Defying Gravity from the musical, Wicked
I love meta-fiction; that which takes an established story and turns it on its ear and gives a different point of view. The story of Wicked is an interesting example of that kind of meta-fiction. Elphaba is an emotionally-neglected but principled witch who tries to do the right thing, but she runs up against people in power who are only interested in self-preservation and who don't care if those they are charged with representing are hurt in the process. Because she refuses to play along with dishonest and immoral power grabs, she is smeared as 'wicked', blamed for all manner of evil actually done by the Wizard of Oz and run out of town. Elphaba, in this scene, chooses to embrace the epithet (and thus the Wicked Witch of the West of the original L. Frank Baum story is born) and defy the gravity demanding that she give up her principles to succeed in Oz. She knows that she'll be blamed, even if she is innocent, so she chooses to follow her own path and do what's right.
It occurs to me that we could use a few more Democratic politicians willing to defy gravity. Anthony Weiner, Dennis Kucinich, Bernie Sanders, Alan Grayson and Al Franken is a pretty pitiful number of congresspeople to count on doing what's right even if they get labeled as wicked erroneously. More's the pity, do you see any of those names on the list of bobbleheads invited to add their two cents to the national dialogue? Of course not. It's much less wicked to give more airtime to Mitch McConnell, Orrin Hatch, Lindsey Graham and Tom Friggin' Delay. Sigh.
ABC's "This Week" - Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius; Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
CBS' "Face the Nation" - Sens. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
NBC's "Meet the Press" - Sebelius; Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.
NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel: Dan Rather, Katty Kay, Andrea Mitchell, Joe Klein. Topics: Critical Care: Can President Obama Pass Health Care Reform By Easter? Rove's Rewrite: The Architect's Plans To Rehab George W. Bush's Reputation
CNN's "State of the Union" - Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas; Reps. Brian Baird, D-Wash., and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.
CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - Gen. David Petraeus, Iraq's former Prime Minister, Ayad Allawai.
CNN's "Amanpour" - The son of a founder of Hamas, Mosab Hassan Yousef, tells Christiane about his espionage for Israel and conversion to Christianity.
"Fox News Sunday" - Former Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass.; Rep. John Adler, D-N.J.; Rep. Jason Altmire, D-Pa.
So what's catching your eye this morning?
