Katie sings Kum Ba Ya off-key

If Carrie Nation recommended a nightcap before bed to promote sleep, what would you think? How about if Nathan Bedford Forrest went into the bed linens business with a black man after the Civil War? Or how about Bull Connor organizing a basketball league for poor black kids? Or maybe Franklin Graham and Louis Farrakhan sharing some pork barbecue and knocking back a couple brewskis?

Pretty unbelievable, huh? So is the spectacle of Katherine Kersten – our Katie – urging more civility in politics. Katie has never performed demagogic hackery on anybody, including gays and lesbians who want to marry, or Muslims, or, well you get the idea. Katie produces more bile than any other columnist at the Strib, boys and girls. And clumsily, too.

But really, boys and girls, Katie’s column is about nasty Democrats. Here’s how it opens:

We live in a Red State/Blue State age of political polarization. Republicans and Democrats glare across the aisle in mistrust, in Washington, D.C., and St. Paul. Politicians regularly charge that their opponent is not only misguided, but a liar.

Last weekend, State Sen. Tarryl Clark, DFL-St. Cloud, took the rhetoric one step further at the DFL Sixth Congressional District nominating convention, where delegates chose Patty Wetterling to face State Sen. Michele Bachmann, R-Stillwater, in November.

"Bachmann is the devil in the blue dress," Clark fulminated, "and Patty is the saint." How's that for demonizing your opponent?

Parenthetically, Spot will add that he agrees with Sen. Clark on this one! Katie tells us about her conversation with A.M. (Sandy) Keith, a Democrat who has served in all three branches of state government, and is now a director at the Center of the American Experiment about changes that have occurred to the political system:

For one thing, politicians once had both means and incentives to bridge the partisan gap. "It's hard to believe now," says Keith, "but in 1959, we ran for the Legislature without party affiliations. We caucused as liberals and conservatives, not as Democrats and Republicans. Almost all the rural Democrats considered themselves conservatives on fiscal and social issues

The Legislature reintroduced party labels in 1973, when the DFL took control.

Katie, how could the DFL “take control” when legislators didn’t run with those labels or caucus as DFLers, as Keith says?

Katie also neglects to mention the wreckage of judicial independence wrought by Greg Wersal and the Minnesota Republican Party in Republican Party, et al. v. White.

What Katie so transparently wants are more tractable Democrats like we used to have, before the Dems realized what a bunch of ruthless, ideological brigands the Republicans had become.

Tag: Katie longs for yesteryear