We’re Totally Screwed In Afghanistan – No Matter What We Do.

We can send a bazillion troops – more troops than there are either troops or people on this planet – and still lose. Because the bad guys aren’t there. And the people who are there fight us just because – heck! why not? It’s what Afghanis do. The Taliban is surging. Their one-eyed spook leader – who we trained to fight Russians all those decades ago – isn’t hiding in a cave somewhere. He’s simply living in Pakistan, safe from our little war. We could, with much political skullduggery, find a way to go after the Taliban and Al Quaida in Pakistan; but by the time we get our act together, and get all the pieces in place, they won’t be there anymore. That’s their M.O. – they go wherever we aren’t. With the exception of Iraq. The bad guys were NEVER in Iraq; just a bunch of anarchy and mayhem – which we created by toppling the sinister (but neutered) symbol that was Saddam Hussein. Al Quaida did have a gift store there, but it has since been abandoned. It’s hard to find Iraqis willing to spend their hard earned money on an Al Quaida cause bracelet…  Afghanistan is a very old country that has never worked. It’s never had a functioning central government. And it’s broken more than one empire in its day. It’s like a cat that likes being squirted in the face. It considers war fun; a good way to kill time and occupiers at the same time. You can’t bring them to their knees by attacking their infrastructure – because there isn’t any. You can’t work with their government – because they don’t have one. You can’t kill the bad guys – because they aren’t there.

Afghanistan was a “war of necessity,” only because that’s where the bad guys were – when we were in Iraq. Now we’re still in Iraq, but we’ve made it plain to one and all (bad guys are not ignorant to technology or 24 hour news programs) that our focus is Afghanistan. So, what terrorist would want to stick around for that? Better to go to Pakistan and hide out there, what with it having The Bomb and being a U.S. ally and all. There they can watch us bomb sand on satellite television and clean their old U.S. supplied AK-47’s.

When we go to Pakistan, they’ll meander their way to Somalia. Or the Sudan. Or Detroit. Or some other ass-fucked hell hole.

Let’s face it. The only thing we’ve got the bad guys on the run is in self-righteousness. We’re not attacking innocent people; we’re advancing their freedom! Every thing else though is going exactly according to THEIR plan. We’ve blown trillions of Chinese-borrowed dollars. Killed hundreds of thousands of people. Disrupted countless weddings. Confiscated billions of finger nail clippers. Fucked up the brains of thousands of patriotic soldiers. Tortured an unknown number of bearded scary looking culturally threatening – yet innocent -businessmen. Set up a “democratically elected” heroin cartel. And managed not to get any real bad guys. Sure, we offed countless unknown “top-tier” terrorists nobody has ever heard of. But the one-armed spook still tells the Taliban what to do. And the Taliban? We’re the best thing that ever happened to them. The United States and Mongolia and whoever else is over there has been the best recruiting tool they’ve ever had. Before we came along they were a public relations disaster. Bin Laden. Another CIA trained enemy. Still around. Still making movies and videos and releasing tapes announcing his non-deadness. He’ll no doubt release a box set of his greatest screeds in time for the holidays. George Bush is closer to death than he is.

Fuck Afghanistan. Fuck promoting democracy and freedom at the end of a waterboard. Fuck for-profit mercenary soldiers and for-profit prisons. Fuck the non-existent “victory.” It’s heads we lose; tails we lose. Afghanistan? They lost hundreds of years ago. It’s nothing but a reservation for the ungovernable. Even the Afghan dog is an unruly mess. If Obama caves in to the “surge” (oops. I just gave John McCain an erection) mentality, it would only be because he doesn’t want to be perceived as weak. He knows he’s fucked either way. It’s up to him which way he wants it.

Obama Deserves The Nobel Peace Prize

He does deserve it. It sounds silly to even say such a thing – since he hasn’t really done anything. But think about who he isn’t: George Bush. Or Dick Cheney. Or some other hopeless dipshit. No. His very presence at the top of the totem pole has caused innocent people around the world to breathe a big sigh of relief. Whether it’s a placebo feeling remains to be seen. But instead of picking fights with anyone and everyone, he seeks to know what the fight is about first. And that is a sea change over the last eight years. Instead of creating Guantanamo and privatizing inhumanity in secret torture chambers the world over – he seeks to find an acceptable reversal of course. The fact that he is still involved in two wars abroad as well as tensions with Iran and North Korea is more a matter of bad timing. Sort of like inheriting all of your parents’ debt when they pass away. It’s not that he is actively advocating peace so much as he isn’t actively advocating mass murder.

Truth be told, we can all enjoy this award. We did – after all – vote for him; and what he stood for; which was against the war in Iraq and against torture and against rampant illiteracy and knuckle-dragging menace. We, in essence, by voting for him, chose a more peaceful path in the world. Voting for John McCain would have got us the Nobel Prize for Rage and the International WTF! Award.

This in essence – more than anything else – is the world’s way of saying thanks.

Afghanistan: Caught Between A Rock With A Machine Gun And A Rock With A Rocket Launcher

There’s really no good way to go on this whole War On Terror nonsense. You put all the pieces down on paper and there’s simply no good reason for us to be in either Afghanistan or Iraq. But we happen to be there anyway. Even though the bad guys are in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia but never mind. We’re in these two countries, we’ve ass-raped both of them, and there’s no good way out. Take diplomacy for example: the problem is that there’s nobody to negotiate with: the choices are between either someone we don’t like or someone we don’t trust. If we leave Afghanistan and let it go all medieval on itself, then a whole generation of women are doomed. The pragmatists would say they were doomed anyway – and it isn’t our job to fix them. Sort of like when the Japanese visit our country and want us to stop being so fucking fat; some things you just can’t fix.

There’s not enough troops to slowly but surely get beaten to smithereens by the elements and the lack of intelligence and the lack of funding and the guerillas in caves. And there’s simply no stomach for this war. There never was and the Afghans knew it all along. They think long-term. Some would say too long-term: “…and I will get my degree mom, but I don’t have to think about that for another ninety five years or so!” They are on their home-court; and it’s a mess: what do they care if they string us a long for a few decades? Exactly. They have the superior strategy.

The problem is our allies. They’re the ones who are making things difficult. Harboring terrorists. In some cases creating them. Refusing to take action against them, etc. Plus they have things we are either afraid of or need: Pakistan has the bomb; Saudi Arabia has fine well-bred stallions and plenty of oil. Afghanistan has a feudal non-government that subsists on corruption, weapons, drugs and bribery. They’re a much easier target politically.

I say let’s get out and bomb the mountains and caves of Pakistan from above. Or just surround the caves with honey badgers and Hooters girls. Keep them distracted and they’ll be too distraught to try and come after us. There are – quite simply an amazing and unquenchable array of better alternatives to bombing weddings when it comes to the war in Afghanistan. And they’re more effective and cheaper. But they just don’t have the same amount of fans in Washington. There’s no lobbyists running around promoting dropping hundreds of thousands of sidewinder rattlesnakes into the Khyber Pass – but you can damn sure bet it would work. And it’s high time we tried it.

Onto other matters. Peace between Israel and Palestine. We keep trying the same old things. Diplomacy. Negotiations. Yada yada yada. It isn’t working. Let’s put the leaders of both countries and drop them into the Sonora Desert – along with – for reasons of my own – Yanni – for a Vision Quest. With no cameras. No cell phones. No weapons. And just let them bond with peyote. Why not? At the very least, it couldn’t hurt. Maybe these ideas aren’t “serious” enough for the power ties in D.C. And maybe that’s proof enough that they would probably work.

Palestine And Israel Shake Hands!

It’s not just any President that can get the leaders of Palestine and Israel to shake hands. It’s every other one. Roughly every twelve or so years, after months and months of intense negotiation, the United States succeeds in getting a picture of the two leaders – whoever they happen to be at the time – shaking hands. The President usually gets in the picture as well, as if to say: “Hey! I got them to shake hands!” Both sides almost instantly regret it and negotiations usually come to an abrupt end. Here’s to hoping Obama can take things just a tiny bit further this time…

Why All The Disappointment With Obama?

A President can only do so much if it goes against the interest of those in power. Bush was able to do a lot of damage – specifically because he took his orders directly from the interests who got him the job in the first place. Obama is trying to do things – as progressives so often do – that fly in the face of the moneyed minority. Oil. The military industry. Big Medicine. Wall Street. These are the people who call the shots in this country. They have the money and they spread it around – like political anthrax – sprinkling it on those they send to power – in order to get their bidding done. It’s no surprise that a small number of senators can jam things up and bring things to a virtual standstill. If a New York politician wants to run for office, there are many would-be suiters who can help him or her get there. In Wyoming, the only people with money are those lacking any common sense. They’ll line your pockets with money so long as you promise to put John Wayne on the four dollar bill. So we’ve got a lot of smart well-meaning people being held hostage by rich ethically challenged hillbillies who call all the shots. Obama is impatient. We’re impatient (most of us want reform after all); but nothing’s going to happen anytime soon.

Our political shitstem makes Change You Can Believe In all but impossible.

Confessions Of A Confused Health-Care Protestor

It’s the weekend. Finally. Well, I guess it doesn’t matter, in my case – what with me being retired and all. (To me every day is the weekend.) But the weekend is better because there’s less traffic and more people to rile up. And rile them up I will! I plan to go out and protest big government as is my right as a citizen of the Republic of Texas or America or whatever.

I plan to compare Obama to Hannibal Lector for one thing. I found a picture of Anthony Hopkins in that mask on the Internet. I will walk around with that for a while. Then, once that is done, I plan to drive all over town and run over people’s pets. Which has nothing really to do with the health-care “debate,” but so what? It’s a form of expression and I’m fed up with my government telling me what to do. Then I’m going to go stand outside a grocery store with a machine gun over my shoulder for no reason at all.

The truth is – and here I will have to make a sad confession – having had someone read the new health-care bill to me – and then having someone else tell the two of us what it was trying to say – well, it doesn’t sound all that bad. And that sort of sucks. Because it goes against my instincts of disliking everything the government does. For one thing, I found out that my Medicare is actually a government run program. And here I was three weeks ago with a sign telling the government to stay away from my Medicare! This knowledge is certainly something I would rather just not know. In principal I’d really like to not have Medicare. But holy bird blossoms! If I didn’t have that I’d lose everything I had paying for getting all those pain pills removed from my stomach each month. No. I need that Medicare. I’m about the least healthy a person can be and not be attached to a machine.

And my social security. Apparently the government has something to do with that too. And, now that we’re on this subject, is seems they also pay me my unemployment benefits. And have done so for about twenty years now…Shit: just about everything I have right now is paid for by the government now that I think about it -except for the pornos, my fighting roosters and the machine gun. Which stinks! Because, by God, I hate the government. Or I’m supposed to. It’s all so confusing. It makes me want to sniff magic markers just thinking about it.

I did go to that rally last Saturday in Washington put on by those health-care folks who put me on the bus and gave me the sign and bought me meals (I had the drinks stuck in my boots) and gave me money and told me what to say and whatnot. They had all sorts of signs to choose from. They looked hand-made, but when you got really close were actually manufactured. Sort of like those sweepstakes you get in the mail that look like your name is handwritten on but is really ink. I could choose between Obama as Stalin or Hitler or Pol Pot or Saddam Hussein. (No Hannibal Lector though!) I chose Stalin because he had a thicker mustache. Obama is a handsome man (I can admit it) but even he looks silly in a Hitler mustache.

People kept asking me what I was protesting – and I just didn’t have an answer for them. I’m what you would call at a crossroads with all this unfortunate knowledge I wish I’d never got wind of. Luckily though, with my braided mustache and long fingernails and missing eye, I just have to stare at someone without saying anything for them to back off and go about their business. I couldn’t remember what that nice looking woman on the bus told me to say. I was drunk as a loon for one thing. And the words she used were all kinds of fancy sounding. And her blue eyes were the kind a person could get lost in. But that’s another sad song in the story of my life: she was clearly revolted by me.

The protest wasn’t all that big as what it looked like on the news. It was only about ten people in all truth. Or nine. Because I got kicked out of the protest for a reason I’ll get to shortly. The rest of the crowd were reporters and Cigna employees. When I saw the news I was shocked that I was part of such a large protest: it looked like a band of millions were there. But no. You can’t trust the television anymore. Or your own eye. Must be some trick the camera can do or something.

Chuck Norris was there. He was signing autographs and trying to hand them out to people. But even protestors like to avoid people shoving paper into their hands. He’s short, is Chuck Norris. And he dressed like a fool – in all black for crying out loud. Like some Hollywood dandy. But anyway, they have this huge – well, I thought it was a water trough – what they call a Mall there; but it isn’t anything like what we call a mall in Texas: I guess it’s just one more thing I don’t like about the government: they can’t even name things right. Instead of a mall it’s a really long trough of water. And I was really thirsty…

I was thirsty because of the Cialis. On the bus they had all sorts of pharmaceutical reps giving out pills like candy – all the while reminding us that Obama would take it all away. We got muscle relaxants and pain pills and anxiety pills and valium…and Cialis. Which I’d never tried so I up and took one on the bus. But it didn’t do anything really except make me thirsty and turn my face red…

So by the time I got off the bus – between the Cialis and the hooch I’d been swilling from the flasks in my boots – I had worked up a mean thirst. So I went to that mall and began to drink; which, as would be made very clear to me, you aren’t supposed to do. For one thing, the water is not like any water I’ve ever tasted. It tastes sort of like recycled spit. And for another if you do drink out of the trough the cops will grab you and harass you. Especially if you have a picket sign comparing the President to Stalin. The whole scene was wrong the minute I got off the bus. Protesting the government for reasons you don’t understand is best done from afar if you ask me. The cop kept referring to me as “one of those teabaggers…” Cops. They wear a uniform and they think they can attack your sexuality. I would later find out that we were actually called that! And it also explained why that guy on the bus kept saying that his “lifestyle” was his own business and what he did in the bedroom and in the bathroom of dance clubs was nobody’s business but his own and whoever the lucky recipient was. But that also is another story that hasn’t got anything to do with anything. But it does explain why some outrageous queen was protesting liberals.

I was eventually let go by the cops – so long as I promised to get back on the bus. Which I was glad to do: it had a bathroom and air conditioning and there wasn’t a soul on it but me and that Public Relations lady from the health insurance company and the cute pharmaceutical reps and me.

I’ll admit it. I did let my mind wander to unsavory places; all kinds of fantasies availed themselves to my mind in that bus with those women. And I learned that Cialis does have its charms. But I will tell you this: it’s not to be taken unless you’re ready for it. Those women thought I was the vilest thing on earth, what with my long fingernails and missing eye and a tent popping out of my lap.

Which is all a very long way of saying that this weekend I am going to protest – my way – this weekend – against big government; even though it appears I owe my very life to it. Because I’m an American and I guess that’s just the way it works.

Both Sides Play Race Card; Jinx Each Other

In a sight rarely seen among adults, two talking heads pulled out the Race Card at the same time on a CNN panel last night and were struck silent, according to the childhood games rules. It all started with Jimmy Carter’s all too obvious reading of the recent tone of Obama protests – (but because it came from a former President it was seen as highly controversial. Honesty from a politician is almost always seen as a breech of protocol.) – when a Republican talking head, an African American ironically – from Mississippi (in other words a trained actor hired specifically to prove Republicans have such people) – accused Jimmy Carter of using the Race Card. Which struck many as an easy thing to accuse him of. It’s not like he was subtle about it. The former President straight up accused many of the protestors 0f having racist feelings; it wasn’t something he was trying to hide.

Anyway – then the Democrat accused the Republican of playing the Race Card for accusing the former President of using the Race Card. It was a highly confusing segment of the show and it was very hard to follow the back and forth between who said what when and what who said and what they meant when they said what they said and then some yelling and talking over each other and – wow, is this really news?

The only part I got out of it was when the Republican guy blatantly showed his strategic cards when he said, “This whole race thing is a distraction. What we in the GOP want is serious discussion about policy!” Which, of course, is supreme low-quality bullshit. The LAST thing they have wanted is any sort of discussion about anything substantive at all. They have brought nothing to the table but whoopie cushions, air horns and hand-shake buzzers. They have grasped, desperately, to change the subject to anything other than policy. So when the hired actor  playing a Mississippi Republican pundit said, dramatically, “Enough with the distractions!” it was greeted with a befuddled silence of: who the fuck are you trying to fool? Had the Democrat not been rendered mute, he could have said something like, “Fine. Great. Let’s shake on it. No more distracting bullshit. You said it and now shake on it.” But then the buzzer would go off and the circus would start all over again…

So, in essence, the GOP playbook is this:

1: Say something outrageously: evil, wrong, outlandish, absurd, and easily proven false.

2: Watch Democrats flounder in outrage

3: Check watch for how much time is off the clock

4: Demand that the time for distractions is over

5: Create another distraction

6: Repeat as necessary for four to eight years

They did it for eight years with Bill Clinton and they’re doing it with Obama. Spray the field with inanity. Keep the Democrats from focussing on accomplishing anything. Wait until it’s your turn to bat and then: lower taxes, plunder the treasury, start some “wars” and attack some weddings.

They are all a bunch of dipshits, of course. But their plan seems to be working…

Judge Determines Hawaii To Be Part Of The United States

- Columbus, Georgia

In a not really all that landmark of a decision, U.S. District Court Judge Clay Land determined that the state of Hawaii is indeed part of the United States. “Hawaii is a state in the union of the United States of America; and, as such, it can’t also be part of the Republic of Kenya, a country in East Africa,” the judge ruled. “Nor does it specialize in making sandwiches, in case you are thinking about arguing such a thing in the future. While at one point Hawaii was part of the Sandwich islands, it did not make sandwiches. Case dismissed and holy fuck,” the judge continued, hitting his gavel and exiting the courtroom.

The ruling comes at the end of a trial prosecuted by Orly Taitz – a dentist – in the case of Captain Connie Rhodes, who refused deployment to Iraq, arguing that Barack Obama, the President, could not possibly be as American citizen, being as that he was born in Kenya, which she described as “a string of Polynesian islands in the Pacific Ocean.”

Obama Not The Right Messenger For The Right

Obama is storming the airwaves next weekend to sell healthcare reform. And it won’t help at all. For one thing, the demographic that is on the fence about health-care reform – for one reason or another – doesn’t like the guy. He’s too polished. Or he’s too liberal. Or he’s too black. And they have shut him out. They also don’t tend to get up Sunday morning and watch a news show. Unless it’s Fox – and right before a football game. Even if they did do such a thing, they would no doubt skip it for the reasons mentioned above. Some people won’t believe any amount of common sense or truth -even if it’s in their best interests – if it doesn’t come from a narrow group of people they can trust.

It’s time for Plan B. It’s time for Obama to get his message out through people this demographic can trust. Obama will overwhelmingly sell healthcare if he can get the following people in his corner and they are willing to spread the word:

1. Hank Williams, Jr (Hank Williams Jr. is a country singer of the Monday Night Football song, among nothing else)

2. Chuck Norris (he sells abdominal exercise machines on late night television.)

3. Waylon Jennings (is dead)

4. David Duke

5. Richard Petty

6. Jesse James

7. Anyone in the WWF

For some people, a well-spoken President coherently laying out why he feels health-care needs to be reformed and why is besides the point. To them, the man scares the hell out of them. Plain and simple. They are best simply ignored.

Obama Calls Kanye An “Assalope”

He like so totally did! He was like, “This is off the record, right?” And I’m like “yeah!” And then he said, “that Kanye is a jackass. He’s also an assalope.” And, you know, he’s like the President! So, like, how do I not tell everyone, right? Sure, I took an oath and I’m a journalist for a well-respected news program and all, but come on! This is really juicy stuff! And I can always have someone come out and apologize later. That’s how it works these days. Fuck protocol and all that old person stuff! Of course, my, like, journalistic integrity is like totally shot. You’d have to be a fool to trust me any more. I will so totally tweet anything anyone tells me if it will get me more followers! I’m awful like that! Lol! It’s true! The weird thing is, I like wasn’t even the person interviewing the President. Even weirder is I’m not some dumbass tweener. I’m a grown man who should absolutely know better. In a perfect world, my career would be fucked. Off the record is supposed to be, well, off the record – which, these days the record includes Twitter and Facebook and Linked In and Myspace and Adult FriendFinder and Furries and Assballoon – and all of those important sites I belong to.

Hmmm. Rahm Emanuel just called to tell me I’m a dipshit – on the record. Oh boy!

Is Obama A Socialist Nazi?

The Republicans have been quick to label Obama with all manner of things. He’s a Socialist, a Marxist, a Black Panther, a Kenyan, a too-white racist, and a Nazi. (It’s only a matter of time before they accuse him of being a Republican. But he isn’t: he’s said time and time again that he doesn’t favor illegal wars or torture.) The irony is that – as has been the case lately – he’s been labelled these things for stuff that, well, doesn’t sound so bad. Which makes me wonder just how bad they might be. I received a lovely piece of propaganda in Texas last week with a picture of Obama on the cover wearing a Hitler mustache. And it got me thinking…did Hitler advocate healthcare for everyone in his country? When it comes to Hitler, I’ve only heard horrible, dark, evil things…but shit, maybe the guy had a good idea once in a while. The GOP is making it out like Hitler wasn’t such a bad guy, wanting people to be healthy and not die unnecessarily.

More recently, when Obama gave his speech to school-children, a number of (southern bozo) parents took their kids out of school, lest they be subjected to Obama’s “socialist agenda!”…of staying in school and studying hard. Hmmm. That doesn’t sound like the worst idea in the world, that staying in school and studying hard. If that’s Socialism, then I’d certainly welcome it. It sure beats not being Socialist and dropping out of school and smoking crack. The next thing you know they’ll claim Obama is a Communist because he wants you to brush your teeth. I remember another President, actually in the school, staring incomprehensibly at a tome called My Pet Goat; his finger moving right to left, his lips moving, trying to make sense of the big words and comical illustrations- and nobody accused him of trying to indoctrinate our youth.

Some of this silliness is based in fear. But most of it is straight up ignorance and intolerance. If the other 43 white guys who have held that office suggested our kids stay in school and apply themselves intellectually, I doubt even the relentlessly dumb of our country would take offense. But this is a black guy! He must be up to no good! He wants our kids to stay in school and study hard so they can graduate and hack us to pieces in our sleep! Or something like that. I can’t pretend to know what goes through the mind of these hoopleheads.

This is a guy with a lot on his plate; and he clearly doesn’t have a huge appetite. He can’t afford to spend valuable time placating a rabid group of world-class fruit loops when he has an economy to repair, two wars to end honorably, an empty treasury, failing infrastructure, bankrupt cities, rising oceans, and a generation of celebrity obsessed narcissists with no real skills or abilities to deal with. So, to that end, I will hereforth put an end to several falsehoods you will soon see plastered in the media:

Barack Obama is really Jimmy Hoffa: Not True

Barack Obama sleeps upside down inside a giant jar of Jello: Not True

Barack Obama’s favorite dish is poached Puff Adder: Not True

Barack Obama is the President already! : True

Shut up and deal with it, bigotsphere

Joe Wilson Issues Non-Apology And The Wheels Of Power Continue On

Joe Wilson yesterday apologized for screaming out “You Lie” during President Obama’s speech to congress – while reiterating that he thinks the President is a liar. In other words, he didn’t apologize. Rahm demanded the apology and Obama accepted it and Wilson never really gave it. 

Today he’s playing the victim and asking for money. I think what he did was horrible. But I would give him money if he would promise to use it for barbituates or some sort of medicine that paralyzes the vocal cords. But he won’t. He’ll use it for secret blowjobs and blow.

Just another day in Washington. 

But it did serve as yet another wake up call to the old hands in the Republican party: they can see the present of their party, and it isn’t pretty: it’s a who’s who of loonies: Sarah Palin, Joe The Plumber, and now Joe the Spontaneous Outburst. Bob Dole is rolling over in his grave – and he’s not even dead. 

The democrats don’t have all the answers, and they make plenty of mistakes; unfortunately their opposition sniffs glue and revels in nihilism and White Lightning. When Republicans rumble about the new administration, I remind them who they offered up on their end – and they hang their heads in shame. Even they couldn’t bring themselves to pull the lever for Old Man Crank Pot and Sexy Librarian Syntax Murderess.

We used to have a two-party system. Now we have a one-party system balanced by a collection of hyper-active ether sucking raccoons: they make lots of noise and upend things and eat the stuffing out of their chairs, but that’s all they seem capable of.

What is annoying is the fact that Obama seems to believe that he has to deal with these people as actual grown ups. He asks for mature political discourse – but the other side is too busy following Kid Rock or being rushed to the hospital to have a grape removed from their nostril or their stomach pumped from eating too much paste.

It’s got to be exhausting relentlessly pretending the other side isn’t a farce.

Obama Addresses One Side of Congress And A Carefully Selected Group Of 3rd Graders On Health-Care Reform

It was a sad sight. The President of the United States addresses congress – and gets treated like a substitute teacher in a Hoboken, New Jersey Middle School. In the hallowed halls of congress, men in suits and bad hair and the minimum required blood alcohol count of .16, showed the rest of the country that it’s entirely possible to get your hands on the levers of power without sacrificing poor manners, intolerance, and a 3rd grade reading level. But, unlike 3rd graders, it’s perfectly acceptable to arrange secret trysts on your Blackberry while the President speaks. Or hold up signs in a desperate attempt at television time. (Signs like “What Bill?” could be seen; as well as “I love you, Larry King!” and “FOX rules!”) 

Last night was a watershed moment: 9/9/09 – the night one of our elected leaders dragged political discussion to the level of professional wrestling. Joe Wilson, the drunken hillbilly from South Carolina with a clip on tie- (South Carolina, ironically, is the well-known home to a lying Republican governor) -who screamed out “You Lie!” midway through the speech – will go down in history as a pioneer of anti-decorum. In front of millions of people – a national and international audience – he urinated in the proverbial fruit punch of our politics. In other countries – like, say, Texas – it’s not unusual for elected leaders to act like howler monkeys on acid. In Washington, however, it’s been a long established protocol to be polite when the world is watching. Protests historically only go so far as refusing to stand up or clap. Now, thanks to a new generation of GOP leaders – juvenile delinquents and sociopaths and sub-normals of every stripe no longer have to rule out congress as a career path. “Why do I have to go to school, mom? I can always become a house Republican…”

Joe Wilson’s “regrettable” accusation was ironic for a slew of reasons. A 5-term house Republican, Wilson has been lied to countless times by a President of his own party. About war and torture and the economy and education and taxes and weapons of mass destruction. Yet those lies were okay, apparently, as they were his kind of lies. 

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, his political “instincts” kicked in: he knew he had to put out an insincere apology as soon as possible. And he did. It is understood on both sides of the aisle that, whenever your true beliefs become public – especially if they are either controversial or ugly – an insincere statement of contrition – usually spoken by a congressmen’s “spokesman” – must be released to the media, at which point the whole matter is understood to be forgotten.

And this has been a banner year for unfortunate comments. Usually racial: a governor makes a joke about applying for a hunting license for the President; another “kiddingly” compares the President to a monkey. Another unknowing satirist accuses the President of racism. The comments are many and frequent. And they all revealed an ugly inner truth about our refusing to evolve national psyche. Sometimes, though, you have to say, “Fuck damage control! That guy’s a jackass!” Us regular folks can’t apologize away our jackassery. So why can members of government? People who are supposed to have higher values and morals than us degenerate commoners? I think they should be held accountable. If I “jokingly” compared a work colleague to a monkey, he or she would be well within their rights to “humorously” beat the shit out of me.

If a certain congressmen decides to lower the standards of our political discourse, I think the response should be at the same low level as the infraction: rather than accepting the apology of a reckless nabob meth-head, congress should deal with him in his own rudimentary language; he should be dealt with just as he would be in any bar in his home state of South Carolina. He should be taken out into the parking lot where people can take turns kicking his ribs in, before being run over by his own monster truck. 

It will never happen, of course. Democrats wouldn’t be democrats if they acted like that. But it would damn sure work. Both sides would think twice about acting like hormonal badgers; and maybe we’d see some actual progress in Washington for a change.

Obama Vacations While Congress Runs In Place

It wasn’t until Phil Jackson found a way for the Bulls to run plays with Michael Jordan that they every won anything. Before that, his teammates would just watch him, forgetting that they were on the same team and should maybe try to get a rebound or something.

Right now congress needs a Phil Jackson. Or a therapist anyway. Someone to shake them up and slap them around and wake them up to the fact that the ball is in their court. Health-care has been the Democrats’ baby for two decades now. Surely they’ve had some time to figure out what they want? Obama, a former Senator, is sitting back and letting them do their job. You know…separation of powers. It’s been gone for a while, and perhaps congress isn’t used to doing anything that resembles “thinking.” Democrats swooped in in 2006 to run the Bush Junta to ground. They struggled and flopped and flailed, but they managed to somewhat tame the beast, especially as the Presidents’ poll numbers began their plummet. 

Lost in all of the Bush misery was the fact that congress, run by democrats, didn’t have all that great approval itself. As a result, the democrats are timid, scared, and ready to lose at all times. Obama is the only democrat that has the public on his side at the moment. And the democrats, like children, are looking to him for direction. But that’s not his job. Not yet anyway. There’s too much confusion and infighting and ambiguity in Washington at the moment that not even the President can make sense of it. 

The problem is, while the democrats may have a fabled “supermajority” – the numbers to push through real reform, they don’t seem to have the political will or the skills to do it. Which is too bad. Because when you have the numbers on your side, it’s your job to take advantage of it. The Republicans know how to do it. Which is a shame. Because they don’t have the vision or the ideas. They only have bad ideas, but they’re top notch and coming together to shove things through. 

This is the Democrats moment. They have the numbers. We’ll just have to see what they can accomplish with it.

Obama Health Care Town Hall Transcript Released

The following is the transcript of a town hall Obama held in Pheonix early this week. It was sent to me by a source who wishes to remain anonymous because, like a lot of anonymous sources, he’s a complete fabrication.

Obama: There has never been a better time for healthcare reform. And that time is now. Yes, you in the blue shirt, do you have a question?

(Guy in blue shirt): Your nose looks funny. Haha!

Obama: So do my ears. Do you have a question?

(Guy in blue shirt): Listen to what I can do with my armpit! (farting noises)

Obama: Charming. You in the red, what’s your question?

(Woman in red): What’s it like growing up in Kenya?

Obama: I grew up in Hawaii. Next question. You…

(Muffled): I challenge you to a thumb war!

Obama: Okay. I’m only going to answer questions that you might have about health-care. A lot of people went to a lot of trouble to get in here because they are concerned about their healthcare. You next to the guy with the sign saying I’m a Nazi.

Guy: Oh, that’s my sign. Had to tie my shoe. I’ve got a question: hey Hitler, why’d you shave your mustache?

Obama: Next question! You guys are seriously testing my annoying habit of not showing any signs of anger. You in the pink shirt.

Pink shirt: Why do you want to kill my grandmother?

Obama: Surprisingly, I’m glad you asked that question. It is – in theory – related to health-care. I DO NOT want to kill your grandmother. That is not true at all. It’s a lie made up to scare you into screwing yourselves out of health-care that won’t fleece you at every turn…

Pink shirt: But I want her dead! She’s rich and won’t die!

Obama: Good Lord…(muffled crying) …does anyone in here have any question at all related to health-care in any way?

(Silence)

Obama: I want anyone who doesn’t have a health-care question, who is here just to accuse me of things that aren’t true to leave.

(feet shuffling…door rattling…)

Obama: you have to turn the knob and then pull to open the door…

(knocking on door…cries of fear…)

Woman: He’s trapped us! He’s going to wipe us all out with his Tonton Macoutes! We have to flee!

(glass breaking…pandemonium; tumult and chaos…then, finally, silence)

Obama: Wow. Looks like it’s just you and me Reggie. 

Woman: Mr. President. I’m still here…and I have a question.

Obama: Shoot.

Woman: You can’t mean that.

Obama: I mean ask your question.

Woman: Can I be on your death panel? Is there a form to apply for it or anything?

Obama: This town hall is over. And this country is screwed.

(end of transcript)

Neo-Nazis Don’t Get The Obama-Hitler Connection

The Aryan Nation is confused. They’re watching the news and seeing all the townhalls, in which Obama is being compared to Hitler, and they just aren’t seeing it. 

“Hitler and Obama ain’t got nothin’ in common,” says Bubba Portnoy, Chief Executive Officer of the Aryan Nation of Bayou Teche, Louisiana. “Why, they ain’t even the same color! It’s an outrage!” What is even more purplexing and unacceptable was the townhall yesterday, where an outraged voter compared a Jewish congressman to a Nazi. “How in hell can a Jew be a Nazi?” Portnoy asks, as he absentmindedly carves a swastika onto his forearm. “That don’t make no damn sense at all if you ask me.” At 450 pounds, with an IQ that is “off the charts” at “almost 9o,” Bubba Portnoy is the foremost expert in all things neo-nazi. At least he is here, at Angola penitentiary. “If I weren’t locked up, I’d probably have my own show on Fox. I’d be a Nazi pundit. Don’t nobody know as much as me. I’ve even written a book about it.” He hands me his book, which is written on a roll of toilet paper in blood. “It’s my only copy,” he says warily. I ask him if Obama could be a secret nazi. He screams and tries to bite into my deck, but a prison guard calmly tazers him. 

“How dare you!” he finally says. “Obama is the enemy of all things everything! I hate him. Just as I hate…” – here he lists off an impressive number of ethnicities and religions and – for some reason – animal species. “Hating is my job. I don’t know what kind of tw0-bit bigot would dare compare Obama to one of the greatest haters ever. Let me out of here and I’ll set those extremists straight!”

Its tempting.

Favre To Step Down As White House Health Care Communications Czar And Return To The NFL

After weeks of waffling on what exactly is in the health care plan, Brett Favre is resigning his communication duties and returning to the NFL. Or so it seems. “Yes, I am. No…Maybe,” Favre said, looking confused, in response to his own statement on the matter at his press conference that he called and then cancelled and then called and then cancelled and then called and then cancelled. His time with the White House was marred by many flips and flops and reversals of course. Interns and staffers learned early on to stop listening whenever Favre made any decisions about health care reform, knowing he would inevitably turn around and say the exact opposite in a matter of minutes.

“What I like to do is, I like to just float contradictory statements out into the air and just sort of see how they are being received. If people don’t like something I say I can always retract it and blame the media for jumping to conclusions.”

“Will there be a public option in the health care bill,” an irate journalist from the Atlanta Journal asks. He shows no sign of bothering to record the answer. The response is typical Favre: ”Yes? Or no. It’s possible. But we will make that decision. Or we won’t…”

It has gotten so bad that Favre is no longer even believed by his own family, including the dog. His wife explains. “If Brett is asked if he plans on being home for dinner, the answer is almost invariably a five minute long extremely tortured back and forth self monologue spoken aloud. Should I? I will! No…I mean… It gets old. I’m glad he’s returning to the NFL. He was bringing the entire country to its knees. His tenure as a civil servant was a colossal failure. And it might cost Obama his job.”

Rumors that Obama offered him the use of Airforce One if he would just get the fuck out of Washington already can neither be confirmed or denied. But to those that know Favre, it would make all the sense in the world.

Communication Breakdown Part II – The Obama Version

Part of the reason that this healthcare debate has gone egg-shaped, as they say across the pond, is the party in power is simply not getting their message out in a clear way. Instead you get a whole hose of messages and corrections and misunderstandings – this from the group in charge. The other side is lying through their teeth – but they’re doing it much more successfully. They are unified in their bullshit. And relentless in embracing it. John Kerry and what happened to him in 2004 should have taught democrats the power of owning the narrative. Which they didn’t do, figuring that truth would win the day. The truth is irrelevant if it can be drowned and beaten to death.

Obama’s op-ed in the New York Times yesterday was well and good – only it wasn’t. For one thing, dumb people don’t read the Sunday New York Times -which costs six dollars and doesn’t have any coupons. Far better for him to have written an op-ed in the Atlanta Constitution or the Houston Chronicle. In the New York Times, he’s preaching to the choir.

The main reason for the op-ed was to set the record straight on healthcare. But he didn’t get around to doing that until the third paragraph. Nobody reads anymore. The first paragraph, instead of talking about how lousy our healthcare is, which everyone agrees about, and then trying to put a face on it, he should have come out in the first sentence with: all of the following is pure made up bullshit. He did it. He just should have done it a lot sooner. Most of these loonies want to be angry and crazy: they’re not actively seeking reality. In essence, it was a blow at an enemy nowhere in sight. 

The democrats are all over the board about what exactly is or will be in the healthcare plan. Some say in has a public option. Some say it doesn’t. Its a mystery as to what exactly will be going into it. And it’s an even bigger mystery – sort of – as to how what gets in there gets in there. Because, one thing is for sure, it’s not playing out for everyone to see on CSPAN. It’s playing out behind closed doors, with lobbyists furiously wrangling, and on the airwaves, with 57 million in advertising for and against the plan. 

If this thing goes down in flames, the left will accuse Sarah Palin of scuttling it. But come on, that gives her too much credit. No way some Facebook screed brings down healthcare: what will scuttle it is the democrats inability to come forward with a sense of unity or any sort of cohesive message. And without that focus, well…the loonies win. And once again shoot us all in the foot, including themselves.

New Poll Shows 58% Of Republicans To Be Morons.

In a rare piece of good news for the Republican party, only 58% of Republicans are dumb enough to believe Obama wasn’t born in the United States. It’s a much lower percentage than they could have hoped for. The poll was considered by more than a few top Republicans, who will say, over drinks and off the record, that the entire party has become festooned with the bottom of the intellectual barrel, to be a small glimmer of hope for a party in retreat. They would have been happy to learn that only 80% of the party were knuckle dragging glue sniffers. This was very welcome news and sent several Washington insiders to area brothels for well-deserved celebratory handjobs. 

The poll also showed a decidedly regional bent as well. The dumber the part of America was, the more likely it was to be both Republican and delusional. 93% of Republicans in the Northeast and Northwest believe that Obama was born in Hawaii. In the South, however the number shrank considerably. Even among democrats and independents, only 47% of those polled believed the President to be an American citizen. A surprising number, considering how vast and considerable is the evidence proving them all decisively wrong. 

The North-South division of delusion is further proof that the whole Birther phenomenon has nothing to do with citizenship. The Birther conspiracy is nothing more than an outlet for racism. Show me a Birther who isn’t a fat dumb white person and you can prove me wrong…

I couldn’t be President. Not now. It’s too much hassle, number one. And number two, my birth certificate – from Arkansas – is only a credit card looking thing I keep in my wallet. Lou Dobbs would not be pleased with me. That fat boob would yap about it through both terms of my administration. Unless he took me up on my offer of making him ambassador to the Aleutian Islands. I think he would be perfect for it. I’d even let the government build him a highly overpriced three billion dollar shack to live in using tax payer money. He could make sure that the island chain only got its allotted eight days of sun a year. Then I’d switch things up on him and open up the area for aerial bombing practice. 

If I were a Republican today I would turn my card in. I’d look at all the stuff I’d bought with my money that didn’t trickle anywhere but into toys for myself, and count my blessings. Because the immediate past, the present, and the future is bleak for a group that began transforming itself with Nixon’s southern strategy from fans of small government and civil liberty into an angry pulsing wound of civil rights stomping jesus freak inbred porcine nihilists. A dim highly guilty collection of fat white globe raping hillbillies. They spent eight years in power slaughtering horses, turning the ocean into a sewer, exporting fear worldwide, swindling the treasury, torturing anyone with a tan or a strange name, unleashing a virus of loopholes into any policy they touched, listening to our phone calls, going through our mail, peering into colons, and disappearing anyone they didn’t like. Then, desperate to hold onto power, they cynically tried to get us to vote for an old crank-case and a sexy but illiterate librarian fantasy. 

It didn’t work though. They lost. They don’t like it. And they’re trying to blame their mess on those who are trying to clean it up and make sense of it. While their strategy of publicly embarrassing themselves isn’t working, it is still highly annoying. Like a boxer who dances around the whole time talking trash but never throws a punch. It’s all a big charade. We know the cards they hold yet they continue to bluff anyway. 

The good news is that, while this is distracting and amusing to the media – and confusing to the rest of the civilized world – the majority of people still think the Republicans are a group of sub-normals. So it won’t win them any votes. And that’s one problem they will have to come to terms with, before Nixon’s southern legacy devours the GOP in an orgy of assault weapons, crystal meth and sweet tea.

GOP Gives Birther To A Movement

When your political base is made up of the crazy and the disenfranchised and an army of Jesus freaks, you’re courting trouble. The Republicans have sought a group of people who are less credible as sentient beings by the hour. It used to be a bunch of greedy business people running around. Now it’s just flat out losers and hoopleheads. Like this Birther movement. It’s a terrible name for an even worse group of people. It’s gotten a lot of play as of late because of its foundations in the bizarre, mixed with a heavy dose of denial and no small amount of racism. There are conspiracy theorists. And then there are these bozos, who are getting a lot more attention than most fringe movements. Like that group in Ohio that believes the world will come to an end in 1986. You never see them on television. But this isn’t a conspiracy theory. It’s a disproven non-conspiracy theory. A disproven non-conspiracy theory crapped out by disgruntled unemployable ragemongers. In otherwords, voting Republicans. You can’t very well write them off as goofballs. After all, they are the future of the Republican party. And they can vote you out of office.

This is, after all, a President who fought through one of the toughest primaries in recent memory. He had to go through the Clintons, and the GOP and, well, the FBI and CIA and Secret Service, and all manner of other checks and balances to get to the office Obama now holds. It makes no sense to attack something so easily disproven. But, perhaps, for these people, the veracity of their rage isn’t as important as having an outlet for it. Its as flimsy as an argument can be. The level of disbelief or delusion involved precludes all but the completely unserious.

It’s like looking at your family and realizing, well, crap, all of the kids are eating the paint off the walls. Maybe something needs to be done. A good start, I think, would be a nice note on GOP stationary. Something official with an elephant on it, saying thanks for being on our side, but we don’t want you anymore. Please kindly move along. Because what’s the point to having a club or group of people if it’s only comprised of people you don’t really want? That’s where the GOP finds itself these days. If you were in the GOP and you looked to the left and right of you, there’s a good chance that at least one of the people on either side would be drooling or eating their belt. Sometimes you just have to throw in the towel and start over again. It looks like now might be a good time.

I Love Obama. But He Needs To Go On Hiatus

He’s all over the place. Seemingly on the cover of every magazine, the subject of every news story – whether it’s an interview or an op-ed he writes himself – and he doubles down whenever he wants to talk to the American people. When he has something to sell, it’s Obama 26/9.

But there’s only so much you can see of a person before you get bored. This guy has been in office only six months and he’s already gone on prime time more than Clinton did. And that guy wasn’t exactly shy. Three and a half years from now, if he isn’t careful, could seem like thirty. Bush never went on television. He was usually asleep by then. Plus, most of what he was doing wasn’t legal. It’s not like nothing was going on at the time either. Granted, you don’t need someone to come on television and tell you the shit has hit the fan, but nevermind.

There is something to be said for moderation. Harrison Ford was famously self-disciplined about how often he showed up in a movie. He was afraid if he took too many roles people wouldn’t want to see him any more. A Harrison Ford movie – as a result – until recently – was heralded as an event. Obama is smart. He’s a great communicator. But too much of a good thing is still too much. Americans are a fickle group of people; and our attention spans have turned to garbage. We can’t even drive anymore without sending sexts or tweeting these days. Long lasting fame is no longer an easy thing to accomplish. Now we have celebrities. And we celebrate them. Briefly. Then we celebrate savaging them and move on. 

Obama probably regrets holding a press conference devoid of details, where the only takeaway had nothing to do with health-care. Was there a health plan, Obama would have been a very good person to communicate it to us. But there was no plan. Only a faux pas. By the time there actually is a plan, we just might no longer care to tune in. Which would be a shame.

Hey Obama, Thanks For Changing The Subject

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the Republican game plan. Distraction. Distraction. Distraction. Of any form; at any time. Earlier this week it was that silly Birther thing. Now, thanks to Obama himself, we have this Gates story. It’s an unfortunate story, one without any real bad guys, but plenty of boogie men. It’s a story about our demons and the underbelly of racism that is everywhere. And reverse racism, if there is such a thing. Isn’t reverse racism still racism? Nobody knows what happened between an esteemed professor and a policemen called in to investigate a possible break in. Other than the people involved. But everyone has an opinion. And it’s all fine with the Republicans. Because it distracts people from making sure something actually gets done in Washington. Whether it’s on healthcare, or the economy, or some of our wars. Let’s talk about something else please. 

Race is going to be talked about a lot over the next four to eight years. As it should be. But it’s also one more major huge thing on the President’s plate at a time when the whole country is feeling sorry for all the self-destruction and global destruction and torture and mass murder it’s responsible for these last eight years. It’s up to our President to address all of these things. Which he ran for office to do. If we can manage to let him do it.

Next week the media will be chomping on something else. Something silly and distracting. Maybe the President’s dog is homophobic. Maybe Liz Cheney will not really mean to accuse Obama of being from outer space. 

Harsh Words

It’s an out of control trend in politics. The over-the-top harsh words to describe something silly. If you wear the wrong jeans to throw out a pitch at a baseball game, it isn’t a bad decision, it’s a “shameful disgrace.” In fact, it’s hard to read the news these days without one side or the other saying “shame on you,” for something. There’s plenty to be ashamed about in congress these days without feeling shame for your choice of tie. Maybe people do so many things in Washington for which they feel shame that they are desperate to pass some of it on to someone else. And the media is more than willing to quote the passer of the shame. To be in the mainstream media these days is to write about the purely inane and pretend it’s important. Anything deeper and it’s speculation or littered with anonymous quotes. Shame on the media for going along with it.

Birthers – Racists By Another Name

Since the charge is absolutely baseless, and being openly racist won’t get you anywhere, we have the so-called Birthers. People like Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh (who is also openly racist) and Liz Cheney –  as well as some surprisingly mainstream voices. Plus the wingnuts, like the lady in Delaware who carries her birth certificate with her in a zip-log bag. All of them are white. And all of them are 100% certain that their charges are baseless. But they can’t very well go on television and scream that our President is African American. Because we’re well aware of that. And more than a little proud. So we have to put up with pure lunacy. The lunacy is so bad that it’s gotten them more than their fifteen minutes of fame unfortunately. When you see them talking this nonsense, now you’ll know what they’re really trying to say.

Lou Dobbs: White Teeth. Black Heart.

In case you haven’t heard, crazy has reared its head again. Or taken a ride into the absurd. Obama, now, somehow, despite all odds, in the president of the United States, even though he is a citizen of Kenya. If you don’t believe me, you can see the proof here. 

http://www.opensalon.com/blog/kerry_lauerman/2009/07/20/birthers_gone_wild_he_is_a_citzen_of_kenya   

That’s somebody’s mom. And she should probably be tranquilized. Check out the roar of approval in the room, though, when the woman starts her slide into loopytown. Anyway, as these people have it, and we can add Lou Dobbs, with his overly white teeth and senile old man personality to the mix, Obama should be removed from office because he isn’t an American citizen. And somehow, because it’s all a big conspiracy, this is being overlooked. The Clintons overlooked it. John McCain overlooked it. Congress overlooked it. Rush Limbaugh overlooked it. The state of Hawaii overlooked it when they announced his birth – knowing, as they did, that he was supposed to be President when he grew up… It’s so absurd, and there’s so much proof to the contrary, that it seems to me that there are plenty of things about Obama for these nutjobs to latch onto. This one is a nonstarter. Yet you won’t see any Republicans correcting these people. Because they are the only ones left who vote for them. Nutjobs are a critical element to the Republicans current overall political strategy. It’s why Michael Steele is their spokesman. It’s why Sarah Palin is considered a front-runner to run for President in 2012. The GOP needs stark raging gas sniffers to vote for them. Bill Clinton had his brother Roger. Jimmy Carter had his brother Billy. The Republicans have their entire base. Crazies, each and every one of them. Even rich people have run screaming from the party.

The whole birth-gate flap is just silly. So it’s surprising that so-called “legitimate” people are latching onto it. Liz Cheney might be a politician, but even for a politician this is a particularly bizarre form of nuzzling the base. And Lou Dobbs. His whole show is about how nothing makes him happy. He has a voice on CNN most likely because they are afraid of him. They’ve no doubt been trying to let him go for years. Nobody wants to tell a senile old man he doesn’t have a job anymore. He might bite them with his bionic teeth. The guy’s a mess and hard to listen to no matter what side of the aisle you’re on. He’s the embarrassing uncle who gets fed in the kitchen on Thanksgiving. Maybe it’s a ratings thing. A way to get noticed in a world that has passed him by. My guess is he will be “on assignment” for awhile; followed soon by being “on vacation.” Then, well, he’ll just be gone. Stuffed into the CNN prop closet somewhere, to be replaced by Mel Gibson’s dad…

Obama has a lot of qualities and opinions that drive Republicans mad. For very valid reasons. Not being born in this country just isn’t one of them.

Cheney Knows: Lots Of People Don’t Like Dick

So does Obama. Normally, Vice Presidents disappear the minute they leave office. Unless they make a documentary or something. Unlike Presidents, they don’t get Secret Service details following them around the rest of their days. They get six months and that’s it… 

Not this time. Because Dick Cheney knows more about what he’s responsible than anyone else. He looks in the mirror and it’s probably not hard for him to picture just how much satisfaction it would bring to someone to wring his neck or force fire ants down his throat. So he asked Obama for an extension on his security. And Obama, being the nice guy, and knowing himself how much fun it would be to clobber the old geezer, granted the request. It’s an irony that the rules of secret service are changing. It used to be a fact that ex Presidents got security for the rest of their lives. Unless something changes, George Bush won’t get that perk. Which is too bad, because he’s way up there on the list of the world’s most hated. My guess is Obama will have to grant an extension to him as well. The last thing you want is to have open season on previous heads of state. Even dickheads of state. Even face shooting assbags need protection these days. More than most. Because there are a lot of out of work vigilantes out there who’d like nothing more than to take hammer and tongs to King George the Terrible and the Dark Lord of the Undisclosed Location. And who could fault the person who did? And that’s the problem. Better to keep these two safe from having to deal with the possibility of punishing someone for meting out a just punishment on a couple of clueless sadists. Like keeping Madoff in his own padded room. It’s a mess better avoided…

Congress gets more and more like the WWF every day. Screaming epithets into microphones. Hurling abuse. Spit flying. It’s only a matter of time before things turn South Korean and the fists fly… Or maybe not. In fact, my guess is, once the cameras are off, and there are no constituents within earshot, both sides of the aisle start square dancing and snorting crack. It’s in both parties best interest, at least in the minds of the people in Washington, to joust back and forth in a tightly orchestrated dance of ineptitude. To do anything at all is to garner too much attention, resulting in a backlash from the other side. Better to lay low in an out of the way beach resort with lobbyists until things calm down a bit.

There’s Nobody To Like Or Believe Anymore

That’s it in a nutshell. It’s one side against another. And they’re both lying. We tend to go for the one who is less the obvious criminal. Obama was swept into office in a massive wave of rage at the criminal junta we voted into office possibly once. Obama was everything we wanted in a politician. So long as he allowed us to project want we wanted onto him. Which he did. 

And now…what? There’s nothing of any particular good coming out of any branch of government these days. It’s an orgy of corrupted aspirations, willful neglect, and paid ignorance. State governments are breaking by the day. No money. No confidence. And no logical way out. Unless we hike taxes up to 138% for the next fifty years, we’re going to be one big I.O.U to the world for decades. 

Walter Cronkite passed away. He’s the last talking head on the television who didn’t say exactly what his boss told him to. He was called The Most Trusted Man In America for that reason. Now we just have a sliding scale of people just making shit up as they see fit. To know what’s going on is to have access to the people who tell you what they want you to say. To dig any deeper is to not have a job. The media owes it’s existence to corporations who owe it’s profits to laws made in Washington. The corporations bought Washington and they tell the media what to say. Anything outside of that system is rogue. 

Nowadays, if you were the most trusted man in America, you wouldn’t be allowed to deliver the news at all. You’d spend your whole time asking people to make sure what you were saying is factual and angrily ripping up patently false stories given to you by your editor. It just wouldn’t work. And so much for that. No, best to just go with the side you think is doing the least amount of lying or who is lying for a higher cause. It’s the way we do it now. Or we toss out everything we don’t know – which is everything – and just pick whoever is taller. George W. is the only guy who beat out a taller person for President. The second time. The first time he swiped it. It’s not a bad way to look at things really. Shorter people – like smaller dogs – tend to be quick to anger. Don’t want some insecure pug-like figure pacing around the oval office. Nope. All the policy speak and rallies and money and orations and it comes down to which guy you think has the ability to lose his shit . To react to a crisis by setting the office on fire. 

So now the honeymoon is over. It’s been five months and the new guy hasn’t fixed everything yet. We’re upside down as a country. Several trillion dollars in debt to China for letting us bomb Iraq and Afghanistan for seven years. And, we’re willing to help out so long as our taxes don’t go up and we get healthcare reform and get jobs and the government stays out of the way. Wall Street has a whole new form of toxicity to make money on, now that they know we have their back…If it weren’t all real, we could just shake all the pieces off the board and start over again with a new banker…

Our Tortured Media

It should come as no shock that, once again, the media is making a mountain out of a mountain now that they are allowed to. In other words, six years after the entire world knew America was in the torture business, it is now front page news. Usually the articles are editorials talking about how “it should be investigated!” (it already has – by lawyers worldwide and for years) and quotes about how “we don’t do that!” and just all around shock and outrage. Even though we’ve known about it for years. The media just didn’t want to get in the doghouse with the Bush administration. So they skirted the edges of the topic and dropped ominous hints on the periphery, but – with few exceptions – left the subject alone.

Alas, it’s a new day. And a new administration. The rules have changed and editors are taking advantage of the fact. Along with the steroid scandal we all knew about and the shitty cars we’ve knowingly driven for years, torture has been known, then ignored. The next outrage will no doubt also be something well known and obvious: prime time television sucks! Sarah Palin is a moron! Our kids are stupid! 

The media- and by media I am referring to broadcast and newspapers – the traditional stomping grounds of what was once “journalism.” I’m not talking about tweeting or sidewalk chalk writing or any other confounding fad of useless time consumption. These grey headed dinosaurs are losing their shirts, which is to say billions of dollars, and they are doing anything and everything to right their ships. But the problem is, they all grabbed money from companies that never had any and are no longer able to give them any. Advertising has disappeared because the products that were advertising in newspapers either don’t exist anymore, suck, or offer something nobody is buying. (Like penis enlargement powder. It was a gamble when the stock market was soaring. In a recession it’s not something the desperate feel they can currently afford.) And the corporations that bought up all the newspapers as investments no longer feel like funding them now that they’re deeply in the red. Even though it was there short-term profit mindset that drove them into the red in the first place. Like any bad company that deserves to fail, these corporations forced the hand of newspapers, giving them budgets that forced papers to let go the people who make sure things are spelled right, aren’t pure fabrications, and have some bearing on some fact at some point somewhere. Instead they used spellcheck and hired interns and porn bloggers. 

Desperation fuels insanity. Like huge forty foot font headlines screaming that the Bush administration was a pit of criminal dickwads. No! It can’t be! If newspapers and television news want to remain relevant, or aspire to actually become relevant once again, they would do well to hire investigative reporters, pay them in actual money, and have them run around looking for actual news. Actual news is not a nut job with eight tiny little babies. That’s a sociological effect of a culture that worships pure inanity. Actual news is digging up proof Dick Cheney had a torture chamber under the vice presidential lair. Not that we’ve water-boarded countless innocent people in various secret prisons around the world and that many of them had no relevant information and quite a few languished and died once this knowledge was finally realized. It’s horrible. It’s wrong. And highly ineffective. But, sadly, it’s nothing we didn’t already know. It’s time for the media to tell us something we don’t.

AIG Execs Save Economy By Returning Bonuses

There is something so simplistic by all the attention being paid these unwarranted bonuses. Do they deserve the money? No. They’re really greedy and stupid people. They probably can’t tie their own shoes. Nevertheless, the 165 million dollars their bonuses added up to, minus the thirty million returned due to death threats, are but a pittance compared to the trillion dollars in bailout funds floating around. 

Yet these bonuses are taking up days and days and days in congress, as one congressman after another gets on the microphone and yells at some guy who has only been on the job four months. You have to ask yourself why. And the answer that your brain comes up with is alarming. They’re doing it because they don’t know what else to do. They don’t want to go on record trying to help. They don’t want to attack each other. So they latch onto this lint hair of a problem and don’t let go. 

Meanwhile the economy is tanking. Banks are holding onto their money tighter than Ty Cobb. Nobody’s lending. Nobody’s spending. And people are getting laid off by the hundreds of thousands. Right now, both sides of congress are doing all they can to wage a populist battle against greedheads and making it all but impossible that any actions Obama might make trying to get us out of this mess are either made impossible or turned into an epic slog. 

And when it all goes further south, they will all turn and look at Obama as if the whole thing was his fault. He’s a socialist with a wife who refuses to wear shirts with sleeves! He’s more interested in March Madness than doing anything about the economy! He’s too cool for Washington’s sewer level fighting style!

The media and congress all have us looking at the little bitty things while the big things go undone…

Stimulating Nothing

If you listen to Republicans, all this spending Obama is proposing is outrageous. He is a socialist and the harbinger of the end of free enterprise. The democrats promote their package as a massive, but necessary, boost to the economy. Neither is correct. The truth is, our situation is such a mess that tripling the amount of the stimulus would barely fix what we’ve done to ourselves and the rest of the world. It’s ugly. It’s an economic virus that we’ve unleashed throughout the world. Other countries have already stepped to the plate and stimulated their economy. We will dither and grandstand and flail about in order to pour a cup of water in the ocean. 

We know this. Our leaders think we don’t. And I think that’s why there’s not a lot of confidence in the market right now. Washington -on both sides-isn’t showing any signs of knowing what to do. Our system of checks and balances – combined with 24/7 news coverage-make us not the most nimble of countries in times of crisis. Six months after this thing- and by thing, I mean the bedrock from whence the entire global economy relies-started to go, we’re still waiting for the starter gun to go off. Politicians go on television and make speeches for one viewpoint or another, accomplishing nothing and getting us nowhere. 

This stimulus bill will make it through congress over the protesting bodies of lots of brainwashed Republicans. But it’s not enough. It won’t do enough. And that’s the pathetic sad truth nobody wants to acknowledge.

So what if we spend a little money?

I don’t care how big this stimulus thing ends up being. For one thing, it appears to be more than merely a handout. When George Bush inherited a surplus – before 9/11 – he did what all Republicans do. He immediately squandered it. He gave everyone 300 bucks. Then, in September of this year, long after he had spent more deficit money than any President since such things have been recorded – he gave 700 billion dollars to three bald guys in New York, who then promptly disappeared. 

Our economy is a mess. Bush went on television and assured the nation that the best thing we could do, given the situation, is shit our pants. Talk about not being able to inspire. The man was a walking panic button. So people locked themselves in their homes and curled up into fetal balls and rocked back and forth…

Enter Obama. He’s been in office a month. He’s inherited the biggest pile of decaying stink in over 70 years. So he decided that he needed to stimulate the economy. But, rather than simply give money away to pigfuckers on Wall Street, he decided to create a pro-active stimulus package. Sure he’s spending money. Lots of it. Oodles of it. Millions and millions of zeros are involved. But it’s actually going towards something. And it is for this that the Republicans are pissed. In their world, a stimulus package means that they pay less taxes and have more money to spend on whores and colonoscopies. Obama wants the money to go into things that create things and add jobs and make things easier and more efficient. This is unacceptable to the right. It goes against the formula that they have relied on for decades. Cut people’s taxes and who gives a shit if you know what your doing. That’s their game plan and they’ve been working off of it forever. Well, guess what? That has come to a screeching halt. Those days are over. We all have our eyes open now. And we can see what’s going on. And it’s pissing them off. They need to either come up with an alternative solution (talk radio shows are not solutions; just noise.) or shut up and go home and count all the money they’ve stolen over the years.

This is no way to bailout anything

I like Obama. I think he’s very smart. But, because of the way politics works, he is surrounded by a bunch of extremely smart ass eating greedheads. They have been lining their pockets for years on end from the very people who have chased so much risk to line their pockets with cash bonuses for basically buying up crap and selling it as gold while knowing it was crap. Wall Street culture is as corrupt as a culture can be. They are a breed incapable of behaving in a manner the rest of the planet can understand. They go to the dentist in a rented jet. They get their haircuts in Florence, Italy. They don’t know how to get us out of this mess because their brains are no longer capable of behaving rationally. They want all the money they had back. All the imaginary money that only existed on paper. They want their shallow fuckball lives back. And if that means they use our hard-earned money to do it, so be it. If they have to break the very back of the country to keep their Hamptons house, they will do it. It’s in their nature. They can’t help it.

The problem is worldwide and huge. Congress is grandstanding over a massive stimulus package that is roughly nine hundred trillion dollars less than the amount of toxic waste banks have been using our money to buy up with such gusto. No amount of money – even nonexistent money! – can fix this mess. Banks aren’t lending because they don’t have any money. People aren’t paying their mortgages, because they no longer have jobs and couldn’t afford the houses they were talked into buying. 

This is a reckoning. Over-bloated home prices are going down rapidly. Who knows? One day they might make it all the way down to what they are actually worth. Washington and Wall Street and banks and corporations are now frantically shaking down the entire population looking for loose change. 

Building a bridge here and there won’t make up for the oceans of people who are wandering the streets in confusion, unable to pay their rent, keep their insurance, pay for their kids to go to school, and wondering where all those decades of hard earned savings went. It’s better than a kick in the head, but it won’t come close to fixing the damage that a long entrenched culture of excess and greed has wrought on each and every one of us. Not by a country mile.

This whole bailout thing is just theatre.

Change You Can Hide From The IRS

This is a hell of a way to start. After campaigning as the Elliott Ness of Presidents – vowing to clean up Washington and change the way they’ve been going about doing business for decades – Obama can’t seem to find people who can pay what they owe. It’s embarrassing. Much has been written and spoken about the level of scrutiny Obama’s job application went into. It was “unparalleled!” It was “invasive!” It was “overly thorough!” It was, apparently, “not used!” Obama, unlike his predecessor, George the Terrible, is at ease with apologizing. He likes to say, “I screwed up.” This is nice. This is a welcome change. But it will only take him so far. We are trying to get away from leaders who screw up all the time, even if they openly admit it. Obama has opened up his flank to attacks from a vicious criminal enterprise filled with venomous overfed rats. The degree of moral superiority Obama exudes, combined with the hero worship he has been receiving from a mass of people terrified that the country is falling to pieces, means Obama doesn’t have a long leash. He has a narrow ledge on which to walk. He’s orated himself into a corner.

And if he’s not careful, he’ll find himself trapped there.

GOP Resorts To Public Poop Throwing

There’s a point in many relationships – bad ones that never should have been entered into – when things go from bad to ugly. The GOP was bad during the campaign, tossing off lies and innuendos and relentlessly attacking with falsehoods. It backfired. It backfired to such an extent that many of the people who had been doing it distanced themselves from themselves. John McCain, Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee – even Newt Gingrich! – and anyone else with aspirations beyond public disdain are working hard to get away from a national party that had gone ugly early and lost resoundingly. 

Most people when they reach a point when their tactics spectacularly backfire, change course. Not the RNC. Now, as they seek to taint the President-elect with the Blogo scandal, releasing a video in which they connect the two with no evidence at all, other than a tape recording in which the scandal-plagued governor refers to Obama as a motherfucker – hardly a term of endearment that – have publicly lost their shit. They’ve snapped. They’re the guy who shows up to work wearing a diaper eating a dead squirrel and laughing. No longer lacking any sense of a moral compass, they have tacked sharply towards the insane. Publicly despised, they seek immortal infamy. In four years if they nominated the world’s largest tomato, it would not surprise. Rather than seek a way to return to public discourse they’ve chosen to be the guy who shows up to the office party covered in their own feces. It’s sad. But it’s not deserving of sympathy. Or news coverage.

A Red State With Subsumed Rage

I just got back from Florida. (They always pick a winner; even if they have to cheat.) There is something in the air when you visit a state that saw their man win. The air is easier to breathe. The people are more approachable. The beers are cheaper. And laughter is louder and more genuine.

Contrast that with Georgia, where, for reasons unclear, I call home. Georgia has a long and mixed history. It was founded by crooks. And it’s the very center of Dixie. Rebel flags. Moonshine. Shotguns. Hate. Meth. And kudzu. It’s the home of Deliverance. Which was a complete understatement of a book and movie.

On the other hand there’s Atlanta. Where a reverend with a dream changed the world and the course of our country forever.

Slavery and freedom; Civil War and Civil Rights; MLK and KKK; Saxby Chambliss and Ludacris. But for all of that history and all of that progress, underneath there is plenty of the loser’s resentment. The south lost the Civil War – but it was Georgia that Sherman burned to the ground. It was well over a hundred years ago, but there are plenty on both sides who feel it happened yesterday. Civil rights may have started it’s march in Atlanta, but it was never really taken to heart here. Black and white are largely still separated to this day. And racism’s effects show a remarkable disparity between the two…

What the hell am I talking about?

That’s a good question, and had you not asked it I might never have given you an answer. But there is a point. In Florida, turning from red to blue wasn’t all that hard. The red guy was an obvious fool and the economy was in the shitter. And the blue guy was clearly smart. In Georgia they just saw black. And they voted for or against it. They worked off an older ideology. And the majority of them lost. Some like it; many don’t. People go about their days and smile and do all the crap they do to keep the city and their lives moving forward. But there’s an underlying tension. They smile less. They eat more. Their laughs are harsher and less care free. Their eyes are a mix of fear, hostility, and emptiness. Southern Hospitality if it ever existed, didn’t find it’s home in Georgia. The New York of the south would never stand for its inclusiveness. Tomorrow many will cast a vote for a man clearly courting the openly racist. 

The pundits on television may speak of a post-racial era. But while we may have taken a large step forward, there are still plenty of people who never even put on their shoes.

Anyone Who Thinks Obama Is Anti-War Hasn’t Been Listening

There was an article in The Huffington Post, which means it was probably a post rather than an article, in which it claimed that anti-war activists feel betrayed by Obama’s cabinet picks. Obama has never said anything that would indicate that he is anti-war. What he has said, and repeatedly, is that he is against stupid wars. Like Iraq. Attacking people who haven’t done anything he has repeatedly denounced. Yet he has made it very clear that he intends to continue the campaign against those who were behind 9/11. Like Afghanistan. And, if necessary, Pakistan. He believes soldiers should only be sent into combat if they have the requisite support, protection – and there is a strategy in place and a reason for their deployment. Open-ended combat based on misleading reasons for nefarious ends lead to ultimate defeat – from within as well as without. Obama will prosecute the war in Afghanistan. Which will mean some soldiers won’t be coming home, but rather shifted to a different theatre of combat. Those who see this as a “betrayal” have simply not been paying attention. And Afghanistan may ultimately prove a much more difficult war…

Is Obama Deja Vu All Over Again?

So I’m reading this book called Nixonland. And the parallels between what was going on in the country when Nixon was running for office and what is going on now is ridiculous. Nixon promised to get us out of Vietnam. Nixon ran on a mantle of “change.” Nixon was the candidate the country fell in love with. He could do no wrong. He was a media darling. He embodied the change the country so desperately needed after four years of an unjust and unnecessary war created by a crazy Texan. The country was desperate to move beyond divisive politics. Nixon promised to bring people together. Red was Blue and Blue was Red. 

(Insight I learned: there is no such thing in politics as coming together. Politics is all about polarization. All about amplifying differences. All about harnessing resentment in pursuit of power.)

Then Nixon got into office and almost right away began making things even worse, turning his no doubt hairy and sweaty back on every promise he ever made. When the press complained, he banished them. When people protested, he paid goons to beat them up. Whenever he was insulted, he turned the insults onto a group, pitting group against group. He accused those who wanted out of Vietnam, the ones he courted, as being dangerous and un-American. He agreed to withdraw the troops, unless he felt he was endangering them. The country wept with relief. Two days later he began bombing Cambodia, even though the troops were in no more danger. 

Do things change? Or do new people repeat the same stupid shit of the generation before? Your parents tell you not to put your hand on the skillet because it will burn you. So you put your hand on the skillet and it burns you. Your dad tells you crazy chicks are fun, until they throw a knife at your head. You smile. You nod. You date a crazy chick and…you get the idea. 

I don’t think Obama is Nixon. (And even if he was, McCain was a toolbox and Palin was an outrageous dumbotron) But there is a lesson to be learned. Whenever expectations run so high based on so little, they are certain to eventually come crashing down. Also, if people truly want to come together, they can’t look to politicians to do it. That dog just won’t hunt…

Hillary Will Always Have A Bill Problem

So she ran for President for almost two years and came up just short of the democratic nomination. Now it could be that she can’t even get the job as Secretary of State unless Bill agrees to stop hanging out with creeps who aren’t in government. Or our government anyway. What does it say about our society that Hillary could raise millions of dollars in her efforts to gain the crappiest job in the world and she can’t seem to get past Bill in order to be Secretary of State? What if she had beat Obama? She surely would have beat McCain. Or maybe not, depending on who he picked instead of Palin. Would she have had to concede against herself. “Unfortunately, on a day when a woman is elected to the highest office in the land, and history is made, that same woman has to forfeit. I simply can’t fill out the forms and not get in trouble. Sorry folks!” Or is it easier to be President than it is to be Secretary of State? Obama wouldn’t be able to leap the hurdles he’s laid out for others. Bill is both a blessing and a curse. A remorseful yet helpless horndog and politician nonpareil; he is the reason we know Hillary; the reason we pity her; the reason she isn’t the Vice President; and the reason she might not get the Secretary of State job. For good or ill, there’s no escaping the man. For years he’s basked in worldwide adulation thanks to his rabidly ill advised successor. But the primaries reminded us why we were so fed up with him eight long years ago – so fed up that his vice-president didn’t even want him to campaign for him. (This seems to be a recurring theme with our two term Presidents: if you can be elected for a second term, the bile on the other side builds up to such a mass that it finally explodes right around year six. And if you happen to be FDR, you get so sick of the job you make sure nobody else will have to suffer through more than two terms.) It does seem odd though, that this could be a hurtle now if it wasn’t two years ago when she announced her candidacy for President. I guess it’s a good thing she didn’t win!

This Clinton-Obama Thing Reminds Me Of Survivor 2

Remember the second season of Survivor? When Colby easily controlled the entire show, deftly maneuvering people to do his bidding? It was a no-brainer that he deserved the million dollar prize. He was extremely smart and capable. He only made one mistake. He trusted Tina. A woman who basically tagged along on his coattails the whole time. She was a big fan of Doritos. Almost remarkably so. Almost sadly so. At any rate, the alliances frayed at the end, and Colby had to choose who he would pit himself up against for the million dollar prize. He could have picked the two jerks he’d dragged along with him, specifically for their loathsomeness. But he didn’t. He picked Tina.

And she walked away with the money. He got second place and a spate of deodorant commercials or something. But I always wondered at what weird magic Tina worked on the guy who did all the work, to get him to shoot himself in the foot right before the finish line, and see her walk away with all the money. 

Which brings me to Hillary Clinton. Obama owes a lot of his unbelievable election to the millions of people who voted against Hillary in the primaries. I don’t know much about this guy, people thought, but at least he’s not Hillary. It was more complicated than that, of course; but I think we can all agree that their relationship was rather frosty. She went negative, and threw the kitchen sink at him and even went so far as to endorse his Republican opponent at one point. But Obama plowed on, mercilessly marching ever onward to an amazing election win. 

And now this Hillary thing. He has offered her the Secretary of State job. Along with Bill. And the Clinton closet of skeletons. She hasn’t even accepted yet, and already there are leaks all over the place. They have stark foreign policy differences. If she disagrees with him, it would probably mean Bill disagrees with him. And they would both furiously leak their displeasure to anyone with a microphone. If Obama is unflappable, the Clintons are almost always flappable. Their egos are easily hurt; they take names and they hold grudges for years for the most minor of slights.

A presidential administration is not a psychological experiment. I understand that Obama has been influenced by Team of Rivals, about Lincoln’s cabinet of rivals. But that didn’t go all that well. (I saw the new James Bond movie this weekend. Afterwards I walked around pretending to be a spy for half an hour. I’m sure I looked like a fool.) Some of this, I’m sure, has to do with keeping a rival from becoming an enemy. However, I feel there are better choices who aren’t named John Kerry out there. I say: keep looking!

Obama Adds Man In White Sheet To Cabinet

Barack Obama is taking the current book he is reading, Team Of Rivals, a little too much to heart. The book is about Abraham Lincoln and how he filled his cabinet with people who disagreed with him. A team of rivals. It began with Hillary Clinton, his bitter foe during the Democratic Primaries. Then he made John McCain Secretary of the Treasury. And now he has added a mysterious KKK member to his cabinet. “Obama likes to hear all sides of an issue,” sources say. “But this is a bit much.” No word on what the man’s responsibilities will be, but he is expected to speak up often in an indecipherable southern drawl and throw frequent fits of hate-fueled rage. How he managed to fill out the job application without being immediately sent to prison is a question many want to know. His hobbies, among other things, include: frequent cat murder. 

He first came to Obama’s notice when he showed up at his front door with a pitchfork and murder in his eyes. Instead of being shot in the head, as the Secret Service suggested, Obama invited him in for a club soda and a plate of flax seed.  

Barack Obama is the President-elect of the United States. He was born in Hawaii and lives in Chicago. No word on what book he will be reading next.

What Is The Clinton’s Roof Like? Does It Have Lots Of Leaks?

Compared to Obama’s campaign, one of the most disciplined and tight-lipped in history, Obama’s Transition Team is looking like Seattle in July. A constant drip drip drip. My guess is it’s not coming from the Chicago crew. My guess is it’s either Clinton’s team – no! not us! honest!- or it was deliberate by Obama. Either way, it’s starting to look like a mistake. Bill Richardson is a much better choice in my mind. He is a politician, but he’s not as oily. And Bill Clinton is the most undisciplined ex-President ever to be unleashed on the world stage. His ego is so far out of whack it’s just silly. He’s the Jerry Buss of ex-Presidents: a perverted old man surrounded by floozies. And Bill Clinton would not be quiet in his role of the husband of the Secretary of State. While I applaud Barack Obama for his ability to create a cabinet based on a book he is currently reading, for a highly disciplined man, working with the Clintons would be like working with a twin pair of Tasmanian Devils. They are cute in cartoon form; in reality they have lots of sharp teeth. And they like the taste of blood…

What If Obama Really Does Bring People Together?

It’s something the media hasn’t really focussed too much on, what with this question about the dog looming so large, but it’s not something to be ignored. Today’s meeting with John McCain would lead one to believe that Barack Obama has every intention – for the moment – of bringing diverging people and philosophies together to get things done. This would be terrible for the media if it actually came to pass. The media makes its money by catering to the partisans of either side. It creates conflict where none exists to keep people watching. It elevates the smallest of slights into giant irreparable breeches. If there was no conflict, if people did work together for the betterment of the country, Fox News would have to report that. “Today, people on Capitol Hill once again got along.” They would have to rename themselves Fox News Classic and rerun old scandals and divisive issues from days of yore. Keith Olberman and Bill O’Reilly might even co-anchor a show. Rush Limbaugh would just have to yell about the lack of rage wafting from Washington. 

It won’t happen, of course. Too much is at stake in this country for consensus to rear its beneficial head. There are too many resentments to harness, too many constituents to coddle, too many lobbyists to satisfy, for any long-term mutually beneficial progress to be made. If you don’t believe me, just ask someone in the media.

The Mistakes Of The Right Can Be Made On The Left

Barack Obama is moving into the White House with a lot of political power and good will and hope. He wouldn’t be the first. Lyndon B. Johnson moved into the White House under similar circumstances, as did George W. Both. Both tried to do too much. Both were eventually reviled. LBJ only got through one term before he threw in the towel. He was very effective as a President, twisted a lot of arms, and got a lot of things through. But between the war and civil strife, in only four years what started as a Great Society ended with the ushering in of eight years of Nixon criminality.

George Bush suffered the same thing, with the Iraq War, and the flaunting of the Constitution, and the response to nine eleven and Katrina and the last, an embrace of Socialism. (Should we blame Texas? What is it with those Texans?) JFK, who got the ball rolling, was very cautious when it came to civil rights legislation. He was in favor of baby steps. LBJ preferred the Big Bang style: everything at once. Clinton also overreached (it’s much easier to overreach as a Democrat; Republicans tend to whine more) on health care and gays in the military.

All of this I’m sure Obama knew years ago. Which is why I think he will be more cautious than the screaming liberals of the far left would like. (The far right will scream just because that’s what they’re paid to do: and because they’re racist: they can go home and fuck sheep.) He comes into office with a lot of goodwill and international political capital; but at the same time he has to be careful, as he is the first American (as America likes to define itself, as the great melting pot) to hold the title of President. Obama didn’t panic or take the advice of the left when they all went batshit after Palin was announced as McCain’s VeeP. And he won’t panic now. Which could be weird to a party that knows no other way to be.

We must let Obama be Obama: deliberative, conscientious, honest, tough (much tougher than his personality would lead you to think), and unflappable. We must trust in his judgment and stand behind him, even if he occasionally tacks to the center or further to the right from time to time. He is our President. And he knows what he’s doing; so let him do it.

The Overlooked Reason Obama Won

In the aftermath of one of the most amazing Presidential campaigns in recent history, many have begun to try and figure out what Obama’s victory means. For some, it means the end of racism. For others, his win would not have been possible without racism. For some, he bought the election. For others, he won because of the economy. Or because McCain chose Sarah Palin. Or voters voted with their wallets. Or they voted to make a statement. All of these played a role. I don’t think Obama’s victory heralds an end to racism. And I don’t think his race helped him all that much. I think America voted for the person they thought had the best chance of helping us at a very pivotal moment. Regardless of ideology or religion or race, a majority of voters went with their gut and voted for the candidate they thought offered the best chance of improving the country. Obama won all over the place. He won the rich vote. He won the poor vote. He won with minorities. The man won. Plain and simple. He ran a brilliant campaign that struck a nerve with voters, and rode a massive wave of goodwill into an overwhelming victory. 

So let’s stop trying to diminish his achievement. He won. Pure and simple. By millions of votes. For one simple reason: he was the best candidate in the race and the best candidate we have seen in quite some time.

Obama Is Going To Drive The Media Nuts

One thing you can say about Obama, he plays his cards very close to his chest. The media and his closest advisors won’t know what he is considering until he makes a decision. Which means there won’t be a lot for the media to chew over and spin and criticize. He will absolutely drive both houses of congress nuts, as they won’t ever know quite what he’s up to. I’m not saying he will be secretive. But he won’t leak which way he is leaning on a particular issue. He has learned, and he is correct, that those around him will be compelled to argue for whatever side of an issue they think he is on. Knowing what your president wants to hear, especially if you respect him, makes it all too tempting to give it to him. However, if you don’t know what your President wants to hear, you are much more likely to give the President your true feelings. And that seems to be what Obama wants: his advisors actual thoughts on a topic. 

This is a complete reversal of the Bush administration, which told people what they were thinking and shunned those who didn’t agree with them. Obama welcomes the dissenting opinion. He seems quite capable of making decisions from a place beyond ideology. For a media that has grown over the last two years into an overly partisan group of blood hounds, digging around looking for dirt, an Obama administration could cause them a lot of pain.

Whew!

There’s a spring in my step today, even if I am in a “red” state. While I’m not convinced Georgia wasn’t flipped, it doesn’t matter. The United States – for a myriad of reasons – has validated its image worldwide. This really is the land of opportunity. The idea that has long attracted people to our shores for generations has become a reality. Seven years after a devastating blow, America has recovered its bearings. 

I fell to pieces when it happened. Snakes ran through my mind all night. Anything was possible. The youth might not have turned out. There could have been a Bradley effect. Any paranoid scenario that favored McCain found a place in my mind last night, despite the polls and the pundits and all I have seen and heard. It turned out to be exactly as it seemed. No contest at all. Not even close. With the highest percentage turnout in ninety years, the United States elected its first African American President. And I couldn’t be more proud of myself for pulling that lever and doing my part. It was a powerful moment. There was an electricity in the air as we all held our collective breath. Then: relief. And celebration. Cars honked. Revelers reveled. And joy was everywhere. It seems we are already coming together. 

Now that it’s over though, I can’t help but think: man, what a lousy job this guy signed up for. Somehow though, he seems perfectly comfortable with it. With hundreds of millions of people in the United States and throughout the world glued to their television, the man practically glided to the podium as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He owned the situation in a way that is simply astonishing. 

He promised to change the world. He already has.

Redistribution Of Wealth

This latest argument of the McCain campaign seems lacking. For one thing, we just redistributed a lot of wealth to Wall Street thanks to George Bush and years of underestimating mankind’s ability to take advantage of a situation. Greed finds a way. It’s not that Republicans think Obama is a Socialist. McCain himself in true Maverick fashion even admitted as much on Larry King. It’s that they don’t like where there tax money will be going. It’s the same argument we have every four or eight years. People want lower taxes and smaller government. Except when it comes to waging war or getting their way on domestic issues. All I know is that people are looking at their money, or what’s left of it, and what we have to show for it. We cut taxes during two wars, which we have been paying for on borrowed money from a country the right used to demonize for political gain. So called Fiscal Conservatives have been increasing the size of government 5% a year for the past eight years. The very thing they are supposed to be against. John McCain, who, in the primaries ran on the mantra “The True Conservative” could have won if he had laid out an agenda and explained to people just where Bush had gone wrong, and where he should have gone, and how he could take us there. Instead he chose to label his opponent one thing after another in order to feed the media narrative. But we are plugged into this election. We have been following it for two years now. We know when an opponent is shooting blanks. The kitchen sink approach doesn’t work. Especially if you call it that. You can’t say to the media, “We’re just going to throw all kinds of stuff at him.” It’s an admission of the emptiness of the claims. McCain would have been better served to stick to his True Conservative mantle. (Now, some will say that he isn’t a true conservative. This is true. But it’s also true that he doesn’t put his Country First.) Conservatives are starved for a Conservative candidate. But they don’t currently exist. Or they are too boring to get elected. Since 1992, the Liberals have been more conservative than the Conservatives. They either need to get back to their roots or change their names to the Psycho Party. They’ve driven the country so far off the road that a center right country could very well elect a Socialist Marxist Black White Radical Christian Muslim Black Panther Elitist Generated Crisis Inducing Wealth Redistributionist with no experience to be the next President. And they will do it because Obama used the Republicans time tested trump card against them. It’s the democrat who will be cutting taxes for most of the people in the country, taking away the Republican’s only idea.

A Day Of Reckoning?

When our founders sat around drinking vast amounts of wine and brandy and whiskey and smoking endless amounts of tobacco creating our Constitution, they established one of the most effective systems to counteract the power hungry. Checks and Balances. They created a government that used this system to counteract any one branch of government going berzerk. It has always worked. Usually the checks and balances are relatively minor. Every once in a while though, one side bypasses the system or flat out ignores it. And the checks build up in frustration…

What we might be about to witness is the mother of all checks. A massive wave of corruption, malfeasance, and violent ineptitude swept into office eight years ago, and the system has been bottlenecked. Barack Obama could burst the dam and send the criminals who plundered our coffers scrambling in retreat. It will hopefully be a lesson for Republicans. It probably won’t, of course; Republicans wouldn’t be Republicans if they could learn from their mistakes. There is a price to be paid for ignoring the will of the people. The Obama administration would do well to learn this. The danger of overreach could herald in a whole new group of criminals eight years from now if we aren’t careful…

Get Ready To Be Disappointed

Not to be a wet blanket or anything, but whoever wins today, they won’t be able to do a tenth of what they have promised. Considering the mess we’re in, and the current insatiable media landscape, there’s a good chance that whoever wins will be colossally unpopular before they ever even take office. There’s simply no way that anyone can match the media’s tendency to overhype just about everything. With McCain, at least, like Bush, he would have the benefit of exceedingly low expectations. Obama has nowhere to go but down and McCain has nowhere to go but up. The entire globe seems to be looking to Obama to save them from all manner of American ills. But it won’t be easy or even possible to fix all of Bush’s and Cheney’s eight years of nefarious deeds. 

Part of me is glad that the economy has finally cratered. It hasn’t been a working model for decades now. And I am glad that most Baby Boomers are still alive to see what they have wrought on the very kids they have been so protective of. The reason we are dealing with so much debt on such a large scale is that most Americans can’t afford the most basic of things. Healthcare, Education, Technology – all of these things have been going up at the same degree that our paychecks have been stagnating or going down. Combine that with easy credit and you have a looming disaster. For eight years we’ve had a fake economy. We’ve given jobs to people to build things that nobody can afford to live in. We’ve given jobs to people to build cars that people can’t afford and don’t even want. This is a reckoning for many industries. The money they’ve spent to game the system so that they didn’t have to evolve themselves have now come back to kick me in the ass. The auto industry needs a bailout because they have been greedy and stupid for thirty years. The airline industry needs a bailout because they absolutely suck at every aspect of air travel. Banks need a bailout because they’ve been lying and cheating the system for years. Over the years my parents have stepped in to help me when I’ve gotten in over my head. And now it’s the other way around. For the next thirty years or so, I will be the one bailing them out.

Where is the economy going? It depends on who wins. I’m an optimist. So let’s assume Obama wins. Here is my guess on where the economy will change compared to the Bush administration:

 

Current Industries of Profit Under Bush:

Oil

Military

Mysterious Interrogation Prison Building

Nation Building

Eavesdropping technology

Airplane Shoes

Right Wing Attack Propaganda

Prescription Medication For Bizarre Diseases

Morally Bankrupt Constitutional Lawyers

Money Laundering

China Money For War Borrowing

 

Profit Industries Under Obama (one would think…)

Infrastructure

Energy Efficient Cars

Broadband Infrastructure

New Technologies

Green Industries

Economists

International Relations

Community Organizing For Would Be Politicians

Morally Non-Bankrupt Constitutional Lawyers De-Breaking The Constitution

Special Prosecutors

Secret Interrogator Prison Destruction

Generic Foods

Credit Card Addiction Therapists

Stem Cell Research

Canned Soup Buying

Right Wing Attack Propaganda

 

That’s what I have so far…One question though. The Pundits have been saying that in times of economic crisis, Democrats always do better. And Republicans are famously lousy at foreign policy. So just what exactly are they good at? It seems like the only thing they’re good at is getting into office. Once they get there they usually shit on the carpet.

Nixon? Warmonger. Criminal. (2 terms)

Ford? Accidental President. Good golfer. 

Reagan? Optimist? Yes. Hair gel? Yes. Good President? Only in revisionist history. Secret wars. Debt. Went nuts at the end. (2 terms)

Bush 41. Good War. Good Fisherman. Bad Debt. Bad economy. (one term)

Bush 43. Two Wars. One based on a lie. Colossal Debt. Bad economy. War criminal. Socialist. Environmental Destroyer. Global Disgrace. Liar. (2 terms)

 

The records clearly indicate that the Republican brand has not served us well these last forty years. And yet we keep forgetting that for some reason. Let’s not do that anymore!

The Election Is NOT Over!

I don’t care what the media says. I don’t care if the entire GOP goes out and endorses Obama. I don’t care if McCain endorses Obama. None of it matters if we don’t go out and pull the lever. And the more of us do, the better off we’ll be. Even if the polls are right, and there’s no reason to believe that, and Obama is up by double digits, it’s all for naught if half of us stay home assuming he’s going to win. We need to run up the score. We need to win in as many states as we can. It has to be incontrovertible. We can’t have the Republicans whining and complaining for eight years like they did with Clinton. If Obama wins by a large margin, they will be less able to make the argument that he won by default or bought the election or whatever cockamamie excuse they come up with. 

Don’t be fooled by all the talking heads who go into detail about all of McCain’s missteps. To listen to them you would think it was a done deal. But it’s not. Nothing matters but the vote!

McCain Is An Opportunist. But A Lousy One.

John McCain often touts the fact that Sarah Palin is the most popular governor in America. Sarah Palin was – not anymore – the most popular governor because she taxed the oil companies windfall profits tax. Which she now accuses of being ’socialist.’ McCain says that a windfall profits tax is a terrible idea. He also thinks raising any taxes “on anybody” is irresponsible. Which is ironic, because he said just the opposite in 2000, when there was a budget surplus and no wars to fight. It’s hard to keep up with all the shenanigans going on. Sarah Palin claimed it was beyond naive for Obama to say he would attack in Pakistan if he had actionable intelligence about high-ranking Al Quaida suspects. Only a month ago she said the very same thing. They accuse Barack Obama of palling around with terrorists. Plural. Even though G. Gordon Liddy is a good friend of John McCain. They accuse Obama of voter fraud, the worst case of it in this country’s history, one that “endangers the very fabric of democracy.” Even though we haven’t voted yet. And fictional registered voters tend to not exist and therefore not vote. And even though John McCain’s campaign has hired a man who was once convicted of – yep – voter fraud. 

While John McCain and Sarah Palin might not know much about each other or agree on much of anything, they do have one trait in common: they are opportunists. They read the papers and watch the news and try to gauge what the public wants and then they go out and says what they think voters want to hear. Even if it contradicts their own views or what they have said mere days earlier. This is the kind of lousy political maneuvering you can get away with if you are buried in the senate with 99 other people. But when you’re out in front of the masses day after day, the positions and contradictory promises pile up one on top of the other in a giant heap. (Contrast that with Obama. While he has repositioned himself a little over the last two years, he has remained miraculously consistent.) In the end, it is this opportunistic streak that could be part of their undoing.

A Tale Of Two Palins

Depending on which web-site you read, Sarah Palin is either the charismatic new face of the Republican party or the reason McCain is sinking in the polls. New polls show that she has a lower likability rating than George Bush. And yet there are plenty in the GOP who think she should have been the one running for President. Could they both be true? I think so. I think it proves just how far from reality the GOP has drifted. They like what she stands for. They like the crowds she is gathering. They like her legs. And they seem not to care about anything else. They hate the mainstream media, perhaps, so much that they are convinced it is always wrong. They see that middle America loves her and they could care less whether she has a single brain cell in her head. 

It might not be sinking in yet, it might take a couple of years, but the GOP would do well to admit that Barack Obama wasn’t just a celebrity. The Democrats didn’t pluck him out of the ether a month ago. Snidely underestimating him could have been their biggest mistake. Their ego and natural sense of superiority caused them to see him in the most cynical and shallow light. So McCain went out and grabbed a hot governor from Alaska. Unfortunately, McCain took a lot of people’s advice – people who saw her in a similar light as they did Obama – who were attracted to her for simply tactical reasons. Or maybe they were horny. McCain’s natural disdain for Obama might have caused him to underestimate his opponent. Or he picked Palin in the midst of a temper tantrum because he couldn’t choose Joe Lieberman. And now he’s learning, probably on an hourly basis, just what a mistake it was. 

Sarah Palin is not qualified to be Vice-President. She is not likable. She turns people off in droves. She betrays a lack of education. She freely gives voice to a closed minded outlook when it comes to America as it is today. And she is an extremely polarizing figure. I’m not talking about the base, but independent voters and Democrats who were still pining for Hillary. That’s why even if she was experienced, she still was a lousy choice.

McCain’s best chance – which he probably knew instinctively – would have been to appeal to moderates and independents. Instead he catered to the base. And spent the rest of his time trying to find a balance between two entirely different group psyches. The base doesn’t like him because he’s not rabid enough. The independents don’t like him because he seems old and his running mate is a loon. 

The GOP has a choice to make. And it won’t be easy. They can either continue to cater to a shrinking group of intolerant and hyper-partisan “base” or they can pay a little attention to what is going on in the mainstream media from time to time – because, love it or hate it, sometimes they get it right! – for substance and sincerity.

Latest Obama Rumor Makes No Sense

It’s like something out of a Joseph Heller novel. The lengths people will go to not to vote for Obama are staggering. The latest one is just silly. This weekend, my mom, who lives in Florida, was canvassing for Obama. One man, driving by, screamed out his window, “I don’t bet black,” before driving off with screeching tires and maniacal laughter. That’s only to be expected. That’s what makes Florida so damn charming. But it was the answer of one registered democrat that rendered my mom speechless. “No way I’m voting for that Jew,” the man railed. Jew? Is this the latest charge? First they railed against his Christian pastor. Then they accused him of being Muslim. Now, with a straight face, he is being accused of being Jewish. Is Hindu next? I say so what? What if he is a Jewish Muslim Christian? It would be rather complicated, getting all those beliefs to work together, of course; but hey, that’s his business. If he wants to belong to three religions I don’t care. He’s not an idiot, that’s the main thing. And McCain and Palin have showed themselves to be the dopiest candidates for office in decades. The only thing keeping them in the race is the media, and their desire to turn it into an actual competition. If there were no media, Obama would probably be winning even more handily than he is. 

No doubt there will be other crazy rumors to circulate before all the levers are pulled. But this one was so absolutely absurd I had to share it.

John McCain Wants To Be President; Barack Obama Is One

Unfortunately for John McCain, he had to go and debate a person who is already a President. Calm, Steady, Smart, Gracious, Poised, Disciplined, and Unflappable. You simply can’t compete with that. You look at Obama and you see a President. You look at McCain and you see a cranky old man.

Last night was a barrage of difficult subjects and character attacks. Obama answered the questions with deep knowledge and parried the attacks in an almost overly gracious way. McCain acted as if he were the aggrieved party and Obama was the attacker. Obama chose to ignore the obvious and not pick apart the many falsehoods McCain tossed his way and rather focus on explaining his positions on a number of subjects. McCain was trying so hard to get Obama sidetracked that he sidetracked himself. He kept trying to push Obama’s buttons only to discover that there didn’t seem to be any. In the beginning I felt that Obama was too cool. When the topic of race came up he answered the question like a professor. Then, as time went on, Obama woke up and rose to the moment, and McCain flailed away and wilted. The abortion debate is when Obama took his opponent, calmly and methodically, to pieces. It was the moment that McCain gulped for air and looked at his opponent as if he’d just punched him in the solar plexus. It proved that, like the economy, domestic issues are also not McCain’s strong suit. And, since Obama more than held his own on foreign policy, it begs the question as to just what McCain’s strong suit is, aside from being cranky, making faces, blinking, sighing and tossing off lies.

Whenever McCain is asked a really tough question, he immediately answers it with no elaboration at all before changing the subject to a personal attack.

Q: “You’ve promised to cut taxes across the board and pay down the deficit by the end of your first term. With a financial crisis and two wars to fight, is balancing the deficit even possible?”

A: “Yes, of course. I can do that. I know how to do that. But listen, my opponent once bought a movie projector for a science museum…”

Q: “But how…”

A: “And can I just say this? As a man who has served his country for a lifetime, I am offended that anyone can accuse me of anything at all that is remotely bad, no matter how true it is…”

Another thing McCain likes to do is get outraged by something nobody ever even said.

Q: “You have come under scrutiny for some rather angry comments coming from some of your rallies and in your ads. Is there anything you’d like to say about that?”

A: “Sure. I will not tolerate, nor will I stand for, nor, for that matter, will I put up with, anyone to accuse my supporters of being anything but good hard working patriotic Americans. It is outrageous and offensive. To compare them to bombers…”

He takes a little criticism, that some people at Sarah Palin’s rallies have said things that went over the line, and pushes back against a criticism that was never made. I don’t know if this is a tactic or his or if his brain actively manipulates reality and twists it into something much larger, but it makes him sound incoherent and out of balance with reality.

John McCain thinks we need a steady hand at the tiller. Perhaps John McCain, when he looks at Obama, also sees a President. Maybe that’s why he won’t do it.

John McCain Needs Therapy; Barack Obama needs a Red Bull

McCain wouldn’t debate Obama, so Obama held a town hall while McCain punched Obama in the kidneys and kicked him in the balls and stomped on his foot and all the while Obama calmly looked at us as if to say, “Who is this crazy old guy? Where did John McCain go?” as he held the old bulldog demon off. He said punch me if you want, but I’m here to talk to the people who matter. Obama was unflappable and utterly charitable to a fault. He could have attacked Sarah Palin but did not. McCain said so many objectional things in such a rapid fire fashion it was mesmerizing. Here was a guy who did precisely the wrong thing. He lied and attacked and said the same junk he says every day. He played himself right into Obama’s hands, showing a temperament that would disqualify him from family dinner, much less running the country. The man was exploding inside! He’s a seething mass of a petty brat. The reason he’s such an asshole was he didn’t get his way!

It could all come down to Joe the Plumber’s taxes. But I doubt it. It was a bad gimmick that Obama felt he had to hokily take up. Never mind that Joe the Plumber is related to Charles Keating, one of McCain’s old running mates…

These pundits are nuts, of course. On both sides. You watch the thing and then you hear these dummies talk and they have no idea what the reality is. John McCain went down in a blaze of dishonorable attacks that were long ago debunked. He was Jake Lamotta. Now. An aged demented old boxer who should have retired long ago. He was out on his feet, sucking air, after the first half hour; the only reason he didn’t go down is Obama was charitable enough not to knock him down. He parried and held his own as McCain repeatedly worked to defeat himself. 

After the debate, McCain’s guy – that pinched face lobbyist for Freddie Mac – is on having to tell us what McCain would have said if he hadn’t had a temper tantrum. This guy talks just like McCain and Palin! They are masters at the long preface to the question they have no intent of answering.

I don’t know if McCain planned to go on the attack, but once he did, he was toast. He couldn’t let it go and he seemed petulant and vindictive and about as far from Presidential as an old man can get. If this was planned, it was a terrible strategy. It was the exact opposite of the right thing to do and while it made for riveting television – wow! look at that cranky old man! – it thoroughly demolished any chance of him competing in this race for the Presidency.

Prediction – Third Debate Numbers Will Be Low

From my sources, who did not ask to be anonymous because they don’t know they are my sources, it would appear that this third debate will not be a game changer. Because I don’t know anyone who will be watching it. They’ve already decided. Nothing either side could say tonight will change their minds. Which is good, because neither candidate is likely to say anything interesting anyway. My guess is they will stick to their talking points and spin the questions to what they want to say. Which means no game changer. Both candidates have been basically excellent at being boring. Sure, McCain makes his disdain and inability to make eye contact known, but that’s neither here nor there. Ayers could come up, which would only be a game changer in the sense that independent voters who are desperate to figure out who will do a better job to help them during this Republican created disaster movie called the United States would collectively hurl their televisions out the window in disgust. The base won’t see the campaign, of course. They don’t own television sets because they hate the mainstream media. And they like burning books instead of reading them. And they’re going to vote for the white guy anyway. And his hottie running mate. Basically, here’s how the voting will break down.

A) People who want the economy to improve and want to get out of Iraq and want to improve our standing in the world and want steady leadership and thoughtful debate. (lots of people)

OR

B) People who think Barack Obama has a funny name and think Deliverance is hilarious and like the fact that their house is made by Dodge. (not that many people)

 

Eventually I will stop writing about this. But it will take time. This has been the most bizarre and ridiculous campaign in modern political history. There have been more mistakes and poor decisions and impulsive attacks and wastes of money in the McCain campaign than you would think possible. If he led the country the way he has led his campaign, we’d be screwed. Er, more screwed.

Obama has everyone pursuing the same goal with focus and dedication and solid strategy. They stick to their talking points and they are consistent. If he led the country the way he has led his campaign we would get exactly what we need desperately right now.

 

You know who should moderate a debate? Jesse Ventura. That guy asks a question and you don’t answer it you get body slammed. I say this because if things continue the way they are, the cable news is in for a massive let down. They seem hell bent on keeping the race as close as possible. Whenever one candidate falls behind they attack the other one until they can catch up, then giddily explore what is going on using big maps. But, alas, it seems the party is over for them…not that there will be an absence of anything to cover. There’s plenty of things! Wildfires. The stock market. And that pesky ten billion a dollar non war in Iraq along with a spiraling crisis in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The race may be coming to an end but when it comes to crazy anxiety producing news, they’ll have plenty of material to work with.

Another Day Another McCain

Well, this being Monday, John McCain came out with a new strategy and tone. Last week he was a hate monger and socialist. Before that he was the Maverick. Before that he was the anti-earmark guy. Before that he was the reformer. Before that he was the lying ads guy. Before that he was the change guy. Before that he was the guy who loved the media and referred to them as his “base.” Never has a candidate worked so hard to make himself look exactly what his opponent was claiming about him. If John McCain is anything, “erratic” is certainly one of them. He lurches from subject to subject like Nick Nolte on six tabs of Xanax, reversing himself, stepping all over his official positions and contradicting those who are supposedly running his campaign. My guess is they’re right about what he is supposed to think, only McCain, like a true maverick, changes his positions depending on where the sun is in the sky, how many cups of coffee he’s had, or what the change he jangles in his pocket says to him. 

His opponent is the polar opposite. Barack Obama’s message hasn’t changed hardly at all. He just says the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over in a mechanical fashion. Sure it’s boring. But it’s reliable and steady. And you know where he stands. And that is his great gift. He has steadily marched forward with great discipline. Unruffled. Unflappable. As his opponents, one after another, have struggled desperately and frantically to keep up. They talk about leadership and readiness. He shows it and exhibits it. 

The GOP strategists are similar to Barack Obama. They are very good at getting their message out. Unfortunately it’s the same stuff they say about every Democratic candidate that has run against them since 1988. They claim Barack Obama is the most liberal senator in Washington. Which they also said about John Kerry. And Hillary Clinton. And John Edwards. And Ted Kennedy. How they all can hold the same title is beyond me. They hammer away at how democrats will raise taxes. Despite all evidence to the contrary; well, except for really rich guys. And then, it’s not that he’ll raise it so much as he’ll let the irresponsible Bush tax cuts lapse. They attack on patriotism and make up the facts to back it up. They’re in a rut. And those recycled messages simply aren’t gaining traction this time around. McCain knows they need new ideas. But it seems neither he nor his party are prepared or willing or able to come up with any.

“General Petraeus Just Doesn’t Get It”

John McCain didn’t say those exact words. Not about Petraeus anyway. He can’t. He has a man crush on Petraeus. As well he should, for helping to calm the ethnic tensions in Baghdad and keep our occupation from spiraling completely out of control. No, McCain said those words about Barack Obama for saying he would sit down with our enemies without preconditions. Obama never said he would sit down at the Presidential level right away, and he never said he would sit down without a game plan first. McCain shook his head and claimed that Obama just doesn’t get it. Palin, naively it turns out, said it was “beyond naive.” Which is an expression McCain uses quite frequently, and like a trained parrot, she has obviously picked up on. 

Now, it seems, General Petraeus has gone and said the same thing. “You have to talk to your enemies,” he told The Heritage Foundation. He went on to say, “The British know this well. They’ve sat down with thugs throughout their history. Including us, I believe.” A very well made point. The same point Obama has been trying to make, only Petraeus did it better. Obama would be well served to quote the General should McCain bring it up again. “Are you saying you disagree with General Petraeus, the man you claim to put your faith in? Because we are both saying the same thing. If I’m beyond naive, and he’s beyond naive, then maybe being beyond naive is what we need right now…” Or something like that…

Republicans Voting For Obama?

You betcha. But not because they know John McCain is a deranged old coot. They know that, of course. But they also know that whoever gets the White House will have to be the bearer of four years of bad news thanks to George The Terrible and that Dick who lives underground and spends his time shredding the Constitution. I know many Republicans who are voting for Obama for strategic reasons. Some of them also feel that McCain would muck things up even more. The Republicans are retreating, so they can reorganize and lick their wounds and hide their loot. I also think they know they’ll lose anyway so they might as well distance themselves from what they see as a loser ticket.

Good Thing McCain Didn’t Get His Town Halls

It’s obvious why Obama never agreed to McCain’s suggestion that the two meet in a highly controlled atmosphere filled with a highly vetted group of people to read their “questions” off of cue cards handed out before the debate. Not only is it a snooze fest; it is contrived beyond all get out. It wasn’t because – as perhaps McCain wanted people to believe – that Obama was running scared. It’s probably because Obama knew he had a lot of work to do and that didn’t involve boring people to death. I firmly believe that if Obama had debated McCain in town halls around the country, we would have learned much earlier just how cranky and out of touch and out of his depth McCain apparently is. It was also a rope a dope. Because on McCain’s favored turf, Obama beat him decisively. My favorite part is when McCain accused Obama of not understanding foreign policy. After the first debate, it was a pretty good bet he would repeat himself again. He repeated himself twice just during last night’s debate (“I’d cross the aisle just like Reagan and Tip O’Neill…) Obama was ready. “You’re right. I don’t understand. I don’t understand why we went to war with a country that had nothing to do with the attacks on our country…” Then he hit McCain with his infamous “Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran” song. McCain was clearly surprised. It could be he doesn’t quite understand how technology works. That things aren’t immediately forgotten just because he forgets them. He stumbles and then lied and said it was a joke he told to a veteran friend of his. It was really said at a public rally. And, while he loves the word “friend,” to say that those several hundred supporters were all his one veteran friend seems, well, impossible. That’s what McCain does though. When he’s cornered, he starts making stuff up until he can squirm away. Unfortunately, the world is a different place now. You can’t lie and get away with it. Cameras record. Papers print. And the Internet keeps track of it all. Go on Youtube and you will easily find all manner of recorded sound bites of McCain contradicting himself on every subject a politician can possibly be asked about. The more we see of McCain the less we like. Obama gave him a gift by turning down those town halls.

McCain’s New Strategy: Appeal To The Blind

McCain’s camp is now trying to paint Barack Obama as a risky choice for President. This argument might work better if the other choice wasn’t a Republican named John McCain. It might work if we weren’t in the middle of a global economic meltdown accidentally orchestrated by the man who John McCain chose to be his economic advisor. It might work if John McCain didn’t still insist, despite every piece of evidence known to man, that we are winning the war in Iraq. It might hold water if he didn’t laugh like a maniac at the idea of going to war with Russia. It might work if Americans didn’t have the ability to remember what a person says. Unfortunately, those facts simply don’t work in his favor. Which means the risky choice is not Barack Obama, but John McCain.

I’m Bitter. Are you?

It was not all that long ago, during the primaries, when Barack Obama made his unfortunate comment that voters in rural areas are bitter and don’t believe politicians, and so they vote for issues other than the economy, and “cling to guns and religion.” Well, guess freaking what? That is exactly what’s going on. I don’t know about you, but after last week’s economic meltdown, and the 700 billion dollar bailout, and job losses mounting, and failing infrastructure, and an auto industry that hasn’t evolved in thirty years, and shitty airlines, and empty foreclosed houses as far as the eye can see, I am precisely bitter. In battleground states that tend to be white and blue collar, what are they asking Obama and Biden? They want to know if Obama will take their guns away (he won’t); they want to know if he’s a secret radical Muslim (also no), even as they criticize his pastor (who is Christian). I still see this comment dredged up on comment boards all the time, and I have to wonder why. It’s not that bad a comment. And it just so happens to be true. I don’t know anyone who isn’t extremely bitter about where the Republicans have taken this country. Even though he had plenty of flaws and a fondness for fat chicks, Bill Clinton handed over a country in pretty decent shape. There was a surplus, for example. A word we probably won’t be using for the next six thousand years. No wars. We were the world’s only superpower. We had more jobs. And most people were doing a lot better than they are right now. So let’s leave that comment alone. It’s completely irrelevant. Then again, maybe that’s why Republicans keep bringing it up…

Newsflash: The U.S. Is Killing Civilians in Afghanistan

Call the truth treason if you want, but that has happened all too often. And for the very reasons Obama mentioned in the quote that has just been mangled by the McCain Junta and his ever more annoying pit bull. Obama was explaining the need for more troops in Afghanistan, and how Iraq took valuable resources from the region. All true. Facts. Verified. Look it up. We’ve killed huge numbers of civilians over the last six years in Afghanistan. Not on purpose. But it has nevertheless happened. The result is terrorism has never been such the growth industry it is today. Jihad is more popular than Starbucks thanks to us.

Let’s look at it another way: a group of fringe religious nut jobs from the United States go and blow something up. Next thing you know bombs are falling from the sky, in cities all over the country; tanks are moving through Times Square, our arms are taken away (That’s right Southerners! Your arms!) and if you make a stink about it you are disappeared into detainee centers and left to rot. Would that make you happy or angry at your new occupiers? Would you want to help them or hurt them?

Just putting it out there. Put that in your moose pipe and smoke it!

McNasty getting McNastier

Has anyone else noticed that John McCain is saying exactly the same thing that Obama is, only doing it a week later? After McCain went on an orgy of false and misleading ads, Obama went out and called McCain a liar. Now McCain is doing the same thing. The only difference is McCain was lying and Obama was not. Now he is accusing Obama of going around making up false ads about him. Now he is asking Who Is The Real Barack Obama? Basically, he is taking all of the questions people have about McCain and trying to use them on Obama. Which is just plain desperate and silly and obvious.  He is now campaigning as if he is a complete unknown; as if we don’t all know that his Maverick brand and love of honor are all a bunch of hooey.

It wasn’t that long ago that McCain was outraged when a Republican group in North Carolina was using Reverend Wright to attack Obama. And, low and behold, now that he’s dropping like a rock in the polls, and for good reason, he is using his pit bull to go after Obama. And she’s using Reverend Wright, of course. A month ago the McCain campaign pretended to be outraged that Obama claimed they would paint Obama as not being like them. Yesterday Sarah Palin said those very words. He is not like me. He is not like you.  

McCain doesn’t seem to realize that he has gone against the very things that drew people to him. He didn’t win the Republican primary by being a right wing nutjob. He won because he was seen as a moderate, and thus, not like Bush. Then he went and hired Bush’s entire goon squad and more or less ruined his chances of winning. It was Schmidt, Karl Rove’s protege, who foisted Sarah Palin on the McCain campaign. Which is sort of like asking Superman to fight crime with Kryptonite. The theory was that he needed to appeal to the Republican base. While that may be true, what they didn’t realize is that the Republican base, made up of evangelicals and low information voters, is too closed off from the rest of the world and they have lost track of just how extreme they come across. Sarah Palin comes from Alaska, in a highly evangelical area of that state. To others like her she is a breath of fresh air. To the rest of the world she comes across as the same incurious right wing wacko that has been mountain biking around a ranch in Crawford, Texas, into the ground. 

This is not a culture war election. The world is on a precipice right now. And we need an administration that doesn’t need to look that word up.

McCain Campaign Vows To Go Negative

After months of negative campaigning and non-stop attack ads directed at Presidential rival Barack Obama, John McCain’s campaign, dealing with dwindling poll numbers, have vowed that it’s now time to go negative. “Unfortunately, it’s time to abandon the high road and get in the mud,” the campaign declared. The campaign so far has run a campaign exceptional for precisely how negative it has been. And yet, despite this, McCain’s people believe they can go lower. If it’s broken, why fix it seems to be the mentality McCain is now employing. If something is clearly not working, they feel, might as well keep doing it. It seems to be the only option left for a man who is famous for going off the rails and losing sight of the very integrity he holds so dear. So that he can write a book and apologize. His new book, HOW I SHAMELESSLY THREW MY INTEGRITY OUT THE WINDOW, is already written and do out in time for Christmas.

Republican’s knew about Ifill’s book all along

It is no secret that McCain’s campaign is made up of scheming crooks. Manipulative liars of all disciplines. It’s also no secret that they know Palin is a terrible liability. They have done their utmost to hide her away any time she isn’t reading off a teleprompter. So we are supposed to believe McCain and his campaign when they announce outrage that the moderator of tonight’s debate is writing a book about race and politics? As if they have just learned this? Come on! They have the collective integrity of a demonic troll. Their entire campaign has amounted to nothing but false outrage, gimmicks, lies and cheap shots. Yesterday I was a little worried when these guttersnipe right wing spin doctors went on television and downplayed Ifill’s selection. Whenever they don’t complain about something, it’s a good idea to look around you and make sure your wallet is still in your pocket. Obviously, when the details of this debate were being drawn up, a debate in which the McCain campaign fought tooth and nail to eliminate any back and forth between the two candidates, knowing it could do them no good at all, they were probably overjoyed to okay Ifill to be the moderator. That way, if Palin trips all over herself and flails about like a fish in a frying pan, searching for keywords in a sea of gibberish, the McCain campaign can cry foul and claim moderator bias. Of course, the Democrats should have seen this coming. To low info voters, who probably won’t even watch the debate, the details will sound like a conspiracy. Yesterday McCain claimed it wasn’t a big deal. Today he claims it is. Now that it’s too late to do anything about it. Wonder if he’ll try to suspend her debate? Anything is possible with McCain. Nothing is beyond his crooked ways. We’ll just have to see what happens…

The Problem With Low Info Voters.

The problem is, of course, that they seem to be morons. They both claim to not have enough information about the candidates while refusing to try and receive new information about the candidates. For some of us in more populated areas of the country, the idea that you could not know anything about these two candidates seems downright loony. For those I will remind you that Hee Haw was a very popular show for many years. So was Walker: Texas Ranger. The truth is that these people seem to stubbornly oppose learning anything about the candidates so that they can complain about not knowing anything about them. “I just don’t know about either one of them.” One will say, bypassing the Time magazine with John McCain and Barack Obama on the cover in favor of the latest issue of Juggs. Perhaps that’s why we are exposed to the ridiculous sight of John McCain on the Rachel Ray show. Perhaps it’s time they show up on Wheel of Fortune or Bassmasters. There are vast swaths of the country where Country music is the only music and moonshine is served with dinner and you have to wash your hands before diving into your boiled Muskrat. It’s a sad state of affairs. If you get lost in the middle of nowhere and ask for directions, you will be surprised to learn that you know your way around the place than the very people who live there. “I ain’t never gone past this yere mailbox in my whole dang life. No Sirree.” It is these people who the candidates are courting. Not themselves of course. That would be dangerous. These people are extremely paranoid. Their self imposed isolation has played with their brains to such an extent that they see everyone and everything as a threat. Their homes are often booby trapped and filled with exotic wildlife. In their backyards, where the meth is made, is where they hold the unfortunate UPS man who delivers to their address by accident. 

 

I think these people should just not vote at all. What’s the point in voting if you don’t want to learn anything about who you’re voting for? It’s the right of every American to vote. It’s a right that very few people on this planet have. And it’s a sad fact that only about 40% of us actually choose to even do it. If you do choose to vote, then you should certainly go to the trouble of figuring out who that person actually is.

Vote For The White Half.

It can no longer be ignored that race is playing a part in this race. When it comes to the issues that matter to most people in this country, Obama comes out way ahead. On the economy. On Iraq. On taxes. On health care. On who cares the most about regular people. On everything but the color of his skin. And because of this, the polls are closer than they have any right to be. 

 

They never say this, of course. They’ll say they don’t know him or can’t relate to him or don’t trust him or aren’t sure about him or claim he’s a Muslim or he doesn’t share their values or he will raise their taxes or any other thing they can think of. Because they don’t have the courage to come right out with the sad truth: they don’t want to vote for him because he’s black. 

 

It’s sad and pathetic and ignorant. But there you go. So, for any of you reading this, of which there are none, because you’re mind is already made up and you are probably going out of your way to avoid learning the error of your ways, I suggest this: Vote For The White Half, you bigoted fools. And vote for your wallet. Vote for your future. Vote for the smart guy with the smart running mate. Vote for sound judgment. If you’re ashamed to admit that you don’t want to vote for him because he’s black, I say vote for him and be ashamed that you did. That would make it better for all of us. Even you.

John McCain Accidentally Endorses Obama at Ohio Rally

Yesterday, Senator John McCain, perhaps realizing his Presidential chances were dwindling every second, took the unusual step of endorsing his rival, Senator Barack Obama. “We need a President,” McCain said, “who will tell the American people the truth.” McCain’s chief strategist immediately released a statement flatly denying that McCain said such a thing and accused the microphone that recorded the words as being an inanimate member of the liberal elite. “That microphone should be ashamed of itself,” the statement continued.