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September 22, 2005

Shut up and deal.

From dailykos:

Politics as poker. The Democratic leadership could take a lesson from David Mamet...

Excerpts from an op ed piece the playwright wrote for the L.A. Times:

One needs to know but three words to play poker: call, raise or fold.

Fold means keep the money, I'm out of the hand; call means to match your opponents' bet. That leaves raise, which is the only way to win at poker. The raiser puts his opponent on the defensive, seizing the initiative. Initiative is only important if one wants to win.

The American public chose Bush over Kerry in 2004. How, the undecided electorate rightly wondered, could one believe that Kerry would stand up for America when he could not stand up to Bush? A possible response to the Swift boat veterans would have been: "I served. He didn't. I didn't bring up the subject, but, if all George Bush has to show for his time in the Guard is a scrap of paper with some doodling on it, I say the man was a deserter."

Best analogy I've seen in awhile.

Posted by Jeff at September 22, 2005 10:43 AM