Parodies Lost

Political Morality - When Simple Just Won't Do

Come, let us all celebrate the new spirit of bipartisanship that's sweeping the land. The air is cleaner, the water tastes like it came from a mountain stream, poverty is being erased, global warming has been tamed, the economy is robust. And, inside the beltway, one sees a new spirit of compromise and cooperation that makes it a snap to resolve thorny moral/political issues such as the right of medical providers to not engage in practices that violate their religious or moral views.

For example, just Saturday, The Washington Post reported on the administration's rollback of a Bush administration regulation protecting health care workers who didn't want to perform abortions or engage in other medical practices they found objectionable.

"We've been concerned that the way the Bush rule is written, it could make it harder for women to get the care they need," said an HHS official who spoke on the condition of anonymity for the same reason. "It is worded so vaguely that some have argued it could limit family-planning counseling and even potentially blood transfusions and end-of-life care."

Okay, that's reasonable, right? The Bushers were too extreme. Let's find common ground

Interested parties from across the political spectrum reacted to the announcement with a refreshing and long awaited tone of reconciliation and good will, all seeking a reasonable solution to this latest regulatory Gordian knot. The administration noted that people have 30 days to comment on its action, and that they're willing to compromise.

Don'tcha just love that word -- compromise. Makes ya feel all warm and fuzzy inside like ya just swallowed a large, hairy caterpillar, and it's dancing in your belly.

Consider the thoughtful comments of David Stevens, head of the Christian Medical & Dental Associations: "It is open season to again discriminate against health-care professionals. Our Founding Fathers, who bled and died to guarantee our religious freedom, are turning over in their graves."

Or, on the other side, look at how willing some are to seek regulatory changes that meet all needs. "Our general feeling is this was an area that does not cry out for further clarification," said Marcia D. Greenberger, co-president of the National Women's Law Center. "I would be skeptical."

Yes, Obama Nation has brought us beyond the dark and divisive politics of extremism and ideological purity to a new world of — well — extremism and ideological purity. But it's different, right? I mean, you can just feel the love. Oh, my fellow Americans, be the love. (Without sex, of course.)

So here we are, trapped in a moronic debate over something the solution to which is too simple for complex minds to comprehend. Ladies and gentlemen of the far left and right, get a fucking life, please — for all our sakes. If nothing else, you're boring most of us to death, and there's not much worse a condemnation of anyone than being called boring.

It is simple, you melon-brained barbarians. I will spell it out in simple language even a member of Congress can understand.

1. No health-care workers shall be required to perform any procedure or engage in any activity they believe violates their moral or religious beliefs. Is that so hard to understand? Can any sentient being think this wrong? And for you pragmatists, would you really want health care from someone acting under duress? Getting treatment is scary enough these days--why make it worse?
2. All medical professionals have a fundamental, moral responsibility to see that patients receive the treatment they desire. Is this too complex for you? You may not approve of abortion, and it's your right to say no, but, as a member of the medical community and a member of society, you cannot impose your moral or religious views on others. Think blood transfusions are evil? Okay, that's cool, if weird. But recognize that others may not share your belief. You chose this job knowing the responsibilities to patients it requires. Just say no and pass them on to someone who says yes.
3. Ergo (Latin for "If you don't get it, pound rocks), all those identified in number 1, above, must ensure that those patients are referred to appropriate health-care providers in a way that makes it easy for them to receive treatment. Show them the same respect you're being showed. It's your ethical responsibility to see that the hand off happens before you relieve yourself. No sending people to clinics in Lithuania; no lectures, pamphlets, or spitting; no pretending to be deaf.

Any institution that tries to force people to engage in stuff they find yucky is in violation of the law and shall be punished accordingly. Any health-care worker who gives a patient a referral slip written in Tagalog shall be warned. Subsequent infractions could result in fines, reassignment, dismissal, or being tarred, feathered, and run out of town on a rail.

This approach does require a modicum of maturity and mutual respect. Aye, there's the rub. But, we hasten to add, this rub is no longer abrasive in our president's new world. Smile on your neighbor. Tear down that wall. Take an Indian to Lunch.*

We all know that Congress, activists and do-gooders, extremists from across the political spectrum and the media hate, simply hate simplicity. Boys and girls, how can they do their jobs if problem resolution was as simple as being reasonable and respectful? Congressional sessions would last weeks rather than the three months they're actually in session. Activists and religious purists would find themselves in the Sahara fund-less desert. And the media would be left with nothing to report.

Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I ran the D.C. office for an international public relations firm. We handled some controversial issues, and there was one inviolate rule: If we're hired to work on an issue or for a company that you find objectionable, you have the right to say no, and no one would think the worse of you for it. Quite the opposite, I made it clear that I had a lot of respect for those who had the courage to refuse an assignment. I also made it clear that if one refused all assignments on ethical grounds, then we'd probably sit down and talk about helping one find other employment.

It worked. One of my best people told me he couldn't work on a controversial environmental assignment. As associate director, I told my boss that I wouldn't work for a certain company with a history of abusive employment practices in Asian sweat shops. And virtually no one would work for tobacco companies.

See, the spirit of Obama lived back in the '80s and '90s. Shows you just how powerful this guy is. I mean, back then, he was in Indonesia or something.

So let us all join hands and do the Snoopy happy dance in celebration of our brave new world. Or as the French would say, Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose, or the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Ah... to have reached the mountain top.

*Stan Freberg's album, The United States of America, The Early Years

In Jameson Veritas*

 

*Now, I must confess, a paid political announcement.

Technorati Tags: abortion, bipartisanship, Bush, health care workers, morality, Obama, politics
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Bush And Obama: What Transpired in the White House

President-elect Barack Obama made his first visit to the White House at the invitation of George Bush.  Although reporters were kept away from the meeting, and the two offered no remarks after the visit, your intrepid reporter has sources deep inside the presidential mansion and has learned much of what transpired between the two former adversaries. 

In addition, one can learn much from the media stories flooding the already besogged public brain sewers.

 

One news report noted that “Bush and Obama strolled down the White House colonnade side by side, chatting amiably.”

 

The walk was not as innocent as it might have seemed, a fact not lost to the nation’s media.  “A few minutes after the couples entered the White House together, Mr. Bush and Mr. Obama reemerged and strolled along the colonnade past the Rose Garden to the outer entrance to the Oval Office. Mr. Obama walked just at Mr. Bush’s shoulder and appeared to be speaking animatedly, gesturing with both hands. Each of the men waved several times to reporters and others off camera.”

As followers of the series, “West Wing,” will already know, that outside area is where presidents sneak out for a smoke or a quick hit off a flask.

 

“So, Barack, can I call you Barack?” asked the president.  Barack nodded and smiled, and George continued.  “This here area is the most important part of the part of the White House you’re going to have, you know?  Like, when you want to cage a butt from one of your aides, this is the place to go.” 

 

Bush looked around to make sure his wife, Laura, wasn’t within ear shot.  “She’s got ears like a fox,” he said.

 

“All wives do,” agreed the newcomer to world dominance.  “If I even think about a smoke, Michelle starts hollering.”

 

“Well, this is the place,” Bush said before they went into the oval office.  “By presidential decree, women aren’t allowed here.”

 

“What about blacks?” Obama asked.

 

“Old Harry Truman integrated the colonnade walk,” he said, “back in ’46, I believe.”

 

“Good man,” Obama said.

 

“For a Democrat, you betcha.”

 

After carefully examining this sanctuary, Obama said he was ready for the big moment:  The Oval Office.  Perhaps most significant, “Bush allowed Obama to enter the historic office first.”

 

“Someday, Barack, all this will be yours,” Bush said, “so you might as well get a good look without me being there, you know, doing a standing in your way thing or a quick Texas two-step.”

Josh Bolten, Bush’s chief of staff, let slip that, "I know the president will want to convey to President-elect Obama his sense of how to deal with some of the most important issues of the day."

 

For example, it is well known that first time visitors to the Oval Office often stand dumbstruck in awe of the history that pervades that hallowed space.  “Unlike the incoming president, Bush knew his way around the Oval Office by the time he was elected in 2000 — his father had been president.” 

 

Sources tell this reporter that President Bush carefully pointed out the areas of the office that had no angles. 

 

“When you’re bouncing off the walls,” the president told the president elect, “be careful where you’re aiming.  If you hit this curvy-type wall at the wrong angle, you can wind up bouncing off at the wrong angle, kind of like a billiard ball thing.”

 

Obama carefully examined the walls, nodding.  He thanked the president and took a couple of trial runs at the walls to get a sense of where he’d wind up.

 

The president then showed his replacement the executive wash room, the chief of staff’s office, and his secretaries’ room. 

 

“These secretaries are pretty liberationated, you know,” said the president.  “I got into a mess of trouble in the beginning—I mean, trying to learn the names of all these people.  Heck, it was hard enough learning the names of all those foreign-type people.  What’s with the lack of vowels in some of those names?  And so long.  Bush, Obama, Brown—those are easy names.

 

“Anyway, so I just started giving the girls nicknames—you know, blondie, boobs, big hair, stuff like that.  Jeeze, you’d think I’d declared war on…well, never mind about that.’

 

Obama asked if the secretaries would wear names tags.   He was disappointed when told that would be a bad thing.

 

And so the first meeting between these two titans ended.  As your intrepid reporter learns, you will be the first to know.

Technorati Tags: Bush, Obama, Oval Office, politics, satire
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Obama’s First News Conference: Questions We Wish They’d Asked

Is there a group more trapped in the world of hysterical obviousness than the presidential press corps?  Obama was called cautious in his responses by The Washington Post.  Perhaps that’s not the right word.  Bored brainless might be better.  Every question, regardless of whether it was on foreign or domestic policy, had a hidden assumption that this guy was already the president, even though he had rightly opened his remarks by saying he wasn’t the president, that there was only one government and one president.

 

And the media not only missed Obama’s brilliant self-parody answer to the “dog” question, they actually treated it as another example of his wonkish self control and caution. 

 

Oh what might have happened if the reporters had asked real questions?  Let’s find out?

 

Q:  Senator Obama, is it true you’re going to have cosmetic surgery on your ears to prevent the possibility of being carried away by a really blustery wind?

 

Obama:  Well, Michelle and I have talked about it, but, remember, I’ve spent many years in Chicago where blustery winds are considered the norm.  It’s true I once was walking along Lake Michigan and an unusually strong wind lifted me up and dumped me into the water, but my ears served as sails, and I safely got back to land.  So, the answer is no…although I will work hard to keep feathers out of my nose.

Q:  Senator, you’ve promised a chicken in every pot, a car in every driveway, and a home for every American.  Good campaign stuff.  We know you couldn’t tell the American people the truth while running for office.  Look what happened to McCain when he said we’d have to revisit Medicare spending.  But now that the campaign is over, what sacrifices are the American people going to have to make?

 

Obama:  (Turns to aid.  “They can’t unelect me, can the?”  Aide:  No, sir.)  Let me just say, Oy, vat a mess.  You vouldn’t believe the mishegas.  I just got an in-depth intelligence briefing, and, let me be honest, had I known what was really going on, I might have blown those three debates.  And the economy, don’t get me going on that.  Standing behind me are fifteen of the world’s best economic minds, and they can’t even agree about the shape of the table they’re supposed to be sitting at.  And the beggars at my door—I feel like the Pope on Let The Beggars In Day at the Vatican.  Car makers, insurance companies, banks, union leaders, former Lithuanian secret service agents, girl scouts, the homeless, the tired, the poor, rich whites, poor whites, Congressional Democrats…what am I, a free lunch counter? 

For God’s sake, we really are a nation of whiners.  Let’s be real, Americans are going to have to cinch in their belts—if they have them.  If not, tie that rope tighter around your waist.  It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

 

Q:  Mr. President-Elect,  on the Daily Show recently, you admitted that your white side and black side are often in conflict.  You spent an awfully long time in the voting booth.  What really did happen in there?  Which side won, and for whom did you finally vote?

 

Obama:  I won’t lie to you, it was a difficult moment.  I wasn’t sure who was going to win until the last moment.  The white side of me was winning, and my hand was hovering over the McCain button, but my black side rallied and called out, “Yo, there be a picture of Sarah Palin naked.”  My white side whipped around to see it, and my black side quickly voted for me.  Phew.

 

Q:  Follow up, sir.  How will that affect your decisions when you’re president?

 

Obama:  That’s an excellent question, and I’m grateful for the chance to speak directly to the American people about this issue, for it’s not a problem that I alone with which must grapple.  Italian Americans struggle with the choice between pasta and rice; Japanese Americans wrestle with the maddening challenge of cooked or raw fish; Jewish Americans…well, they already eat lots of bacon, so they’ve resolved that; Irish Americans try to drink bourbon to show they’ve assimilated, but they hate it.  Most quickly return to Irish whiskey, mostly, as I understand, Jameson.

 

And let’s face it, folks, most white Americans already eat hush puppies, grits, barbeque, collard greens—although why they eat collard greens is a mystery to most black people…we only ate it because that’s all we had—so African Americans aren’t all that different.

 

Does that answer your question?

 

Q:  Sir, your wife, Michelle Obama, is a formidable presence in her own right…

 

Obama:  You’re telling me?

 

Q:…how much authority and power will she wield in the White House as First Lady?

 

Obama:  Look, she understands that I will be the President of the United States.  I understand that she will continue to be She Who Must Be Obeyed.

Thank you, and avoir.

Technorati Tags: Obama, Michelle Obama, media, satire, news conference, president-elect
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It's Just An Election...Relax

Fear, anxiety, and, dare I say it, panic abound in the election-o-sphere these days, as captured in a recent Washington Post article. The good voters of America are anxiously awaiting the ten plagues of Egypt, Arab hordes swarming over our shores, economic meltdown a la Chernobyl, and really bad acne attacks...regardless of who they support and regardless of who wins.

I personally have experienced this effect as recently as last Saturday night.  Two of our best friends...bright, articulate conservatives...sat in our liberal living room, and one erupted in an over-the-top attack on Obama and the MSM's playing of the race card.  (He later apologized.)  And this from a man who thinks McCain has run perhaps the worst campaign since Nero tried to defend Rome with a fiddle and a broken bow. 

My friends, relax.  Whoever wins, Barack "My, What Big Ears You Have, Grannie" Obama or John "No, She's Really, Really Qualified" McCain, the world will neither come to an end nor be suddenly a brighter, happier place.  We may indeed be facing the end of the world as we know it:  Retirement will stretch further and further into the distance until it resembles the kind of dreams we had as kids--you know, of becoming superheroes or policemen or nurses or serial killers; new diseases will spring as prolific as wildflowers or weeds from our faucets thanks to global warming; America will deteriorate into a third-world power as Lithuania, Kurdzbachimysterystan, and a host of other degenerate nations attain global dominance; oh well, you get the picture.

But, and this is an important but so pay attention, none of this will come about because of the new president.

Relax, fellow prisoners, neither McCain nor Obama is evil incarnate out to undermine our precious values and bodily fluids.  Neither seeks to undermine our way of life...beyond what we've already done to ourselves.  Both will struggle mightily and with expert help to fix our economy (lots o' luck), our environment (just in time for West Virginia to become part of the new coastal America), our health care system (ow, that hurts), and everything else.  And both will achieve minimal success because the Founding Fathers ensured through the arcane complexity of the Constitution that precious little can be accomplished in Washington.

We have so much for which to be thankful.  So much about which to be proud.  So much with which to completely screw ourselves royally. 

Yes, the future looks bleak, even dire.  So, my friends, worry, fret, and fear.  But at least take heart that the election ain't one of them.  Stop demonizing your opponents and start hugging them.  It may be the only solace we get for a long time.  After dinner Saturday night, we hugged our conservative friends...and it felt great.  One of them lifted my wallet, but what can you expect from them?

Curmudgeon-At-Large

In Jameson Veritas 

Technorati Tags: Obama, McCain, election, Constitution, Founding Fathers
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Sarah Palin: The New Paris Hilton

This is a serious article.  Serious issues require a sober, somber, cerebral approach. 

 

On second thought, cancel that sober stuff.  Nothing’s so serious that one should approach it sober.  Remember:  In Jameson Veritas. 

  

And while I’m at it, when I was a regular writer on BlogCritics, the above was my closing signature.  So imagine my surprise when, after I suffered a Brain Cloud and stopped writing, Jameson started advertising on BlogCritics.  Did they send me a case of Jameson?  A bottle?  Even, better, a case of Middleton?  No.   Did I stop drinking Jameson?  No.  One-way loyalty sucks.

But I digress.  Seriously, I feel sorry for Sarah Palin.  She’s everything you’d expect from her environment—ambitious, God-fearing, fundamentalist, ex-beauty queen, small-town mayor, and then governor of an enormous but barely populated state. 

Palin is also a fascinating character as examined by Libby Copeland in a Washington Post article today.

But Copeland didn’t address one issue about the reality of the explosion of love, adoration, and fascination with the Moose-gutter from Alaska.  It has nothing to do with her political expertise because it’s clear she’s so far in over her head, she’s wearing 15-inch heels to keep her nose above water.

Imagine.  Here’s this relatively new governor with a bubba husband and four, five, or six children—who really counts in small towns?  Suddenly, there’s a phone call, probably not at 4 a.m., from John McCain—the John McCain.

 

“Hey gov, you wanna be my running mate?” he asks.

 

“Huh?” she responds.  “Who is this, really?”

 

“No, this is really John McCain.  I need a running mate.  I think you’re cute as a bunny.”

 

“Oh Johnny, you devil.”

 

“There’s only one small consideration,” he says.  “You’ve got ten minutes to decide.”

What can she do?  Even if she has sophisticated advisors with experience in national and international politics, which is highly unlikely in, sorry, Alaska, she doesn’t have time to ask them.

“Hey, my guy,” she calls out to Bubba.

 

“What?”

 

“John McCain is on the phone.  He wants me to be his vice president.  What do you think?”

 

Bubba looks at her, wondering how many beers she’s had.

 

“Come again?”

 

“No, it’s serious, but I gotta decide now.”

 

“Babe, does that mean we get to live in the White House?” he asks, thinking about how cool that would be.

 

“I don’t know,” she answers.  “Come to think of it, I don’t even know what a vice president does.  What do you think?”

 

“Hell, go for it.”

 

Seriously, it’s not her fault she was catapulted unprepared onto the national stage—it’s McCain’s.

 

Wonder of wonder, comes the Republican convention, and she blows ‘em all away.

What happened?  She didn’t become a national political figure overnight, she became a celebrity.  Celebrities don’t have to do or say anything.  They just have to be.  Just like…ta da…Paris Hilton.  To be fair, I know virtually nothing about Ms. Hilton.  Is she a singer?  An entertainer?  An actress?  Doesn’t seem to matter.  She’s larger than life.  Just as Sarah Palin has become larger than life.

This revelation explains why the hard-core, gum chewing (former cigarette smoking), cynical, exhausted political media has been twisted into New York pretzels trying to figure out how to approach this meteoric figure.

It also explains why the McCain handlers have been just as befuddled trying to find appropriate venues other than rallies for their VP candidate.  They know that the national political media are a wee more aggressive than those in Alaska.  And they know that a celebrity isn’t usually expected to be able to say anything sentient about issues such as the economy, foreign policy, health care, etc., etc., etc.

The big debate is tomorrow night.  I don’t know how it’s going to play out, but I can’t help but feel that the poor governor turned celebrity is going to get her brains tangled in so many knots, she’s going to have to ask Senator McCain to get in touch with Alexander the Great to cut through them. 

 

Sarah Palin is a surprisingly appealing and successful celebrity.  Good for her.  But it’s cruel and unusual punishment to ask her to take on the role of national politician.  Shame on you, John McCain.  What you’ve done to Sarah Palin is inexcusable.  Unless, of course, you win the election.  Then…uh oh.  

 

 

Technorati Tags: Sarah Palin, John McCain, vice president, Paris Hilton, celebrities
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Palin De-Witched--Where's The Media Outcry???

On September 19th, Keith Olbermann on MSNBC's Countdown, showed a video of Sarah Palin with her former pastor that should send shivers down the spines of anyone with the I.Q. above a newt.  This was an old-time religion laying on of hands by a literal, and I mean literal, witch hunting man of God from Africa.  This is a must watch...but where the hell is the media on this? 

My bride has called the Washington Post twice to alert them to this, and they still haven't written about it. 

Compare the media silence to what Obama went through with his pastor!

Watch first; then I'll rant some more.

If McCain is elected, this woman will be closer to being president than any VP since Truman in FDR's 4th term.

The media silence is inexplicable and indefensible.  This ain't some supermarket tabloid fabricated story--this is video of a real event. 

What the hell is going on???

Del.icio.us Tags: Palin, Obama, witches, witchcraft, media, McCain
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Election Erections

Have to confess, the first Jug Ears/Face Flop debate was boooring.  Can't anyone say anything new or interesting anymore?  Has our political culture devolved to the point where points are scored based on body language, lack of mistakes, and posturing?  We're you excited?  Did your distended member twitter with anticipation, becoming aroused and proud?  If so...shame, shame, shame on you.

Gadfrey daniels, ladies & gentlemen, it's enough to drive you to the sex sites on web, none of which I dare to frequent for fear of completely screwing up this six-year-old computer, held together with a prayer and a song. 

Of course Jug Ears won the debate.  Unless you're a Repubican, which means you think ol' slidy face won it.  But how could anyone in their right minds support a guy whose face could fall off at any minute, scaring the bejusus out of weak-willed men, lily-holding women, and any children stupid enough to be pulled from their computers to experience democracy in action. 

Can you imagine what would happen if, the the middle of a rant, Senator McScreed's right cheek fell onto his podium?  Women weeping, children retching, and men going "cool." 

What would happen? Worst case:  Sarah Palin as president.  Now there's something I'd like to see...except I'm not old enough.  I figure if someone's going to destroy the entire foundation upon which my peace, security, and retirement are based, I need to be at least 80 years old so I'm willing to live the last few years of life not simply in abject poverty but surrounded by marauding invaders from the Lithuanian secret service (of which Palin is a paid agent in case you missed that on CNN.)

Enough.  Anyone who thinks she's qualified to be Governor of Alaska is the product of too much inbreeding.

On the other hand, the problem with Jug Ears is that, while I applaud his vision, his belief in a 21st century model of America is naive.  I fear his total lack of experience with the political machine in D.C. will leave him in much the same state as the CEO of a multi-billion dollar chemical company for whom I once worked.  This total prick, who had the personal charm of a cobra, really did want to improve the environmental performance of the company.  But no matter how much he ranted and raved (and such ravings you wouldn't believe), nothing happened.  In a snit of magnificent magnitude, he once cried out in a meeting, "find me that fucking middle manager who's getting in the way of any progress so I can take him out back and shoot him."

I swear I'm not making that up.  CEO.  Multi-billion dollar company.  Castrated by a host of middle managers not venal or evil (that would be too easy,) but terrified of change they couldn't control.

That's what Jug Ears if facing.

So we muddle on.  Muddle, muddle, muddle. 

Worse, the bride & I watch hours of political cable ineptitude in the vain pursuit of...well, not wisdom, but perhaps elucidation. 

What fools these mortals be.

Curmudgeon-At-Large

Technorati Tags: McCain, Obama, Palin, politics, democracy, bureaucracy, debates, election
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Experience, Judgment, and the Presidency

          I make them as quickly as I can, quicker than the other fellow, if I can. Often my haste is a mistake, but I live with the consequences without complaint.

Words spoken by someone whose background is that of a fighter pilot—a special and essential quality where your life depends on an unconscious ability to react in the blink of an eye.

Words spoken by John McCain, in his 2002 book, Worth the Fighting For: The Education of an American Maverick, and the Heroes Who Inspired Him.

Words spoken by someone who, by temperament, training, and experience is uniquely unqualified to be president of the United States.

Much has been written and debated about the qualifications of Sarah Palin to be vice president, let alone step into the Oval Office should John McCain become president and then have to leave the stage. It’s an unwinnable argument; people’s assessment of her is filtered through their own biases, beliefs, and values. But the decision to select Palin as his VP demonstrates without question a quality in McCain that should give everyone pause. It’s best stated in his own words—the above quote.

It’s reflected in the process undertaken to choose Palin. “Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was not subjected to a lengthy in-person background interview with the head of Sen. John McCain’s vice presidential vetting team until last Wednesday in Arizona, the day before McCain asked her to be his running mate, and she did not disclose the fact that her 17-year-old daughter was pregnant until that meeting, two knowledgeable McCain officials acknowledged Tuesday,” writes Dan Balz in a front-page article in a recent Washington Post.

Balz quotes McCain officials who argue that the decision wasn’t rushed, that a thorough investigation of Palin had taken place. “Aides had said earlier that Palin was invited to meet McCain in Arizona only after she appeared to be a likely choice, barring something unforeseen in her interview with the candidate. But what they had not said was that [former White House counsel Arthur] Culvahouse had not yet conducted his interview until that time as well.”

Friday, McCain announced her as his “soul mate.” It was a rushed judgment based on his assessment of his candidacy after witnessing the Democratic convention.

The Republican strategy to focus on experience, now foundering on the rocks of Palin’s very thin public resume, has always been a smoke screen. Lincoln, Truman, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush II, all had negligible experience. One could argue that the job of president is so incomprehensibly complex that literally no one except someone running for a second term has the vaguest idea what they’re getting into or has had the experience to prepare them for the job.

The CEO of a Fortune 500 company once told me that the hardest transition he’d ever faced in his career was moving from President and COO to President and CEO. One of the most brilliant, arrogant, and ruthless men I’d ever met, he said that he was completely unprepared for the feeling of suddenly having no one on whom to lean. There was no one above him to whom he could turn for guidance.

Such is the fate of anyone who takes the oath of office to become president of the United States.

The real issue is judgment—how well does one make decisions under pressure so intense that after eight years in office, virtually every president (save Reagan who slept through most of his term) looks 20 years older and, should they be fortunate enough to have hair, leaves with a full head of gray or white hair. 

 

Palin is not the only reason to question McCain’s ability to make decisions under pressure.  John McCain is proud of his maverick status, and it’s one of the reasons he’s been a great senator.  That body needs mavericks, people who buck the system and stir the pot, who are unafraid to take unpopular stances, issue bold and provocative statements, the consequences be damned.  But these are not qualities that one wants in a president, whose every word, gesture, and glance are scrutinized not only by the media, but the people around him and people around the world.

 

Compare McCain proudly proclaiming his ability to make snap decisions—often wrong—with the Lincoln

unveiled in Doris Kearns Goodwin’s brilliant book, Team of Rivals:  The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln.  Of his five top cabinet choices, four had actively sought the presidency, but, after careful thought, he recognized that each had the qualities essential to managing the country in its most serious crisis.  Lincoln’s political genius was his judgment—his ability to carefully sift through the ever-present landslides of advice, disasters, internal and external problems and not only come up with the right answer most of the time but, most important, the right timing.  The announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation is one of the best examples of Lincoln’s extraordinary sense of courage, judgment, and timing.

We’ve already endured eight years of poor judgment in a president, of someone bored with details, able to make decisions in a single bound, and, apparently, able shrug his shoulders when those leaps land him trouble. 

America can’t afford a maverick president when what is needed is someone with the ability to weigh nuances, to embrace complexity without being overwhelmed by it, to base decisions—make judgments—on a careful understanding of what a densely intertwined web is this increasing international scene.

Of course there are those 3 a.m. calls.  And we need a president who can make tough decisions quickly.  But that’s a rare event compared to the countless decisions that must be made every day, decisions that demonstrate the right kind of judgment—a quality that John McCain, in his own words, lacks.

 

Technorati Tags: McCain, Obama, Palin, judgment, experience, 2008_Presidential_Election, maverick
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From Election To Election Without A Pause to Refresh--or Think

It was almost two months ago, one day in November, and then gone forever - a memory that's unsatisfying even though, as a somewhat Democrat and a liberal in search of definition, I was pleased with the results. Pleased, hell, I only knew of one pollster who, a month before the election, saw a 25-seat swing in the House. I waited too long to get to him for an interview. Sue me.

Now the pols are gearing up for the big one: 2008. The first time since 1952 that neither party will have a VP waiting his turn - if you believe that Cheney isn't running. So what have we got going into the next one?

We have an unpopular war, and it's important to make it clear that Americans aren't idiots - the war is unpopular because it's been so badly botched. I don't think many people even care that we were lied to about the cause of the war, nor do most realize that we're about to lose Afghanistan because Bush & Company pulled essential troops out of that country too quickly so they could fight in Iraq.

For the first time in our history as a nation, we are pretty much disliked around the world, and that doesn't sit well with a people who believe America has/had a destiny to spread democracy and freedom around the world. Few trust us. Too few fear us. Even fewer understand what the hell our foreign policy is.

Can you blame them?

The point is that, over the past 20 years or so, we've lost track of ourselves, which makes it very tough for anyone who wants to be president to figure out a platform.

Tiger Woods, so says a friend of mine, got $100 million from Nike for the coming year. One hundred million dollars. And millions of children go to bed hungry every night in America. My friend said that Tiger gives all that money to his charity and lives off his golf winnings. I hope that's true; I'd feel better about old Tiger.

We still don't have a post-Cold War foreign policy. We strut and speak with loud voices and thump our chests, all the while missing what everyone else can see - that America's at the end of its military rope.

The split between rich and poor grows wider despite the clever manipulators of data desperately trying to show how well most people have it.

We've solved our racial problems by subtly and instinctively creating new ghettos, which too many Blacks and Whites seem to desire. New immigrants don't appear to want to assimilate but bring their culture with them. Illegal immigration keeps the economy going and scares the shit out of everyone, including, if they were honest, supporters.

Personally, I say let 'em stay - but make it a requirement that they learn English. A Japanese or Thai or El Salvadorean who lives here and can't speak English is being consigned to a second-class existence. It's not "liberal" to push bi- or tri- or quadri-lingualism... it is the most insidious form of racism and paternalism.

I don't know what's happening with the environment. Most people don't realize that the world went through what is called "The Little Ice Age" in the 1400s, so it's normal to see temperatures rising. However, anyone who ignores the evidence of human beings' effect on the environment either has no children and plans to die soon, or is a moron. If you aren't scared by what's happening, share those drugs, man - we all need them.

Our transportation infrastructure is a disaster waiting to happen. We can't wean ourselves from cars. There seems to be no strategy for anything: transportation, energy, space, waste...

I don't care which party leads the way, but America is desperate for leadership; not someone who will do the old pol two-step of "Hey, trust me, I got all the answers," but someone who's got the courage to say, "Hey, oy, do we have problems. Here's what I think they are, and here's what I plan to do about each. And be patient, Rome was destroyed in a day."

But I see no leaders. We, the moronic voters, have allowed a system to be created that gives the nomination to the extremes, leaving moderates playing with their pretzels. We're one- or two-issue voters, and that's a recipe for disaster.

Let's say there was this candidate who was so right on so many issues -- not with answers, but with a solid plan for getting and implementing good answers -- but was opposed to abortion. Would you vote against him or her? Or maybe was pro-abortion in all forms. Would you vote for someone else even though this person has spelled out a path that could restore us our dignity, our pride, and a sense of mission?

Either way, if you can't put that one issue aside -- or guns or gay marriages or a host of other relatively inconsequential issues that tie us up in knots -- if you can't look beyond your own narrow needs, then I say you're dooming us. You can blame the pols all you want, but if you want to see the real villain, look in the mirror.

In Jameson Veritas

Technorati Tags: politicians, elections, voter stupidity, America Adrift
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A Little Revolution Now And Again Wouldn't Hurt

The election is over and what has changed?  What will change.  I doubt much.  There was so much violence (violence of the mouth and mind is still violence.)  It's no wonder attack has become the primary political strategy whether one is running for dog catcher or president.  America is a joke.  Worse, America is a lie.

Once awakened, we realize that The Great American Dream is really a nightmare, a siren song entrancing us, luring us onto the coast where our vessel is crushed between tide and rock.  Once visited, we discover that The City on The Hill is a rat-infested slum that provides penthouses for a few and bitter lies to the rest who wear the lies proudly, believing that someday, they, too, or their children will be given access to the upper levels. Where once we imagined living among giants, we strip off the distorting glasses to see a mass of little, hunched-over people with sour faces, drooling and swearing, shoving and pushing, stealing and hording simply because they can.

Walk the talk.  Give me a break. Christian super-ministers and born-again members of Congress fondle little boys. Liberal do-gooders restrain themselves from acting in the public interest if it could mean one more seat in Congress on Tuesday. Hungry children?  Sorry, we simply have to win the 6th in Indiana.

We don't have sides, we have slogans. It's easier to remember slogans, and, if someone challenges you, you simply repeat the slogan louder and louder until the little pest goes away. We don't have ideas, we have ideologies which, when stripped of their very expensive veneer, are revealed to be religions masquerading as policy.

And they expect us to vote after we jump headfirst into the cesspool of modern politics and emerge cleansed of all ideals.

It's so easy to attack. It requires no great intellectual prowess, it demands little of our critical faculties, and it feels good even though, if we were honest with ourselves, we'd recognize that the attacks on our opponents resonate only with those who already agree with us.

We create caricatures of our political adversaries regardless of accuracy, and we show our most venal, angry, petulant sides attacking those whom we presume think differently than we do. And different must carry some malevolent characteristics that, by themselves, stand as reason enough to call down the wrath of the almighty. How pitiable we've become.

When do we stop and ask what we're doing to our country, our values, our role in the world, and, especially, ourselves? When do we show the slightest bit of humility and acknowledge that we don't have all the answers -- we may have one of the answers -- but we're willing to sit down with anyone, anywhere, and just talk? Just offer our ideas and listen to what others have to say -- listen so hard it melts our brains?

I'm tired to making fun of conservatives -- it's like shooting apples in a barrel with a 12-gauge shotgun. And it's just as easy for conservatives to shoot at us apple-headed liberals.

But I'm not a liberal, conservative, libertarian, radical, or any other species of political animal that's been bred to provide sustenance for all the others. I have no allegiance that couldn't be turned by honesty, integrity, compassion, intelligence, openness... but would I even recognize it or, worse, would it be just another sophisticated shell game?

We are so frightened as a nation that we hide behind the comic book characters who'll promise us the illusion of protection. I don't think Bush, Cheney, and Rummy are bad people -- but they're the wrong people for the job. If challenged to present Democratic alternatives, I mutter and shuffle my feet and claim a prior engagement at the proctologist's. We set such absurd standards that good people would have to be crazy to run for public office, which is why when election day rolls around, we're up to our elbows in cow manure, desperately seeking someone who might smell a little less bad than anyone else.

Something has happened to America; I don't understand what it is. The rest of the world has always been a mess, but we have always told ourselves that we were different, special. The truth is that we are not. It's almost impossible to apply the disciplines of history, sociology, or psychology to the time in which one lives, so we thrash about, desperate for some coherent structure that provides us a direction, a sense of purpose, a meaning... all the while knowing deep in our hearts that we're grasping at absurdities.

If it's broken, fix it. 

America is broken. We are not who we want to be, we don't act in harmony with our beliefs and values, and we treat all with suspicion and resent that others are suspicious of us.

A little revolution purges the soul, but I don't believe in violence. A successful revolution is not worth the death of one human being, but I long for a revolution that rends the fabric of our society until we're all in rags with no choice but to rebuild.  To rebuild having understood the reason for the failures of the past. No one need die, but no one can avoid the pain of a revolution. Does pain with a purpose have value? Or is it just another in a long series of sleight-of-hand tricks played upon us by ourselves?

For we are to blame. We are the little, hunched-over people swearing and drooling. We trust no one and demand to be trusted. We seek out the cesspool. It cleanses us in some Stygian way. 

Come Tuesday, will you vote? Will you believe that your vote matters? That option A is far superior to option B? Is not voting a revolutionary statement or simply an act of boredom or frustration?

What should break your heart is that, if you truly came to understand the majority of people around you, you'd find deep commonality and purpose, a desire for justice and fairness. But we live on the surface where tactical issues are the ammunition we feed into our weapons of human destruction. 

Who will join me in revolution?  And who will explain to me how we are to bring one about?Who will join me in revolution?  And who will explain to me how we are to bring one about?

< br/>< br/> Technorati Tags: Revolution, American_Dream, liberals, conservatives, sloganeering
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Forget the Election: It's Time For More Important Issues

O.k., so the Democrats rolled over the Republicraps, Rummy's a mummy, Bush is fatigued.  Well done America.  I'm proud of us.  Given all the sturm and drang about soccer moms morphing into security moms, immigrants putting Mexican spices into every goddamn cuisine we've stolen from other countries, fears about the economy, despair about America's world image, you have to wonder, you know, why anyone would sit home on election day. Your vote may not matter, but at least it's a way of doing something other than powering down another Twinkie — although I wouldn't want anyone to think I was disparaging Twinkies.

But that's not what I'm concerned about.  There's an issue that's been bugging me for as long as I can remember.

You may know that it was Thomas Nast's fault that we have those two obnoxious symbols for our august parties.  Mr. Nast was a 19th century political cartoonist probably best known for tearing the arms and legs off Boss Tweed and his machine in New York.  He created the elephant and the jackass.  Is it any wonder people have trouble acknowledging their political allegiance?   

"Hi. I'm a big, smelly, flea-infested pachyderm. Vote for me."

"Hi. I'm an ass. Vote for me."

I'm mostly a Democrat, and I have given much thought to this problem. The last thing an ass needs is to be recognized as one. Nor does it help that slow, dimwitted, cranky Republicans should be so well-characterized by elephants.  Politics has never been about truth — it's about reality, the reality we create for those we hope to lift from despair and dump into utter stupidity. 

So... what images best reflect the best that we can be, regardless of whether we ever reach it or not?

Ultimately, there is only one animal fit to capture the spirit of Democrats building with such pride their mandate across the blue fields of grain:  Our new symbol should be [trumpet fanfare]: the Peregrine falcon -- a bird of extraordinary beauty and grace whose soaring flights should echo in our hearts as we think of the land of opportunity — no, not Bolivia, you idiot. Ah, the Peregrine falcon — nature's most remarkable flying hunter. 

The Peregrine falcon is "admired for its incredible speeds which are seldom exceeded by any other bird. Plunging from tremendous heights, the peregrine falcon can reach up to 180 mph in pursuit of prey. It feeds primarily on birds, which it takes on the wing."

Oh to be a falcon, to be one of the great warriors who dominate their kingdom through the force of their personality, their courage, their quiet but unassailable strength.

But I also want to be fair.  What do to for Repubicans?  Let's face it, being an elephant sucks.  I have given this dilemma much thought as well.  As Americans, we should stand proudly next to symbols we treasure most.  Our fearlessness and courage in the face of adversity, but also our humanity, our soft side, our belief that if only everyone would believe the way we did, wouldn't the world be such a peachy keen place to raise your kids and race your cars and smoke your dope?

And so, while I haven't canvassed any Republicans, I know the Grand Old Party will be thrilled to learn that their new image is — the beloved panda.

This extraordinary animal has won the hearts and minds of Americans across our great land of opportunity, and we owe a special thanks to the Chinese Communists for renting them to us at such reasonable prices. 

I know some of you, particularly Republicans are grousing, "Hey, we get a damn Commie animal for our symbol?"  To that, I simply say, remember that the panda was there long before Mao Tse Tongue made the long march from somewhere to somewhere else sending Chin Check Mate into exile on some island.  And the panda will be be there long after the Chinese shuck off the idiocy of communism and start beating everybody's brains in within the capitalist system.

Most important, wouldn't it be cool to rally the troops around symbols that give them a sense of pride, of accomplishment, of delusion?

The Hawk and The Panda.

America: The future is bright and clear, clouds torn asunder by the power of these two heroic images leaving us standing proudly under a bright sunlight while immigrants are busy selling sunscreen #45 at only five times the retail price.

Goddamn bless America.  Is this a great country or what?

>br /> Technorati Tags: Nast, Democrats, Republicans, national_symbols, jackass, elephant, peregrine_falcon, panda
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On the Edge of Packing in Politics

It is becoming increasingly difficult to give a shit about politics because the debates are like dust devils in the desert, swirling rapidly but having no lasting effect.  Does it really matter who sits where in Congress or the White House?  Well, of course it does, but the fog is so complete that even if there were a standard bearer worthy of our time, we'd never see it.  They all begin to look alike and sound alike. 

We won't let politicians be real, have faults or flaws, or show indecision. The media, understanding our blood lust, tears real people to shreds before they can become politicians.  The only justification I can see for term limits is that you might be able to hold on to your soul for four or eight years as a pol, but if you look into the future and see only bigger office space, more staff, more time on news programs, and more power, the system will mold you into something only vaguely resembling a human being.

It's also becoming increasingly difficult to take sides. Who thinks America's going in the right direction?  Or the world, for that matter?  Who believes that we are any kind of shining light on the hill?  The problem is trying to understand whether this is a short-term aberration or the beginning of the decline and fall of the American empire.

If I were a born-again Christian mummy, walking aimlessly through the graveyard of what used to be America, I'd be horrified viewing the broken moral compass, the rending of souls in the name of truth, justice, and the American way, the lack of civility or compassion or, as I've discovered the term that best fits me, social justice. The only thing that's worshipped in America is money and celebrity. The Christ-lover in me would think that something horribly wrong had happened; perhaps enough to cause the second coming.

However, as a died-in-the-wool liberal mummy, although I don't know what liberal means anymore, I'm still horrified. I see the same graveyard filled with children who died from neglect, violence, or malnutrition, filled with old people abandoned, with zombies who perhaps haven't yet died but might as well have, wandering in no direction and calling out only to hear their voice echo back to them in the void.  I look at the shards of the moral compass on the ground not knowing if even all the king's horses and all the king's men could put it back together again. 

We make our problems worse because they're all cloaked in rigid ideologies that will allow for no movement, no understanding beyond which is already provided.  Inside the ideology there is the illusion of safety; outside, there is only danger.  So we become blind and deaf to everyone and anyone but those who believe as we believe. 

I even understand why some people object to homosexuality. If you're terrified that the moral order of your world is crumbling, you look for any aberration that might be a cause -- or an effect. Some see it in same-sex marriages; I see the aberration in the spread of guns, and building huge fences between the U.S. and Mexico, and an anti-intellectualism that has plagued America since its beginnings. Richard Hofstadder wrote Anti-Intellectualism in America in the 1950s; but it's applicable as far back as one would want to go or as far forward as one can imagine. 

I can't blame the politicians because they are simply a carnival mirror reflection of what we've become.  We are so trapped in our own fears, so horrified by what we see around us that we're easy prey for political masterminds who have their fingers on the pulse of the damned and know exactly what to say to increase or decrease the rate of our beating hearts. 

The most distressing element in all this is that we still have the best system of government, the most freedom as a people, and more prosperity than anywhere else in the world.  But we don't seem to be able to see the cracks in the foundation, the slow erosion of social justice, the collapsing of society into groups that may include me, my family, my friends -- and there's nothing I can do about the rest of you.

It is always a mistake to examine the tea leaves from today's cup and read them thinking they might contain wisdom.  Without an historical perspective, there can be no judgments, no comparisons, no evaluations.  America's beliefs about her past have always distorted the harsh realities, but I can't help but fear that something is more wrong and growing worse -- and I think that something is the collapsing of the human spirit into an ever-smaller realm so we can ignore the disaster that is the world around us.  We are becoming a frightened, angry people, and no good ever comes from a life convulsed by fear and anger. 

Without leadership to help us break through the barriers we're erecting around ourselves, without a clear voice that forces us to reach out to others be it through shame or pride, I simply can't see anything getting better.   So I too build barriers and turn to humor and satire because I find I care less and less who wins the 6th district in Indiana.

Technorati Tags: Elections, democracy, social justice, liberal, conservative
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Dim Bulbs in the Bush Administration--Parody Is Certainly Dead

O.k., there's a bunch of 20-watt bulbs sitting around a room somewhere in the D.C. area. One suddenly flickers and shouts out, "Holy Mother of All the Saints Above, will yer look at t'is. We're giving away the fuckin' store."

He, she, or it was waving a piece of unclassified material that detailed the numbers of strategic weapons in the U.S. nuclear arsenal during the Cold War.  But that wasn't the worst of it.  We'd already given the information the information the Russkies.  Wham!  Reclassified.

Ah, you're no doubt thinking, "this is just a few dim bulbs amidst the brilliant light of the Bush administration."  Wrong.  According to a new report by the National Security Archives, a George Washington University nonprofit research group, our very own Pentagon is busy classifying material that had never been classified before.  And the newly bulked-up and ready-to-take-on-all-terrorists CIA, aided and abetted by the Airforce, has been removing thousands of publicly available records from library shelves.

How bizarre is this?  Nixon Defense Secretary Melvin Laird, in an open 1971 appearance before Congress, revealed "that the United States had 30 strategic bomber squadrons, 54 Titan intercontinental ballistic missiles and 1,000 Minuteman missiles."  That information is now classified.  I have now broken federal law by revealing classified information.  This may be my last post--every--unless they have internet access in jail.

This would be like Barney Frank trying to go back into the closet.  Are these people idiots?  Once it's public and published, you can't make it secret again unless--hey wait a minute--unless you're about to pull a 1984 on the American people.  Nah, conspiracy theories depend on coordinated, intelligent people acting together.  That knocks out the Bush administration.

It's gets sillier.  In 1964, Defense Secretary Mevlin Laird sent to President Johnson on our military preparedness, including the number of U.S. and Soviet ballistic missiles and heavy bombers both sides were expect to have by 1970.  It was declassified.  And why not--the information is over 40 years old and anyone who cares has already seen it.  Yet if you get a copy of the report now, American numbers are blacked out--but not the Soviet's.

William Burr, who wrote the National Security Archives report said, in effect, that you'd have a hard time finding more "dramatic examples of unjustifiable secrecy."  The horses are out of the barn, the barn's burned down, and we're trying to get them to reenter the smoldering ruins.

It just isn't fair.  How can we satirists and parodists (I know, it's not a word but style trumps accuracy sometimes) write satire and parody when the Bush Administration's actions are more bizarre than anything we could come up with.

Technorati Tags: Bush administration, secrets, clasiffying public documents
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Politicians: Real or Not—You Decide

Only 5,702,400 seconds left until election day, give or take a few hundred, and the suspense is...well, the suspense is leaving me feeling like a chipmunk trapped under a log by a weasel with a craving for fresh chipmunk meat. It’s a problem of timing, when you think about it. The weasel can’t get at you and eventually will wander off seeking some other creature to devour. But weasels are sly devils. What if it only pretends to wander off? Or what if you can’t hear it, and you stay there forever, and then you die of hunger?

But I digress. Remember in Jurassic Park when old what’s his name talks about his flea circus? No? Well, then stop reading and go somewhere else, kid, you’re bothering me. Anyway, I was thinking about politicians and that story popped into my head like a hollow-point 45 bullet. (I really shouldn’t use gun analogies; I have no idea if that’s right or not, but you should get the point.) Kaboom! (There, that’s better.)

Kids would tell their mommies, “Oh, look mommy, can you see the flea on the trapeze?” Except there weren’t any fleas. It was all smoke and magic. So the guy, you know, British actor, very famous, in “The Great Escape,” decides to build real dinosaurs.

Stay with me. I think I may be taking this someplace interesting.

Politicians. Invisible fleas. What if there really aren’t any politicians? What if, just like, oh hell, I’ll call him Moe, in Jurassic Park, someone constructed this elaborate circus called Politicalville with buildings and monuments in every city, town, and village in America, and then rigged it to make it look like things were happening. But ‘tis all an illusion. Bush, Hillary, Rummy...the whole lot of them down to the local dog catcher in Tuscaloosa...they don’t exist. Things happen, and, pea brains that we are, we buy into the illusion.

Wow. Then Bush couldn’t have stolen the election in Florida in Ohio because there is no Bush.

Clinton couldn’t have had sex with that woman because neither of them exists.

Katherine Harris won’t be able to run for President and send all non-Christians to the ovens because, yay, she isn’t real.

We’re talking some great illusionist here, I’m telling you. Little political fleas with red coats, little political fleas with blue coats, some with top hats and spats, others with cowboy boots and thick belts. Honest fleas and dastardly devil fleas. Liberal fleas and conservative fleas. We see them all. We argue about them until our brains are so addled we’re not even sure on which side of the debate we started—and all for naught.

Lord, what fools these mortals be.

Since they don’t exist, we should just ignore them, right? Fight the illusion. Bring down that man behind the curtain pretending to be the Great and Powerful Oz. Can you imagine how wonderful life would be if we all just jettisoned politics and politicians from our little minds and went about our days saying hello to one another, helping little old ladies across the street, eating and drinking Jameson with our friends.

Face it. Who starts the wars? Politicians.
Who created slavery? Politicians.
Who tries to separate us into classes and creeds and colors and sizes and shapes? Politicians.
Who sets people against one another over trivial matters than only a kumquat would take seriously? Politicians.

We’re talking Eden here, folks. Unless, of course, the great illusionist decides that fleas aren’t good enough and starts cloning real politicians. Yikes, are we then up the creek without the proverbial canoe or what? So our only chance is to deny the illusion now, and the bad man will go away.

This is so simple. Why didn’t someone think of it before? If politicians don’t exist, then the weasel that has me trapped under this log doesn’t exist either. I think I’ll just wander out and go back to...

Technorati Tags: politicians, illusions, Bush, Hillary, Rumsfeld, Clinton, Katherine Harris
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Republicans On Edge of November Defeat As Administration Fumbles

As the November elections loom ever closer, American voters, war weary and wanting change, still seem unsure about the Democrats as an option. In a September 2 Associated Press article, David Espo calls it "the campaign with no margin for Republican error."

This warning comes at a time when the Republican message machine seems to have developed a tin ear. Republicans in D.C. and across the country know they’re going to lose seats, and Democrats know they’re going to win some, but few are willing to predict how many.

The Bush administration message is only as powerful as the president's prestige, and survey after survey demonstrates problems for the Republicans. According to Charles Franklin's Political Arithmetik, the President's approval ratings continue to languish below the magical 40% number, which Franklin calls "the disaster range." 

In mid-July, a Greenberg Quinlan Rosner and Public Opinion Strategies poll looked at the 50 most competitive House seats. Ten are held by Democrats, 40 by Republicans, and when the pollsters asked for voter preference by candidate name, Republicans got only 43% of the vote -- this in districts that went for George Bush by 58% two years ago.

"The results are breathtaking," Greenberg writes. "Democrats are in a very strong position to hold virtually all their seats, while the Republicans could readily lose most of theirs. Clearly, the probability of a Democratic takeover in November is... more likely than not."

Of concern to both parties is that Americans are increasingly frustrated with the political system.  A recent Rasmussen survey found that a plurality of voters in each of 32 states agree that the political system in the U.S. is "badly broken." Percentages range from a high of 63% in Vermont to 47% in Nebraska, but all point in the same direction.

Republican Strategy

It’s clear that the Republican national strategy is to distract voters from the one-year anniversary of Katrina and domestic economic concerns and focus on the War in Iraq and the war against terrorism. In numerous speeches over the past couple of weeks, Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld have tried to frame the debate as a choice between continuing the war or Nazi-style appeasement.

In an article on CQ Politics, Craig Crawford noticed “a new variation in the attack on Democratic war opponents as "'cut-and-run' wimps. Citing no more than a couple of articles by liberal writers — none of whom is even associated with the Democratic Party — this new argument holds that Bush’s political opponents do not even believe that the terrorists pose a threat."

Calling it the "Straw-Man" tactic, Crawford cites Karl Rove, who earlier this year said that the Democrats are promoting a "pre-9/11 worldview" that is "deeply and profoundly and consistently wrong."

But one can take that approach too far. Even Rumsfeld realized that in his Salt Lake City speech before veterans on Tuesday, August 29.  On Friday, September 1, he wrote to top Democrats in Congress explaining that his remarks were taken out of context by the media. The Democrats were not amused. A spokesperson for Senator Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) remarked, “What's not clear is that he has a strategy in Iraq and to keep America safe.”

A spokesperson for Senator Jack Reid of Nevada said, "No one has misread history more than Secretary Rumsfeld, especially when it comes to Iraq."

And The Democrats Are Doing What?

The problem for the Democrats, according to Crawford, is that they so far have failed to knock down the straw-man strategy and tell their story “over and over again” to the American people.

Two Democratic operatives in D.C., who asked to remain anonymous, complained about the lack of real leadership in the party and the apparent absence of any strategy to take advantage of the Republican weaknesses. “There’s a golden opportunity for someone to step forward and take the lead on this,” one said, “but, as usual, there’s more confusion than cohesion.”

The other Democrat said, “One thing about the Democrats. We’re always in disarray until about three weeks before the election. That’s nothing new. But we usually seem to pull it together.”

It’s not as if there weren’t opportunities. In his September 2 radio address, Bush said "Our commanders and diplomats on the ground believe that Iraq has not descended into a civil war."

He must not have been talking to the Pentagon before the address, because on Friday, it issued its quarterly assessment on conditions in Iraq. "Attacks and civilian deaths in Iraq have risen sharply in recent months, with casualties increasing by 1,000 a month, and sectarian violence has engulfed larger areas of the country."  Kevin Drum, in a September 2 article on Political Animal, quotes Peter Rodman, the assistant secretary of Defense for international security, who called the report "sober," citing the increasing level of violence and the sectarian nature of that violence. 

According to an AP report, the Pentagon noted the increased risk of civil war, citing the increasing number of death squads targeting mainly Iraqi civilians. The report said that the Sunni-led insurgency "remains potent and viable... Conditions that could lead to civil war exist in Iraq, specifically in and around Baghdad, and concern about civil war within the Iraqi civilian population has increased in recent months."

Given the administration spin, Drum sums up his conclusions simply: “In other words, they've been lying. Even when the Bushies switch into their pre-election war-of-civilizations mode, the happy talk continues.”

Who’s Steering the Ship?

In the midst of all this turmoil, with increasing numbers of Americans unhappy with Bush, the state of the economy, the war in Iraq and against terrorism, and America’s image overseas, Bush’s chief political advisor, Karl Rove, “appears to have the least political authority since he came to Washington, party officials said,” according to a September 2 New York Times article.

While Rove continues to dominate inside the White House, out in the states, candidates and party officials are increasingly ignoring Rove’s advice, taking pot-shots at Bush, and even avoiding events with Bush or Rove. The Michigan Republican candidate for Governor, Dick DeVos, launched a vicious attack on Bush for failing to meet with the big three auto makers... just when Rove was visiting Michigan for a fundraiser. When asked if the DeVos campaign was concerned about Rove’s reaction, their spokesperson said, “That never even crossed our mind.”

Another example cited of Rove’s diminished influence was his inability to convince Allan Bense, speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, to challenge Katherine Harris in a primary for the U.S. Senate.

It may be true that the Democrats have yet to figure out how to take advantage of the Republican increasing weaknesses, but it may be that the GOP will sink themselves in November. What does all this mean for the 2008 presidential election?  Time will tell.

Technorati Tags: Bush, Iraq, terrorism, November elections, economy, Rove, Rumsfeld, Cheney
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Katrina One Year Later: Can Bush Brave His Way Through This One?

The Washington Post headline on August 26 says it all: "Katrina Damage Lingers for Bush: Many See Storm as President's Undoing."  The president's uncertainty, lack of resolve and action, and seeming lack of concern in the face of inescapable tragedy has lingered as a major factor in how people view him.  As the August 29th anniversary approaches, Republicans and Democrats alike are pointing out the lack of progress and political fallout from the administration's efforts over the past year.

An Associated Press-Ipsos poll this month found that 67 percent of Americans still disapprove of Bush's handling of Katrina.  A similar poll by The Pew Center found that 63% of Americans still disapprove.  "This is an event that calcified the criticisms people were having about Bush, made it more personal and had a big impact on how people look at him," said Andrew Kohut, the Pew Center's director.

It didn't help that the President, while on Air Force One flying over the devastation, joked about his party days on Bourbon Street, nor did his "heck of a job" commendation of then director of FEMA, Michael Brown. 

Scott Reed, a top D.C. Republican advisor and consultant, commented back in June that the anniversary of Katrina was going to prove problemmatic for the president.  "The American people are going to see that the government has failed them miserable for an entire year now," he said in an interview. 

"'Outside the real storm, it was a political storm that we all suffered a little damage from,' said Rep. Jack Kingston (Ga.), a member of the House Republican leadership. 'Katrina was not just a break in the levee of the great Crescent City, but it was a break in the levee of political goodwill and the Teflon coating that the administration had been enjoying up to then.'"

The reality is that, for all the money that's been spent trying to restore New Orleans, even the Army Corps of Engineers admits that they have no confidence the levees can withstand another major hurricane.  While they say they've done all they could, there are those who believe the administration has been continually negligent in the clean-up and restoration efforts.

While Bush claims many encouraging signs of "recovery and renewal," he acknowledges that there is a lot of work ahead.  In response, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) responded, "It's been sporadic. It's been without focus, in my opinion, and it still lacks a depth of understanding of the problem."

There has been progress in terms of pace of federal loans to help businesses, amount of debris cleared, New Orleans' port and gas prouction, and other steps, but in New Orleans itself there are large parts that are still uninhabited. One-third of the city's hospitals and fewer than half of the schools are open, and over 50% of homes and businesses lack electricity.

"I'm telling you, it looks like a war zone," Landrieu said.

Bush Still Dragging GOP Down As November Elections Near: But It's Still A Tossup

Although Republicans aren't ready to throw in the towel, and Democrats aren’t doing the Snoopy Happy Dance of victory, the news for the GOP continues to be, well, bad. In an August 18 article, Washington Post reporter Jim VandeHei penned a front-page piece, “Republicans Losing ‘The Security Moms.’” A trusted base of GOP victories in 2002 and 2004, these married women with children “are taking flight from GOP politicians this year” and turning to the Democrats.

And, after a brief surge in popularity earlier this year, President Bush’s approval among Americans has sunk well into the 30% range—which many political pundits say spell real problems for the GOP this November.  And, after months of rumors that Republicans were distancing themselves from the president, it’s becoming less of a rumor and more of a trend. According to an earlier Washington Post story, incumbents in the Northeast are particularly worried.

To add insult to injury, the number of voters in the so-called generic ballot ("If the election for U.S. House of Representatives was held today, would you vote for the Democratic or Republican candidate in your congressional district?”) shows a dramatic upsurge in support for Democrats.

Security Moms

A Pew Research Center poll has found that these women are more likely to vote for a Democratic candidate than any time since 9/11. They’re not enthusiastic about how well the Democrats can protect them, but Republicans aren’t benefiting from this as they have in the past, in part because the security moms fear that the Republicans will involve the U.S. in too many overseas battles.

The security issue is the ace-in-the-hole Karl Rove expected to play. Ben Barnes, Democratic consultant said in an interview that it’s the same one that worked for them in 2000 and 2004. “I think Dick Cheney summed it up very well in ’04 when he got on television and said, ‘If John Kerry is elected president, we’ll have another serious attack within the first year.’ That’s unbelievable demagoguery, but it’s still worked. It started in 2002 when they beat Max Clelland [Vietman veteran and triple amputee] and they got the veterans to endorse Chambliss against him...which is kind of unheard of.”

And frustration with Bush, rising gas prices, and economic anxiety are just as powerful in shaping how these voters will act on election day. They support Democrats for Congress by a 12-point margin, similar to the national ratings, but in 2002, that 12-point margin favored the Republicans.

Pew chief Andrew Kohut said the "’negative impact of Iraq is hurting not only Bush but also the Republican Party as well.’ No longer, Kohut said, is ‘terrorism alone enough to keep’” traditional Republicans in the party’s fold.

Bush Approval Dropping

Six polls taken within the last week have the president’s approval rating from 33% to 38%. Even after the London terrorist raid, CBS had Bush at 36%, Stale Gallup at 37%, and Zogby at 34%.

Dr. Charles Franklin, political science professor at the University of Wisconsin, said in an interview, “We know from the past that presidential approval does predict mid-term election outcomes,” although he’s not ready to predict a Democratic takeover of the House or Senate.

Part of the challenge for Bush is that Americans are less confident that we’re winning the war on terror. According to the Rasmussen Reports, only 39% of Americans are optimistic, a five-point drop in one month. In 2004, half the electorate thought we were winning. Conversely, those who think the terrorists are winning has jumped seven points in one month from 26 to 33%.

“Collectively, these numbers document one of the most pessimistic evaluations of the conflict we’ve found in the past two-and-a-half years,” Rassmussen writes

To make matters worse for the president, he is being assailed from all sides. Conservatives think he’s not conservative enough, and Pew has found that even moderate and liberal Republicans don’t approve of the job he’s doing.

Franklin, on his blog, Political Arithmetik, has noted that when a presidents rating falls into the 30% range, it’s usually “disastrous” for his party at the polls.

Republicans Doing the Old Two-Step with the President

Many Republicans are torn between the president’s ability to raise money for them and fear of being tainted by Bush’s low appeal. Jim Gerlach (R. PA) has said that the people in his suburban Philadelphia district are in a “sour mood.” The two-term Congressman is anxious to show his independence from the president to the point that his statement, "'When I think he's wrong, I let him know'" has become “a virtual campaign slogan, repeated in interviews and TV ads.”

According to the Post, Bush’s sinking approval is creating problems for Republicans across the country, but it’s most serious in the Northeast, where a Post-ABC News poll found Bush’s approval rating at 28% in that region with the Republican Congress in about the same straights. What’s giving Republicans concern is that the region is becoming more Democratic, which could make it hard for the GOP to recover seats lost in November. New York Republican State Senator Raymond Meier, running for an open seat, Reps. Rob Simmons (R-CT), Michael Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Curt Weldon (R-PA), Nancy Johnson (R-CT), and Christopher Shays (R-CT) are all in the fights of their political lives.

Republican concerns about the lack of coattails extend beyond the Northeast. Two key Bush supporters, U.S. Rep. Mark Kennedy (Minnesota) and Sen. James M. Talent (Missouri,) who in the past have aired advertisements with him and have stumped with him at public rallies are both running for Senate seats. But Bush is nowhere to be seen in their ads. “A recent ad from Kennedy says, "’He doesn't do what the party says to.’"

One has to wonder when the head of the National Republican Congressional Committee, Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds, of Buffalo, New York, runs ads that fail to mention he’s a Republican. “Endangered candidates are presenting themselves as independent-minded problem solvers who are not part of Washington's partisan wars.”

The Ever Enigmatic Generic Ballot

Franklin on Political Arithmetik calls the generic ballot “a blunt instrument.” There’s no mention of candidate by name, who the incumbent is, and the power of partisanship rather than issues when people go into a voting booth. He also warns that Democrats tend to better on the generic ballot than they do in the polls. Nonetheless, it’s a closely watched indicator, and Franklin acknowledged, “That lead is far bigger than anything since 94. It sure looks a lot better for Democrats than the previous few rounds; you would believe therefore that if Democrats were within 15 seats before this, with that big of a lead, you’d think they’d do well.”

Jay Cost, at Real Clear Politics is even less confident that the generic ballot has value. In fact, he argues that, based on his statistical analyses, the greater the skew towards Democrats, the less sure one can be of its predictive value.

One statistic that has to give the Republicans pause is when asked about their own Member of Congress, people are giving them a 55% approval rating—the lowest since the eve of the 1994 election.

Franklin says that one of the best predictors is Bush approval ratings...which don’t bode well for the Republicans.

So What Does It All Mean?

Cost says this November’s race is going to be a “squeaker.”

Bob Benenson, editor of Congressional Quarterly Politics and his staff have issued their latest take on the November elections. While they see reasons for Democratic optimism, there are still to many variables to declare a victor on election day. They agree that the Republicans are especially vulnerable in the Midwest and Northeast but add that their traditional strongholds in the South and West are showing strains as well.

“The only thing the GOP appears to have going for it right now is the fact that most voters have yet to tune in to the details of their upcoming electoral choices. So if the Republicans can just keep their heads down, they might avert a fatal storm,” writes Benenson. The experts with whom CQ talked all said that November could turn into a major upset for the Republicans.

But everyone is being cautious because too much is happening too quickly: The testimony of U.S. Generals about civil war in Iraq, the Israel-Hezbollah war, the failure of Congress to pass any meaningful legislation regarding minimum wage or tax cuts, and Ohio Republican Bob Ney’s decision to quit under suspicion of corruption...to name but a few.

CQ says that the Republicans are currently on course to win 220 House seats, just two more than a majority, but the degree of vulnerability in even some of their “safe” seats makes that just a best guess. In the Senate, the Democrats are going to have a harder time taking control, but it’s still well within the realm of the possible.

One factor CQ sites that has been written about elsewhere is that the Republicans seem better organized on the ground, which, in mid-term elections, is a significant advantage. At the same time, it appears that the Democrats, recognizing the edge, have been going on the offensive and strengthening their local party organizations.

As Ben Barnes said, “I’ve been a Democrat for four decades, and the party is always divided and doesn’t have good party discipline. They never get their act together until the last minute. But we’ve been successful.”

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: The Blogger of Doom

First there was Godless communism, but the commies have found God...or at least some of them.

Then there was the scourge of the Western world upon the purity of Islam. Our impurities could not be allowed to sully the purity of the one true religion.  But lo and behold, the president of Iran has started his own blog. I have it from informed sources inside the Palace of Nefertiti, which is his headquarters, that Ahmadinejad has also signed up on MySpace and has posted pictures of him playing with his dogs and children. The dogs are Pit Bull Terriers. The children look like the mailman, but that's just a rumor.

There's an English version of the blog as well as one in Farsical...check that, Farsi, French, and some other language. But having conducted a careful check of the translation from Farsi to English, there are some differences that should cast fear into the heart of every non-Muslim.

For example, the English translation of one part of his seemingly endless blog is a heart-rending tale of his early life growing up in a poor village with no shoes, having to walk ten miles through the snow, even in July, to get to school.  But, what he really says is, "We must turn the west into a series of poor villages where children have no feet and must crawl through mountains of snow to go to Mosques specially designed for the infidels."

Later, the English version written by scurrilous knaves, is, "we, the people of Islam, are a peace-loving people who abhor violence and only seek to live in harmony with our neighbors regardless of their race, creed, or religion.  We will defend outselves, but we will never be the aggressors.  Allah forbids it."

Sure, Mahmoud.  This one's a little tougher because it's in code, but what he really says in Farsi is, "We, the people of Islam, seek only violence against peace-loving people.  We must be the aggressors against all with a different race, creed, or religion.  Allah wills it."

The scariest part comes near the end of his 2000 word screed against all things Western.  Their so-called English translation claims this is a bit of his autobiography, telling the story of the time his family was ravaged by the Shah and his henchmen while CIA agents stood around singing Christmas carols and making them eat Matzoh without even a little butter or salt.  It was the turning point in his life, according to the translation, bringing him to a higher spiritual plane where he learned to forgive and even love his enemies. 

Oh, my friends, were that only the truth.  This is what he really wrote:

"So, one day," Mahmoud says in his blog, "my buddies and I are driving around in a 1957 Chevy, just crusin', you know, not looking for any trouble, when this old guy in a white turban pulls us over.  He looks at all of us and then motions for me to get out of the car.  Like, I'm scared, right?  The guys older than my dead grandfather.  So I get out and walk over to him. 

"He reaches out his hand and touches my forehead and says, 'You have been chosen to be the leader of your people, Mahmoud.'  I mean, how'd he know my name?  'In time the evil Shah with his CIA stooges will be cast down, and the future of Iran...nay the very future of Islam, will lie in your hands.  Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to rid the world of infidels, to spread the word of Islam across the four corners of the earth, to use whatever force is necessary to rid the world of Jews, Christians, Buddhists, especially those sons of bitches Hindus, Janes, Lithuanians, and anyone else who rejects the word of Allah.'

"'Like, wow.  Talk about your mystic moments.'"

"'I can use any force I want?' I ask.  He nods.  'Even nukes?'

"'Especially nukes,' he says, and then he disappears in a cloud of dust and a 'hi, ho, silver.'  I must confess I've never understood that last part.  But I took his words as a commandment which the Iranian people are close to being able to fulfill.

"And that's the truth."

Let's face it, folks, the blog is nothing more than a call to arms to the Muslim world to stand as one and declare war against the peace-loving Western nations.

There's only one hope for us...and not much time.  George Bush has got to start his own blog.

Technorati Tags: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran, blogs, Farsi
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Those Who Forget The Past Are Condemned to Repeat It

          What do you think?

           History Repeats Itself?                   

     Sometimes paranoia is justified.

                                       Surprised?

                                              Depressed?

           Confused?

                                        

How long did it take you to figure out it's a fake?

But doesn't it feel like it could have been real?

This is how the world treats Israel today.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Nazis, Europe, anti-semitism, Middle-East
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Lieberman's Loss: Election 2006 Grows More Complex

The primary defeat of Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) yesterday by relative upstart Ned Lamont will be debated and analyzed for weeks, but some aspects of it are notable.

It adds weight to those who argue that November’s elections will not be "business as usual" in terms of focusing on local issues. Voters are increasingly worried about Iraq, the war on terror, and immigration.  And despite many pundits giving bloggers credit for Lamont’s win, the reality is that Lamont ran a classic grassroots, retail campaign that reached out to voters through countless small meetings in homes and superb local organization.

What's less clear is what the election in Connecticut will mean in November. An editorial in today's (August 9) New York Times argued that Lieberman’s loss was actually a rebellion by "irate moderates." It was not a rejection of the bipartisanship and centrism that Lieberman represented, but rather, "Connecticut Democrats were reacting to the way those concepts have been perverted by the Bush White House." These moderates are watching with concern as

...the country has seemed to be galloping in a deeply unmoderate direction. A war that began at the president’s choosing has degenerated into a desperate, bloody mess that has turned much of the world against the United States. The administration’s contempt for international agreements, Congressional prerogatives and the authority of the courts has undermined the rule of law abroad and at home.

According to David Esso, AP reporter, translating the Connecticut phenomenon into a Democratic takeover of Congress in November will not be easy. "To triumph in November, Democrats will need the same intensity, including the support of bloggers and groups such as MoveOn.org, that powered Lamont to victory in Connecticut."

The Democrats will focus on the president’s handling of the Iraqi war and the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict. "'I think there is huge dissatisfaction with the way the president is handling the war,’ said Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the chairman of the party's Senate campaign committee. 'People are divided over whether we should have a strong, aggressive foreign policy, but there's very little division even among those for a strong foreign policy that the president has really botched this in terms of having a plan, in terms of a direction, in terms of an endgame.'"

Of course, Republicans are already playing the anti-war activist card and saying that Democrats can’t be trusted with national security issues, which was successful for them in 2002 and 2004, the first two campaigns conducted in the shadow of the terror attacks of 9/11.

"'We'll soon find out just how significant this election is, but it's a problem for Democrats long-term,' the Senate's second-ranking Republican, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said after Lamont had won.

'The McGovern wing of the Democrat party seems to have forgotten that we've been on offense for the last five years and that's why we haven't been attacked here at home.'"

Stephanie Griffith, AFP reporter, today reported that Democrats need to capitalize on how fed up voters are with the three-year long US military commitment in Iraq. 

That may not be as big a problem as it was in the past two elections because not only are Americans growing more negative about the war, they’re also less secure about the war on terror.

According a CNN poll conducted by Opinion Research Corporation and reported by Reuters, 60 percent of Americans oppose the U.S. war in Iraq and a majority would support a partial withdrawal of troops by year's end.  This is the highest number since the war's beginning. 

Eighty-one percent of Democrats in a Washington Post-ABC News poll said the war was not worth fighting, and a slight majority of Democrats would likely vote against a candidate endorsing the administration's Iraq policy. 

According to the Rasmussen Reports, there’s also a growing fear among Americans that we’re losing the war on terrorism and that fear has grown by five percentage points in just one month.  During the 2004 election, over half of Americans believed we were winning the war on terror.

Collectively, these numbers document one of the most pessimistic evaluations of the conflict we’ve found in the past two-and-a-half years. Not coincidentally, election 2006 polling trends have moved away from Republicans during the same time frame.  Just 31% of Americans now rate President Bush’s handling of the situation in Iraq as good or excellent. That’s down from 36% a month ago.  Fifty-two percent (52%) now believe the situation in Iraq will get worse over the next six months. Just 46% held that view a month ago. The percentage of those indicating the situation will improve fell six points to 24%.

Looking longer-term, 50% believe America’s mission in Iraq will ultimately be judged a failure with only 32% believing it will be a success.  Just 35% now say the United States is safer today than it was pre-9/11, a decline of seven points over the past month.

There continue to be some who claim that the mid-term elections will be based on local concerns, but, increasingly, Americans are saying otherwise.  The question remains: Can the Democrats paint the Republicans as bumbling idiots who have dragged us into an unwinnable war and destroyed America's image overseas ...or can the Republicans paint the Democrats as anti-Americans, soft on terror, and untrustworthy to handle issues of such import?

Technorati Tags: Leiberman, Congressional Elections, Iraq, Middle East, terrorism, security, immigration
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