| Jim Himes was in the "right place at the right time"? Really? Seems to me that when Jim decided to run against Shays, Dixon's fellow know-it-all pundits were all writing that Shays had the 4th CD seat for as long as he wanted it, having successfully fought off Diane Farrell. Shays apparently believed that, too, going back on his promise to support a timeline for the withdrawal of our troops. If he'd thought he might be forced to answer for that Big Lie on timelines, it's unlikely he ever would have voted five times right after the election to stop Congress from setting a timeline.
And Jim Himes "is essentially a 42-year-old blank slate"? Really? Let's see, the guy graduated from Harvard, earned a master's degree from Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, successfully chaired the Greenwich DTC, during his tenure helping to launch Ned Lamont's successful and audacious primary challenge of Joe Lieberman, had a successful twelve-year career as an international investment banker with one of the premier investment banks in the world, then went off in a completely different direction to help develop affordable "green" housing in New England, heading up perhaps the leading affordable housing non-profit in the country. Then he takes on a 21-year incumbent Republican who had outspent his opponents by over a million dollars in every campaign he'd run, whom all of the newspapers and professors who wrote about it or commented on it, said would be impossible to beat, especially with casualties in the Iraq War declining....and he beats him- handily. And in Ken Dixon's opinion that man is a "blank slate"?
This is why people don't read newspapers anymore. It is mindless, snarky right-wing drivel like Ken Dixon's that fill local papers and that no one really should be forced to read. By the way, Ken, how many minority editors, columnists and reporters does Connecticut Post employ? The paper is based in a city with a population that is largely Black and Hispanic. But we'll come back to that.
After calling Himes a "blank slate", Dixon reverses himself, sort of, admitting that Himes "knows his economics". Then he goes on about Shays being
dumped "unceremoniously, without so much as a 'thank you' for all the years of service to the district."
Now my problem with that bit of sour grapes is that I'm in no mood to thank Chris Shays for all of his years of service. On the contrary, I think Chris Shays should be apologizing profusely to the people of this district for all those years when he supported the senseless war in Iraq, and for all of those young Americans who are dead, maimed, or otherwise horribly wounded, or committed suicide while suffering PTSD they contracted from combat, and the families of those torn and tormented soldiers, struggling with a mom or dad who is just not functioning. I want Shays to apologize profusely to all of the young people of this district for short-changing their educations by squandering this nation's wealth in that stinking, pointless war, starving our educational system of funds now and for years to come. And I want Shays to finally explain to the people of this district how he could be so hypocritical as to save himself by declaring himself a conscientious objector, but still vote repeatedly to send other young people to kill and be killed in the sands of the Middle East. Ken Dixon certainly never asked Shays that question. But now Dixon thinks we should be thanking Shays for having pushed us into that conflict? A pacifist? I think not.
Then Dixon continues that Jim Himes better watch out in two years, because
"he's as aware as anybody of the luck of having Obama next to him on the 2008 ballot and that he won't be there in 2010."
There goes another right-wing pundit chalking up Shays' loss to just all those Black people coming out to vote for another Black man for president. It has nothing to do with Shays, just a race thing. Sure, Ken. Right! Perhaps you weren't watching while two Republican congressmen were defeated in Connecticut in 2006, when the Democrats were taking back the Congress, Senate, and a majority of the governorships in the country. There was no Barack Obama that year. Nancy Johnson went down in the Constitution State, as did Rob Simmons. Perhaps you weren't paying attention to the steady drop in Republican registration across the country over the past years, or the peak in Democratic registration that was occuring in the 4th CD.
Ken Dixon talks about Republican Chris Shays as an extinct species. But perhaps we'll get lucky and see the demise, or at least endangerment of that species known as the right-wing Connecticut journalist. It's virtually the only species in Connecticut newspapers at the present. Perhaps we'll get lucky and get a progessive invasive species to displace them. Perhaps Connecticut Post will even bring in an invasive species by itself, like a progressive minority voice for its editorial board.
Good idea, Ken? While you're considering that, though, think again about that "blank slate" characterization. Really! |
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