The Truffle

How do you say "waste of time" in Spanish?

And here we have a nice slab of red meat that Bushco is hoping to toss to the conservative “base”–or what’s left of it. Yes, the Republican-controlled Senate put aside all trivial concerns, like the economy, Iraq, and gas prices, and voted to make English the national language. Despite the fact that just about everybody in this country speaks English, it seems that nobody has ever made it official. Since this is an election year and the Republicans need all the help they can get, they decided to change all that.

Of course, none of this has anything to do with illegal immigration. I mean, a language law isn’t going to help the National Guardsmen at our borders. (Telling them what they’re supposed to be doing down there might, however.)

Oh, and here’s the posturing from a Republican senator. Yawn…

“This is not just about preserving our culture and heritage, but also about bettering the odds for our nation’s newest potential citizens,” said Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe, who sponsored the national language amendment.

Uh…Senator Inhofe? The US already requires immigrants to learn English before they can become citizens.

Here’s a politically incorrect thought to consider–suppose Spanish does become a second language? With an influx of immigrants, legal and illegal, and the expanding Latino population in ths US, this could happen. Well, so what? Yes, you heard me, so what? What’s going to happen?

A lot of automated phone lines already have options for English and Spanish. You press 1 for English and 2 for Spanish. I always press 1. No big deal.

There are some foreign-language channels on TV. Nobody is being forced to watch them. If Lucia from Venezuela wants to watch the latest installment in her favorite telenovela, whose business is it?

As it turns out, there are plenty of bilingual and multilingual countries. The Swiss speak German and French. Belgium has two ethnic groups that speak different languages. Spain has Catalans, Galicians, and Basques, all with their own language. In fact, in Barcelona, people are more likely to speak Catalan than Spanish.

This is just another effort to stir up debate as the GOP tries to create a wedge issue for November 2006, and it should be regarded as such. Frame it in a way to put the Goopers on the defensive, but otherwise stick to the real issues. Besides, by 2007, the GOP will have forgotten all about it. They’ll have gone back to talking about gay marriage…er, Iran…er, whatever missing blonde girl is in the news this week. C’mon, maybe there’s a comatose person somewhere to exploit for political gain! Let’s get cracking!

Update: Something to help Senator Inhofe: a list of the requirements for US citizenship. Among them are “an ability to read, write, and speak English.” In other words, we didn’t need any “official” language to help immigrants become citizens, as the requirements were already there before the GOP thought of immigration as the hot issue for 2006.

Nineties nostalgia! Wahoo!

Okay, we’re not quite there yet. That ’90s Show has yet to be added to any TV lineup. But this decade has stunk so badly that the twentieth-century fin de siecle looks better every day. Yesterday’s perjurer and blowjob king is now beating George W. Bush in an opinion poll. Remember the pathological Clinton haters of the 1990s? The Scaife-sponsored efforts to nail Bubba on anything they could find, including unpaid parking tickets? According to the poll, “59 percent said Bush has done more to divide the country, while only 27 percent said Clinton had.”
Who is this 27 percent? They are probably among the same small minority (30 percent or so) who still think Bush is doing a good job.

But here’s part to make the wingnuts’ brains explode:

When asked which man was more honest as president, poll respondents were more evenly divided, with the numbers — 46 percent Clinton to 41 percent Bush — falling within the poll’s margin of error. The same was true for a question on handling national security: 46 percent said Clinton performed better; 42 percent picked Bush.

Forty-six percent to forty-one percent. Yikes.

And now, New York has a cover story on Al Gore. Not only does he have a new TV network and a new documentary film, but this article is floating the idea that maybe–just maybe–Gore could and should run in 2008. The article talks the terrible campaign he ran in 2000. Like John Kerry, Gore tried to be all things to all people and listened too much to the consultants and know-nothings.

I suspect the Gore we’re seeing now is closer to the real man. It would be terrific to see him become an elder statesman of a newly emerging progressive movement. But it would be a wonderful feeling of vindication to see him throw his hat back into the ring two years from now, to claim what probably should’ve been his in 2000. A Gore campaign with active grassroots (including netroots) support, minus the goofy image consultants and DLC wimps, would be terrific. Now that the overrated John McCain has decided to become Dubya 2.0, we need a real straight-talk express. Gore could be the man to get it started.

Do I dare hope?