Not As Good As "Dewey Beats Truman," But-----

I know that lizards don't sweat, but the lizard-like James Carville did a lot of sweating in interviews following the Republican high tide last Tuesday. Interviewers, even liberals, couldn't resist asking Carville about his May 4, 2009 appearance on Good Morning America hawking his book 40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation."

On Thursday of election week, Carville returned to the scene of the crime. Host and former Clinton flack George Stephanopoulos did not, of course, directly challenge Carville on his previous statements about the Democratic ascendancy. He lobbed softballs at the Gollum look-alike in order to give him a chance to spin his original statements. Statements such as: "These tea baggers, they turned everybody off. There were a bunch of like 75-year old cranky white guys mad at everything. It just couldn't have been a better event for the Democratic Party. I hope they come back and tea bag some more."

Unfortunately for Carville and his astute observation, they did exactly that. Carville had further prognosticated that "Every growing demographic is trending Democratic and I think we're probably on the verge of another 40-year era of party dominance here." Carville's forty-year dominance lasted exactly another fifteen months. He wasn't off by as much as Hitler and his 1000 Year Reich, but far enough off to bring a hint of embarrassment to a normal person. But Carville is not, well, normal.

Playing straight man to Carville, Stephanopoulos asked the following question: "But could could having Congress change hands be good for the President, good for the party in the long run?" Carville would have done well to have read Andrew Price's November 4 assessment here at Commentarama before answering. But he's not a big fan of our site. Then Stephanopoulos asked Carville about his double's appearance on Saturday Night Live saying: "Let them have the House. I mean, have you ever seen the House of Representatives? Good riddance. Have you ever seen the House? It's like a waiting room for jury duty. When you see the House on C-SPAN, it's like a family reunion that's only weird uncles."

Not sure whether that was an SNL player or actually Carville himself, Georgie said: "Well, you were joking there. But what does the House change actually mean?" Carville mixed his bravado, Cajun sentence structure, whirling dervish spinmeister logic and bizarre sense of humor into the answer: "Whatever side gets its, sort of, sea legs first and is able to adjust, it will be a really, really new reality in Washington will be more successful. There's some reasons why the White House can. It's more unified. It's easier to do. The Republicans are going to be spread. There's going to be so many things. I would like to announce my endorsement of Michele Bachmann for that position. I'd like to see her out there for sure."

I'm still trying to decipher that answer. But here's my best attempt: Despite overwhelming Republican numbers, if the Democrats get their sea legs first, they'll be running things in the House. The "House" somehow mystically includes "The White House." The Republicans are probably not going to agree among themselves on everything, so they're finished. The Walrus spoke of many things. And Carville thinks it's hilarious to suggest Michele Bachmann for "that position" (whatever position he's talking about). Now I understand why Bill Clinton relied so heavily on Carville's clarity and logic.

Having completely avoided the apocalyptic predictions of Carville's book, Stephanopoulos went on to ask Carville one final question about whether Carville saw any common ground between the majority Republicans and the minority Democrats. "Earmarks. The SALT treaty with Russia." (End of clarity) "I have no idea. The stuff that we've shown, school nutrition, or something, seems like small potatoes to me in the middle of a recession, with all of the problems we have. Maybe if they can find two or three small things they can agree on, it will come to something else. They're going to have to agree on a budget. Some things, the business of government has to go on. We were discussing yesterday, they're going to have to find agreement on this debt ceiling which is going to be a huge issues when it comes up."

I feel much enlightened by Carville's rapier intellect. And he accomplished one other thing that wasn't part of the interview. Now I know who ghost-wrote Michelle Obama's senior thesis at Princeton.