Shut up and raise money

Madonna was engaging in shock and awe back when Dubya was still driving drunk. She's reinvented herself more than Al Gore, and as we're finding out, Howard Dean as well. Now she's writing children's books. And once those kids get legal, she's sticking her tongue down their throats on MTV. I've never been a fan, and contrary to those she speaks of in her recent letter, I don't really find her interesting. Granted, I respect her politically at least as much as Tom Harkin who, during his 1992 run, struck me as a rather odd duck. Given his endorsement of Dean, it also appears he has a very odd view of what it means to be “someone who comes from a working-class background, someone who’s had life experiences that most normal people might have had.” And I guess there are those out there, at least in the primaries, who are impressed with her support of Clark, and according to ARG, the General needs all the women he can get.

So I'm not knocking the Madonna endorsement. But it doesn't exactly wow me, either. In particular, this comment jumped out at me:

She criticized the current administration for not seeing the big picture and not enacting polices that "reflect what is great about America."

"They think too small," she wrote. "They suffer from the 'what's in it for me?' syndrome.

Now, to be clear, I totally agree with her. But I'm not sure she's the best person to be speaking for the campaign on the sins of the self-indulgent.

I understand that people grow, and perhaps she has genuinely gained more depth than has been apparent to me over the years, but for the time being, I hope she spends the bulk of her time behind the scenes raising money.