Salad Days and Nights

Best of times, worst of times, yadda yadda yadda. Except it is just that, at least for a political blogger — with the accent on the yadda.

Every morning I wake up and read some tremendous news about how some pond-sucking incumbent is in trouble because the voters in his or her (eh, let’s just say its) district have finally woken up to the fact that they’re being represented by a pond-sucker. And then as you click through the links at Real Clear Politics or Instapundit or Drudge, you find even more good news about voter attitudes, or that the most-recent Stupid Pond-Sucking Bill is now about as popular as Extra Itchy Charmin.

But then, by the time you cuddle up in bed with your laptop for the night, you read the latest news from Washington. And it’s always the same: Obama or Pelosi or Reid (or all three) have decided to double down on Extra Itchy Charmin. Or that we’ve lost another kajillion jobs. Or that the deficit has blown past yet another record. Or that Congress has approved raising the debt ceiling, officially, up to levels where even your great-great-grandkids will need to use a hemorrhoid pillow just to sit semi-upright in a used Barcalounger. Or that, at long last, Barney Frank has finally figured out a secure method of taxing the heterosexual orgasm.

Then the next day is exactly the same, only the other way around.

It’s enough to give a blogger whiplash — and I don’t mean the fun kind you get when your tiny little Prius gets rear-ended by Virgin Galactic’s newest rocket plane.

On the one hand, we have spontaneous Tea Party protests that make you think the “heirs of Patrick Henry” are alive and well and living right next door. Or maybe even sleeping right there in your own bed.

On the other hand, we have an Administration so blatant in its mendacity and so unscrupulous in its incompetence*, that just when I ought to be blogging at my bitter best, I’m instead left speechless. Well, if this White House can be said to have a plan, maybe that’s it: To suborn us into speechlessness.**

So if it’s seemed lately that I haven’t had much to say, that’s the furthest thing from the truth. Except for those times when its been quite precisely the truth. Because we’re living in times so extreme and so extraordinary and so extremely extraordinary that you want to shout from the rooftops — only to find, after climbing up there, that you’ve been confused into near-incoherence.

What a short, strange trip it’s been.

But hang on tight, because from now until November promises to be an even more exciting ride. Just don’t get stuck in the downs or caught up in the highs. And whatever you do, don’t use the Extra Itchy Charmin.

*I might be the first writer, ever, to use the phrase “unscrupulous incompetence.” And it might not even make any sense. But what can I say — President Obama just effing inspires me.

**That phrase might not make any sense either, or at least it didn’t before January 20, 2009. Since then, I think maybe it makes all kinds of unfortunate sense.