Back To The Future

Welcome to the future of grass-roots politics. Hell, welcome to the future of government. The Main Stream Media has found what it has been looking for from the blog-osphere, and her name is Jane Hamsher. She was a successful Hollywood producer who left after getting a few fabulous, edgy movies made, possibly because she had to deal with Oliver Stone for a while, or possibly because she wanted to recover her sanity. (Wait...those last two are the same thing, aren't they?) Jane is one of the hordes who adore MarcLord. If she were fatter, older, and had more of an accent Lord-Wife would have reason to be jealous. But many worthy women don't get to be on TV; Jane made it through the filter.

She has gifted instincts for spotting early on what good things can be made to happen with enough work, and then getting people to line up behind them. Kind of like the mirror image of Dick Cheney. She's also running fast and parallel to the future of politics in this country and the world. She is the reason I have a blog, and she is the reason I gave a flat-screen TV's worth of my personal money, the first and only of my money, to a politician in my life and he's not even in my state. His name is Ned Lamont, and he kicked the tired old distended ass of Joe Lieberman out of what was once known as the Democratic Party, soon to be out of Connecticut. Ned's one of us because he searches for solutions. He's not perfect, but Jane saw his progressive potential and called him out to her blog, which 350,000 or so unique visitors go to every week. She raised a bunch of money for him. Her mother died in her arms in Oklahoma this summer, and from that deathbed she drove to Connecticut to campaign for Ned against Sideshow Joe Lieberman. With her poodles. Hero.

Jane thinks women should have the right to choose whether they have a baby or not. Jane think the partners of gay people should be able to get health care. Jane thinks our country shouldn't go around attacking people. Like Jane or not, you're stuck with her. Get ready for what blog politics will look like. She's open-sourced, a straight-up honest speaker, and is going to be around a long time. Bring up a mental image of Dick Cheney, watch this clip, and ask yourself, in the context of imperial decline, what's the face of the government you rather would have?