Party Spokesperson

I have a gripe that's been festering in my noggin for awhile and needs to be aired.

Tom Oliphant is not the best spokesperson for the Democratic Party or for the progressive left in general. Don't get me wrong. I love Tom dearly. He's witty. He's knowledgeable. He's creative. And, he's generally right. That's not the point. Or maybe it is. He's too sophisticated to be the front person on TV and radio all the time setting forth the progressive agenda.

Let's just look at the facts. He's a wisp of a man. You get the impression a strong wind would blow him over. His bow ties make him look prissy (unlike Tucker Carlson's). He's always polite and deferential, unlike Rush or Hannity or O'Reilly. He's the very image of the weak-kneed, wishy-washy Democrat that the Republicans keep trying to portray.

Let's get a spokesperson who looks like a left tackle and sounds like John Wayne.

I used to say much the same thing about Yassir Arafat. He might have been great running the PLO behind the scenes, but he wasn't the right person to have out on the front lines trying to win friends and influence people around the world. Short, fat, ugly, and he always had a two-day growth of beard. (How did he manage that? Did he use a scissors instead of a razor to shave?)

By the way, the Joeys (Biden and Lieberman) are worse than Oliphant. Not only are they the wrong image for the party, but unlike Oliphant, they're almost always wrong.