Jan 25, 2009

Danged Ol' Divisiveness

President Obama is getting a straight-A from the newshawks for not being "divisive." The current AP ramble on the subject is typical, headlined: "Obama breaks from Bush, avoids divisive stands."

So "divisive" continues its climb up the list of preferred synonyms for plagues and locust swarms, just as "unity" is elevated to  the-word-so-sacred-it-may-not-be uttered-by-profane-lips.

Wouldn't our  entire  system of governance benefit from less divisiveness? Imagine the calm progress of the ship of state if we simply scuttled the idea of power shared among the congress, the courts, and the administration. Pick one to run things and we reduce divisiveness. We have a rilly rilly good President now. He kneels hourly at the altar of unity, so why shackle him  to the pestiferous kibbutzing of the courts and the congress.? Let el Presidente write the law, decide it's Constitutional, and enforce it. That's unity, and, by gawd, anything else is divisive. 

At a lower level, divisiveness is a thing to be cherished, like the division between me and a kiddy-rock band. Or Senator Feinstein. 

Since this is still a pretty strong country, we'll probably  survive Obama. Surviving the holy war against language is iffier.

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