Celia Cohen. Her latest is a classic Celiasque piece of pure flowery bullshit.
Hamlet had no equal until Mike Castle came along with his political soliloquy, to-run-or-not-to-run.
Alright stop. Now, I am not one to regularly criticize exaggeration, overstatements and hyperbole, because I often engage in it myself as a literary device. But with Celia, her articles are, to steal from Vice President Biden, a noun, a verb, and a ridiculous overstatement. And Hamlet had no equal until Mike Castle and his bout with indecision came along? Really? Celia, I hate to break it to you, but Mike Castle is a boring, predictable, mindless politician whose only unique characteristic is that he is freaklishly tall. Hamlet had plenty of equals in the drama department over the years, and none of them is named Mike Castle. And what is next? When Coons criticizes Mike Castle’s horrid sheep like record of following the Republican Party line for the last 9 years, will Celia depict Castle as Christ-like, being crucified for what he believes in?
The next few paragraphs deals with Celia’s preoccupation with elitism. But she saves her most stunning whopper for last.
If Castle goes to the Senate, he could find himself in the company of other Northeast Republicans, namely Scott Brown of Massachusetts and Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine.
In the fractured Senate, it could be a voting bloc with power — wielded moderately, of course.
Now, I can’t fault Celia Cohen too much here, because many of her Delawarean and national media brethren still, despite all evidence to the contrary, buy into this notion that Mike Castle and his Northeastern Republican compatriots are all somehow moderate and/or independent. Mike Castle voted against his party just once over the past year, on cap and trade. But he has already walked back that vote at town halls over the summer of 2009. He has voted party line on the Stimulus, on the Jobs bill, on Healthcare reform. That is not the voting record of a moderate. That is not the voting record of an independent. And between Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, only Snowe has bucked her party once over the past year, and that was to vote for the Senate bill in committee, but she quickly returned to the fold of the Party of No. And if you think Scott Brown will deviate from his party on any issue, I have a tunnel in Boston to sell you.
Republicans everywhere have embraced nihilism. And until they pay electoral consequences for it, there will be no deviation from that strategy, no matter if your name is Mike Castle or if you are from the Northeast. Celia Cohen has always depicted Mike Castle in the more common definition of his last name: “a large fortified structure that dominates its surroundings.” In reality, he is nothing more than a sand castle, easily washed away in the advancing tide.