Obsessing over the “first (fill in the blank)” whatever …

Who decided that becoming “the first” whatever was so important?

Maybe it’s the “everybody gets a trophy” mentality run amuck. Whatever it is, it’s stupid to be electing or appointing anyone simply for the superficial reason that they would “be the first” of their kind to hold such a position.

That’s just as dumb as rejecting a supremely qualified person simply because they would “be the first” of their kind in that job.

That’s discrimination, and that’s against the law.  But apparently it’s okay – no, to be applauded – to give a job to someone just because they would “be the first” whatever to get it. 

There’s no doubt that Obama got a big boost in his first campaign largely because he would “be the first African-American U.S. President.”  Well, that, and also because Republicans were way too busy eating their own in the primaries to field a reasonable alternative.

He certainly didn’t have any qualifications for the job first time around.  He didn’t have any relevant experience.  But he was a young, articulate – if geography challenged – African-American, running against another in a long line of white guys.

He won the next election partly because of the reverse – people didn’t want to vote against the first African-American U.S. President, plus Republicans stayed home in droves. 

Now we have Eric Holder – the first African-American U.S. Attorney General. Not a great AG – some say among the worst we’ve had – but hey, he’s still the first African-American AG.

Obama’s nominated Loretta Lynch to take Holder’s place, which would make her – wait for it – the first female U.S. Attorney General, who by chance also happens to be African American, making her a two-fer in the “first” category.  She could become the first female African-American U.S. Attorney General if the hearings on her nomination go well. Bonus points. 

Ms. Lynch may in fact be eminently qualified for the job.  I suspect she is. Still, I feel sorry that her qualifications will get lost in the hype to “be the first.” 

It's true that there was another female Attorney General before Lynch (Janet Reno); sadly she was simply an ordinary, white, albeit tall female Attorney General so she won't be as well remembered in the history books as Lynch.   

This obsession with being “the first” whatever seems to be a uniquely Democrat phenomenon.  

They revel in Thurgood Marshall being the first African-American Supreme Court Justice, and appointed of course by a Democrat. But they conveniently bypass Sandra Day O’Conner, the first female Supreme Court Justice, who was appointed by a Republican. They made a big deal out of the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor by a Democrat as the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice, even though a Republican President – George H.W. Bush – first put her on U.S. District Court.

BTW, when Thurgood Marshall left the bench in 1991, his replacement – Clarence Thomas, also an African American – took his place, after being nominated by a Republican. Thomas became only the second African-American Supreme Court Justice in history.  Nobody cares about that. 

I guess we’re all waiting for the first female African-American Supreme Court Justice.  Or maybe the first female Hispanic African-American Supreme Court Justice. 

Or perhaps the first handicapped, transgendered, biracial Supreme Court Justice who is the offspring of illegal immigrants from Central America and Africa, and a practicing phrenologist, as well as an expert at fly fishing and collecting lamp finials.   

I mean seriously, where does it end?  And what does any of that have to do with the job?   

Just because someone is “the first” doesn’t mean that trumps every other requirement.  It may be interesting; it may even be historic, which of course it is because it’s “the first.” But is it relevant?  Most times, probably not, yet that doesn’t stop the hype.

Recently, Tom Wolf appointed a transgendered person to be Physician General of Pennsylvania, which was hyped as “the first” of its kind.  Dr. Rachel Levine, the appointee, appears to be very qualified for the position; however the headlines were about Wolf appointing a transgendered person.  I suspect her sexual status has very little bearing on her apparent skills as a physician and leader.   

When the governor of Oregon resigned in a scandal, Secretary of State Kate Brown became the new governor. But almost immediately, she was tagged in the national news as “the first” openly bisexual governor in U.S. history.  Forget that she’s had a long and successful career in Oregon politics, the media only seems to care that she’s bisexual. To me, that diminishes Kate Brown’s accomplishments, which are many, for the record, even if you disagree with her politics.    

Then there are those who hope to succeed solely because they would be “the first.”

Hillary is preparing to run on a single-issue platform – she would be the first female U.S. President.  Honestly, she’s got nothing else to pin her hopes on.  Her track record as a U.S. Senator is pretty thin, except for being a defense hawk and supporting the Gulf Wars, which she wants everyone to forget.  Her tenure as Secretary of State is almost comical, from the screw up of the “restart button” translation to bumping her head causing her to miss hearings and wear Junior Soprano style sunglasses – not a legacy to hype. Finally, her traditional Clintonian aversion to the truth, and incessant money-grubbing – what’s not to like, right?       

But if she did win, she would become the first female U.S. President.  So there’s that.

That’s about it, however.

For me, that’s not enough.

I’m so past worshipping “the first” of anything, whether that’s the first contestant on DWTS with a prosthetic leg or the first transgendered full-blooded Navajo zither-playing headliner in Vegas.  If you draw definitions tight enough there’s always a way to be “the first” of whatever.   

I’m the first person to ever write this blog in precisely this way.  See? 

So enough with “the first” nonsense. 

Anybody can play that game. It doesn’t make being ”first” more important than qualifications.  

And despite the novelty of a DWTS contestant with a prosthetic leg, that didn't help them win the competition did it? That's because it's judged on merit, not empathy. There's a lesson there.  

Enough already.

What difference does it make …

I was having this discussion with someone the other day. 

They were going off about Hillary’s e-mails, Whitewater, the Rose Law firm papers, Benghazi, the shady deals with the Clinton Foundation, and yet Hillary seems to get a pass on everything.

I agreed.    

But to quote Hillary herself, I also said:  “What difference does it make?”   

I’m convinced the general public doesn’t really care about any of Hillary’s shortcomings.  So she doesn’t need to pin all her woes on a vast right-wing conspiracy or Republicans obsessed with “phony scandals.”  It’s a waste of time.  Most people aren’t paying any attention in the first place. 

Because the public, frankly, doesn’t care what she’s done, or why, now or in the past.  

In short, nobody but Fox News and a handful of fringe sites are paying any attention to any of Hillary’s past or current baggage.  It’s not even a blip on the radar for most people.  Hillary may be a pathological liar and a weasel – or not – but it doesn’t matter to a large part of the population. 

She hasn’t convinced the public to trust her; it’s more that they believe there’s nothing to see here.  Politicians lie, Hillary lies, so what’s new?  Interminable hearings about Benghazi, what happened to Hillary’s State Department e-mails and minutiae like whether or not she signed this paper or that when she left the State Department are all just background noise.  Who cares? 

None of this is going to make a damn bit of difference if she runs for President.  It will all be old news by then.  Some believe that’s why Hillary’s getting this all out of the way now.  

She needn’t worry.  The public doesn’t care now, and will care even less by then. 

And it’s not just Hillary’s foibles the public doesn’t care about; it’s pretty much everything that doesn’t impact them directly and immediately, whether that’s ISIS, the Ukraine, Afghanistan, Iran’s nukes, terrorist plots, taxing the rich, campaign financing, the national debt, etc. 

Sure, you may believe some of these are actually very important issues which could determine the overall security of the nation and the fate of millions of people, but it’s all too complicated and boring for most folks.  If the talking heads on TV can’t explain something in 20 seconds or less, people lose interest in learning more.  So they don’t.  Consequently, they don’t care. 

Think about it this way: only about 37% of eligible voters actually voted in the last election cycle. The rest apparently didn't care.  Or had something better to do.  Any questions?  

So what does interest the public?  What does the public care about?  Hard to tell.   

But it’s not politicians, for sure. And it’s certainly not whatever politicians are doing, despite how much media coverage they get. Regardless of how important politicians think they are, and how much they believe the populace eagerly awaits their pronouncements, very few people really care who the politicians are or what those politicians are doing.  

It’s all a never-ending Punch and Judy Show for most Americans, with Republicans whacking away at Democrats and Democrats whacking away at Republicans, with neither side accomplishing much of anything worthwhile in the end. 

It’s vanity theater; infinitely more interesting to the actors than the audience.  

Some Republicans may care what Republican politicians do.  Some Democrats may care what Democrat politicians do.  But most of the public are neither Republicans nor Democrats; they don’t give a rat’s patoot what Republican or Democrat politicians do, much less what they say.

With today’s 24/7/365 news cycle and the myriad of media outlets, there’s simply too much to digest. It’s truly an information overload.  And since all these media outlets are competing to get the public’s attention, “news” that isn’t dramatic and visual enough gets short shrift.    

That’s why coverage of riots, protests, fires, cop shootings, ferry sinkings, plane crashes, and natural disasters crowd out everything else.  Dramatic visuals hold attention; lengthy discussions of foreign and economic policy do not.  House or Senate hearings on whatever?  Yawn.    

Even scandals – unless they involve sex, drugs, murder, or celebrities involved of any of those – just don’t glue people to their TV or computer/smartphone screens anymore.  

Imagine, then, how little interest there is in arcane stuff like Hillary’s inability to manage two e-mail accounts. The general public is more interested in Hillary’s latest hairdo.  I suspect that if she does decide to run for President, she’ll focus on the fact she’s a woman, and would be the first woman President, rather than her record. 

Is that a bad thing? 

Honestly, it’s the smart thing.  If I were advising her, that’s what I’d recommend. 

Why should she get bogged down with all the dirty laundry of her past – especially when nobody obviously cares about it?  Why bother?  The more promising path is to run to become a milestone in American history: the first female U.S. President.  

Wouldn’t that be something to tell your kids and grandkids about years from now? That you helped elect the first female U.S. President?

You know what they’ll say then? 

What difference does it make ...  

Reality check for Republicans …

I am at a complete loss to understand how leading Republicans consistently snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  They squander every opportunity they get.  Republicans routinely paint themselves into corners they have to skulk from later with their tails between their legs.    

Democrats must watch in absolute amazement.  I suppose they are as dumbfounded as I am at the complete ineptitude of today’s Republican leaders – always picking the wrong battles, saying the wrong things, and turning the public against them at every turn.  Then, ultimately backing down when push comes to shove making them look weak and indecisive. 

It’s almost impossible to take the Republican Party seriously.  If Democrats didn’t have the Republican Party as a foil, they’d have to invent one.  As it is, the Republican Party is to the Democrats as the Washington Generals are to the Harlem Globetrotters. 

Now, some people will say it only appears that way because the media is biased in favor of Democrats.  The media do tend to ignore a lot of stupid things said by Democrats. The media will also seize every opportunity to make Republicans look foolish. 

But Republicans make it so, so easy.   

Look, it’s one thing to get sucker punched.  It’s another to lean into it.

Democrats may be the party of prevaricating weasels.  But Republicans are the party of posturing buffoons who substitute bluster for leadership.

All Republicans have as a common theme is that they hate Obama.  Aside from that – and that’s not exactly a great platform to run on – they have nothing.  Nada.  Zip.  Zed.  Zero. 

Republicans seem obsessed with crap the vast majority of the general public doesn’t seem to care much about, like Benghazi, Hillary’s e-mails, protecting tax loopholes for corporations and the rich, and the national debt.  They also seem fixated on things most Americans have decided long ago are purely personal issues the government shouldn’t be involved in.  Like gay marriage, school prayer, and whether women should have to right to get an abortion.

That’s not to say that Republicans don’t occasionally come up with some very good ideas that would benefit the country and its citizens.  Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. 

But those laudable ideas get lost in all the huffing and puffing about stuff nobody but the fanatical right and a handful of policy wonks are interested in. Thoughtful, intelligent Republicans, and there are a few, see their good ideas go down in flames at the hands of bomb throwers in their party who intentionally sabotage reasonable legislation by attaching ridiculous unrelated amendments no one would ever agree to.  On purpose. 

Over the years, I’ve tried to figure out why.

The only thing I can come up with is that Republicans want to lose.  As long as they lose they can keep their campaign fund-raising machine churning out the letters and e-mails to their red-meat constituencies to keep the bucks rolling in.

But what about now?  Now that the Republicans have control of the House and Senate – honestly, through no efforts on their part, and certainly not by winning a “battle of ideas” – what can they do?  How can they still continue to claim to be victims when they’ve actually won?  And make no mistake … even though it doesn’t seem like it, they hold substantial majorities in the House and Senate.    

They can’t keep blaming Harry Reid for refusing to bring their bills to the Senate floor.  He doesn’t control that anymore; they do.  Now the Republicans claim they don’t have enough votes in the Senate to override a veto by Obama. That gives them cover to keep whining and complaining about how they need to elect more Republican Senators – and of course, raise more money.

So what’s the point of winning majorities in the House and Senate?  If you are Republicans, there is none.  You still can’t get anything accomplished.  Instead of trying to build a coalition, and getting something useful accomplished, Republicans continue to push legislation they know full-well will fail mainly to provide campaign fund-raising fodder. 

I am beginning to believe that’s what Republican Party leaders want.  If they truly wanted to push through their legislation, McConnell would pull a Harry Reid and change the rules of the Senate to get rid of the supermajority requirement to pass legislation without fear of a filibuster.  But he won’t; instead, he’ll hide behind a “tradition” already broken by Reid and the Democrats to avoid having to assume responsibility for anything.  He’ll be a gentleman, a statesman, while Democrats laugh their asses off at his temerity. 

The comedian Lewis Black once said the main problem with U.S. politics was Republicans saying “I’ve got a really shitty idea,” and Democrats saying “Oh yeah? Well I can make it shittier!” Now, Republicans don’t even have a shitty idea; they have absolutely no ideas anyone except themselves is interested in seeing become the law of the land. 

They’ve earned the antipathy of the voting public.    

Rush Limbaugh – someone I can take in only very small doses – once offered a theory that the only reason Republicans ever get control of the House, Senate, or the Presidency is because Democrats screw up.  In short, Republicans get elected to punish Democrats who’ve gone too far.  As soon as Republicans get things running well again, the public feels safe in electing Democrats again. 

The problem for Republicans today is that they’ve been elected to punish Democrats and Obama for going too far, not because Republicans have better ideas.  They need to understand that and make the most of the brief time they are in charge, because they lack the will or the ideas to fix things and retain power.  If they don’t do real stuff right now to fix the economy, immigration, and defense – and avoid all the other BS issues like gay marriage, abortion, and school prayer – they’ll all be out in the next election cycle with no one to blame but themselves. 

That’s the cold, hard truth for Republicans.   

Reality check for Democrats ...

There probably aren’t any reading this, but what the Hell. 

Here’s what I’d like Democrats to think about, before they lapse into their typical argumentum ad absurdum tactics I find so disingenuous and tedious … 

Stop talking to me like I’m stupid or deaf.  I fully understand what you’re saying, but I’m not buying it, no matter how often – or how loudly – you repeat it.    

And please, stop embarrassing yourself and insulting me with cheap shots and tortured leaps of logic. You can’t shame me into agreeing with you.      

If you’ve wasted your time trying to discuss things with Democrats you understand what I’m talking about.  Everything goes to extremes in a split second. 

I don’t even have to give you the context, just the knee-jerk responses:

“So, you really don’t care what happens to the poor and elderly?”  

“So you’re in favor of just letting people die who can’t afford insurance?” 

“What would you do – let children starve because of their parent’s mistakes?” 

“So what’s your plan – rip families apart and deport 12 million innocent people?” 

“You wouldn’t feel that way if he were white, would you?”

“So, you’re okay with building more prisons, but not funding public schools?”  

“So you’d be okay with no restrictions on who could buy a gun, or what type?”

“Let me understand: You think poor people should be punished even more just for being poor?”

“What you’re saying is that you believe only some people should be allowed to vote?” 

Be honest with yourself. It makes you nuts when Democrats say these things. They haven’t even listened to what you said, or tried to understand, before they leap off the far end. They don’t want to discuss anything; they want to push back so hard that you’ll roll over. 

It’s always an either-or scenario. If you want to put some restrictions on EBT cards to prevent fraud and misuse, you become a heartless monster who despises the poor. If you’re in favor of giving parents a choice of where to send their school-age kids, you don’t care about public education. If you criticize Obama’s policies, you must be a racist. If you think Hillary is not qualified, or trustworthy enough to be President, you hate women.

And, of course, if you don’t agree with them on everything, you must be a Fox-News-watching narrow-minded bigot, a right-wing nut job, a religious fanatic, or maybe even a fascist or Nazi.

At the very least, you’re not very smart. So they must restate the same thing again and again in slightly different ways, and turn up the volume, to get you to comprehend how right they are.     

That, my friends, is why I can’t stand them. 

They are so smug and self-righteous – based on absolutely nothing. They cannot grasp how annoying they are to be around. It’s exhausting to be constantly on defense against saying anything that might get them started. Trust me, they are always looking for that opening.

Discussing anything in the news with them is a complete waste of your time. It’s like trying to have a rational, thoughtful talk with a three-year old. And about as rewarding. 

Plus, the more the public seems to lose faith in what liberal Democrats and Obama want to do – which is happening – the more rabid and offensive they become.   

So what do we all end up doing? We avoid them. They hardly notice. Or perhaps they are avoiding us as well. It’s sad but true that neither of us really enjoy the other’s company anymore.  

But honestly, who wants to be around someone who could go off at any time?   

If it’s absolutely essential or unavoidable that we have some business or social interaction with them, we make certain to steer clear of anything that might tend to set them off. About the only “safe” topics are sports, restaurants and your own vacation plans.    

Otherwise, it’s like the Stooges skit with the crazy guy that goes off whenever someone mentions Niagara Falls. 

Only now the trigger is ObamaCare, Benghazi, food stamps, unions, teachers, fair share, guns, Second Amendment, immigration, citizenship, entitlements, Hillary, Scott Walker, Michele, Air Force One, Obama in-laws, Hawaii, Kenya, Israel, Palestinians, Sharpton, Holder, Bush (George H.W., George W., Laura, or Jeb), Rubio, Rand Paul, Romney, Ted Cruz, Boehner, McConnell, redistribution, charter schools, Keystone Pipeline, debt ceiling – the list is practically endless.    

Mention one of these – in whatever context – and you can almost hear the crackpot gears whirring in their head, watch their eyes narrow, see them get all twitchy, and you know you’re just moments away from “Slowly I turn, step by step, inch by inch …”     

And all is lost.  You’re in for a lecture to an audience of one – you. 

So, to try to keep your sanity, you focus on just about anything else while they blather on. That brown spot on their cheek. The fleck of white stuff at the corner of their eye. The fact that their one ear is lower than the other. Or that they should trim their nose or ear hair. Whatever works for you.  They’ll still think they have your rapt attention. 

You can always try to knock them off their game, but once they’re off on a rant it’s hard to stop them. “Gee, it’s getting late …” sometimes works. My favorite is “Look!  It’s Halley’s Comet!” It’s certainly as crazy as they are and often breaks their train wreck of an argument.   

Just don’t try the “I guess we will just have to agree to disagree” gambit. That only enrages them.You see, they don’t want to simply persuade you; they want to bludgeon you into abject submission to their point of view.   

As Obama and the Democrats’ poll numbers continue to tumble, expect them to get worse. If Hillary stumbles, I don’t know what they’ll do.  Maybe some Jim Jones or Heaven’s Gate  event – drinking poison-laced Chardonnay or Starbucks half-caf double latte mocha crappachino, waiting for the gluten and nut-free mothership to whisk them away to a better world.

Or maybe they'll all just sail away to Europe, which is what they want to turn the U.S. into.  

Bon voyage, I say.