"Senator Donnelly Breaks With His Party Over State Of The Union...:"

     That's what the television told me, right before going to commercials (I'm pretty sure my brand-new Cheforyota has more fiber than the other cars and will be whiter than white with fifty percent fewer cavities for President's Day but I might not've been paying close attention, I was so excited).  Wowzers, ol' Triangulator Joe finally grew a spine on the gun issue?

     He's been trying to saw that baby in half: No, no, no for a new scary-black-rifle ban but yes, yes, yes for universal regis- er, background checks and [inaudible mutter] on magazine capacity, last time I checked.  And now it looked as if he'd picked a side -- my side!

     Or had he?

     Don't count your chickens before they come home to roost: the dancing Presidents waltzed away,*the station logo popped up, the happy talking heads came back and they told me Joe Donnelly had had enough with Federal meddling...in preschool.  He wasn't gonna go along with President Obama's plans to get a zillion four-year-olds into the tender claws of a loving State, nosireeebob: that's a local matter, it is, and he would work with local officials, not vote down the the full might of Feds on their toddlers and school-tax bills.

     Um, thanks?  Me, I'm all for separation of School and State, as long as we can still make 'em play nice and colorblind but given where the fire and ire in the State of the Union was directed, it seems a bit...off.  It reeks of prestidigitation and leaves me wondering what it might be that Our Junior Senators doesn't want to talk about.

     Whatever could it possibly be?
___________________________________________
* I'm hardly a worshipper of The State And Its Leaders but I wouldn't cross the street to spit on the guy who thunk up the "dancing Washington and Lincoln" schtick for President's Day sale ads, even if he was on fire and I'd be paid to do it.  It's just not right.