-read her copy of Pride and Prejudice and concentrate on something besides Mr Darcy this time. She’d learn something about human nature.

There is no way we will ever again be in a position to help families or do anything else as long as our politicians are being advised by people like this.

Update: I’ve been reliably informed that Hilary Rosen is gay. It’s good to know that she discovered on her trip that other gay people are normal. She must be so relieved.

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