When All Else Fails . . . Blame The GOP

That’s right. The problems plaguing Detroit have absolutely nothing to do with more than 50 years of one party misrule, mismanagement and malfeasance by liberal Democrats. No. It’s Republicans who are to blame, for coming to the city’s rescue when total collapse made that necessary. Readers coming fresh to this story might swallow such outlandish blame-shifting. But as someone who grew up in the Detroit area and watched the debacle unfold, I know it’s complete claptrap. 

Republicans certainly deserve their share of blame for many problems plaguing the U.S.. But blaming them for Detroit is revisionism on Ritalin.

Watch It and Weep

One trait common among Detroiters, and we in The Legion of Ex-Detroiters (I wonder if we could form our own voting block?), is a morbid sense of humor about our old home town. This permits us to watch YouTube posts like this one -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hhJ_49leBw -- without breaking down in tears.

Even non-Detroiters might take an interest in this, however -- if only as a lesson in how to (or how not to) destroy a major American city. Why is Detroit relevant to non-Detroiters? Because, says the host, "Detroit has been the perfect laboratory for leftist policies at work for nearly half a century: it's the perfect vision of the leftist Utopia that this (Obama) administration sees." An outrageous statement? Perhaps. But not too far off the mark, in the view of this ex-Detroiter.

One slender ray of hope in the otherwise pessimism-inducing picture is new Detroit Mayor Dave Bing, who I remember best as a Pistons player. Here's a recent profile of Bing in the Wall Street Journal. He seems like a good man, with the right attitudes. But so did Dennis Archer.

Save Michigan; Nominate Granholm

I'm really conflicted about the prospect that Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm might be Barack Obama's first pick for the Supreme Court.

As a native Michigander, who has watched Granholm's reign of error, even from a safe distance, with dismay, I think it would be a blessing for my home state. The woman has been a disaster. Replacing her with a Shetland pony would be a step up. Barack Obama would be doing all Michiganders a favor if he took Granholm off to Washington, where she can live out her days, entombed in that marble mausoleum, posing as a legal scholar -- posing being what Granholm seems to do best. Her clerks would steer her clear of the most extreme bouts of stupidity. She might even bring a little comic relief to the stodgy and cerebral proceedings. Her political career thankfully would end. We'd see little of, and hear less from her. Her absence wouldn't necessarily save Michigan. That still rests with voters making better choices. But it's a potential start along the road to recovery.

Don't I think she'd make a terrible Supreme Court justice? Of course I do. But almost anyone Obama picks will do the same. It's a gimme that he'll pack the court with Bozos, since gender and race and overactive "empathy" glands are the primary litmus tests he'll apply to potential nominees. I'm resigned to the purging of all common sense, and all originalists, from the court. It's change Americans voted for with Obama and it's change Americans deserve, good and hard. Hoping the court will save us from disaster is just another straw to grasp. Give it up, already. It's over. Find something else to focus on, like macramé or oil painting.

On balance, therefore, I would rather have Granholm embarrassing herself as a Supreme Court justice, as one vote among nine, than have her continuing along in her political career, dragging my home state further down in the mire. By seeing her in the news less, I can more easily imagine she doesn't exist. By imagining she doesn't exist, I can sleep better at night. And by sleeping a little better at night, I can maintain some semblance of sanity in these absurd and insane times.