We’ve all dealt with these little s***s – the aggressiveness, the noise, the bites on the ankles. And as soon as you raise your hand to shoo them away, they run back to hide behind the skirts of their owners, still barking the while. Said owners then either praise the dog, offer you insincere apologies, or both.

Of course, it isn’t really the dog’s fault- it’s the owner who should get the blame. Good owners make for good dogs, and bad owners make for bad dogs. So it is with dogs and political parties.

The “Republican” party is owned by wingnut ideologues, single-issue primary voters, and money-mad financiers. When you think about it that way, the yapping and ankle-biting activities of Repube Politicos and Pundits make perfect sense. They have been trained (and in some cases, bred) by their owners to get in the way, raise a ruckus, distract, annoy, and cause damage. So that is what they do.

To continue the analogy, little dogs CAN be awesome. This writer has encountered some super-sweet Poms, Shih Tzus and suchlike. These good dogs are always those who have been blessed with good pet owners. And again, politicians fit that same mold. A politico who is “owned” by his or her constituency, and trained to follow the Constitution and to live in the real world will be a true public servant.

We should all pick our politicians based on who owns them and how they were trained.  Same as we do our mutts. Politicos may not be as cute as dogs and they’ll never be as loyal: but their yapping tends to be a lot louder, and the bites of, say, a Congresscritter, can really tear us up.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky