A funeral tunred into a political rally

Lightwizard's assertion that politicians are only humble when they're caught made me laugh . . . here in Oh-Hi-Oh. James Trafficant (how could anyone with a vocabulary vote for someone with such a family name?) was convicted of bribery & racketeering in Federal court, was booted out of the House, and is now running for re-election from his jail cell. He has sufficient support that actually campaign activities have been organized and carried off on his behalf, and there were enough supporters in Youngstown to raise the money for a campaign war-chest. To paraphrase Mencken, no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public . . .

There's no way to know how such a situation would have been handled by Republicans but I'm sure the way this was organized, it will give them a clue that it's just too easy for something like this to get out of control --
mob mentality if you will. Any question, and I hate to be redundant, that Frank Lloyd Wright called it a "mobocracy?" If even manifests itself in sessions of the Senate and the House (although Jon Stewarts assessment of C-Span this week on The Daily Show was a laugh riot -- most of the sessions are like watching a rained out golf tournament).

The DMC was apologizing for losing control of a crowd? Well, duh. I just don't believe they planned it to take the course it did nor would a Republican planning committee want this kind of result. Hope they've learned by this lesson. Is it any more or less important than getting blow jobs in a closet in the Oval Office? I'd like to see every corporate executive voluntarily step forward to deny that's ever happened to them.

I swear it has never happened to me in a closet.

Damn...uh...well, never in that space where you keep the gabage under the sink. Never.

...SUCH a dork...

Okay, you executive officers -- under the desk, in the hallway, on top of the desk...they all qualify.

But never with a partner who can spit a rivet twenty paces.

Here's my .02c worth of opinion: Wellstone's family participated fully in the "political rally." If they're fine with it, who's to argue? After all, funerals are for the living.... c.i.

Agreed, c.i.

sozobe
Every time I see your avitar, I smile.

ci
that really is my notion about it too. There is no surprise really that republican folks got uppity, but it's completely understandable given the man and the circumstances. And it is so miniscule in importance compared to the real issues presently on the table.

Read Shakespeare. Antony's oration at Caesar's funeral. Sound familiar?

The point being, this sort of thing is not without precedent. The man was a politician and politics was an integral part of his life. It might be argued that that's what killed him. It would seem only natural that politics would figure into his memorial service. The people who have the most right of any to complain would be the Wellstone family and you don't hear them pissing and moaning.

blacksmithin, You have the right answer. Funerals are for the living; the dead don't give a damn what you do. If the immediate family approves of a party, rally, or whatever else they wish to do, that's their business. People who criticize them have no legs to stand on; what's their interest? I think it was "political." c.i.

Wrapped in a nutshell c.i. And that's the truth!

Of course, we know the outcome of the election now and where the politics did the most good!

BillW, It seems their memorial service/politcal rally backfired on them. It seems most voters didn't think it was a good idea. c.i.

The voting was so close in each election, I don't know how anyone could analyze what happened. I suggest it's more voter apathy and providence that stepped in. Bush was wise in recommending not to gloat and I think this can't be taken as a mandate -- it's the state of things just after his election until Jeffords defected. Now the balls in their court and let's see how far out of the court they can hit it. Are we so sure what a dead man wanted for his funeral?

Light, It really doesn't matter what the dead person wanted. c.i.

That is probably true and I'm sure they were being truthful in saying they didn't expect it to get that out of hand. The debacle today in the Bush Adminstration is far worse anyway -- they're still experimenting with our pocket books.

Light, It's impossible for any government to 'fix' the economy in two years. Even a tough job for god. I'm not a supporter of GWBushie, but it's unfair to blame the current economy on him. Some of the blame goes to the dot-com over-exuberance, the crooks of Enron, Worldcom, Tyco, and a few others, Arthur Andersen, the bankers and financial advisers that lied, and the over-valued market in general. It's still over-valued by about twenty percent. If you want to be honest about it, the economic downturn began during the Clinton-Algore administration. I voted for Clinton in 1996. c.i.

Precisely why getting rid of the three top people in the their financial plan is a burnt offering -- they are trying to infer that it's their fault, not the President and those immediately under him. I realize that every President has had people leave their administration but seldom under these conditions (well, Carter did it in the middle of his adminstration and I thought that was one of his unfortunate errors). What alchemy are they going to whisk up now? Every move they've have made seems to do more harm than good -- has the tax cut helped and would it really have been worse without it (their rationalization, not mine). For the same reason you can't alway spend away a problem, you can't run even a downsized government with not enough money coming in (or any business). As this is how Bush has run his own private businesses, does anyone think he'll do any better by dumping people and replacing them? Maybe Daddy has the money to bail him out of this one?