Ok – my grasp of the obvious is probably pretty normal, but I have to admit my grasp of the subtle might be a touch slow. Eventually, however, the switch turns on and I, too, am blinded by The Light. This morning I experienced this phenomenon while driving to work: John Morrison was “Liebermanned” by the extreme left wing of the Democrat Party! Or maybe John Tester was “Lamonted”.

Either way, the good people of Montana have been slimed by an insidious group of extremist liberals who are hijacking the majority – moderate – element of the Democrat Party.

Think back to the Howard Dean presidential campaign in 2003. Remember all the media hoopla about the “grassroots momentum”? Come to find out, the grassroots were actually pretty shallow, but they had been fertilized abundantly by the likes of Michael Moore, George Soros, David Sirota, MoveOn.org, and the Hollywood elite. The fertilizing has continued.

Fast-forward to last spring: John Morrison, a well-known, respected, competent candidate was believed by most to be the likely choice for winning the Democrat primary for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Conrad Burns. Conventional wisdom and all the polls showed him comfortably in front of the heretofore fairly anonymous, flat-topped, flop-gutted John Tester going into the last month of the campaign. But by May, the local political grapevine had blossomed with rumors of “women” and “scandal” in conjunction with Morrison. By June, Morrison was toast, and John Tester was the new darling of the national Democrat Party, feted around the country – from Washington DC to San Francisco – as the “likely senator from Montana”, courtesy of “grassroots efforts”.

Anybody with me here – starting to see a little “fertilizer burn”?

Compare that scenario with Connecticut. Joe Lieberman. Mr. Democrat Himself. Willing even to sacrifice his personal credibility to the Party by accepting the V.P. slot on the ticket with that ol’ Internet Inventor, Al Gore. So now the grassroots pull the grass right out from under him this year because he won’t abandon his principles to the extent of repudiating his position on the War on Terror. Welcome Ned Lamont, another new darling of the DNC!

Just who is this DNC? From all indications in Connecticut, it sure isn’t the mainstream democrats! Look at the latest poll numbers that show Lieberman still has the support of most of the state’s democrats who have elected him to represent them for the past however many years.

Maybe those little rumblings we’re starting to hear around Montana – “Just who is this John Tester, anyway?” – are, in fact, the regular Montana democrats waking up to the fact that their party is being held hostage by the same Left-Wing Nuts behind Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, and Ted Kennedy. John Tester isn’t so much a “real Montanan” as he’s the unsuspecting dupe of a high-powered political machine that is pouring a pot-load of money and effort into what may be the only hope they can salvage for victory this November since even the East Coast democrats seem to have figured out who’s who and what’s what in the Democrat Party!

Hopefully, Montanans aren’t more gullible than the folks in Ohio, New Hampshire, or Connecticut. As the light starts to shine a little brighter on where the Tester seed money really is coming from, I suspect that the rumblings may turn into the same kind of rebellion that stopped Howard Dean in his tracks and is threatening to thwart the Lamont conflagration.

The last thing Montana needs in Washington is a member of the choir at the Church of Liberalism. If John Tester is elected he will be a wholly owned subsidiary of MoveOn.org, from whence cameth his support.

I remember when I was going to college and my father used to tell folks he was sending me out East (Billings!) to finish my education, so I could learn how to say “fertilizer” instead of “bulls__t” when I was confronted by the stuff.

Appears to me that the Montana democrats are now up to their grasses in fertilizer.

“Snarky” has recently become a favorite word in my vocabulary. Admittedly, it is probably considered slang by most of the elite literati, but after delving into its definition and examples of its use in modern communication, I have adopted it as a perfectly descriptive idiom. It generally means critical or sarcastic in a wisecracking or cynical sort of way; impertinent, or irreverent in tone or manner. Just my kind of attitude.

One of the things I have been thinking about doing as a feature on this blog is recognizing excellence in the non-professional world of editorial comment. My focus would be on those tidbits of wisdom that employ relatively equal amounts of fact, humor and sarcasm – snarkism – in commenting on the events of the day.

Yesterday, while checking out the Billings Gazette online, I happened upon an absolute gem – and thus I am prepared to nominate the first candidate for:

Excellence in the Use of Snarkism:

DAWSON ‘RESPECTFULLY DECLINED’ MEETING GOVERNOR
By CHARLES S. JOHNSON Gazette State Bureau
HELENA – Death row inmate David Dawson turned down Gov. Brian Schweitzer’s recent request to meet with him at the prison, Schweitzer said Wednesday.

Dawson, convicted of murdering three members of a Billings family in 1986, is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection shortly after midnight Friday.

Schweitzer said he conveyed the offer through the condemned killer’s “standby” lawyer, Ed Sheehy Jr. The attorney represents Dawson and his desire to be executed.

“As the ultimate representative of the people of Montana who’ve condemned him to death, I thought it was appropriate for me, as the face of Montana, to meet with the condemned person if he wanted,” Schweitzer said.

[The story continued, but we’ll skip to the “Comment” section.]

Can’t blame him wrote on August 10, 2006 8:08 AM
I wouldn’t want my last memory on earth to be Brian Schweitzer either. *L*

I don’t have any idea who “L” is, but I’m going to be on the lookout for more of his/her comments!

If (when!) you run into examples of great snarkism, send them to me by posting a comment on this blog. We’ll then put the best examples together for a vote for the ANNUAL SNARKY AWARD. Sounds like fun to me!

Ummm… Let’s see. Ken Toole is refusing to accept the endorsement of the Montana Chamber of Commerce. Like THAT was going to happen!

Ken Toole firmly believes that: All business is bad, big business is evil, profit is a four-letter word, and ordinary people aren’t capable of making their own decisions about making a living, raising a family, and what to believe; government must take that responsibility.

Hey! I know where he got those ideas – from Karl Marx, George Soros, Michael Moore, Barbra Streisand, and Nancy Pelosi, to name a few. Someone needs to explain to Ken that there was a grand experiment in Communism in the twentieth century. It was called the Soviet Union. Failed miserably. Pretty much NOT what Montanans would want for the future of this state and their families.

The news isn’t that Ken won’t be getting the endorsement of the Montana Chamber – it’s that even the Montana AFL-CIO, a traditional Democrat stalwart, couldn’t bring itself to fall over the cliff and support such an out-of-the-mainstream, radical liberal.

The Chamber’s endorsement is one that could have gone a long way to helping Toole’s credibility. His refusal to even talk to them reinforces his reputation as the kind of Left Wing Nut that does more to hurt, rather than help, Montana.

SQUARE DEAL OR NO DEAL?

The event is organized, the audience is prepped, the cameras are ready, and the star takes the stage to thunderous applause. Oh wait – it’s not Howie Mandell and twenty-six gorgeous models – it’s Brian Schweitzer and Margie MacDonald and the Montana Democrats’ version of the latest hit TV show – Square Deal or No Deal.

Ok Montana – what’s in the case held by the lovely, albeit slightly frumpy, Ms. MacDonald? Could it be the fortune that will change your life? Could it be enough to pay off the car and take the kids to Disneyland? Could it be enough to help you make it to the end of the month for the next couple of years?

Open the case, Margie.

It’s a $400 one-time property tax rebate. Yea! Clap, clap, clap!

Wow – Mr. and Mrs. Montana $400!!! Of course, it’s a one-time only thing, and it’s only for your primary residence, and only if you are a full-time resident of Montana. And it’s a rebate – so you’ll have to pay income taxes on it. But hey, call it $325; it’s money, right?

Oh – you’re a renter? Sorry. Your landlord won’t be getting this rebate on his rental unit, so there’s no hope you’ll see anything from it.

What? You have a couple of acres up in the Flathead that you’ve lived on and paid higher and higher property taxes on for thirty-some years and now your property is worth a little over $500,000. Oh – too bad. Nothing for you. Just because you’re living on a small pension and social security – you’re too rich to deserve a break on your property taxes.

Hmmm… you’ve got a ranch out in eastern Montana. Dang – that’s agricultural property, not residential. You don’t qualify either. Nada, zip, zilch!

Let’s see. The Democrats are offering maybe about half of the state’s taxpayers a one-time $400 (well almost, sorta) bribe to get your vote for local legislative candidates.

Whaddayasay Montana — Square Deal? Or ……….

NO DEAL!!!!!!!!!

Well, Governor Shyster, I mean Schweitzer, Montanans are smarter than you give them credit for. They’ll see through the hoopla and realize that the Republican’s Handshake with Montana is a commitment to significantly reduce property taxes permanently for all Montanans.

That’s a REAL DEAL.

Hello Helena – and the rest of the world! Welcome to a new blog site dedicated to sharing thoughts, ideas, and other specimens of literary brilliance about the goings on in and around Helena and Montana.

By choice, if not default, most items found on this site will be of a political nature. Mostly because I am of a political nature and those are the types of thoughts, comments, and ideas in which I usually like to indulge.

Wow – having your own blog is like somebody died and made you Queen. As a very wise woman once said, “It’s good to be Queen” Got that right!

So to explain the title of this site and my vision for how it will work…

I am a lover of puns and all other such wordsmithing, so it was no accident that I would choose something that might be a bit of a double entendre. I also love descriptive phrases and liberally pepper my speech and writing with them. One of my mother’s favorite remarks when someone asked where she was going was, of course, “to hell in a handbasket” or as I interpreted it as a child, “to Helena handbasket”. I never knew quite where Mom was going – but she spent a lot of time there, so it had to be a fun place. As I contemplated my concept for this site, I realized that I wanted it to be more than just me – I want this to become a shared experience – thus the “2”. So consider “2 Helena Handbaskets” as a fun place to visit and share your thoughts and observations with friends.

My Handbasket will be filled with whatever I want to put into it. The other Handbasket is reserved for the thoughts and writings of everybody else who would like to contribute. As the Chief Basket Case, I will have editorial control. I’m hoping that the literary genius of writers like Erma Bombeck, Jean Kerr, Dave Barry, Art Buchwald, P. J. O’Rourke, Patrick J. McManus, and even Ann Coulter will inspire all of us to incorporate humor and style into the communication of our points of view on various topics. That way – even if we can’t change anybody’s mind, we can at least provide a bit of entertainment for what I hope will be an ever-expanding audience.

Although this site is formatted as a blog, I really would like it to become a dynamic collection of light essays on a variety of subjects. I know there are many talented writers out there and this can be the forum you use to publish those literary gems. From time to time, I might suggest a theme, but generally I will leave your handbasket for you to fill.

I suppose there will have to be some rules, but I think I’ll wait to get into those details.

Ok everybody, get out those laptops.

Ready. Set. Write!!!!!!!!

P.S. Rule 2: You may request that your submissions be published either with or without your name or, naturally, you may use a penname. Tell me what you want.