Shuttle Program Metaphor for Democratic Party

Last week I was pointing out to a co-workers the pathetic and sorry state of the democratic party illuminated in an LA Times article. I forget the headline and I'm too lazy to look it up but essentially it said that democrats were excited that they had lost in some district because its was predominantly Republican and they had only lost by a narrow margin, not a landslide.

I also recently heard an NPR segment about why soccer is so lame to Americans and they were chalking it up to the tie being so lame, and how there would be no more ties in hockey. They played a sound bite and were pointing out how silly it was that this announcer was screaming and falling out of his chair with excitement over some tied game.

So if the Euros are pathetic for getting excited about a tie, getting excited about a narrow loss instead of a huge one is gut-wrenchingly pathetic. I couldn't help but recall this Times article when this morning I heard some mission control guy refer to Discovery not blowing up on re-entry as, "a tremendous accomplishment." A tremendous accomplishment! You guys have done this about 130 times? What's so tremendous about not fucking this one up? I suppose its because the shuttles are so old and tired that doing anything properly is tremendous. Like the 96 year old man who runs the New York marathon.

Therefore, the democratic party = the shuttle program = a 96 year old man. Tremendous that they're not already dead.