"A NOTICEABLE DROP-OFF IN QUALITY"

[Cha]

Sen.-elect Scott Brown (R-Mass.) offered an interesting peek into his worldview last night during his victory speech.

" In dealing with terrorists, our tax dollars should pay for weapons to stop them, not lawyers to defend them.

"Raising taxes, taking over our health care, and giving new rights to terrorists is the wrong agenda for our country."

Perhaps now would be a good time to note that this is a Senate seat once held by John F. Kennedy, Ted Kennedy, Henry Cabot Lodge, and John Quincy Adams, among others.

It now belongs to Scott Brown -- a conservative who supports torture, opposes Wall Street accountability, supports more tax cuts for the wealthy, opposes economic recovery efforts, opposes Ted Kennedy's life's work on health care reform, and doubts that global climate change is the result of human activity.

And says things like, "In dealing with terrorists, our tax dollars should pay for weapons to stop them, not lawyers to defend them."

It's admittedly tiresome to hear any political observer say, "In the good old days...." Those days were rarely as good as anyone remembers, and prominent thinkers of the day have been complaining about the next generation being less impressive than the last for as long as we've had the printed word.

But a once-storied Senate seat that belonged to Adams and Kennedy is now filled by a dim-witted wingnut, and that's a real shame -- for Massachusetts, for the Senate, and for all of us.

—Steve Benen 8:00 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (50)

Thanks Steve Benen for pointing out the obvious that might take some in Mass a while to fathom. They say they want their country back? Some slogan the teabags came up with and they have no idea what it means.

[HughMoran]

1. Brown-stain on the Kennedy seat

This is a disgrace.

[Cha]

4. I know it is..

but, we'll come back.

[quiet.american]

2. That MA gave the back of its hand to Ted -- that's what hurts most. nt

[Cha]

3. To someone who believes in torture..

but, if you read the 5 Lessons which I know you bookmarked..it goes a bit in understanding how the unfathomable could happen.

And, in John Kerry's words..that I'm busy posting around while the regressives are dancing on Pres Obama's grave.

"Tonight’s results will be analyzed and overanalyzed by the punditry. I hope as a Party we don't succumb to the temptation to form a circular firing squad. It does no one any good. One lesson Ted Kennedy and I both learned from defeat is, you just pick yourself up, dust yourself off, chart a course forward, and get back in the fight."

[quiet.american]

5. Thanks, Cha. :) nt

[sandnsea]

6. Yep, and now that it's happened in Mass

they are going to have to sit down and take a hard look at this right wing sloganeering and come up with a real strategy against it. That's a good thing for the entire country. Maybe they'll finally figure out just what is going so terribly wrong.

[Cha]

7. I can see in the middle

of the left and right's spinning why Martha lost..the Perfect Storm of a lot of her own doing of losing a sure thing. And, there's plenty to look back on and see what they should have done differently.

But, this being taking over by corporatemediawhore rw empty slogans needs to be Done.

And, as you say, this can only be a good thing for the country.