Bush Screwed The USA (song parody)

Bush Screwed The USA

(to the tune of God Bless The USA)

I have had it! All the things are gone

I've worked for all my life,

And I have to start again

Without my children and my wife,

Goodbye, dear middle class

There is no room for me today,

'Cause the banks all have their freedom

And they've taken mine away.

And I'm proud to be an American

Though I'm in insolvency,

And I won't forget the man who lied

To take my rights from me,

'Cause the man who messed up everything

Still defends himself today,

'Cause there ain't no doubt, he shamed this land

Bush screwed the U.S.A.

It's a bridge in Minnesota

Or a flood in Tennessee,

When our country needed leading most

He preferred to "let it be"

From Detroit to New Orleans

and New York to L.A.,

This country's damned near torn apart

And it's time we stand and say:

That I'm proud to be an American

Though I'm filing bankruptcy,

And I won't forget the folks who've died

For oil royalties

And I'm going to stand up and challenge you

To prove me wrong today

'Cause there ain't no doubt he wronged our land

Bush screwed the U.S.A.

And I'm proud to be an American

I'm as proud as I can be

But I won't forget the man who lied

To loot our Treasury

And I'd gladly stand up in any court

Indicting him today,

'Cause there ain't no doubt he failed this land!

Bush screwed the U.S.A.

Raising [Herman] Cain...

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain caused a firestorm of controversy by revealing in a CNN interview this week that Black Americans have been "brainwashed into not being open-minded, not even considering a conservative point of view." This has been such a closely-guarded secret among us that it occasioned an emergency meeting--the third one in the last three years (the others were called when we realized that Obama actually did stand a chance of winning the presidential nomination, and when rumors arose that a sequel to Soul Plane was in the works). Black people gathered at clandestine meeting houses all over the nation last night in an attempt to hash out a response.

My location--an abandoned Popeye's Chicken franchise--was in an uproar when I arrived. Paramedics were attending to several women who had become so irate that their necks locked. Arguments raged from one end of the room to the other. Things got so out-of-hand that the Head Negro In Charge (HNIC) for our district--a formidable woman in a Chanel suit--had to put Aretha on the loudspeakers (Aretha's version of Respect has been the real Negro National Anthem since its release; people still who think the anthem is Lift Every Voice didn't get The Memo).

"Quiet down now! Everybody find a seat! We got to get this over with before anybody realizes we're here," roared the HNIC.

The restless crowd came to some semblance of order.

"What do we do now?" wailed Sam The Barber. "It was all anyone could talk about at the shop yesterday!"

"They're onto us!" shouted Willy The Pimp.

"What should we do?!"

Disorder threatened to overtake us again until the HNIC fired a round into the ceiling with her Glock.

"Y'all shut the hell up! We got this! Now, let's hear a few words from Brother Jones! Go 'head and talk, Daddy!"

Brother Jones, the elder of our group, stood up. The kindly old gentleman--shaking a bit from palsy, and still in his pajamas and robe--faced the group.

"Thank you, Brenda. Gather the little ones around," he said. "They need to hear this and remember it."

Baby-mommas and baby-grannies and baby-great-grannies guided their little charges to the front of the room where they sat at Brother Jones's feet. Each held a sippy-cup filled with red Kool-Aid laced with a spoonful of Ny-Quil.

I detected the glint of a tear in the brother's eye as he regarded the little angels.

"We done had quite a run, children. Quite a run... but it's over now... It's time for the next step. We got to move on."

"Praise the Lord," said Miz Wells, the principal of the local elementary school. High Pockets was so affected that he set down his forty-ounce bottle of malt liquor, took off his watch cap, and sat forward in his chair.

"We done heeded the siren song of them Roosevelts long enough," shouted Brother Jones.

"All this marchin' and complainin' and carryin' on... All this civil rights and votin' rights mess... All that talk about 'Eyes On The Prize'... We been wrong, people! We done let Fannie Lou Hamer and Martin Luther King and Medgar Evers and them convince us to trade one set of shackles for another! We been hoodwinked! We been misled! We been bamboozled!"

Several attendees shouted "Amen."

"What did we brave them dogs and them hoses for? What was the point? The conservatives were trying to show us the error of our ways, but did we listen?"

"No!"

Brother Jones seemed to stand a little taller as he warmed to his subject.

"After all that, what are we?! Where are we? What do we have?! What have we become?"

Brother Jones thrust his cane at the assembly.

"Liberals! That's what! Nothin' but dirty, stinkin', low-down, no-good, bleedin' heart, welfare-takin', crack-smokin', sex-crazed, Obama-votin', food stamp dependent, mutton-headed liberals!"

Hearing that many of us that quiet at that moment was an almost religious experience. We knew in our hearts that the brother spoke the truth.

"It's time we got with the program, y'all! A people that doesn't adapt perishes! The hardest shackles to throw off are the ones you put on yourself!"

The congregation erupted in cheers and assent.

"Preach it, brother!"

"Tell us what we need to do!"

"Lead us!"

Brenda, the HNIC, gestured to the sergeant-at-arms. The doors opened and a team of white people in lab coats began bringing in equipment. A widescreen television set was wheeled to the front of the disused chicken shack. Every mouth gaped--including mine--as proctors passed 3-D glasses out to everyone. I put mine on.

A professorial, silver-haired white man took the podium.

"Please put your glasses on and watch the screen," he instructed. We obeyed as one. In a scene repeated throughout the country, the lights dimmed, the television set flickered on, and Herman Cain's toothy grin filled the screen.

"Be not afraid... I am Herman Cain, and I am here to free your minds."

"Our asses will follow," we said as one.

"Repeat after me... Government can not create jobs!"

"Government can not create jobs!"

"Taxes and regulation are evil!"

"Taxes and regulation are evil!"

"I've got mine! Get your own!"

"I've got mine! Get your own!"

"Nobody's going to help you but you!"

"Nobody's going to help you but you!"

"Government is not the solution; it's the problem!"

"Government is not the solution..."

I was back home and in my warm bed before I knew it. I woke up refreshed and energized and I felt a power I had never experienced before that moment. I'm no longer a liberal. My mind is open because Herman Cain has opened my heart. There was a quote from Mr. Cain ringing--not just in my ears--but in my soul, as well. I had not heard it before, but it resonates even as I write this.

Mr Cain said: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we're free at last!

Obama? That Kenyan Socialist Muslim doesn't stand a chance.

The Newest Zodiacal Sign

OPHIUCHUS -- Nov. 29 - Dec. 17 (may be pronounced as "officious" or as rhyming with the Yiddish tuchus or as "oh-f**k-us"): Members of the newest sign of the zodiac, Ophiuchum will intensify the well-known Sagittarian trait for insistence on being the most clueless, tactless dicks in the room. Given to delusions of grandeur, Ophiuchum are downers at parties, consistently spook horses and small children, and have the hygienic elán usually associated with hyenas.

Avoid engaging them in debate at all costs. They are thick, obtuse, and quick to anger when faced with a conversation above the fourth-grade level. Any word with more than three syllables is automatically translated to a grunt most often heard from ESPN announcers or the bathroom stalls at an Indian restaurant.

Utterly hopeless at matters of the heart, Ophiuchum are indifferent lovers, at best. They have only a nodding acquaintance with the concept of passion, think of any hot meal before a sexual act as "foreplay", and consider fidelity a quality desirable only in high-end audio equipment. They are incessant "re-gifters" when they remember to give a gift at all.

Any famous persons born under this sign don't deserve mention; they have been of little use to society at-large except for liquor store owners, bail bondsmen, pet thieves, or Albanians.

Ophiuchum are not only incompatible with any other zodiacal sign; scientists consider them outliers vis-a-vis the human genome and place them somewhere on the evolutionary scale just below Pukwudgies and golf pros.

Judicial Activism

This is a link to the dissent to January 21st's Supreme Court opinion in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission written by Justice John Paul Stevens. The dissent lays out just how activist this decision was.

The court decided questions it begged to be asked.

From the dissent: "Essentially, five Justices were unhappy with the limited nature of the case before us, so they changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law."

Stevens doesn't sugar-coat the situation; he calls it the way he sees it. His fellow justices ignored centuries of protocol to rule on this case. The act Stevens accuses his colleagues of committing is highly irregular and almost without precedent--predecent is an important word here--in the annals of Supreme Court jurisprudence.

Bush v. Gore and Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission are bookends and of one piece. Both decisions fly in the face of precedent. They dismantle years of settled law. They benefit narrow interests to the detriment of the common good.

FAIL!

The First Quarter...

There's a lot of hand-wringing, gloom, and doom after the first year of Barack Obama's presidency. Health care's a cock-up. We've doubled down in Afghanistan. The Senate is a millstone around The First Brother's legislative neck...

Joe Conason says "NOT SO FAST!

Having taken the oath of office just one year ago, Barack Obama is a flashing meteor that sputtered out too soon -- or so the national media narrative tells us. According to this story line, the young president is a presumptuous liberal who disappointed his own idealistic followers while irritating everyone else. Media tipsters spoke of a "final judgment" in Massachusetts before the stunning returns came in -- so we may soon hear declarations of a "failed presidency" from Washington's pundit herd.

Yes, after a run of extraordinary luck that helped get him into the White House, Obama today is confronting his share of electoral trouble. He may well encounter more and worse as November's midterm approaches. But he and his critics should remember the last time a Democratic president had to listen to the drafting of his own political obituary.

The premature farewells came early in Bill Clinton's first term.

The joker in the deck is the Supreme Court Decision of January 21st. That's a game-changer. The damage it causes can't be addressed until Congress can take definitive action (snerk) or someone is actually injured in November's elections. That's the way things work when the Supreme Court screws up.

Anyway, today's media have a stake in making Obama's situation seem more dire than it is.

Finally, I've been a football fan all my life. If I've learned anything, I've learned not to assume the outcome of the game in the first quarter even if "the better team" is ahead by twenty-eight points. There are three quarters left in this game. Root the way you want to, but don't assume that it's a blowout yet.

Oh... and watch the referees.

Heroes And Zeros...

Chris Matthews Reminds Us That He's A Political Weather (Vain)... Tweety lays into Representative Alan Grayson for "pandering to the netroots"--something about which Matthews obviously knows bupkes. Remember Matthews's reaction to George W. Bush's "Mission Accomplished" aircraft carrier landing? Remember the "thrill up the leg" that Matthews got on hearing Obama speak? Chris Matthews is a political windsurfer. He's a functioning idiot.

Elizabeth Warren is one of the bona fide heroes of the age. She deserves our thanks and our undivided attention. From the Huffington Post article

If the financial reform bill doesn't establish an effective and independent consumer protection agency, Congress would be better off passing nothing at all, Elizabeth Warren warned on Friday.

Warren, one of the country's foremost consumer-right's advocates and the congressionally-appointed watchdog for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, said her chief concern is that financial regulatory reform legislation will suffer the same fate as health care reform -- starting out with noble principles but scaled down and negotiated away ultimately to ineffectualness. The Consumer Financial Protection Agency, she said, is not optional.

Here is a good article on the implications of the Supreme Court's ruling on campaign finance. This video from "Countdown With Keith Olbermann" features Representative James Cliburn, who sounds aggressive and hopeful notes on what can be done to address the bookend legal travesty to Bush v. Gore. Take heed and take heart. Some corporate leaders are already beseeching Congress to redress the high (as in "they must have been...") court's ruling. Yes, folks: It's that bad.

Listen To The Wind...

My late father-in-law, Edward R. Becks, told me that Republicans are like junkies; they don't know the meaning of the word "enough." The desires of a tiny cabal of super-rich reactionaries born in the wake of Teddy Roosevelt's ascent to the presidency in 1901 and energized by the implementation of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal in 1932, have been realized at last. They've finally gotten what they always wanted and you can be sure that it still won't be enough: On January 21st, 2010, the United States Supreme Court ruled that corporations have unfettered free speech rights in regard to political campaigns.

[The cabal maintained that any expansion of government beyond what it was at the end of President William McKinley's tenure was a perversion of the founder's conception of federal power].

The decision is a catastrophe that has been compared to Dred Scott--the decision that officially deprived black Americans of their constitutional rights. In that case, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney declared that blacks were constitutional ciphers and "had no rights that the white man was bound to respect." The Supreme Court today declared that this country's voters now have no rights that the corporations are bound to respect. America's politicians can now be bought and sold on an open market legitimized by the highest court in this land, The legacy of George W. Bush--The Worst President In United States History--is the gift that keeps on giving.

Corporate money rather than our tax dollars controls governance from now until this nefarious decision is either overturned or we descend into an alarmingly imminent approximation of Mike Judge's prophetical film Idiocracy, wherein corporate America reigns supreme over a riotous clutch of ignoramuses. As Keith Olbermann said last night, it is "government of the people by the corporations for the corporations...it is our Dred Scott!"

Bingo!

We've got to see that it perishes from the earth. Quickly. Otherwise, the United States of America will devolve into a rigged mud-wrestling match with the corporations serving their own interests and the people wondering why everything that they want or need--health care or social security or climate change initiatives or the well-being of the middle class--is "economically infeasible" and why they're covered with mud.

Newt Gingrich said on National Public Radio yesterday that "this is a victory for middle-class political candidates."

Imagine being a Regular Joe presented with the opportunity to secure a coach seat on the Gravy Train by running for virtual sure-fire election to Congress... (you ride in coach because the people in First Class can't stand your stench). You vote the way the people who got you where you are want you to vote. You do and say what you're told. Then--even more nakedly than now--you dance with the ones that brung you.

Citizens United vs. The Federal Election Commission was about a corporation's right to air a hit piece against presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton during the period just before an election. Election laws precluded airing of corporate or party propaganda in the immediate period leading up to a vote. Citizens United sued and took it to the Supreme Court where it blossomed from a narrow dispute about an acerbic anti-Hillary Clinton movie into the replacement of individual Americans in the political process by American Corporations.

The Supreme Court held that speech--corporate money, in their lexicon--can not be constrained.

Funny...

I can't yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater without expecting consequences.

I can't joke about a bomb or a weapon at any point during an airline flight with impunity.

I can't threaten the life of a member of the federal government.

I can't make terrorist threats.

I can't libel anyone without fear of penalty via due process.

In other words, my speech as a free, responsible citizen of this country is subject to constraint... for excellent reasons.

But--by the very nature of corporate America--those constraints don't apply under the ruling handed down by the Roberts Court on January 21st.

Libel an opposition candidate in an election?

Tough titty. It's a corporation versus an individual. It's a Great Dane versus a chihuahua. The litigation would be over long after the "right" candidate took office. The corporation could fight the case as long as it desired (i.e. when the losing candidate ran out of money).

A corporation buys all the available air time in a market for its preferred candidate?

Not a problem, according to Justice Roberts. It's free speech. The corporation can't be expected to look out for a rube that didn't hook up with a Sugar Daddy.

Corporations can now shout "Fire!" and do so with impunity. They're writing the checks now. Politicians don't prosecute or hold accountable the hand that feeds them.

Corporations can now characterize candidates as dangers to national security or the national well-being. The offended candidate can sue, but their adversary has the deepest pockets on earth,

Hell, the corporations can do pretty much what they want because they've got the money to deal with the negative consequences of any action they might take on behalf of a candidate.

That kind of power buys an awful lot of indulgence. It buys an awful lot of influence. It buys results.

There's a passage in Citizen Kane that comes to mind. Kane's affair with Susan Alexander has been found out by Boss Jim Gettys. Gettys has told Kane's wife and--in a confrontation in Susan's apartment--Kane's wife challenges him to pick between fling and family. Susan--silent for most of the time--wails "What about me?!"

The silence from Kane, his wife, and Gettys speaks more eloquently than any words could have.

Go ahead...

Try it...

Whisper it or shout it...

"What about me?!"

Listen to the wind.

George W. Bush: The Worst President In United States History

The mainstream media is trying to stuff the administration of George W. Bush--The Worst President In United States History--down the memory hole. That eight years didn't happen, according to The Villagers, and less than one year of Barack Obama has brought us to the brink of economic ruin.

Don't let it happen! Challenge anyone who tries to blame the deficit on Obama. Remind them of the tax cuts for the rich, the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq, the Medicare Drug "Benefit", and the TARP bailout. The war in Iraq accounts for $1.2 billion per month. That's BILLION. What is $1.2 billion times seventy-eight? The Medicare Scam cost us seven trillion, more-or-less. Now, they're telling us that every extra soldier we send into Afghanistan will cost us another million dollars. Since we've been there for eight years, extrapolate that million bucks per soldier up until today, And--don't forget--that the wars were "paid for" "off-the books."

Let's leave aside the exorbitant contracts awarded to Halliburton, Blackwater/Xe, KBR, etc. The above paragraph adds up to quite a bit of money.

The ONLY reason we're not in a declared depression right now is that the Obama stimulus package was sufficient to interpose a quarter or two of growth into what is an economic crash-dive. That's why The Villagers refer to our current plight as "The Great Recession." It's a dodge. Rest assured: This is the Second Great Depression. People don't have money. They don't have jobs. They don't have the security that most of us grew up taking for granted.

Put the blame where it lies... on George W. Bush: The Worst President In United States History.

A Cause For Concern...

Barack Obama hasn't been president for a year yet. The mess he inherited from the Bush Administration is rivaled only by the one existing during the transition between the presidencies of James Buchanan and Abraham Lincoln.

BTW, every time I mention George W. Bush, I am going to emphasize his richly-earned title: The Worst President In The History Of The United States.

A number of issues that the Bush Administration has left for President Obama require a definitive departure from the status quo. This Time Magazine article is a troubling peek inside the Obama White House. It chronicles the firing of White House Counsel Greg Craig and why it happened. It doesn't give me a good feeling about the Obama White House. It doesn't give me a good feeling about the president's command of the situation.

So many issues facing our nation now require unambiguous leadership from the president. And President Obama has virtually disappeared from the field.

He should begin with his decision on Afghanistan and begin throwing his considerable weight behind some progressive initiatives like ending the two wars in the Middle East while capturing or killing the Al Qaeda operatives who authored 9/11; rendering quick, effective, and direct aid to the millions of Americans suffering under this undeclared depression; making definitive progress toward addressing energy policy and its relationship to climate change; and re-building the bond between the American government and its people. There are other issues--he need only read his campaign speeches--that demand his follow-through.

We've seen the conservative's work. It's a wonder they still get the lion's share of the appearances on the Sunday morning talk shows. It's a wonder they've remained out of jail. But they're still setting the agenda.

President Obama should give the Teabaggers something to scream about and do what the people who elected him sent him there to do: Effect change we can believe in.

A Message From Jacques...

Hello. My name is Jacques. I live with the idiot responsible for this sorry POS excuse for a blog. If he didn't slip me the occasional morsel of steak now and then, I don't know that I'd give him a second thought. I mean... SEVEN MONTHS worth of cobwebs?! He's been sitting at his other light box punching stuff in with his fingers, but he sure as hell hasn't been doing this.

Anyway, he seems to be taking an interest in the stuff he was doing all those months ago.

Fair warning: He may start blogging again. Just remember I'm the one who warned you when it's time to pass out the treats.

Woof...

Fox News Viewers Watch Specter Announce His Defection From Republican Party...

Requiem For A Heavyweight...

This is one of the first paragraphs of William F. Buckley's Wikipedia entry:

Buckley was "arguably the most important public intellectual in the United States in the past half century", according to George H. Nash, a historian of the modern American conservative movement. "For an entire generation he was the preeminent voice of American conservatism and its first great ecumenical figure."
Buckley's primary intellectual achievement was to fuse traditional American political conservatism with laissez-faire and anti-communism, laying the groundwork for the modern American conservatism of U.S. presidential candidate Barry Goldwater and President Ronald Reagan.

Bill Buckley died in February of 2008 at the age of 82 on the cusp of Barack Obama's ascendancy to the presidency of the United States. I would like to think that he died with his vision of America intact. I say that as someone who was not exactly included in that vision. He was adamantly against the civil rights movement. Buckley wrote the following in 1957 when I was not quite five years old:

”…The central question that emerges... is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas where it does not predominate numerically? The sobering answer is Yes – the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race."

True to his intellectual rigor, his sense of fairness, and his essential decency, he repudiated this view.

Yet, he still held that view at a time when its effect was most crucial. Barry Goldwater came to repudiate it in later life as well. Conversely, Ronald Reagan put the shining happy face of neoconservatism on it. Reagan’s invocation of “The Welfare Queen” and George H. W. Bush’s demonizing of presidential rival Michael Dukakis via the dark-skinned boogey man of Willie Horton are of a piece. They diminished the nation’s political debate and laid the groundwork for the cynical, self-interested, pseudo-conservatism of Tom DeLay, Newt Gingrich, and Grover Norquist.

Again, I like to think that Bill Buckley saw through this hucksterism.

Now, the progeny of William F. Buckley’s movement are arguing for the acceptance of torture as a useful and indispensable tool in the fight against America’s enemies. I can’t pretend to think what Buckley might have thought about the present spectacle of American officials equating war crimes with mere trifles.

But I like to think that Mr. Buckley—his prodigious vocabulary shining at the fore—would have warned us against this abomination. I like to think that he would have been a voice of reason sounding the alarm against discarding the rule of law for the sake of political expediency. That is what Richard Cheney and those who assist him are doing now. They are trying to convince us that we have to break international law in order to save it.

Cheney. Rumsfeld, Rice, and the other Bush administration officials responsible for this country’s descent into torture as national policy should be held to account. It’s a view I hold partially because William F. Buckley laid forth an example that I follow. Our country is worth cherishing. Our country is worth consideration in national affairs. And the price we pay for that is that our country’s ideals are worth upholding.

Bill Buckley and I may have disagreed on the best way to do so, but we agreed.

On Sesame Street With Ricky Gervais and Elmo!

Things might seem dire in these trying economic times, but there's nothing like a good laugh to keep us sane. All the best to Ricky but especially to Elmo, who performed a work of genius under adverse conditions.

Headphones recommended.

Pietri Nella Mia Scarpa

President Barack Obama has done some great things in the first two months of his presidency. He has promised to end the commitment of combat troops in Iraq by a date certain. He has set in motion the process to close our shameful detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Obama has rendered George W. Bush's signing statements inoperative, rescinded the ban on federal funding for stem cell research, signed into law important legislation barring discrimination against women in the workplace, submitted an honest and forthright--though earmark-laden--budget, and passed a stimulus bill that will translate into real jobs and real progress for the American people.

But--alas--my unstinting support of him has come to an end. To paraphrase Don Altobello in The Godfather Part III, "I have some stones in my shoe."

The biggest one has been placed there by Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman. His latest column--Behind The Curve--suggests very strongly and very convincingly that the current stimulus bill is inadequate. President Obama is surrounded by advisors who have been part of the problem rather than part of the solution. Larry Summers, Tim Geithner, and other key economic players in the administration had front-row seats for the making of the debacle that is our current economy.

They are still protecting their own interests.

The so-called "zombie banks" and financial institutions should be treated no differently than the seventeen regional banks that have been seized and liquidated this year. No more bailout money. No more bonuses gleaned from taxpayers. No more hemming and hawing about the value of "toxic" loans on the books of financial institutions.

Why?

The longer it goes on and the more bailout money allocated to the malefactors who got us into this mess in the first place, the less incentive average Americans have to honor their own commitments. Rick Santelli notwithstanding, what debtor should be counted as an idiot for walking away from an obligation when our own government is paying The Big Players to do that very thing? With bonuses! Why not?

"Why not stiff the banks for some tens of thousands of dollars when the government is pumping billions into those institutions for the same purpose? If they can default without penalty, why can't we?"

This is the psychology that adds to the toxicity of the current economic environment.

The second stone in my shoe? The Obama administration isn't even back on its heels as far as framing the issues: It's comatose. He's getting his ass kicked. Inaction is allowing incoherence to hold sway. The Mainstream Media are always going to give the right-wing a voice. That voice will always have influence as long as it is allowed to ring unchallenged. Witness the canard that--two months into his administration--Obama "owns" the economic mess we're in. The most intellectually benighted yokels in the furthest reaches of our nation's Dogpatches can be talked down from that lofty perch if only someone would undertake to do it.

No one in the Obama administration seems up to the task.

The final stone in my shoe? It can only be written down to timidity. Barack Obama is the premiere politician of this age and could be the premiere politician of any other if he would just take hold of the reins and drive this country into the proper direction. He needs to start "throwing elbows." He needs to stop lamenting his long-lost status as a private person and begin to take on this greatest of mantles.

Maybe Michelle can strap him into a chair in the White House theater and replay the pivotal moment from the movie The American President until The Clue Train pulls in.

It don't get no better than this, President Obama. You'll never have a better chance to crush these bastards than you have right now. Our future as a nation depends on you doing just that. Their leader is Rush Limbaugh and they're too afraid--too timid--to say any different. Offer those Republicans an alternative, Mr. Obama. Invite Paul Krugman and Howard Dean and Nouriel Roubini and FDIC chair Sheila Bair in for a meeting without Hillary's DLC flunkies around. Fashion a kick-ass policy that will lift this nation out of the crisis it's in, do so in a way that ensures that it won't happen again, and marginalize the Republican Party as an effective political entity in this nation.

Come on! They've proved that they deserve it! Pull the trigger and put us all out of their misery.

The Mad Bull Of The Pompous

Aloha! It's been a while...

I've finished my screenplay. Spring is almost here. The deafening peep of hungry chicks tended by their mother hens awakens me most mornings.

We have a president again. The mess left to Mr. Obama by the Bush administration is the most horrific since Herbert Hoover passed the torch to Franklin Roosevelt. The movement that began with the defeat of Barry Goldwater in 1964 and came to fruition during the presidency of Ronald Reagan has proved itself again.

Conservatism...

It's a word that still commands respect if it means what the late Bill Buckley meant. It's a word that means something good if it means what Theodore Roosevelt meant: Patriotism. Prudence with the taxpayer's money. Respect for the land, the law, and the legacy of American Democracy.

But that's not what we have now. The so-called "conservative" movement has done more damage to this country than any terrorist could have hoped to do. The Bush foreign policy has cost more lives--needlessly--than did the Al Qaeda attacks on September 11th, 2001. The conservative mantra against "tax and spend liberals" can't hold a candle to the damage done by "spend and don't tax" conservatism. Capitalists who have known that the cops weren't watching have stolen oceans of money, kept wages so low that working people now think little of using a credit card to buy a hamburger, and have the nerve to command the right to continue steering the ship that they've let run onto the rocks.

What do we have now? The Great Depression's Sequel.

What do we have now? Cries of "class warfare" from the right-wing bastards who made this bed in which we lie (""class warfare" being the outraged cry of an abusive husband finally shot by his wife).

What do we have now? Fear and uncertainty bordering on panic.

Our new president is taking steps to fix the situation. He has tried to enlist the assistance of every patriotic American in the task.

But what does Rush say? That "Obama should fail."

An American president should FAIL! Why?!

Rush Limbaugh is appealing to the dried-up promises of three decades. He's appealing to the intellectual bankruptcy of a movement that considers Alaska governor Sarah Palin a serious candidate for president. He's appealing to those who believe in the ravings of über-anti-tax activist Grover Norquist who identifies our government as "the problem" and prescribes no government at all for us--a government we can reduce to the size that can be "drowned in the bathtub." He is appealing to those too ignorant and too arrogant to face the cold, hard realitlies the rest of us face.

The government IS us! For good or ill, it is the expression of how much we care for ourselves and for others. The right-wing cries out against "socialism" after wrecking their country through sheer greed for the second time in the span of a century. Reality is literally forcing us toward a more equitable arrangement of our national affairs.

Good conservatives like Bill Buckley and Teddy Roosevelt might have questioned the path we travel toward restoration of American prosperity, but they would never have railed against setting out for the destination. The Republican Party--sixteen years removed from its effort to "destroy the Democrat Party as a viable political entity in this country"--stands at the brink of having done themselves in instead.

Payback's a bitch...

Weekend Update...

Where the hell have I been?

I'm working on my latest screenplay, I have unretired from live musical performance and am in an excellent band, and life goes on. The picture is from the beach at the Four Seasons resort north of Kona where we had breakfast this morning.

Aloha, all. I'll let you know how things are going.

Simple Question...

I'm going to ask a simple question: Who is the head of the Democratic Party?

It's not Howard Dean. Howard Dean is the head of the Democratic National Committee--an essential arm of the Democratic Party--but not the force that steers the ship. It contends with the Democratic Congressional election committees, the Democratic Leadership Council and the big Democratic donors.

It's not Barack Obama. Not yet.

It's not Al Gore or John Kerry. They ran for the presidency and lost. They were granted primacy and did not retain it.

The head of the Democratic Party is still its erstwhile president: William Jefferson Clinton.

Clinton has refused to give up that mantle for the last eight years. Al Gore won the presidency in 2000 but was denied it by the United States Supreme Court. As they say, "close" only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. Gore chose not to associate himself with Clinton during his campaign for the presidency. It would have been a wise decision had the Supreme Court chosen to follow the law.

John Kerry's own flaws as a candidate simply amplified Bill Clinton's non-involvement in the 2004 campaign. Make no mistake: The Clintons looked at 2008 as Hillary's Year. They short-armed support for Kerry and began amassing a campaign chest that would eventually amount to a quarter-of-a-billion dollars.

The Clintons were more than confident during the 2008 primaries; they approached the nomination as a foregone conclusion. But Barack Obama came along as an object lesson against failing to hustle... against taking things for granted... against hubris. He ran a more focused, more disciplined, more prepared campaign. The Clinton effort to do away with primaries that determine their nominee by caucus is proof that the Clintons haven't given up on 2012. They didn't develop the ground game necessary to compete effectively in caucus states (I live in Hawaii--a caucus state--and Clinton had ZERO presence and effectiveness here).

Barack Obama will not be the leader of the Democratic Party until the floor vote is over and he completes his acceptance speech. It is right and fitting that Gore, Kerry, and Clinton will speak before him. But Clinton is the one passing on the mantle. His speech has to be letter-perfect or he can kiss his stature in the Democratic Party goodbye.

Aloha...

I was extremely fortunate to grow up when I did with the parents I had. My father was an amazing man. He taught me two important things: You belong wherever you are and you regard each person you encounter as an individual. I can't begin to convey how rich those two simple tenets have made my life. They are what have made living in Hawaii such a joy for me: I'm in a culture where those two values are essential. And that culture has shaped Barack Obama. I think that may be part of the reason that some accuse his supporters of a "cult-like" devotion to him. The values he learned during his formative years here shine through. He is the genuine article. He is not pretending.

We face the most crucial election of our lives (I hope). Barack Obama only needs to accomplish a few things to be a great president: End the war in Iraq, start the fights against global warming and against our dependency on oil, ensure that every American who needs health care has it, and work to make the world a more just and safe place. That's about it.

John McCain is viscerally opposed to that agenda, as is the constituency supporting him. We can't afford a McCain presidency. We don't have a lot of time left. The rest of the world is ready to break out the torches and pitchforks and there's not a whole lot we Americans would be able to say in our own defense. The oceans are rising. Tides are turning.

Aloha means a lot of things, but it's most famously known as meaning "hello" and "goodbye." America will pick one or the other in November.

The Obama Prayer

Barack Obama left a prayer in Jerusalem's Western Wall during his recent week-long foreign tour. The prayer--written on a piece of stationery from the King David Hotel--was supposed to remain in the wall until its custodians removed it for burial on the Mount of Olives.

That didn't happen...

An orthodox seminary student is alleged to have plucked Barack Obama's prayer from the wall and taken it to the newspaper Maariv which published it. I am prepared to accept the possibility that this story is apocryphal or manufactured. But if it is not, the student and the newspaper deserve Biblical tsouris (grief).

What upsets me so much about this--apart from the egregious violation of Senator Obama's most intimate territory--is the utter humility and sincerity of the prayer:

Lord, protect my family and me.
Forgive me my sins
And help me guard against pride and despair.
Give me the wisdom to do what is right and just.
And make me an instrument of your will.

I'm not a religious man but this prayer resonates with me. I intend to put it on a t-shirt with the Obama logo and wear it. If this is a campaign ploy, then it's a good one. Otherwise, I wish the worst for those who authored this sacrilege.

"It's A Class War, Stupid!"

Rolling Stone columnist Matt Taibbi says it all: We're being robbed blind.