Happy About Biden

By: kathstack
Published On: 8/26/2008 7:56:02 PM

 
The first political person I knew was my grandfather, my father's father; he was a deputy sheriff in Indiana, which I'm told was pretty political. He was an old-time Irish machine Democrat with wonderful stories. My father was a hardline Democrat too, he told me in his later years, when the Republican party, in his view, had deteriorated past bearing: "You cannot make a deal with those people, Kathleen. They have no honor and no shame."

So my thought about Republicans, which I formed after 20 years of observing their small-town version, is this: you don't make bargains with them. You beat them if you can, and if you can't, you keep trying until you do. Then you destroy them (metaphorically), take all life and function from them, bury them and spit on the grave. Then you can have a nice, gaudy wake, at which you tell funny but malicious stories about them; stories punctuated from time to time with a pious "god rest his soul." This I learned at my father and grandfather's knees, and I see no reason to change.

So while in theory I support Barack Obama's vision of reaching out to Republicans to rebuild the country, in my bones I am skeptical. I am afraid if Obama reached out to some Republicans--and you know who they are--they would wrench his arm off at the shoulder and beat him about the head with the bloody stump. There is, I think, no honor in them.

And that is why I am happy to have Joe Biden on the ticket. Biden, I think, understands these things, and can act on them. It's all very well to think the best of people--but you have to be prepared to act if they have no best in them.  

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