Garrison Keillor: Get busy, Democrats

[babylonsister]

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/democratic_party/index.html?story=/opinion/keillor/2010/02/09/democrats

Get busy, Democrats
This country loves its hustlers and slick operators, but it's hard work that gets you through the rough patches
By Garrison Keillor


It is a large moment for Democrats, learning to stick with a good man through a rough period when the people who crave disillusionment have become disillusioned. It's like a winter vacation in the Caribbean when it rains buckets and you eat some bad shellfish and a shrieky teenager says you've ruined her life forever. You smile, take a shower and organize a volleyball game. You have to work at it. It's work.

We the people are fond of hustlers and slick operators and the reverend with the diamond-studded Rolex and Sarah Palin slipping into Nashville and collecting a hundred grand for a 40-minute speech of no distinction whatsoever ("I'm so proud to be an American. Happy birthday, Ronald Reagan") to a roomful of happy tea partiers. You didn't have to pore over it line by line to know that no work went into it: It was butterscotch pudding made from a box, add hot water and stir.

History does not record that Samuel Adams charged a fee for addressing the rally at the Old South Meeting House on Nov. 29, 1773, at which he rallied the Sons of Liberty to resist the British, leading to the Boston Tea Party. But that was then and this is now.

Miss Sarah knows where the cameras are, and she has pizzazz, and the tea partiers whooped and yelled for her standard Republican stump speech, which is like paying $750 for a hotel room and finding no clean towels and a lot of dead cockroaches and then circling Excellent Excellent Excellent on the customer questionnaire.

snip//

I still believe in hard work. It's more fun and it's a better way of life. I don't have much patience for Democrats who grab hold of defeat and find vindication there. They long to be a heroic voice in the wilderness, crying out against selfishness and cruelty and going nobly down to defeat, and for their obituaries to say they were visionaries and ahead of their time. I'd rather they were in their time and did the hard work.

[VAliberal]

1. love me some Keillor

[Paladin]

2. Well Said As Always, Mr. Keillor. (n/t)