“I don’t want to read my news on the Internet in Twitters,” U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison told a group of newspaper publishers this morning in Austin. She quickly said she was just “joking” as the publishers laughed, but then basically restated the assertion, and said again she was joking. I don’t think she was. The “joking” comment gives her refuge if she’s attacked by swarming, indignant digerati.
At the risk of incurring the digerati’s wrath, I kind of agree with her. It’s one of the reasons I haven’t felt compelled to sign up for Twitter, and I’m not sure my ability to consume news is much denigrated by the lack of Tweets in my life. Facebook status updates pretty much push me to the limit, truth be told, and while I get the potential of Twitter and understand why it’s so popular, I just don’t need to be that wired in to the thoughts of my friends. Reading Facebook status updates and browsing RSS feeds via FreeRange on my Blackberry get me pretty much what I need.
The senior Republican senator from Texas also spent time sniping at Obama’s spending binge and laying the groundwork for a possible gubernatorial run. Interesting stuff, overall, but I think her comments on Obama were disingenuous. She and I share a deep concern for the spending that’s occurring in the guise of stimulus, but I still don’t hear her putting forward a cogent alternative to what Obama is doing. She did cite one example of a failed amendment she tried to add to put some brakes on the spending, but that doesn’t really constitute an alternative. It’s just a brake. I’d take the Republican griping a lot more seriously if they came out with their alternative. Like the Democrats during the Bush era, they’re currently defining themselves by what they’re against instead of what they’re for. I don’t think that’s going to cut it in times like these
On the gubernatorial run, it would seem to me she could do her party a lot more good by staying in Washington to provide checks and balances on the Democrat majority than she would by returning to Texas for a “more Republican than thou” showdown with Rick Perry …