Monday, April 22, 2024

Oh, Say Can You See AOC

By Baxter

Well, of course Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is taking more votes from Benedict Donald than from President Biden. We cats always suspected that, because RFK Jr. is a nutcase. Nuts gravitate to nuts.

But sometimes we get stuff wrong. And we're big enough to admit it.

When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was first elected to Congress in 2018, we thought to ourselves, oh, God — she's going to be a pain in the ass. We could not have been more off-base. She's shown herself to be a team player, an excellent questioner in committee, and someone who is uninterested in cutting off her nose to spite her face. Her vote right out of the gate for Nancy Pelosi for Speaker was the first sign, and she's delivered consistently ever since.

She's been vocal in her support of Biden-Harris 2024, and in the House, she votes outside the mainstream only when she knows there's a cushion to do it. So she's not only been an "A" student in the School of Pelosi, she's obviously shining in the School of Hakeem Jeffries as well. In short, she's a grownup who understands the institutional and political boundaries in which she works.

The result is a day like today, when Biden met with AOC, Senator Bernie Sanders and Senator Ed Markey in the Oval Office after an Earth Day event in Virginia — to discuss Gaza, the disaster known as Benjamin Netanyahu, and the anti-Semitism that's boiling up on college campuses. "I learned a long time ago to listen to that lady," Biden said about AOC. A tremendous compliment.

You won't see members like Rashida Tlaib chatting up POTUS in the Oval, and that's okay. Because AOC is an important ambassador to the lefties. Funny, we cats have always thought of ourselves as left, too. The difference between us and the folks we call liberal losers is that we're willing to get 80 percent of what we want instead of insisting on all or nothing. That's an important talent to have in a pluralistic democracy. We cats PURR.

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