Rhetorically Speaking: California's Special Political Discourse

Probably the worst part of having Jerry Brown return as governor is having to hear about what an intellectual heavyweight he is. Does this sound like the sort of thing a genius-level zen priest would say?

"We have to find more revenue or more and more drastic cuts, and certainly the next round of cuts will be much more painful and much more disruptive than the cuts to date," he said. "I want the people of California to understand we are in a serious bind here and we are going to get more revenues or get some drastic cutbacks."

During the 30-minute news conference, Brown's tone varied. At times he was optimistic, but he also leaned hard on Republicans.

"It's shocking they can say so cavalierly, 'Shut up, you have no right (to vote)'," he said at one point. "I have beseeched (Republicans) to give the people the right to vote on what California should look like over the next several years ... I think this is bigger than the Democratic Party, this is bigger than the Republican Party or the Legislature."

Give me a break. Since when is there a right to vote in a special election? Voting in November should be more than enough.

Brown is reacting to the (very small) GOP minority in the legislature refusing to go along with his idea of having Californians vote in a special election to raise their taxes. Why Republicans should want to have to go along with this is beyond me. Our political philosophy and allies haven't led to massive deficits and unfunded pension obligations. Liberals like Brown made this mess, let them clean it up. They're always talking about how Republicans are too dumb to govern, anyway.