LaRose/Celeste civility crusade faces huge odds

Civility in  politics.  That's the laudable  goal of  two men who have engaged the subject with earnest hopes of  ending  the toxic trash talk by some politicians  and their dobermans within hearing range.

State Sen. Frank LaRose, the Copley Twp. Republican ,  and Ted Celeste, a Democrat who once served in the Ohio legislature, recently delivered  their ongoing bipartisan message to Akron Roundtable to lay out their vision of a gentler political class.

While commending them, I think the idea has as much chance of working in the real world as Rush Limbaugh confessing that he's a closet socialist.

Having worked the trenches of  political combat for more years than I care to remember, I bring to the witness stand no evidence that political discourse is anywhere near  the Sunday pulpit.  I can also report that it's  even worse in the back rooms and there's not a damn (Sorry!) thing anybody can do about it.  The stakes are too high, the partisan grievances too aflame. And since a black man entered the White House,  the notion that all men are created equal is too besieged to survive pervasive racism in the souls of some combatants who can't contain their primitive biases. I should add from all of that there are too few profiles in courage from wannabe achievers .

Has it ever been different?  Not really.  Should we  remind ourselves that in May 1856 Sen. Charles Sumner, Massachusetts Republican who opposed slavery, was savagely  caned on the Senate floor by Rep. Preston Brooks,  a  South Carolina  Democrat.

A half-century earlier in 1804, Aaron Burr fatally shot Alexander Hamilton in a duel (wouldn't TV have loved that one today?) In Fiorello LaGuardia's day, it was not uncommon to see his enemies quoted in the press assailing him as a "little Wop".   And much later, didn't Rep. Joe Wilson, the South Carolina Republican, erupt with a
"You lie!" as President Obama addressed a joint session of Congress?

Or how about Rep. Steve King's  reference to  Latino children with calves as  big as cantaloupes swollen with smuggled drugs.  Or Limbaugh calling a young woman a "Slut" because he knew he could.  Damn right he did.

Even as the congressional denizens refer to each other as "the distinguished senator  from...."  they  are already in gear to consign the colleague to hell.

You could fill a book.  And fill another book with  the incivility of politics that has become more than empty lore.

Now, up in Michigan,  the Republican national committeeman, Dave Agema, a nasty  human being to put it kindly,   continues to stir up his GOP nest with repeated sliming   of gays and Muslims, accusing gays of being "filthy" and the critics of Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson's anti-gay remarks "LBGT Gestapo speech police."

Michigan's GOP National Committeeman said that?  

If LaRose/Celeste really want to dig into the problem with a living  target,  do you think they should invite Agema to lunch?  A very long lunch.

Political civility: Hardly concern for Kasich's guy

No one has taken on a more challenging mission in Columbus than State Sen. Frank LaRose of Copley, a Republican,  and former State  Rep. Ted Celeste of Cleveland, a Democrat . In their laudable bi-partisan effort to restore a hint of sanity to politics, they are pursuing a goal of creating more civility  in political discourse.  Good luck on that.

They have scheduled an off-the-record meeting on Sept. 17 at the Statehouse of dozens of lawmakers to work out a plan to advance  their goal. My guess is that it would be easier to squeeze the juice back into a lemon.

Until then, they could have a sitdown with Gov. Kasich's top spokespserson, Rob Nichols, who resorted to a sneaky form  of Red-baiting in his attack on Democratic Rep. Debbie Phillips, of Albany.

Phillips had written to Kasich and Scott Nally, director of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, demanding  an official explanation of why  the director of the EPA's surface-water division was forced to resign.

George Elmaraghy had informed his staff that his resignation was prompted  by  "considerable pressure" on the Ksaich administration from coal companies.  The coal industry has been among  Kasich's biggest political donors.  The Columbus Dispatch reported that King Coal has given $1 million to Kasich and some friendly lawmakers.

But we digress:  Asked about Phillips , Nichols snapped in an email to a reporter:

"You'd be hard-pressed to find a job creator that she hasn't opposed, vilified or protested at some point.  If she had her way, we'd all be living on a collective farm cooking  organic quinoa over a dung fire.  So, I think we'll take her views in context."

By the way:  Not being a quinoa kind of guy, I had to look it up.  Glad to know the people around the governor are so clued in these days. .