Now, the 2011 political year in review
I know, I know, I know – 2011 is only two days old – so there really isn’t a whole lot to review.
That doesn’t matter to me. I’m pretty sure I’m not going to win a Pulitzer Prize this year, so I might as well be first at something.
It’s a safe bet that nobody in the entire country has already written a 2011 political year in review with 363 days left.
I’ll go even further.
This could be the first time in world history that anybody ever wrote a year in review, before lots of folks have gotten over their New Year’s hangovers.
Here goes.
Nothing of significant political note has taken place, yet. Not like last January, when Massachusetts elected its first Republican (Scott Brown) to the U.S. Senate since 1972 to fill the seat held by the late Democratic icon Ted Kennedy.
There haven’t been any new Sarah Palin books, book tours, TV shows or assaults on Alaska’s wildlife – or the English language this year to date.
I’m sure she’ll think of something to change that in the remaining 51 weeks of 2011. (I’ll probably have to revise my 2011 political year in review if she does that.)
Surprisingly, in the 48 hours-plus since we brought in 2011, Willow and Bristol Palin haven’t found any new ways to make the tabloids. They’d better hurry up. There are only eleven more months and 24 days to repeat last year’s appearances on “Dancing with the Stars,” or to write homophobic insults on their Facebook pages.
The genuinely cutest Palin, Piper, hasn’t stolen any scenes from her mom’s exercise in self-adulation (“Sarah Palin’s Alaska”) in 2011. Those reports Piper will get her own reality show this year have been greatly exaggerated – for now.
This year, the Tea Party certainly hasn’t made its presence felt. Maybe it’s gone into hiding. Or is that just wishful thinking?
Not long ago (in 2010) the Tea Party flexed its political muscle all over the place – except where voters realized there’s something more to governance than blubbering in vague terms about the U.S. Constitution.
Fox News’ Glenn Beck has been quiet all year long (Saturday, yesterday and today). With what’s left of the year (8688 hours), he’ll have to hurry if he wants to duplicate 2010’s march on Washington, and his frequent attacks on common sense.
It’s startling how few Republican filibusters there have been in 2011. Not like in 2010, when, if Democrats proposed a cure for cancer, Republicans would have blocked it.
The 111th Congress, which technically ended yesterday, produced 342 pieces of legislation that are now public laws. The 112th Congress, which starts today, hasn’t produced so much as an earmark. What’s wrong with those people? Time’s running out. I haven’t even heard one of those sanctimonious Republican “will of the American public” or “the voters have spoken” speeches.
The Democrats haven’t lost a single congressional seat this year. They haven’t won any either. Maybe that’s because there haven’t been any elections “all year long.”
Tea Party favorites Christine O’Donnell, Sharron Angle and Michele Bachmann have been quiet throughout 2011 too. The cat’s got their tongues, I guess.
Of course there are still 31,000,000 seconds left in the year, so O’Donnell may claim she’s a witch again; Angle just might call for a few “Second Amendment remedies,” and Bachmann might still repeat her 2010 flawless record of offering up non-stop misinformation. (“The president’s trip to Mumbai, India cost $200 million a day”).
Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart hasn’t even taken the time during 2011 to bring to light the callousness that Republican “deficit hawks” show toward some of the nation’s bravest – the first responders. His “reports” late in 2010, helped rekindle a 9/11 first responders health care bill that had been scuttled by Republicans.
Thanks, in large part to a comedian, those first responders will get some much-needed medical attention, and some help paying their high medical bills.
Too bad, this year, Stewart hasn’t taken any stands. He’d done what the so-called Tea Party failed to do.
He got something done.
Edward A. Owens is a three-time Emmy Award winner and 20-year veteran of television news. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net
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