Mr. Cool and the What???

I'm out on the back deck (an island in a sea of trees) with my laptop, enjoying the cool of the early morning. This is the way to blog.

And the WaPo is a blessedly target-rich environment this morning, starting with David Ignatius' column, "Mr. Cool and the Brawlers." Let's get to it:

As the Democrats assemble in Denver, there's an odd dissonance to the party. The star of the show is "Mr. Cool," Barack Obama, the ultra-charismatic senator who landed on the national stage as if from outer space -- seemingly untouched by the usual racial and political scars -- promising a new era of bipartisanship and national healing.

Well, yeah. Because the moment Obama reminded anyone just the least bit of Jesse Jackson, he could pack his campaign up and go home. That's the way it is for the first black man to have a real shot at winning the Presidency: damned if you do, and painted as aloof and untouchable by the likes of David Ignatius if you don't.

But here comes the good part:

But the supporting cast is a collection of red-hot politicians I've come to think of as the Get-Even Gang -- led by the party's congressional leaders, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

That's right - Nancy "Impeachment is off the table" Pelosi, and Harry "I'm gonna ignore Feingold's 'hold' in order to pass the President's FISA bill" Reid. They're the "Get-Even Gang."

That's Harry Reid, who only intermittently blocked cloture on GOP bills while in the minority, and didn't once force the GOP to actually filibuster a bill that they'd blocked cloture on, once the Dems were back in the majority. Not when the GOP blocked cloture on the minimum wage increase, or veterans' benefits, or anything else that was wildly popular, and would have educated the public on just how bad the GOP is, and to the great lengths they're willing to go to block legislation that the vast majority of Americans support.

Yeah, that's "Get-Even Harry."

And when Rove, Miers, and so many other Administration officials said "screw you" to subpoenas from both houses of Congress last year, Pelosi and Reid are the "Get-Even Gang" that moved at a glacial pace in going through the steps of holding them accountable, allowing them to run out the clock on testifying during this Administration, despite the fact that that clock had started ticking back in mid-2007.

And they're the "Get-Even Gang" that, when it became clear that the "Principals Committee" including Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Ashcroft, had specifically authorized the torture "enhanced interrogation" techniques used in Gitmo, Iraq, and Afghanistan, that instances of people tortured to death by Americans hadn't even stepped up the oversight of such activities by the Administration, and Bush openly acknowledged that he had approved the whole program, 'got even' by...doing nothing.

Yep, that's Ignatius' "Get-Even Gang."