This is football, and what you guys are really afraid of is the *hint* of Roger Staubach-like, squeaky-clean greatness that the Baby Tebow is exuding in his early pro career…

Wait a minute, wait a minute! You guys must think that God has no skills when it comes to crafting dramatic stories, despite a sizable compendium of reference work?

Do you really think that The Big Director would start-out the Baby Tebow as the world-beating over-dog? No way! The Baby Tebow would first gain sympathy through a withered arm in the beginning – and then the highlight reel would start.

Just watch – you sharp-eyed, acerbic-witted guys think you’ve got it all figured out! – when, really, you’re just being suckered-in for the Herbie ‘The Love Bug’ ending, all over again…

It would be a mistake, imvho, to assume that the playing field will be the same by the time the next hostage situation arrives, which could even be within a month.

This deal that nobody likes was crafted within the framework of ‘principled’ negotiation – which normally carries with it big penalties for ‘unprincipled’ behavior.

So, passion for your constituency is fine, but subversion of the process with threats of mutual destruction crosses a clear, bright line that opens the perpetrator to exposure of debased character.

Since the goopers are ridiculously rigid and prone to repetitious behavior, we should all be expecting them to come back with their same brand of shock-and-awe legislation tactics to bully the Dems, again, with threats of pulling the whole house down on everyone if they don’t get their way.

The next time, however, None of the stone throwers better live in glass houses, because everyone is going to hear about it. If we thought Wu and Weiner were idiots before, just wait till the goopers start hogging that spotlight with graft, corruption, compromised behavior, etc, etc.

One of the elements of principled negotiation is to ‘call out’ the party-fouls of the other side by naming their tactics – Biden did this when he called the Tea Party’s negotiation style like that of ‘terrorists’ making all-or-nothing demands.

Now that ‘hostage-taking’ has been called out as an unprincipled systemic threat, it can be defended against with vigor the next time it’s used.

Hotter than a match, yeah!

Hi Suz! I’m driving by…hope you’re doing well!

I don’t see this as far-fetched at all.

An Administration is characterized by its weltangschung, its worldview – and let’s face it, the goopers see a violent world full of ‘others’ that requires forcefully fighting to keep in-line.

So, during Republican Administrations, the perceptual lens dictates violent action, which manifests as increases in homicide and suicide – I can buy that.

The impact of worldview is powerful. When I was young and studying American History in 5th grade, I wanted to know how many slaves there were in the South – my family is from South Carolina. I checked-out ‘slavery’ in the encyclopedia, and was shocked, shocked I tell you, to discover that of the 8 million Southerners in 1860, 4 million of them were slaves! Half!

So, I rushed over to my Grandfather, who was rocking on the porch that over-looked a long and deep field that had, until recently, been ‘tenent’ farmed by black share-cropers, and I asked him, “At the start of the Civil War, how many of the 8 million Southerners were black?”

He looked off far across the field for a moment or two, like it was the first time he had ever considered it, and said, “Well, of the 8 total, I reckon there must have been something like 6, maybe 7 million of ‘em.”

Planes flying like roulette balls around fields voluntarily maintained…must lives be risked to make ideological political points?

Wasn’t one of the co-founders of Home Depot, also an Atlanta-based corp like Delta, recently quoted discouraging CEO’s from working with Obama?

Btw, the Tea Party is huge in Glenbeckistan, just north of Atlanta…

I hear what you’re saying, but Democratic Socialism is not the same as Progressive. The Socialists have a lot longer row to hoe, imvho, than do the Progressives.

Have a Progressive take down a Blue Dog, and you lay the template for becoming as forceful in the national debate as the Tea Party.

After Lamont beat Lieberman in the ’06 Senate Primaries, snagging a Congressional Seat ought to be considered very doable by the activists and supporters of this blog…

It would really only take one victory by a single third-party progressive candidate to completely change the game…

What happens when people feel voiceless, powerless and un-represented is they ‘de-subscribe’ from the system that treats them as invisible – they stop caring.

Chew, chew, chew those peas everybody…

Nobody but nobody is saying this is any kind of a Dem victory…

In fact, most of what I’m reading says just the opposite – it’s a huge win for the Republicans.

I think the Dems are in bad shape headed down the legislative road – Boehner got 98% of what he wanted, Pelosi was made the patsy and the Goopers need to find only one vote on the SuperCongress to steer their agenda down our throats…

So Nancy and the Dems stepped-in for the Tea Party and did the deal…

Well, it’s over…

Goopers need 16 more Dems to say yes…two minutes to go…

187 is the best the Goopers can do…three and a half minutes to go…

Goopers can’t get there on their own…191 is the best they can do on their own…

Alright, I think it’s safe to say that the foxnews non-scientific poll has stabilized at 71% of respondents Opposed to the Debt Deal.

117,000 and still 71% opposed…