"Please don't throw me into that briar patch."
Those were the words of Joel Chandler Harris's famous character from Song of the South, Brer Rabbit. Brer Rabbit was right at home and very comfortable in the thorny briar patch, also known as the bramble bush.
From a Georgia folktale:
America folklore"Drown me! Roast me! Hang me! Do whatever you please," said Brer Rabbit. "Only please, Brer Fox, please don't throw me into the briar patch."
"The briar patch, eh?" said Brer Fox. "What a wonderful idea! You'll be torn into little pieces!"
Grabbing up the tar-covered rabbit, Brer Fox swung him around and around and then flung him head over heels into the briar patch. Brer Rabbit let out such a scream as he fell that all of Brer Fox's fur stood straight up. Brer Rabbit fell into the briar bushes with a crash and a mighty thump. Then there was silence.
Brer Fox cocked one ear toward the briar patch, listening for whimpers of pain. But he heard nothing. Brer Fox cocked the other ear toward the briar patch, listening for Brer Rabbit's death rattle. He heard nothing. Then Brer Fox heard someone calling his name. He turned around and looked up the hill. Brer Rabbit was sitting on a log combing the tar out of his fur with a wood chip and looking smug.
"I was bred and born in the briar patch, Brer Fox," he called. "Born and bred in the briar patch."
Now let me see, where did we hear about the bramble bush before now? Ah, I remember. That fellow in Florida, Senate Minority leader, Steve Geller.
From You Tube. Geller mocks own amendment.
Don't throw me into that bramble bush.Don't get it yet? What you ask for is not really what you want to happen. He really did not want his amendment to pass.
And there is a column at Huffington Post today about Hillary Clinton and the Briar Patch politics involving tomorrow. If you go with this scenario, there is no winning no matter what the decision. She will go ahead anyway.
Clinton's Briar Patch strategy for the DNC meetingFOREWORD: Barack Obama and Howard Dean are about to walk into Harold Ickes' trap tomorrow, and they aren't likely to even realize their mistake until Hillary Clinton cries "foul!" next week and announces that "justice" and "voters' rights" are forcing her to carry her campaign all the way to the Democratic Convention next August.
By leaning toward implementing a compromise "split the baby" decision tomorrow on how to allocate the Michigan and Florida delegates -- a compromise that nearly all observers see as a setback for Clinton -- the DNC Rules & Bylaws Committee ("RBC"), the Obama campaign and other well-meaning Democrats will actually be throwing Brer Clinton into the briar patch -- giving her exactly the excuse she wants to continue her Quixotic campaign.
..."The rules meeting is a trap. Clinton wants the RBC to give Florida and Michigan not the full votes she is fruitlessly advocating for and which would in any case not translate to a win for her but the half-vote compromise she is publicly advocating against. When the committee does award half-votes, she will have cause to extend her campaign through the summer, guaranteeing a divided Convention and possibly killing Democrats' chances of capturing the Oval Office in November (and of preventing pro-life , pro-Imperial Presidency Republicans from replacing the two remaining Democrats on the nine-member Supreme Court).
Who knows, really. If you look at it that way, there is no scenario by which she will not continue. And if you look at it that way...it's tragic.
One lawsuit by a Floridian
was dismissed yesterday. There is still one to go for sure by Geller, and maybe a refiling by DiMaio.
There is still the shouting and yelling tomorrow. And there is the lingering pain of seeing the former first couple lash out at their own party.
I am not sure what kind of politics it is, but the fact they are comfortable with it is scary.