{"id":178263,"date":"2019-01-22T21:37:00","date_gmt":"2019-01-23T02:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/01\/22\/i-like-this-take-on-alexandria-ocasio-cortez\/"},"modified":"2019-01-22T21:37:00","modified_gmt":"2019-01-23T02:37:00","slug":"i-like-this-take-on-alexandria-ocasio-cortez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/01\/22\/i-like-this-take-on-alexandria-ocasio-cortez\/","title":{"rendered":"I Like this Take on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez"},"content":{"rendered":"

Not surprising, since it’s Matt Taibbi, and he draws a straight line between the clueless political elite and their discomfort with AOC’s outspoken nature<\/a>:<\/p>\n

One of the first things you learn covering American politicians is that they\u2019re not terribly bright.<\/span>

<\/span>The notion that Hill denizens are brilliant 4-D chess players is pure myth, the product of too many press hagiographies of the Game Change <\/i>variety and too many Hollywood fantasies like House of Cards <\/i>and West Wing. <\/i><\/span>

<\/span>The average American politician would lose at checkers to a zoo gorilla. They\u2019re usually in office for one reason: someone with money sent them there, often to vote yes on a key appropriation bill or two. On the other 364 days of the year, their job is to shut their yaps and approximate gravitas anytime they\u2019re in range of C-SPAN cameras.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve seen this a lot in recent weeks with the ongoing freakout<\/a> over newcomer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez<\/a>. Lest anyone think any of the above applies to \u201cAOC,\u201d who\u2019s also had a lot to say since arriving in Washington, remember: she won in spite<\/em> of the party and big donors, not because of them.<\/span><\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t make anything she says inherently more or less correct. But it changes the dynamic a bit. All of AOC\u2019s supporters sent her to Washington precisely to make noise. There isn\u2019t a cabal of key donors standing behind her, cringing every time she talks about the Pentagon budget. She is there to be a pain in the ass, and it\u2019s working. Virtually the entire spectrum of Washington officialdom has responded to her with horror and anguish.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>

<\/span>All of which brings us back to the issue of Washington\u2019s would-be 4-D chess players. Time and again, they reveal how little they understand about the extent of their own influence, or anti-influence, as it were.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Seriously, the Democratic Party has been seized by the most and timid amongst us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not surprising, since it’s Matt Taibbi, and he draws a straight line between the clueless political elite and their discomfort with AOC’s outspoken nature: One of the first things you learn covering American politicians is that they\u2019re not terribly bright.The notion that Hill denizens are brilliant 4-D chess players is pure myth, the product of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[464,374,406,403],"class_list":["post-178263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-good-writing","tag-politics","tag-stupid","tag-wanker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178263"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178263\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}