And Now Something Good from Virginia ...

Melissa Harris-Perry, child of Charlottesville, debuted her new weekly television show this morning on MSNBC. She began with a history lesson and a pretty spirited debate with Nixon son-in-law, Ed Cox, who heads the Republican Party in New York (and who also looks oddly like Poppy Bush, somewhat):-

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Professor Harris-Perry is right. We should have a strong Opposition, and that Opposition should be capable of offering viable alternative ideas to those espoused by the party in power. The problem with the current state of affairs is simply that this incarnation of the Republican Party has no ideas about how to tackle the actual problems that matter to day-to-day living, but plenty of whacko ideas about how to deal with social issues - the sort of mores which change from generation to generation and scare those who cling to what's familiar from fear of anything remotely new or different.

The current Republican front-runner hopes income inequality continues to exist in the United States. His ideas concerning contraception come straight from the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church - in a nutshell, it's wrong, and sex should only be within marriage and for procreative purposes. Oh, and rape victims? No abortions or morning-after contraceptives for you, ladies. The Republican front-runner thinks you should take any God-given lemon resulting from a rape and make some lemonade.

But that's by-the-by ... Ed Cox was a big disappointment. All he could serve up to Melissa Harris-Perry's questions and comments were snide Republican talking points. His father-in-law would have been greatly disappointed. In other words, it's all the President's fault.

No change there then.

And just for fun, Ed's joined by Dorian Warren of Columbia University and Peter Edelman of Georgetown University, who show just how far out of touch with reality aristocratic Ed is ...

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Kudos to Professor Harris-Perry for reminding the world and those too young to remember of the time when Nelson Rockefeller, as patrician as Ed Cox, was easily identifiable as one of the stalward liberals of the Republican Party. Seems to me that I recall another stalwart Republican liberal was the guy who told the 1968 Republican National Convention that the US had been brainwashed on Viet Nam and that we should leave ... now that was a fellow by the name of George Romney.

Good show, Melissa ... you did the Commonwealth proud.