Dé Sathairn, Lúnasa 11, 2007

Jon Bruning: Rise of the Jamensch


Jon Bruning knows the joys of reproduction and commanding the loyalty of small mammals.



In his law school days, Jon Bruning was a perfect Democrat, parroting party talking points in that same vague and uninspired style that has brought the Democrats so much electoral success through the years. "I Believe In gun Control" he wrote long ago in the Daily Nebraskan. I myself believe from the bottom of my heart that there should be some manner of legal regulation of some things.

Here then was a young man who was contemplating a future in politics and was very careful not to go against the prevailing winds, this being the generic liberalism that reigns at every campus newspaper and the more traditionally "academic" departments at every university. Bruning eventually graduated, however, and, as we all someday must, he found that college is nothing like the real world. More importantly, he discovered that Nebraska is not Connecticut or the inner suburbs of Denver, where faintly leftish don't-rock-the-boat fuzzy-blanket nihilism actually wins elections. Nebraska is a one party republican state, and to gain a career in politics one must either have the sort of aura and charisma that suggests leadership or show a willingness to be a reliable errand boy- enter Jon Bruning.

In retrospect, it's hard to imagine how Bruning didn't see that he was meant for the GOP from the beginning. The Republican party, particularly in those regions where it holds dominion, has always clung to the timeless values of loyalty, obedience, and loyalty.

By the time Bruning was elected to the Unicameral, he was pro-life, pro-gun, pro-God, you get the idea. He had evolved from saying nothing to saying nothing with deep religious conviction, describing himself as a "capitalist to the core" in voting against restrictions on hog-shit factories.

In 2002, Bruning was rewarded with the Attorney Generalship, one of those "constitutional offices" found in every statehouse that are handed out to those who have failed to hide the hands up their asses well enough to be governor or senator. The job of the Nebraska Attorney General is to demonstrate that crime is bad and that only Republicans truly understand this. In discharging his duties Bruning was surprisingly unoffensive; certainly less irritating than his predecessor, Don Stenberg, who is the cheap prostitute one ruefully remembers while trying to pass water through a swollen, gonorrheal urethra.

I approved of Bruning's prosecution of Matthew Kelso, which Bruning pursued despite the disturbing number of Nebraskans who believe that it's not pedophilia as long as the couple is married and hetero. Then there was Bruning's Agent-Smith-without-his-earpiece moment at a clemency hearing in September 2005. "I've been so tough on crime, it makes me want to throw up sometimes." The incident turned some heads for a day or two and politely forgotten. Prison remains our primary means of providing food and housing to the poor, with Bruning's full approval.

Things were going well for Jon Bruning. He seemed to be that rare, fortunate breed of man who had found his niche in life. But then something happened. Maybe it was the election of Dave Heineman as governor, which showed that the state GOP will offer up an empty suit for major office if they have to, and he'll win. Maybe Bruning started sneaking into his daddy's closet to try on his big-boy clothes. Whatever it was, Bruning decided to leave the comfortable niche made for the likes of him to make a run for the United States Senate.

Senator Chuck Hagel, you see, occasionally exercises independent judgment; especially on the Iraq war, that Godly endeavor that was to prove once and for all that conservatives value patriotism and understand what must be done about the evils of the world and that we do not. Hagel's insistence on giving a negative spin on the war (Telling the truth) has caused quite a stir among Republicans. There is a peculiar belief in the right-wing; that national successes and failures are determined solely by weather or not "real Americans" march in lockstep, and that all of the actors in the rest of the world are motivated by whether or not they are sufficiently intimidated by American unity. Publicly disagreeing with each other is akin to sending one's first-born son to school in a dress. Hagel has been a reliable conservative on most matters but what matters to conservatives is the war; this is the show of force by which they were to cow The Other into giving up the kitchen -scraps of power he has managed to grab for himself over the past hundred years and set the country back on the course to Plymouth Rock.

Hagel's public stance on the war has infuriated millions of self-appointed enforcers of conservative purity across the country along with thousands back home in Nebraska.
In some quarters, Hagel has become a bogeyman on a par with Hilliary Clinton or Barbara Streisand, sustaining the same charges of secret evil motives and attitudes. Hagel is trying to look moderate to the liberal mainstream media, they say, trying to claim John McCain's abandoned halo of independence. Hagel wants to be president, you see. Well, maybe. He hasn't stated his intention to run for president; he hasn't stated any plans to do anything, choosing instead to throw a post-modern anti-press conference in March. But just as the right-wingers somehow just know that Hilliary Clinton is a lesbian, they also just know that Chuck Hagel is burning to be president, and that only the combined electoral force of the current president's eternal loyalists is keeping him from doing so.

Still, if Hagel runs for and retains his seat next year, the Tories would hardly be unable to say that they have the power to punish heretics. The far right already has lost its claim to owning the country in last year's congressional elections, and a Hagel win would show that they can't even control "their" party in a state where it is well-entrenched. Whenever a segment of the population in a democratic society feels aggrieved there will surely arise a politician who promises to address those grievances. Enter Jon Bruning and his proven record of doing what he is told.

Jeff Fortenberry and Adrian Smith both won congressional elections by promising to leash themselves to the preisdent's war policy, (Along with supporting traditional values, opposing activist judges, and other such boilerplate) and Bruning does have his internal polling showing him ahead of Hagel in their presumed race. Than again, Pete Ricketts promised to be the White Houses' monkey and got nowhere, and the anti-Republican wave of last year's congressional elections was strong enough to leave a few tiny drops on Nebraska, with Smith and Lee Terry facing unexpectedly tough challenges.

A primary battle between Hagel and Bruning would follow the same line as last year's governor's race between Heineman and Tom Osborne; a battle within the GOP between pure, stout-hearted conservatives and adults. The most important question is not whether or not Bruning can win; of course he can, Heineman did, but what would happen if he did. We Nebraskans have proven ourselves willing to send small men to the governor's mansion and the U.S. House, but Stenberg and Ricketts have found that we do care about little things like dignity and ability when it comes to the really big offices. If Bruning wins the nomination, will the Eisenhower types in the GOP vote for a moderate Democrat like Mike Fahey; and leave the state's ruling party without a seat in the Senate, or would that hallowed old Republican loyalty fetish keep them in line?

And if Bruning does win the general election, just what manner of horrors would that sorry twit subject us to if we gave him a national stage?