I predict that Sarah "Caribou Barbie" Palin, after she gets her ass handed to her on election day, will use her new notoriety to get a show of her own. If she succeeds in seducing a network and sponsors into backing her, her show will be a short-lived disaster and she'll get fat, cranky, drunk and abandon her family to run away with the kid who knocked up her daughter.
You read it here first....................FC
Look for McCain to announce he's for a single-payer national health plan, transferring the Pentagon budget to infrastructure renewal and clean renewable energy and hiking taxes on incomes above $250,000. Oh, and he'll claim to be an African-American man, but that the VietCong beat the black out of him. Sarah Palin will promise free 24/7 fellatio service to white male voters. You read it here first........ FC (A source with the Palin/McCain campaign who did not want to be identified)
His (McCain's) poll numbers are dropping faster than Ann Coulter's panties at a Welcome Home party for the 5th Fleet!
......overheard on the Straight Talk Express, "Hey, look we're on the Road to Nowhere!"
Why does everything hang on a senator from Arizona? Shouldn't it be Bush who is handling this? (The financial mess)
McCain is in full meltdown. This is not going to be pretty.
Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama.
John McCain recently blamed Barack Obama for the Wall Street mess. Stunning. The truth is the politics of the economy can be likened to a bus. The bus driver is the Bush Administration, and the rest of us, including the Democrats in Congress, are the passengers. Question: If the bus driver drives the bus off the cliff, how is that the fault of the passengers?..............Jim Gilbert
McCain needs to read his prepared rehearsed remarks. Is he senile or just incompetent to campaign? Impulsive and over the hill is a terrible choice for President. .......DAVID LAMBERT
I want to be clear and speak directly to those of you who LOVED that Palin interview. You're an idiot !
Don't you get it? I'm not insulting Sarah Palin, SHE IS INSULTING ME.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-seitzman/sarah-palin-naked_b_125861.html
I thought he looked gracious and presidential; others may think he looked insufficiently tough. I think Obama more than held his own in this first debate, but if you're looking for a grumpy, sarcastic put-down artist as president, your choice is quite clear.
-- Joan Walsh at Salon.com
And just for fun:
Paul Begala calls Bush a 'high-functioning moron'
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Republican principles
From the email at http://www.zeppscommentaries.com
Many thanks to Mainetalker for this original piece...
Republican principles:
* If you're a minority and you're selected for a job over more qualified candidates you're a "token hire."
* If you're a conservative and you're selected for a job over more qualified candidates you're a "game changer."
* Black teen pregnancies? A "crisis" in black America .
* White teen pregnancies? A "blessed event."
* If you grow up in Hawaii you're "exotic."
* Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, you're the quintessential "American story."*
Similarly, if you name you kid Barack you're "unpatriotic."
* Name your kid Track, you're "colorful."
* If you're a Democrat and you make a VP pick without fully vetting the individual you're "reckless."
* A Republican who doesn't fully vet is a "maverick."
* If you spend 3 years as a community organizer growing your organizationfrom a staff of 1 to 13 and your budget from $70,000 to $400,000, then become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new African Amerian voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, then spend nearly 8 more years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, becoming chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, then spend nearly 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of nearly 13 million people, sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Worksand Veteran's Affairs committees, you are woefully inexperienced.
* If you spend 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, then spend 20 months as the governor of a state with 650,000 people, then you've got the most executive experience of anyone on either ticket, are the Commander in Chief of the Alaska military and are well qualified to lead the nation should you be called upon to do so because your state is the closest state to Russia.
* If you are a Democratic male candidate who is popular with millions of people you are an "arrogant celebrity."
* If you are a popular Republican female candidate you are "energizing the base."
* If you are a younger male candidate who thinks for himself and makes his own decisions you are "presumptuous."
* If you are an older male candidate who makes last minute decisions you refuse to explain, you are a "shoot from the hip" maverick.
* If you are a candidate with a Harvard law degree you are "an elitist-out of touch" with the real America .
* if you are a legacy (dad and granddad were admirals) graduate of Annapolis, with multiple disciplinary infractions you are a hero.
* If you manage a multi-million dollar nationwide campaign, you are an"empty suit."* If you are a part time mayor of a town of 7000 people, you are an"experienced executive."
* If you go to a south side Chicago church, your beliefs are "extremist."
* If you believe in creationism and don't believe global warming is man made, you are "strongly principled."
* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.
* If you have been married to the same woman with whom you've been wed to for 19 years and raising 2 beautiful daughters with, you're "risky."
* If you're a black single mother of 4 who waits for 22 hours after her water breaks to seek medical attention, you're an irresponsible parent, endangering the life of your unborn child.
* But if you're a white married mother who waits 22 hours, you're spunky.
* If you're a 13-year-old Chelsea Clinton, the right-wing press calls you"First dog."
* If you're a 17-year old pregnant unwed daughter of a Republican, the right-wing press calls you "beautiful" and "courageous."
* If you kill an endangered species, you're an excellent hunter.
* If you have an abortion, you're a murderer (forget about if it happened while being raped.)
* If you teach abstinence only in sex education, you get teen parents.
* If you teach responsible age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
* If you're a Republican senator who solicits gay sex in an airport bathroom, you get to return to your job in the Senate and are encouraged to run for re-election.
* If you're a Democratic Senator who is out of public office and have an affair, your political career is over and your wife who has terminal cancer is to blame.
Still want to vote Republican?.. Wake Up America!--
"Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so"-George W. Bush, April 20, 2004
Not dead, in jail, or a slave? Thank a liberal!
Pay your taxes so the rich don't have to. http://www.zeppscommentaries.com
Many thanks to Mainetalker for this original piece...
Republican principles:
* If you're a minority and you're selected for a job over more qualified candidates you're a "token hire."
* If you're a conservative and you're selected for a job over more qualified candidates you're a "game changer."
* Black teen pregnancies? A "crisis" in black America .
* White teen pregnancies? A "blessed event."
* If you grow up in Hawaii you're "exotic."
* Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, you're the quintessential "American story."*
Similarly, if you name you kid Barack you're "unpatriotic."
* Name your kid Track, you're "colorful."
* If you're a Democrat and you make a VP pick without fully vetting the individual you're "reckless."
* A Republican who doesn't fully vet is a "maverick."
* If you spend 3 years as a community organizer growing your organizationfrom a staff of 1 to 13 and your budget from $70,000 to $400,000, then become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new African Amerian voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, then spend nearly 8 more years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, becoming chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, then spend nearly 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of nearly 13 million people, sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Worksand Veteran's Affairs committees, you are woefully inexperienced.
* If you spend 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, then spend 20 months as the governor of a state with 650,000 people, then you've got the most executive experience of anyone on either ticket, are the Commander in Chief of the Alaska military and are well qualified to lead the nation should you be called upon to do so because your state is the closest state to Russia.
* If you are a Democratic male candidate who is popular with millions of people you are an "arrogant celebrity."
* If you are a popular Republican female candidate you are "energizing the base."
* If you are a younger male candidate who thinks for himself and makes his own decisions you are "presumptuous."
* If you are an older male candidate who makes last minute decisions you refuse to explain, you are a "shoot from the hip" maverick.
* If you are a candidate with a Harvard law degree you are "an elitist-out of touch" with the real America .
* if you are a legacy (dad and granddad were admirals) graduate of Annapolis, with multiple disciplinary infractions you are a hero.
* If you manage a multi-million dollar nationwide campaign, you are an"empty suit."* If you are a part time mayor of a town of 7000 people, you are an"experienced executive."
* If you go to a south side Chicago church, your beliefs are "extremist."
* If you believe in creationism and don't believe global warming is man made, you are "strongly principled."
* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.
* If you have been married to the same woman with whom you've been wed to for 19 years and raising 2 beautiful daughters with, you're "risky."
* If you're a black single mother of 4 who waits for 22 hours after her water breaks to seek medical attention, you're an irresponsible parent, endangering the life of your unborn child.
* But if you're a white married mother who waits 22 hours, you're spunky.
* If you're a 13-year-old Chelsea Clinton, the right-wing press calls you"First dog."
* If you're a 17-year old pregnant unwed daughter of a Republican, the right-wing press calls you "beautiful" and "courageous."
* If you kill an endangered species, you're an excellent hunter.
* If you have an abortion, you're a murderer (forget about if it happened while being raped.)
* If you teach abstinence only in sex education, you get teen parents.
* If you teach responsible age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
* If you're a Republican senator who solicits gay sex in an airport bathroom, you get to return to your job in the Senate and are encouraged to run for re-election.
* If you're a Democratic Senator who is out of public office and have an affair, your political career is over and your wife who has terminal cancer is to blame.
Still want to vote Republican?.. Wake Up America!--
"Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so"-George W. Bush, April 20, 2004
Not dead, in jail, or a slave? Thank a liberal!
Pay your taxes so the rich don't have to. http://www.zeppscommentaries.com
Monday, September 08, 2008
Dear Barack
It's been week or so since I wrote you a letter so I figure it's time that I updated you on a few facts of life. For starters, I have been bored to tears since the completion of these stupid conventions, especially the Republican farce for a convention and it's your fault.
Here's why I think it's your fault. You're still trying to preach in response to those nasty attacks and it ain't workin' son. Personally I detest being preached to and that's pretty much what you have done all along. So get over the sermons already. Hell, you're even putting the damn Republicans to sleep.
Where's all that P & V that I hear you have been blessed with? Get it going son. I am too damn old to sit around waiting on miracles. The way I see it right now you are going to lose unless you get some serious kickass going.
Now I happen to come from a family with mixed heritage so it's really pissing me off to see Grandma Palin and her snide, nasty attacks on you and you just stand there chuckling, coming back with some nicey, nice preacher remarks. Now I think you might just have an idea what Sen. Clinton felt like campaigning against you, eh??
Nicey, nice is not going to work with these nasty bastards and you have to know that. Surely you can look back and see what those miserable cretins did to John McCain in 2000, to John Kerry in 2004. Do I have to say Max Cleland?
Come on Barack. You have to learn to fight back and you have to do it, like yesterday. It doesn't matter that McCain was a POW. After he was a POW, he became an adulterer. He dumped the crippled wife who had waited, hoped and cared for the kids for 5 long years. Since that time he has been an elite, multi-millionaire, (thanks to the Stepford Wife Cindy), who is so out of touch with the real world that the thought of him becoming president scares the hell out of Thad Cochran. A multi-millionaire, by the way who is collecting almost $60,000.00 a year as total disability for military service. If he is totally disabled why is he in the Senate and why is he running for the presidency?
I happen to think that McCain's POW experience is a negative. We don't know what they did to that old coot while he was lollygagging around the Hanoi Hilton.
Now enters Granny Palin.... Hell yes, I think that baby is her daughter's kid but that is of no importance other than the usual Republican lying and covering up their own mistakes, corruption, etc.
Granny Palin calls herself a pit bull with lipstick and she's proved that to be true. She appears to also be a female George Bush, only with the ability to speak in complete sentences. Based on what I have read of her history, she is as corrupt as Dick Cheney and meaner than a junk yard dog. She has every intention of sending this country backwards into the 18th Century. I have no doubt that this mean, vindictive woman intends to be president by hook or by crook. She will run the country while Granddaddy McCain drools away in the Library, only being awakened to sign whatever she puts in front of him. Sound familiar?
It's perfectly alright that Granny Palin has the options to make choices about her life, her child's life, etc., but she appears to think that the rest of the world needs her to make that decision for them. To that I say, Fuck you Granny Palin. I've seen the results of your decisions and it ain't a pretty sight.
Granddaddy McCain & Granny Palin need to mind their own damn business when it comes to our personal lives. We don't need the advice of a couple of adulterers. Family Values, my ass!
Now back to you. I must admit that I am not quite sure what to do but I do know that you have to do something. You cannot be nice to these assholes. You know their routine. Anything you say or do is unfair to poor 'widdle' ole Granny Palin according to the those GOP's (Goofamous Old Pricks).
Now I am going to be blunt (Sunday school up to now...LOL) I am sick to death of those damn fundamentalist, phony Christians. We sat around & allowed George Bush to place those quacks in every branch of government. Yee gods! Those incompetent, bumbling idiots have stunk up the entire government of these United States.
Have you heard how they prosecuted & convicted Governor Don Siegelman in Alabama on trumped up charges? Surely you know about the corruption in the Justice Dept., first Speedy Gonzales, who was not very speedy at all....Now Mukasey who is endorsing & covering up the crimes of the Bush/Cheney hoodlum administration. Another half dozen or more people sit in prison as political prisoners of these miserable SOBs.
Speaking of which, just what the hell will it take for you to think that Bush & Cheney should be impeached & removed from office? These brazen crooks have crapped on the Constitution of the United States in just about every way possible. Bush is reported to have called it just a goddamn piece of paper and he has treated it like just that ..... a piece of toilet paper.
What about that illegal war? What about the economy of the country? What about jobs? What about "We The People"?
Those bastards are attacking you, wanting you to scream racism. To your credit you have not fallen for that trick but I see no harm in you pointing out how the Republicans have left Black people out of their inner circle & will continue to do so. If I read correctly the Repugs had a grand total of 37 black delegates at that illustrious convention. Thirty-Seven people to represent millions of black people in this country. My, my.... how positively typical of the Republicans!
The Republican party is as racist as they come. I'm only surprised that 'king George' hasn't marched out of the White House with a cone shaped hat and white sheet draped around him. I'm not too sure that Tricky Dicky #2 hasn't done just that.
You have 'experts' (kittens) working with you Barack. Put them in the background and hire yourself some Pit Bulls. I'm sure that you can find a few out there. If I wasn't so damn old I would volunteer. Maxine Waters comes to mind. Think Shirley Chisholm! Think Samson versus Goliath.
Get a move on Barack. Those pretty guy looks will only get you so far. Biden and that flashing traffic light smile was a serious mistake. You can't afford too many more blunders like that one.
Now let's see some asskicking. I don't want to have to come down there(?) up there(?) over there(?) to kick your butt.
Here's why I think it's your fault. You're still trying to preach in response to those nasty attacks and it ain't workin' son. Personally I detest being preached to and that's pretty much what you have done all along. So get over the sermons already. Hell, you're even putting the damn Republicans to sleep.
Where's all that P & V that I hear you have been blessed with? Get it going son. I am too damn old to sit around waiting on miracles. The way I see it right now you are going to lose unless you get some serious kickass going.
Now I happen to come from a family with mixed heritage so it's really pissing me off to see Grandma Palin and her snide, nasty attacks on you and you just stand there chuckling, coming back with some nicey, nice preacher remarks. Now I think you might just have an idea what Sen. Clinton felt like campaigning against you, eh??
Nicey, nice is not going to work with these nasty bastards and you have to know that. Surely you can look back and see what those miserable cretins did to John McCain in 2000, to John Kerry in 2004. Do I have to say Max Cleland?
Come on Barack. You have to learn to fight back and you have to do it, like yesterday. It doesn't matter that McCain was a POW. After he was a POW, he became an adulterer. He dumped the crippled wife who had waited, hoped and cared for the kids for 5 long years. Since that time he has been an elite, multi-millionaire, (thanks to the Stepford Wife Cindy), who is so out of touch with the real world that the thought of him becoming president scares the hell out of Thad Cochran. A multi-millionaire, by the way who is collecting almost $60,000.00 a year as total disability for military service. If he is totally disabled why is he in the Senate and why is he running for the presidency?
I happen to think that McCain's POW experience is a negative. We don't know what they did to that old coot while he was lollygagging around the Hanoi Hilton.
Now enters Granny Palin.... Hell yes, I think that baby is her daughter's kid but that is of no importance other than the usual Republican lying and covering up their own mistakes, corruption, etc.
Granny Palin calls herself a pit bull with lipstick and she's proved that to be true. She appears to also be a female George Bush, only with the ability to speak in complete sentences. Based on what I have read of her history, she is as corrupt as Dick Cheney and meaner than a junk yard dog. She has every intention of sending this country backwards into the 18th Century. I have no doubt that this mean, vindictive woman intends to be president by hook or by crook. She will run the country while Granddaddy McCain drools away in the Library, only being awakened to sign whatever she puts in front of him. Sound familiar?
It's perfectly alright that Granny Palin has the options to make choices about her life, her child's life, etc., but she appears to think that the rest of the world needs her to make that decision for them. To that I say, Fuck you Granny Palin. I've seen the results of your decisions and it ain't a pretty sight.
Granddaddy McCain & Granny Palin need to mind their own damn business when it comes to our personal lives. We don't need the advice of a couple of adulterers. Family Values, my ass!
Now back to you. I must admit that I am not quite sure what to do but I do know that you have to do something. You cannot be nice to these assholes. You know their routine. Anything you say or do is unfair to poor 'widdle' ole Granny Palin according to the those GOP's (Goofamous Old Pricks).
Now I am going to be blunt (Sunday school up to now...LOL) I am sick to death of those damn fundamentalist, phony Christians. We sat around & allowed George Bush to place those quacks in every branch of government. Yee gods! Those incompetent, bumbling idiots have stunk up the entire government of these United States.
Have you heard how they prosecuted & convicted Governor Don Siegelman in Alabama on trumped up charges? Surely you know about the corruption in the Justice Dept., first Speedy Gonzales, who was not very speedy at all....Now Mukasey who is endorsing & covering up the crimes of the Bush/Cheney hoodlum administration. Another half dozen or more people sit in prison as political prisoners of these miserable SOBs.
Speaking of which, just what the hell will it take for you to think that Bush & Cheney should be impeached & removed from office? These brazen crooks have crapped on the Constitution of the United States in just about every way possible. Bush is reported to have called it just a goddamn piece of paper and he has treated it like just that ..... a piece of toilet paper.
What about that illegal war? What about the economy of the country? What about jobs? What about "We The People"?
Those bastards are attacking you, wanting you to scream racism. To your credit you have not fallen for that trick but I see no harm in you pointing out how the Republicans have left Black people out of their inner circle & will continue to do so. If I read correctly the Repugs had a grand total of 37 black delegates at that illustrious convention. Thirty-Seven people to represent millions of black people in this country. My, my.... how positively typical of the Republicans!
The Republican party is as racist as they come. I'm only surprised that 'king George' hasn't marched out of the White House with a cone shaped hat and white sheet draped around him. I'm not too sure that Tricky Dicky #2 hasn't done just that.
You have 'experts' (kittens) working with you Barack. Put them in the background and hire yourself some Pit Bulls. I'm sure that you can find a few out there. If I wasn't so damn old I would volunteer. Maxine Waters comes to mind. Think Shirley Chisholm! Think Samson versus Goliath.
Get a move on Barack. Those pretty guy looks will only get you so far. Biden and that flashing traffic light smile was a serious mistake. You can't afford too many more blunders like that one.
Now let's see some asskicking. I don't want to have to come down there(?) up there(?) over there(?) to kick your butt.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Re: Our message of change
Barack,
You're just not listening to a word I say. I don't give a damn about your recorded message or your new bunk mate & I am not going to give you $5.00 until I see some sign of real change.
Matter of fact there's not too much that pisses me off more than a record message. You send emails that make it sound as though we are best buds (to borrow words from my friend Norla) then you add insult to injury by telling me to listen to your recorded message. Stuff it Obama! I'm not interested in any more of your pretty words. I want to see something that doesn't sound like it comes from the McSame campaign.
I was never impressed by your supposedly pretty words. I thought they were just a lot of hot air the first time I heard you speak. I've neither seen or heard anything to change my mind on that issue.
I like Hillary Clinton and I think she would be a much better president than you but when she dropped her campaign and asked us to support you, I did so. Now I am beginning to wonder if I should just throw in the towel.
You sound like just another politician. You didn't help matters by picking Biden as your playmate. It's hard to forget that he was a staunch supporter of the Patriot Act. You also did not help any by your support for the FISA act. What the hell do you expect us to believe when you are right in there flip-flopping with that old coot McSame?
Grow some balls Obama and stand up for this country. The hell with those good old boys. They have had a heavy hand in the attacks on the Constitution of the United States. I am sick of the illegally installed quack from Texas and his thoroughly corrupt side kick, ole Dead Eye Dick. They are the worst thing to ever happen to this country and believe me I know that you voted for a lot of stuff on their wish list.
Now are you going to choose country or the good old boys? It's your call but by damn, it's my vote & I am not going to waste it on just another good old boy.
Now quit being a pansyass and show us some real change.
Maggie
You're just not listening to a word I say. I don't give a damn about your recorded message or your new bunk mate & I am not going to give you $5.00 until I see some sign of real change.
Matter of fact there's not too much that pisses me off more than a record message. You send emails that make it sound as though we are best buds (to borrow words from my friend Norla) then you add insult to injury by telling me to listen to your recorded message. Stuff it Obama! I'm not interested in any more of your pretty words. I want to see something that doesn't sound like it comes from the McSame campaign.
I was never impressed by your supposedly pretty words. I thought they were just a lot of hot air the first time I heard you speak. I've neither seen or heard anything to change my mind on that issue.
I like Hillary Clinton and I think she would be a much better president than you but when she dropped her campaign and asked us to support you, I did so. Now I am beginning to wonder if I should just throw in the towel.
You sound like just another politician. You didn't help matters by picking Biden as your playmate. It's hard to forget that he was a staunch supporter of the Patriot Act. You also did not help any by your support for the FISA act. What the hell do you expect us to believe when you are right in there flip-flopping with that old coot McSame?
Grow some balls Obama and stand up for this country. The hell with those good old boys. They have had a heavy hand in the attacks on the Constitution of the United States. I am sick of the illegally installed quack from Texas and his thoroughly corrupt side kick, ole Dead Eye Dick. They are the worst thing to ever happen to this country and believe me I know that you voted for a lot of stuff on their wish list.
Now are you going to choose country or the good old boys? It's your call but by damn, it's my vote & I am not going to waste it on just another good old boy.
Now quit being a pansyass and show us some real change.
Maggie
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Obama's VP Announcement
Hi Barack,
This is your 'friend" Maggie. Remember me? You sent me that cute little email announcing your choice for VP? NO? Damn, and it sounded so much like we have known each other for years! I could have sworn, after reading the opening line that you remembered me from someplace but then a friend suggested that it sounded like a Nigerian scam letters.
But you did it faster than the Nigerian scam letters. In 7 lines you got me to the link to tell Ole Joe how glad I was for him to be on the team and that link led me straight to the never-ending requests for MONEY.
Sorry Barack. I'm not glad to see Biden as VP candidate. He's just one of the original good old boys in that useless Congress. I'm sick and tired of the good old boys and their back slapping, self-serving bull malarkey!
My friend Norla wrote to you and congratulated you, saying that you & Biden look good together. I don't disagree with Norla too many times but I think she had that comment all wrong. I think you & Mr. Biden look ALIKE... period. Yep, the thing that stands out like a neon light are your smiles, on and off.... reminds me of a flashing warning light at a railroad crossing.
Come on son. Ditch that phony on & off smile and get that nose down out of the clear blue. I am trying my best to find a reason to vote for you but the thought of looking up your nostrils for the next 4 or 8 years is just not doing the job.
Norla also wrote, " Obama keeps sending me these little notes addressed to Norla and signed Barack, as if we were buds. The man will not even hear my voice if I shout so the phoniness is mildly annoying."
That irks the hell out of me too Barack. You spew a lot of grand, kissy-kissy words but I have seen little of anything about you actually listening to or talking to someone like me. You talk over us, around us and at us but seldom do I see any indication that you are listening to any of us in the real world.
I realize I am not the Obama Girl but for heaven sakes quit talking AT me as though I am a brick wall not worthy of your attention. I can just about guarantee you that my friend Norla & I have some ideas that would provide the good solid asskicking that McCain deserves. I am also realistic enough to know that you will never hear or entertain those ideas because you are too busy pandering to the fundamentalists & the greedy corporations, who have been responsible (through their agents George Bush & Dick Cheney), to wreak the havoc that we have witnessed for the past 8 long years. Are you trying to subject us to another 4 years or 8 years of the insane Bush BS?
So there you stand with that blazing smile & starting to look like a fool because that old coot, McCain is using the republican owned media to make it look as though every word that comes from your mouth is a lie. Kickass already!
By the way Barack, one thing that you seem to have totally ignored is the massive election fraud that has been underway in this country, especially since the Supreme Court Five installed their boy in 2000. Have you even bothered to notice that there are a number of members of Congress who are there, not because of nasty campaigns, even though nasty has been a part of the game, but because of election fraud. Norm Coleman is one....Saxby of Georgia is another. Election Fraud, Barack, and they are preparing to do the same this time. Do you know how many voters, mostly African Americans, have been removed from the voter rolls this past year? You'd better check.
Charlie Crist, gay governor of Florida is not only covering up his gayness by getting married (will he be McSame's choice for vp?) but he is turning a blind eye to people being removed from the voter rolls.
Oh by the way, let's talk about McSame's patriotism. I know you are afraid to touch that but that old coot is no more a patriot or a hero than my pet bird. He survived as a POW. What the hell about that is heroic OR qualifies him to be president?? Even if you don't want to touch that, you can damn sure talk about his votes against the Veterans & seniors over the years. Matter of fact, it seems that the rich old coot is against us common people having any of the goodies he has and he got it all by being an adulterer, a liar and a crook (Keating Scandal).
Ok Barack. It's your turn and please don't pull that "best bud" routine again. It makes me feel as though one of the uncouth heathens from this Redneck Riviera (Florida panhandle) just called me honey. Damn I hate that word.
I think the Democratic party has gone to hell in a hand basket. This may be the only opportunity to turn it around. You need to use your brain and not be railroaded by some of the out of touch, know-nothings around you. John McCain is a disaster waiting to happen. Get off your comfortable ass and get busy.
You have given the impression that you are one of the smartest men alive today. Prove it!
"Maggie"
PS: A warm & fuzzy thank you note from your new bunk mate, Mr. Biden, just dropped into my mailbox. He, too wrote as though we were best friends. Obviously he didn't read my "thank you" note because it read in part....."one of the original good old boys. So much for that magnificent change".
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Friday, June 13, 2008
Your Whiteness Is Showing: An Open Letter To Certain White Women
Who are Threatening to Withhold Support From Barack Obama in November
By Tim Wise June 5, 2008
This is an open letter to those white women who, despite their proclamations of progressivism, and supposedly because of their commitment to feminism, are threatening to withhold support from Barack Obama in November. You know who you are.
I know that it's probably a bad time for this. Your disappointment at the electoral defeat of Senator Hillary Clinton is fresh, the sting is new, and the anger that animates many of you--who rightly point out that the media was often sexist in its treatment of the Senator--is raw, pure and justified.
That said, and despite the awkward timing, I need to ask you a few questions, and I hope you will take them in the spirit of solidarity with which they are genuinely intended. But before the questions, a statement if you don't mind, or indeed, even if (as I suspect), you will mind it quite a bit.
First, for those of you threatening to actually vote for John McCain and to oppose Senator Obama, or to stay home in November and thereby increase the likelihood of McCain winning and Obama losing (despite the fact that the latter's policy platform is virtually identical to Clinton's while the former's clearly is not), all the while claiming to be standing up for women...For those threatening to vote for John McCain or to stay home and increase the odds of his winning (despite the fact that he once called his wife the c-word in public and is a staunch opponent of reproductive freedom and gender equity initiatives, such as comparable worth legislation), all the while claiming to be standing up for women...
For those threatening to vote for John McCain or to stay home and help ensure Barack Obama's defeat, as a way to protest what you call Obama's sexism (examples of which you seem to have difficulty coming up with), all the while claiming to be standing up for women...
Your whiteness is showing.
When I say your whiteness is showing this is what I mean: You claim that your opposition to Obama is an act of gender solidarity, in that women (and their male allies) need to stand up for women in the face of the sexist mistreatment of Clinton by the press. On this latter point--the one about the importance of standing up to the media for its often venal misogyny--you couldn't be more correct. As the father of two young girls who will have to contend with the poison of patriarchy all their lives, or at least until such time as that system of oppression is eradicated, I will be the first to join the boycott of, or demonstration on, whatever media outlet you choose to make that point. But on the first part of the above equation--the part where you insist voting against Obama is about gender solidarity--you are, for lack of a better way to put it, completely full of crap. And what's worse is that at some level I suspect you know it. Voting against Senator Obama is not about gender solidarity. It is an act of white racial bonding, and it is grotesque.
If it were gender solidarity you sought, you would by definition join with your black and brown sisters come November, and do what you know good and well they are going to do, in overwhelming numbers, which is vote for Barack Obama. But no. You are threatening to vote not like other women--you know, the ones who aren't white like you and most of your friends--but rather, like white men! Needless to say it is high irony, bordering on the outright farcical, to believe that electorally bonding with white men, so as to elect McCain, is a rational strategy for promoting feminism and challenging patriarchy. You are not thinking and acting as women, but as white people. So here's the first question: What the hell is that about?
And you wonder why women of color have, for so long, thought (by and large) that white so-called feminists were phony as hell? Sister please...
Your threats are not about standing up for women. They are only about standing up for the feelings of white women, and more to the point, the aspirations of one white woman. So don't kid yourself. If you wanted to make a statement about the importance of supporting a woman, you wouldn't need to vote for John McCain, or stay home, thereby producing the same likely result--a defeat for Obama. You could always have said you were going to go out and vote for Cynthia McKinney. After all, she is a woman, running with the Green Party, and she's progressive, and she's a feminist. But that isn't your threat is it? No. You're not threatening to vote for the woman, or even the feminist woman. Rather, you are threatening to vote for the white man, and to reject not only the black man who you feel stole Clinton's birthright, but even the black woman in the race. And I wonder why? Could it be...?
See, I told you your whiteness was showing.
And now for a third question, and this is the biggie, so please take your time with it: How is it that you have managed to hold your nose all these years, just like a lot of us on the left, and vote for Democrats who we knew were horribly inadequate--Kerry, Gore, Clinton, Dukakis, right on down the uninspiring line--and yet, apparently can't bring yourself to vote for Barack Obama? A man who, for all of his shortcomings (and there are several, as with all candidates put up by either of the two major corporate parties) is surely more progressive than any of those just mentioned. And how are we to understand that refusal--this sudden line in the proverbial sand--other than as a racist slap at a black man? You will vote for white men year after year after year--and are threatening to vote for another one just to make a point--but can't bring yourself to vote for a black man, whose political views come much closer to your own, in all likelihood, than do the views of any of the white men you've supported before.
How, other than as an act of racism, or perhaps as evidence of political insanity, is one to interpret such a thing? See, black folks would have sucked it up, like they've had to do forever, and voted for Clinton had it come down to that. Indeed, they were on board the Hillary train early on, convinced that Obama had no chance to win and hoping for change, any change, from the reactionary agenda that has been so prevalent for so long in this culture. They would have supported the white woman--hell, for many black folks, before Obama showed his mettle they were downright excited to do so--but you won't support the black man. And yet you have the audacity to insist that it is you who are the most loyal constituency of the Democratic Party, and the one before whom Party leaders should bow down, and whose feet must be kissed?
Your whiteness is showing.
Look, I couldn't care less about the Party personally. I left the Democrats twenty years ago when they told me that my activism in the Central America solidarity and South African anti-apartheid movements made me a security risk, and that I wouldn't be able to get clearance to be in some parade with Governor Dukakis. Yeah, seriously. But for you to act as though you are the indispensible voters, the most important, the ones whose views should be pandered to, whose every whim should be the basis for Party policy, is not only absurd, it is also racist in that it, a) ignores and treats as irrelevant the much more loyal constituency of black folks, without whom no Democrat would have won anything in the past twenty years (and indeed the racial gap favoring the Democrats among blacks is about six times larger than the gender gap favoring them among white women, relative to white men); and b) demonstrates the mentality of entitlement and superiority that has been long ingrained in us as white folks--so that we believe we have the right to dictate the terms of political engagement, and to determine the outcome, and to get our way, simply because for so long we have done just that.
But that day is done, whether you like it or not, and you are now left with two, and only two choices, so consider them carefully: the first is to stand now in solidarity with your black brothers and sisters and welcome the new day, and help to push it in a truly progressive and feminist and antiracist direction, while the second is to team up with white men to try and block the new day from dawning. Feel free to choose the latter. But if you do, please don't insult your own intelligence, or ours, by insisting that you've done so as a radical political act.
http://theladnerreportblog.blogspot.com/
By Tim Wise June 5, 2008
This is an open letter to those white women who, despite their proclamations of progressivism, and supposedly because of their commitment to feminism, are threatening to withhold support from Barack Obama in November. You know who you are.
I know that it's probably a bad time for this. Your disappointment at the electoral defeat of Senator Hillary Clinton is fresh, the sting is new, and the anger that animates many of you--who rightly point out that the media was often sexist in its treatment of the Senator--is raw, pure and justified.
That said, and despite the awkward timing, I need to ask you a few questions, and I hope you will take them in the spirit of solidarity with which they are genuinely intended. But before the questions, a statement if you don't mind, or indeed, even if (as I suspect), you will mind it quite a bit.
First, for those of you threatening to actually vote for John McCain and to oppose Senator Obama, or to stay home in November and thereby increase the likelihood of McCain winning and Obama losing (despite the fact that the latter's policy platform is virtually identical to Clinton's while the former's clearly is not), all the while claiming to be standing up for women...For those threatening to vote for John McCain or to stay home and increase the odds of his winning (despite the fact that he once called his wife the c-word in public and is a staunch opponent of reproductive freedom and gender equity initiatives, such as comparable worth legislation), all the while claiming to be standing up for women...
For those threatening to vote for John McCain or to stay home and help ensure Barack Obama's defeat, as a way to protest what you call Obama's sexism (examples of which you seem to have difficulty coming up with), all the while claiming to be standing up for women...
Your whiteness is showing.
When I say your whiteness is showing this is what I mean: You claim that your opposition to Obama is an act of gender solidarity, in that women (and their male allies) need to stand up for women in the face of the sexist mistreatment of Clinton by the press. On this latter point--the one about the importance of standing up to the media for its often venal misogyny--you couldn't be more correct. As the father of two young girls who will have to contend with the poison of patriarchy all their lives, or at least until such time as that system of oppression is eradicated, I will be the first to join the boycott of, or demonstration on, whatever media outlet you choose to make that point. But on the first part of the above equation--the part where you insist voting against Obama is about gender solidarity--you are, for lack of a better way to put it, completely full of crap. And what's worse is that at some level I suspect you know it. Voting against Senator Obama is not about gender solidarity. It is an act of white racial bonding, and it is grotesque.
If it were gender solidarity you sought, you would by definition join with your black and brown sisters come November, and do what you know good and well they are going to do, in overwhelming numbers, which is vote for Barack Obama. But no. You are threatening to vote not like other women--you know, the ones who aren't white like you and most of your friends--but rather, like white men! Needless to say it is high irony, bordering on the outright farcical, to believe that electorally bonding with white men, so as to elect McCain, is a rational strategy for promoting feminism and challenging patriarchy. You are not thinking and acting as women, but as white people. So here's the first question: What the hell is that about?
And you wonder why women of color have, for so long, thought (by and large) that white so-called feminists were phony as hell? Sister please...
Your threats are not about standing up for women. They are only about standing up for the feelings of white women, and more to the point, the aspirations of one white woman. So don't kid yourself. If you wanted to make a statement about the importance of supporting a woman, you wouldn't need to vote for John McCain, or stay home, thereby producing the same likely result--a defeat for Obama. You could always have said you were going to go out and vote for Cynthia McKinney. After all, she is a woman, running with the Green Party, and she's progressive, and she's a feminist. But that isn't your threat is it? No. You're not threatening to vote for the woman, or even the feminist woman. Rather, you are threatening to vote for the white man, and to reject not only the black man who you feel stole Clinton's birthright, but even the black woman in the race. And I wonder why? Could it be...?
See, I told you your whiteness was showing.
And now for a third question, and this is the biggie, so please take your time with it: How is it that you have managed to hold your nose all these years, just like a lot of us on the left, and vote for Democrats who we knew were horribly inadequate--Kerry, Gore, Clinton, Dukakis, right on down the uninspiring line--and yet, apparently can't bring yourself to vote for Barack Obama? A man who, for all of his shortcomings (and there are several, as with all candidates put up by either of the two major corporate parties) is surely more progressive than any of those just mentioned. And how are we to understand that refusal--this sudden line in the proverbial sand--other than as a racist slap at a black man? You will vote for white men year after year after year--and are threatening to vote for another one just to make a point--but can't bring yourself to vote for a black man, whose political views come much closer to your own, in all likelihood, than do the views of any of the white men you've supported before.
How, other than as an act of racism, or perhaps as evidence of political insanity, is one to interpret such a thing? See, black folks would have sucked it up, like they've had to do forever, and voted for Clinton had it come down to that. Indeed, they were on board the Hillary train early on, convinced that Obama had no chance to win and hoping for change, any change, from the reactionary agenda that has been so prevalent for so long in this culture. They would have supported the white woman--hell, for many black folks, before Obama showed his mettle they were downright excited to do so--but you won't support the black man. And yet you have the audacity to insist that it is you who are the most loyal constituency of the Democratic Party, and the one before whom Party leaders should bow down, and whose feet must be kissed?
Your whiteness is showing.
Look, I couldn't care less about the Party personally. I left the Democrats twenty years ago when they told me that my activism in the Central America solidarity and South African anti-apartheid movements made me a security risk, and that I wouldn't be able to get clearance to be in some parade with Governor Dukakis. Yeah, seriously. But for you to act as though you are the indispensible voters, the most important, the ones whose views should be pandered to, whose every whim should be the basis for Party policy, is not only absurd, it is also racist in that it, a) ignores and treats as irrelevant the much more loyal constituency of black folks, without whom no Democrat would have won anything in the past twenty years (and indeed the racial gap favoring the Democrats among blacks is about six times larger than the gender gap favoring them among white women, relative to white men); and b) demonstrates the mentality of entitlement and superiority that has been long ingrained in us as white folks--so that we believe we have the right to dictate the terms of political engagement, and to determine the outcome, and to get our way, simply because for so long we have done just that.
But that day is done, whether you like it or not, and you are now left with two, and only two choices, so consider them carefully: the first is to stand now in solidarity with your black brothers and sisters and welcome the new day, and help to push it in a truly progressive and feminist and antiracist direction, while the second is to team up with white men to try and block the new day from dawning. Feel free to choose the latter. But if you do, please don't insult your own intelligence, or ours, by insisting that you've done so as a radical political act.
http://theladnerreportblog.blogspot.com/
Monday, May 05, 2008
Goodbye to the double standard . . .
aby Robin Morgan (and thanks to the Women’s Media Center)
“Goodbye To All That” was my (in)famous 1970 essay breaking free from a politics of accommodation especially affecting women (online version is here.) During my decades in civil-rights, anti-war, and contemporary women’s movements, I’ve avoided writing another specific “Goodbye . . .”. But not since the suffrage struggle have two communities — the joint conscience-keepers of this country– been so set in competition, as the contest between Hillary Rodham Clinton (HRC) and Barack Obama (BO) unfurls. So.
Goodbye to the double standard . . .
Hillary is too ballsy but too womanly, a Snow Maiden who’s emotional, and so much a politician as to be unfit for politics.
She’s “ambitious” but he shows “fire in the belly.” (Ever had labor pains? )
When a sexist idiot screamed “Iron my shirt!” at HRC, it was considered amusing; if a racist idiot shouted “Shine my shoes!” at BO, it would’ve inspired hours of airtime and pages of newsprint analyzing our national dishonor.
Young political Kennedys –Kathleen, Kerry, and Bobby Jr. — all endorsed Hillary. Sen. Ted, age 76, endorsed Obama. If the situation were reversed, pundits would snort “See? Ted and establishment types back her, but the forward-looking generation backs him.” (Personally, I’m unimpressed with Caroline’s longing for the Return of the Fathers. Unlike the rest of the world, Americans have short memories. Me, I still recall Marilyn Monroe’s suicide, and a dead girl named Mary Jo Kopechne in Chappaquiddick.)
Goodbye to the toxic viciousness . . .
Carl Bernstein’s disgust at Hillary’s “thick ankles.”
Nixon-trickster Roger Stone’s new Hillary-hating 527 group, “Citizens United Not Timid” (check the capital letters).
John McCain answering “How do we beat the bitch?” with “Excellent question!” Would he have dared reply similarly to “How do we beat the black bastard?” For shame.
Goodbye to the HRC nutcracker with metal spikes between splayed thighs.
If it was a tap-dancing blackface doll, we would be righteously outraged — and they would not be selling it in airports. Shame.
Goodbye to the most intimately violent T-shirts in election history, including one with the murderous slogan “If Only Hillary had married O.J. Instead!” Shame.
Goodbye to Comedy Central’s “Southpark” featuring a storyline in which terrorists secrete a bomb in HRC’s vagina.
I refuse to wrench my brain down into the gutter far enough to find a race-based comparison.
For shame.
Goodbye to the sick, malicious idea that this is funny.
This is not “Clinton hating,” not “Hillary hating.” This is sociopathic woman-hating. If it were about Jews, we would recognize it instantly as anti-Semitic propaganda; if about race, as KKK poison. Hell, PETA would go ballistic if such vomitous spew were directed at animals. Where is our sense of outrage—as citizens, voters, Americans?
Goodbye to the news-coverage target-practice . . .
The women’s movement and Media Matters wrung an apology from MSNBC’s Chris Matthews for relentless misogynistic comments. But what about NBC’s Tim Russert’s continual sexist asides and his all-white-male panels pontificating on race and gender? Or CNN’s Tony Harris chuckling at “the chromosome thing” while interviewing a woman from The White House Project? And that’s not even mentioning Fox News.
Goodbye to pretending the black community is entirely male and all women are white . . .
Surprise! Women exist in all opinions, pigmentations, ethnicities, abilities, sexual preferences, and ages — not only African American and European American but Latina and Native American, Asian American and Pacific Islanders, Arab American and — hey, every group, because a group wouldn’t be alive if we hadn’t given birth to it. A few non-racist countries may exist – but sexism is everywhere. No matter how many ways a woman breaks free from other oppressions, she remains a female human being in a world still so patriarchal that it’s the “norm.”
So why should all women not be as justly proud of our womanhood and the centuries, even millennia, of struggle that got us this far, as black Americans, women and men, are justly proud of their struggles?
Goodbye to a campaign where he has to pass as white (which whites—especially wealthy ones–adore), while she has to pass as male (which both men and women demanded of her, and then found unforgivable). If she were black or he were female we wouldn’t be having such problems, and I for one would be in heaven. But at present such a candidate wouldn’t stand a chance—even if she shared Condi Rice’s Bush-defending politics.
I was celebrating the pivotal power at last focused on African American women deciding on which of two candidates to bestow their vote–until a number of Hillary-supporting black feminists told me they’re being called “race traitors.”
So goodbye to conversations about this nation’s deepest scar—slavery—which fail to acknowledge that labor- and sexual-slavery exist today in the US and elsewhere on this planet, and the majority of those enslaved are women.
Women have endured sex/race/ethnic/religious hatred, rape and battery, invasion of spirit and flesh, forced pregnancy; being the majority of the poor, the illiterate, the disabled, of refugees, caregivers, the HIV/AIDS afflicted, the powerless. We have survived invisibility, ridicule, religious fundamentalisms, polygamy, teargas, forced feedings, jails, asylums, sati, purdah, female genital mutilation, witch burnings, stonings, and attempted gynocides. We have tried reason, persuasion, reassurances, and being extra-qualified, only to learn it never was about qualifications after all. We know that at this historical moment women experience the world differently from men–though not all the same as one another–and can govern differently, from Elizabeth Tudor to Michele Bachelet and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
We remember when Shirley Chisholm and Patricia Schroeder ran for this high office and barely got past the gate—they showed too much passion, raised too little cash, were joke fodder. Goodbye to all that. (And goodbye to some feminists so famished for a female president they were even willing to abandon women’s rights in backing Elizabeth Dole.)
Goodbye, goodbye to . . .
blaming anything Bill Clinton does on Hillary (even including his womanizing like the Kennedy guys–though unlike them, he got reported on). Let’s get real. If he hadn’t campaigned strongly for her everyone would cluck over what that meant.
Enough of Bill and Teddy Kennedy locking their alpha male horns while Hillary pays for it.
an era when parts of the populace feel so disaffected by politics that a comparative lack of knowledge, experience, and skill is actually seen as attractive, when celebrity-culture mania now infects our elections so that it’s “cooler” to glow with marquee charisma than to understand the vast global complexities of power on a nuclear, wounded planet.
the notion that it’s fun to elect a handsome, cocky president who feels he can learn on the job,
goodbye to George W. Bush and the destruction brought by his inexperience, ignorance, and arrogance.
Goodbye to the accusation that HRC acts “entitled” when she’s worked intensely at everything she’s done—including being a nose-to-the-grindstone, first-rate senator from my state.
Goodbye to her being exploited as a Rorschach test by women who reduce her to a blank screen on which they project their own fears, failures, fantasies.
Goodbye to the phrase “polarizing figure” to describe someone who embodies the transitions women have made in the last century and are poised to make in this one. It was the women’s movement that quipped, “We are becoming the men we wanted to marry.” She heard us, and she has.
Goodbye to some women letting history pass by while wringing their hands, because Hillary isn’t as “likeable” as they’ve been warned they must be, or because she didn’t leave him, couldn’t “control” him, kept her family together and raised a smart, sane daughter. (Think of the blame if Chelsea had ever acted in the alcoholic, neurotic manner of the Bush twins!) Goodbye to some women pouting because she didn’t bake cookies or she did, sniping because she learned the rules and then bent or broke them. Grow the hell up. She is not running for Ms.-perfect-pure-queen-icon of the feminist movement. She is running to be President of the United States.
Goodbye to the shocking American ignorance of our own and other countries’ history. Margaret Thatcher and Golda Meir rose through party ranks and war, positioning themselves as proto-male leaders. Almost all other female heads of government so far have been related to men of power—granddaughters, daughters, sisters, wives, widows: Gandhi, Bandaranike, Bhutto, Aquino, Chamorro, Wazed, Macapagal-Arroyo, Johnson Sirleaf, Bachelet, Kirchner, and more. Even in our “land of opportunity,” it’s mostly the first pathway “in” permitted to women: Reps. Doris Matsui and Mary Bono and Sala Burton; Sen. Jean Carnahan . . . far too many to list here.
Goodbye to a misrepresented generational divide . . .
Goodbye to the so-called spontaneous “Obama Girl” flaunting her bikini-clad ass online—then confessing Oh yeah it wasn’t her idea after all, some guys got her to do it and dictated the clothes, which she said “made me feel like a dork.”
Goodbye to some young women eager to win male approval by showing they’re not feminists (at least not the kind who actually threaten the status quo), who can’t identify with a woman candidate because she is unafraid of eeueweeeu yucky power, who fear their boyfriends might look at them funny if they say something good about her.
Goodbye to women of any age again feeling unworthy, sulking “what if she’s not electable?” or “maybe it’s post-feminism and whoooosh we’re already free.” Let a statement by the magnificent Harriet Tubman stand as reply. When asked how she managed to save hundreds of enslaved African Americans via the Underground Railroad during the Civil War, she replied bitterly, “I could have saved thousands — if only I’d been able to convince them they were slaves.”
I’d rather say a joyful Hello to all the glorious young women who do identify with Hillary, and all the brave, smart men—of all ethnicities and any age–who get that it’s in their self-interest, too. She’s better qualified. (D’uh.) She’s a high-profile candidate with an enormous grasp of foreign- and domestic-policy nuance, dedication to detail, ability to absorb staggering insult and personal pain while retaining dignity, resolve, even humor, and keep on keeping on. (Also, yes, dammit, let’s hear it for her connections and funding and party-building background, too. Obama was awfully glad about those when she raised dough and campaigned for him to get to the Senate in the first place.)
I’d rather look forward to what a good president he might make in eight years, when his vision and spirit are seasoned by practical know-how — and he’ll be all of 54. Meanwhile, goodbye to turning him into a shining knight when actually he’s an astute, smooth pol with speechwriters who’ve worked with the Kennedys’ own speechwriter-courtier Ted Sorenson. If it’s only about ringing rhetoric, let speechwriters run. But isn’t it about getting the policies we want enacted?
And goodbye to the ageism . . .
How dare anyone unilaterally decide when to turn the page on history, papering over real inequities and suffering constituencies in the promise of a feel-good campaign? How dare anyone claim to unify while dividing, or think that to rouse US youth from torpor it’s useful to triage the single largest demographic in this country’s history: the boomer generation–the majority of which is female?
Older woman are the one group that doesn’t grow more conservative with age—and we are the generation of radicals who said “Well-behaved women seldom make history.” Goodbye to going gently into any goodnight any man prescribes for us. We are the women who changed the reality of the United States. And though we never went away, brace yourselves: we’re back!
We are the women who brought this country equal credit, better pay, affirmative action, the concept of a family-focused workplace; the women who established rape-crisis centers and battery shelters, marital-rape and date-rape laws; the women who defended lesbian custody rights, who fought for prison reform, founded the peace and environmental movements; who insisted that medical research include female anatomy, who inspired men to become more nurturing parents, who created women’s studies and Title IX so we all could cheer the WNBA stars and Mia Hamm. We are the women who reclaimed sexuality from violent pornography, who put child care on the national agenda, who transformed demographics, artistic expression, language itself. We are the women who forged a worldwide movement. We are the proud successors of women who, though it took more than 50 years, won us the vote.
We are the women who now comprise the majority of US voters.
Hillary said she found her own voice in New Hampshire. There’s not a woman alive who, if she’s honest, doesn’t recognize what she means. Then HRC got drowned out by campaign experts, Bill, and media’s obsession with All Things Bill.
So listen to her voice:
“For too long, the history of women has been a history of silence. Even today, there are those who are trying to silence our words.
“It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls. It is a violation of human rights when woman and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution. It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire and burned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small. It is a violation of human rights when individual women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war. It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of death worldwide along women ages 14 to 44 is the violence they are subjected to in their own homes. It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will.
“Women’s rights are human rights. Among those rights are the right to speak freely–and the right to be heard.”
That was Hillary Rodham Clinton defying the US State Department and the Chinese Government at the 1995 UN World Conference on Women in Beijing (the full, stunning speech is here).
And this voice, age 22, in “Commencement Remarks of Hillary D. Rodham, President of Wellesley College Government Association, Class of 1969” (full speech: )
“We are, all of us, exploring a world none of us understands. . . . searching for a more immediate, ecstatic, and penetrating mode of living. . . . [for the] integrity, the courage to be whole, living in relation to one another in the full poetry of existence. The struggle for an integrated life existing in an atmosphere of communal trust and respect is one with desperately important political and social consequences. . . . Fear is always with us, but we just don’t have time for it.”
She ended with the commitment “to practice, with all the skill of our being: the art of making possible.”
And for decades, she’s been learning how.
So goodbye to Hillary’s second-guessing herself. The real question is deeper than her re-finding her voice. Can we women find ours? Can we do this for ourselves? “Our President, Ourselves!”
Time is short and the contest tightening. We need to rise in furious energy–as we did when courageous Anita Hill was so vilely treated in the US Senate, as we did when desperate Rosie Jiminez was butchered by an illegal abortion, as we did and do for women globally who are condemned for trying to break through. We need to win, this time. Goodbye to supporting HRC tepidly, with ambivalent caveats and apologetic smiles. Time to volunteer, make phone calls, send emails, donate money, argue, rally, march, shout, vote.
Me? I support Hillary Rodham because she’s the best qualified of all candidates running in both parties. I support her because her progressive politics are as strong as her proven ability to withstand what will be a massive right-wing assault in the general election. I support her because she’s refreshingly thoughtful, and I’m bloodied from eight years of a jolly “uniter” with ejaculatory politics. I needn’t agree with her on every point. I agree with the 97 percent of her positions that are identical with Obama’s—and the few where hers are both more practical and to the left of his (like health care). I support her because she’s already smashed the first-lady stereotype and made history as a fine senator, and because I believe she will continue to make history not only as the first US woman president, but as a great US president.
As for the “woman thing”?
Me, I’m voting for Hillary not because she’s a woman–but because I am.
http://www.proudliberalbitch.com/
“Goodbye To All That” was my (in)famous 1970 essay breaking free from a politics of accommodation especially affecting women (online version is here.) During my decades in civil-rights, anti-war, and contemporary women’s movements, I’ve avoided writing another specific “Goodbye . . .”. But not since the suffrage struggle have two communities — the joint conscience-keepers of this country– been so set in competition, as the contest between Hillary Rodham Clinton (HRC) and Barack Obama (BO) unfurls. So.
Goodbye to the double standard . . .
Hillary is too ballsy but too womanly, a Snow Maiden who’s emotional, and so much a politician as to be unfit for politics.
She’s “ambitious” but he shows “fire in the belly.” (Ever had labor pains? )
When a sexist idiot screamed “Iron my shirt!” at HRC, it was considered amusing; if a racist idiot shouted “Shine my shoes!” at BO, it would’ve inspired hours of airtime and pages of newsprint analyzing our national dishonor.
Young political Kennedys –Kathleen, Kerry, and Bobby Jr. — all endorsed Hillary. Sen. Ted, age 76, endorsed Obama. If the situation were reversed, pundits would snort “See? Ted and establishment types back her, but the forward-looking generation backs him.” (Personally, I’m unimpressed with Caroline’s longing for the Return of the Fathers. Unlike the rest of the world, Americans have short memories. Me, I still recall Marilyn Monroe’s suicide, and a dead girl named Mary Jo Kopechne in Chappaquiddick.)
Goodbye to the toxic viciousness . . .
Carl Bernstein’s disgust at Hillary’s “thick ankles.”
Nixon-trickster Roger Stone’s new Hillary-hating 527 group, “Citizens United Not Timid” (check the capital letters).
John McCain answering “How do we beat the bitch?” with “Excellent question!” Would he have dared reply similarly to “How do we beat the black bastard?” For shame.
Goodbye to the HRC nutcracker with metal spikes between splayed thighs.
If it was a tap-dancing blackface doll, we would be righteously outraged — and they would not be selling it in airports. Shame.
Goodbye to the most intimately violent T-shirts in election history, including one with the murderous slogan “If Only Hillary had married O.J. Instead!” Shame.
Goodbye to Comedy Central’s “Southpark” featuring a storyline in which terrorists secrete a bomb in HRC’s vagina.
I refuse to wrench my brain down into the gutter far enough to find a race-based comparison.
For shame.
Goodbye to the sick, malicious idea that this is funny.
This is not “Clinton hating,” not “Hillary hating.” This is sociopathic woman-hating. If it were about Jews, we would recognize it instantly as anti-Semitic propaganda; if about race, as KKK poison. Hell, PETA would go ballistic if such vomitous spew were directed at animals. Where is our sense of outrage—as citizens, voters, Americans?
Goodbye to the news-coverage target-practice . . .
The women’s movement and Media Matters wrung an apology from MSNBC’s Chris Matthews for relentless misogynistic comments. But what about NBC’s Tim Russert’s continual sexist asides and his all-white-male panels pontificating on race and gender? Or CNN’s Tony Harris chuckling at “the chromosome thing” while interviewing a woman from The White House Project? And that’s not even mentioning Fox News.
Goodbye to pretending the black community is entirely male and all women are white . . .
Surprise! Women exist in all opinions, pigmentations, ethnicities, abilities, sexual preferences, and ages — not only African American and European American but Latina and Native American, Asian American and Pacific Islanders, Arab American and — hey, every group, because a group wouldn’t be alive if we hadn’t given birth to it. A few non-racist countries may exist – but sexism is everywhere. No matter how many ways a woman breaks free from other oppressions, she remains a female human being in a world still so patriarchal that it’s the “norm.”
So why should all women not be as justly proud of our womanhood and the centuries, even millennia, of struggle that got us this far, as black Americans, women and men, are justly proud of their struggles?
Goodbye to a campaign where he has to pass as white (which whites—especially wealthy ones–adore), while she has to pass as male (which both men and women demanded of her, and then found unforgivable). If she were black or he were female we wouldn’t be having such problems, and I for one would be in heaven. But at present such a candidate wouldn’t stand a chance—even if she shared Condi Rice’s Bush-defending politics.
I was celebrating the pivotal power at last focused on African American women deciding on which of two candidates to bestow their vote–until a number of Hillary-supporting black feminists told me they’re being called “race traitors.”
So goodbye to conversations about this nation’s deepest scar—slavery—which fail to acknowledge that labor- and sexual-slavery exist today in the US and elsewhere on this planet, and the majority of those enslaved are women.
Women have endured sex/race/ethnic/religious hatred, rape and battery, invasion of spirit and flesh, forced pregnancy; being the majority of the poor, the illiterate, the disabled, of refugees, caregivers, the HIV/AIDS afflicted, the powerless. We have survived invisibility, ridicule, religious fundamentalisms, polygamy, teargas, forced feedings, jails, asylums, sati, purdah, female genital mutilation, witch burnings, stonings, and attempted gynocides. We have tried reason, persuasion, reassurances, and being extra-qualified, only to learn it never was about qualifications after all. We know that at this historical moment women experience the world differently from men–though not all the same as one another–and can govern differently, from Elizabeth Tudor to Michele Bachelet and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
We remember when Shirley Chisholm and Patricia Schroeder ran for this high office and barely got past the gate—they showed too much passion, raised too little cash, were joke fodder. Goodbye to all that. (And goodbye to some feminists so famished for a female president they were even willing to abandon women’s rights in backing Elizabeth Dole.)
Goodbye, goodbye to . . .
blaming anything Bill Clinton does on Hillary (even including his womanizing like the Kennedy guys–though unlike them, he got reported on). Let’s get real. If he hadn’t campaigned strongly for her everyone would cluck over what that meant.
Enough of Bill and Teddy Kennedy locking their alpha male horns while Hillary pays for it.
an era when parts of the populace feel so disaffected by politics that a comparative lack of knowledge, experience, and skill is actually seen as attractive, when celebrity-culture mania now infects our elections so that it’s “cooler” to glow with marquee charisma than to understand the vast global complexities of power on a nuclear, wounded planet.
the notion that it’s fun to elect a handsome, cocky president who feels he can learn on the job,
goodbye to George W. Bush and the destruction brought by his inexperience, ignorance, and arrogance.
Goodbye to the accusation that HRC acts “entitled” when she’s worked intensely at everything she’s done—including being a nose-to-the-grindstone, first-rate senator from my state.
Goodbye to her being exploited as a Rorschach test by women who reduce her to a blank screen on which they project their own fears, failures, fantasies.
Goodbye to the phrase “polarizing figure” to describe someone who embodies the transitions women have made in the last century and are poised to make in this one. It was the women’s movement that quipped, “We are becoming the men we wanted to marry.” She heard us, and she has.
Goodbye to some women letting history pass by while wringing their hands, because Hillary isn’t as “likeable” as they’ve been warned they must be, or because she didn’t leave him, couldn’t “control” him, kept her family together and raised a smart, sane daughter. (Think of the blame if Chelsea had ever acted in the alcoholic, neurotic manner of the Bush twins!) Goodbye to some women pouting because she didn’t bake cookies or she did, sniping because she learned the rules and then bent or broke them. Grow the hell up. She is not running for Ms.-perfect-pure-queen-icon of the feminist movement. She is running to be President of the United States.
Goodbye to the shocking American ignorance of our own and other countries’ history. Margaret Thatcher and Golda Meir rose through party ranks and war, positioning themselves as proto-male leaders. Almost all other female heads of government so far have been related to men of power—granddaughters, daughters, sisters, wives, widows: Gandhi, Bandaranike, Bhutto, Aquino, Chamorro, Wazed, Macapagal-Arroyo, Johnson Sirleaf, Bachelet, Kirchner, and more. Even in our “land of opportunity,” it’s mostly the first pathway “in” permitted to women: Reps. Doris Matsui and Mary Bono and Sala Burton; Sen. Jean Carnahan . . . far too many to list here.
Goodbye to a misrepresented generational divide . . .
Goodbye to the so-called spontaneous “Obama Girl” flaunting her bikini-clad ass online—then confessing Oh yeah it wasn’t her idea after all, some guys got her to do it and dictated the clothes, which she said “made me feel like a dork.”
Goodbye to some young women eager to win male approval by showing they’re not feminists (at least not the kind who actually threaten the status quo), who can’t identify with a woman candidate because she is unafraid of eeueweeeu yucky power, who fear their boyfriends might look at them funny if they say something good about her.
Goodbye to women of any age again feeling unworthy, sulking “what if she’s not electable?” or “maybe it’s post-feminism and whoooosh we’re already free.” Let a statement by the magnificent Harriet Tubman stand as reply. When asked how she managed to save hundreds of enslaved African Americans via the Underground Railroad during the Civil War, she replied bitterly, “I could have saved thousands — if only I’d been able to convince them they were slaves.”
I’d rather say a joyful Hello to all the glorious young women who do identify with Hillary, and all the brave, smart men—of all ethnicities and any age–who get that it’s in their self-interest, too. She’s better qualified. (D’uh.) She’s a high-profile candidate with an enormous grasp of foreign- and domestic-policy nuance, dedication to detail, ability to absorb staggering insult and personal pain while retaining dignity, resolve, even humor, and keep on keeping on. (Also, yes, dammit, let’s hear it for her connections and funding and party-building background, too. Obama was awfully glad about those when she raised dough and campaigned for him to get to the Senate in the first place.)
I’d rather look forward to what a good president he might make in eight years, when his vision and spirit are seasoned by practical know-how — and he’ll be all of 54. Meanwhile, goodbye to turning him into a shining knight when actually he’s an astute, smooth pol with speechwriters who’ve worked with the Kennedys’ own speechwriter-courtier Ted Sorenson. If it’s only about ringing rhetoric, let speechwriters run. But isn’t it about getting the policies we want enacted?
And goodbye to the ageism . . .
How dare anyone unilaterally decide when to turn the page on history, papering over real inequities and suffering constituencies in the promise of a feel-good campaign? How dare anyone claim to unify while dividing, or think that to rouse US youth from torpor it’s useful to triage the single largest demographic in this country’s history: the boomer generation–the majority of which is female?
Older woman are the one group that doesn’t grow more conservative with age—and we are the generation of radicals who said “Well-behaved women seldom make history.” Goodbye to going gently into any goodnight any man prescribes for us. We are the women who changed the reality of the United States. And though we never went away, brace yourselves: we’re back!
We are the women who brought this country equal credit, better pay, affirmative action, the concept of a family-focused workplace; the women who established rape-crisis centers and battery shelters, marital-rape and date-rape laws; the women who defended lesbian custody rights, who fought for prison reform, founded the peace and environmental movements; who insisted that medical research include female anatomy, who inspired men to become more nurturing parents, who created women’s studies and Title IX so we all could cheer the WNBA stars and Mia Hamm. We are the women who reclaimed sexuality from violent pornography, who put child care on the national agenda, who transformed demographics, artistic expression, language itself. We are the women who forged a worldwide movement. We are the proud successors of women who, though it took more than 50 years, won us the vote.
We are the women who now comprise the majority of US voters.
Hillary said she found her own voice in New Hampshire. There’s not a woman alive who, if she’s honest, doesn’t recognize what she means. Then HRC got drowned out by campaign experts, Bill, and media’s obsession with All Things Bill.
So listen to her voice:
“For too long, the history of women has been a history of silence. Even today, there are those who are trying to silence our words.
“It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls. It is a violation of human rights when woman and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution. It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire and burned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small. It is a violation of human rights when individual women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war. It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of death worldwide along women ages 14 to 44 is the violence they are subjected to in their own homes. It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will.
“Women’s rights are human rights. Among those rights are the right to speak freely–and the right to be heard.”
That was Hillary Rodham Clinton defying the US State Department and the Chinese Government at the 1995 UN World Conference on Women in Beijing (the full, stunning speech is here).
And this voice, age 22, in “Commencement Remarks of Hillary D. Rodham, President of Wellesley College Government Association, Class of 1969” (full speech: )
“We are, all of us, exploring a world none of us understands. . . . searching for a more immediate, ecstatic, and penetrating mode of living. . . . [for the] integrity, the courage to be whole, living in relation to one another in the full poetry of existence. The struggle for an integrated life existing in an atmosphere of communal trust and respect is one with desperately important political and social consequences. . . . Fear is always with us, but we just don’t have time for it.”
She ended with the commitment “to practice, with all the skill of our being: the art of making possible.”
And for decades, she’s been learning how.
So goodbye to Hillary’s second-guessing herself. The real question is deeper than her re-finding her voice. Can we women find ours? Can we do this for ourselves? “Our President, Ourselves!”
Time is short and the contest tightening. We need to rise in furious energy–as we did when courageous Anita Hill was so vilely treated in the US Senate, as we did when desperate Rosie Jiminez was butchered by an illegal abortion, as we did and do for women globally who are condemned for trying to break through. We need to win, this time. Goodbye to supporting HRC tepidly, with ambivalent caveats and apologetic smiles. Time to volunteer, make phone calls, send emails, donate money, argue, rally, march, shout, vote.
Me? I support Hillary Rodham because she’s the best qualified of all candidates running in both parties. I support her because her progressive politics are as strong as her proven ability to withstand what will be a massive right-wing assault in the general election. I support her because she’s refreshingly thoughtful, and I’m bloodied from eight years of a jolly “uniter” with ejaculatory politics. I needn’t agree with her on every point. I agree with the 97 percent of her positions that are identical with Obama’s—and the few where hers are both more practical and to the left of his (like health care). I support her because she’s already smashed the first-lady stereotype and made history as a fine senator, and because I believe she will continue to make history not only as the first US woman president, but as a great US president.
As for the “woman thing”?
Me, I’m voting for Hillary not because she’s a woman–but because I am.
http://www.proudliberalbitch.com/
Thursday, April 17, 2008
How soft was the media on Obama?
Just How Soft has Obama's Coverage Been?Marshmallow soft.Down pillow soft.Baby's bottom soft.So no one should be surprised that Obama had a nightmare night. He finally got real questions for which he should have had ready answers. Over the last year Barack Obama has gotten a complete pass on his record, his life and everything associated to his political rise. In fact, if Senator Obama had been subjected to the scrutiny that Hillary Clinton has been subjected to he would have turned to ash by now. So forgive me if all the blogospheric bellyaching permeating Democratic circles is not impressing me much. In fact, it's a laugh out loud moment. Now don't get me wrong. I'm more than willing to blame the traditional media for piling on a Democrat, which they do often. But do these progressives now crying fowl really believe they could protect Mr. Obama, as his Democratic challengers did all last year, throughout the rest of this campaign? Asking a question about Rev. Wright? A question about William Ayers? The horror! Seriously, is Senator Obama so frail that he shouldn't be subjected to questioning that should have come a long time ago and will inevitably come in the general election? If nothing else and at the very least, everyone in the Democratic party should want to know how he's going to handle this stuff if he's our nominee. Because there can be no doubt that the wingnuts will lock and load Barack's greatest hits, then share them with the electorate in a cascade of negative gifts. Mind you, this is questioning I've been doing for a year and getting excoriated for it. So I feel Charlie and George's pain. Going for substance isn't easy amidst the Political Idol crowd.The facts are that the progressive community and Obama supporters have done their candidate no favors by the kid glove treatment they've applied to all things having to do with him and his record, including his associations. What happened last night is a result of one year of people ignoring reality. That's right, reality. Because the closer Obama got to the nomination and the general election, the curtain would eventually be pulled back on every event in his life, good, bad and horror show, which includes Rev. Wright. This is the reason we lose elections. What, did Obama's adoring fans think they could hermetically seal him and protect him from the meanies out there, then simply deliver him to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue because "he's the one?" Good grief.If Obama would have been put through his paces last fall, he might have been past this by now. If his own campaign had faced up to his associations long ago, head on, he wouldn't be dealing with this now.Again, I'd blame Gibson and Stephanopoulos, but it's not their fault that someone, anyone finally asked questions that have been out there for months and months. It's not tabloid to ask about Ayers any more than it was tabloid to question Bill Clinton about his past. Hillary's been asked about everything more than once, as they reload to ask it all over again.Oh, and as for Keith He's No Edward R. Murrow Olbermann, don't send a sportscaster to do a political analyst's job. Talking to Howard Wolfson, with Olbermann whining about the questions about Ayers, isn't doing us any favors either. He's just giving Obama fans a false sense of security. It's as if the only people dealing with reality and preparing for the Republican attack machine is the Clinton campaign. Olbermann is on planet Zen if he thinks that Ayers won't be part of the dialogue come September. (You know, because you never roll out a new campaign in August.)We need a nominee that can walk through fire. Whoever we offer up should be able to withstand anything, and I do mean anything. Because that's what always comes at Democrats, with the traditional press inevitably having a thing for the guy on the other side. Considering that guy will be John McCain, the hero worship will be out in force. No Democratic politician in the last 20 years has gotten a softer introduction onto the national stage than Barack Obama. Nobody has gotten an easier ride to the top step of presidential politics either. He paid for it last night.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Monday, April 07, 2008
Karl in a Corner
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/04/hbc-90002812
Karl Rove likes to compare himself with Mark Hanna, the powerful industrialist and senator in the waning nineteenth century who is often credited with the transformation of American political campaigns. Hanna showed that money could be a powerful tool to sculpt the nation’s political course. He raised $3.5 million for the 1896 campaign of his friend, William McKinley–up to that point an unimagined sum–and he brought in a campaign staff of 1,400, crafted leaflets, did the first direct mailings, devised the notion of surrogate speakers, and refined the notion of political messaging. When I have spoken with Rove’s friends and his competito
rs in Texas, Alabama, and other states where he refined his skills, I usually hear a litany of praise. “Karl is a master tactician,” they say. They turn almost immediately to his uncanny ability to spot and target “his voters,” and his use of direct mailing and other techniques. One Texas philanthropist described bringing Karl Rove in to work with her board in raising money for a museum as the “smartest thing I ever did.”
But then we come, very quickly, to the dark side of the genius of Karl Rove. In 1970, Rove, using a fake ID card, entered the campaign office of Alan J. Dixon, a candidate for Treasurer of Illinois. He stole a box of Dixon’s campaign letterhead and used it to solicit homeless people to attend Dixon’s campaign events, promising free food and alcohol, and disrupting the events.
George H.W. Bush fired Rove after discovering that he had planted a story with his friend columnist Robert Novack attacking chief Bush presidential campaign fundraiser Robert Mosbacher.
But all of this is minor. The graver matters go to the tactics he embraces. In a strategy memorandum he wrote in 1986 for Texas Governor William Clement, Rove quoted Napoleon: “The whole art of war consists in a well-reasoned and extremely circumspect defensive, followed by rapid and audacious attack.”
But what were the elements of the “audacious attack?” As James Moore documents in his political biography of Rove, Bush’s Brain, politicians who faced Rove in election contests had recurrent problems.
One was rumor campaigns questioning their sexual orientation, adulterous liaisons and similar tawdry matters. Prime examples of this were the rumor campaign launched against Texas Governor Anne Richards suggesting she was a lesbian, and even more pointedly, the curious telephone push-polling during the decisive 2000 Republican primary in South Carolina, suggesting that John McCain had fathered a child in an adulterous relationship with a black woman (McCain and his wife have an adopted daughter from South Asia, whose photograph with her father was circulated in connection with these insinuations).
Second, Rove’s opponents would regularly find that they had suddenly become the target of a criminal investigation, and details concerning the investigation would be aggressively fanned to the press. Rove mastered this technique in a contest for the Texas Agriculture Commissioner’s post that he managed for now-Governor Rick Perry.
Third, and probably the most characteristic of the Rovian tools—“swiftboating.” Rove would cultivate groups which were arguably distant from the campaign proper which would run extremely well funded vitriolic ad hominem attacks on the adversary. The most vivid display of the technique, and indeed the case that produced a new verb for the English language, was the use of military veterans to attack John Kerry over his military record in Vietnam. For a candidate who abandoned his station as a Air National Guard Reservist, refusing to take a physical, and refusing combat service to launch a massive attack on a war hero with a silver star and host of other medals was, well, “audacious.” And ultimately very effective.
These days, Karl is taking a bit of heat over his involvement in the Siegelman case. As I noted in a recent on-air discussion with Dan Abrams, nearly every stone you overturn looking through this case reveals traces of Karl Rove. Rove was serving as campaign advisor to William Pryor, who, as a rabidly partisan Alabama attorney general, launched the investigation into Siegelman almost as soon as he was sworn in as governor. Rove’s close friend and associate William Canary was advising a Republican running against Siegelman, and busily raising money for him as his own wife, Leura Canary, pursued a criminal investigation against Siegelman as U.S. Attorney. A Republican campaign worker disclosed internal discussions about using a criminal prosecution to take out Siegelman, and Rove’s name appeared at every turn, uttered by a person close to Rove. And then the same source, Jill Simpson, described some of her own interactions with Rove in a 60 Minutes segment, followed by another interview on MSNBC’s Dan Abrams show. And we haven’t even begun to discuss the Washington angle…
Rove seems suspiciously concerned about the Simpson allegations, and he’s striking back. The curious thing is that he’s using many of his darker tactics to do so, a move which could well serve in the end to strengthen Simpson’s accusations.
As usual, the Rove approach involves surrogates in the media and the blogosphere. In what may be a sign of desperation, however, Rove is making many of the attacks himself, or is leaving a clear set of fingerprints behind.
Take Rove’s interview in the current issue of the men’s fashion magazine GQ. Here’s how Bush’s brain responds to a query about the Simpson allegations:
[rolls his eyes] Will you do me a favor and go on Power Line and Google “Dana Jill Simpson” [the Republican lawyer who told 60 Minutes that Rove asked her to take a picture of Governor Siegelman cheating on his wife]? She’s a complete lunatic. I’ve never met this woman. This woman was not involved in any campaign in which I was involved. I have yet to find anybody who knows her. And what the media has done on this… No one has read the 143-page deposition that she gave congressional investigators—143 pages. When she shows up to give her explanation of all this, do you know how many times my name appears? Zero times. Nobody checked!
Q: Then how did this happen?
Rove: Because CBS is a shoddy operation. They said, “Hey, if we can say ‘Karl Rove,’ ‘Siegelman,’ that’ll be good for ratings. Let’s hype it. We’ll put out a news release on Thursday and then promo the hell out of it on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.” And Scott Pelley—the question is, Did [60 Minutes correspondent] Scott Pelley say to this woman, “You say you met with him. Where? And you say that he gave you other assignments earlier. When did he begin giving you assignments, and what campaigns did you work with him in? What evidence? I mean, this woman, she said she met with him: Okay, you met with him—where? Did you fly to Washington?” Now she says that she talked to me on the phone and she’s got phone records. Of calls to Washington and Virginia. But what’s Virginia? I don’t live in Virginia. And it’s 2001. What is in Virginia? It’s not the Bush headquarters; that was in Austin, Texas. What is in Virginia? So—but look, she’s a loon.
Note Rove’s thematic line: Simpson is “a complete lunatic… a loon.” It apparently gets worse than this. In the original interview, as reported in at-Largely, Rove apparently made scurrilous insinuations about Simpson’s family life and her relationship with her children. GQ made the wise decision to strike them from the published text.
But we should keep one fact in sharp focus: the allegations that Jill Simpson makes are all things that Rove has done, and been caught at, in innumerable other campaigns. They belong to his established modus operandi. And vehement denials are another part of the Rove rapid response pattern.
Rove talks about telephone calls to Virginia and denies that they could relate to his dealings with the Bush campaign and transition team. But public records show that the Bush-Cheney transition effort was headquartered in McLean, Virginia.
Rove tells us that CBS, the nation’s leading news broadcaster, is a “shoddy operation.” But Powerline, a rightwing blog site with close ties to Rove, famous for its vicious political attacks, is the ultimate source for information. Powerline can, of course, be counted upon to come through for Rove in a pinch, and that’s exactly how they’re being used here.
It’s true that the deposition taken of Simpson did not include discussion of Simpson’s accounts of dealings involving Rove other than the now-famous discussion with Rove’s pal William Canary right after the 2002 Alabama gubernatorial contest. But as Rove knows, that issue was covered exhaustively in the investigator’s examination and by several national journalists, not just CBS.
Today, the editors of the Tuscaloosa News call this just right:
Rove can hardly afford to hurl around accusations of shoddy operation. Ethics and morals mean little to him. He has proven time and again that he will do anything to get his way in politics.
And John Mashek at U.S. News & World Report, looking at the evidence of Rove’s involvement in the Siegelman matter, put it this way:
Rove’s methods are a direct contrast to the conduct of two now deceased GOP consultants of the past, John Deardourff and Bob Teeter. Deardourff was the TV ad specialist, while Teeter did the polling and strategizing. As a team, they played to win, but they operated with class and integrity. Rove has neither.
What’s gotten Karl worked into a lather? It’s simple. Jill Simpson and the United States Congress are saying exactly the same thing: Karl, if you’re so clear about this, then certainly you will have no problem appearing in response to a Congressional subpoena, swearing an oath and answering questions–just as Simpson did. Moreover, Congress wants to ask him just the same questions that GQ asked, and that he happily answered. How does Rove explain agreeing to be interviewed by a fashion magazine, but refusing to answer the same questions when formally posed by Congress? And certainly Rove should also turn over documents and answer questions about them, just as Jill Simpson did. Rove’s conduct in chatting up the media but refusing to testify before Congress on the same subjects has certainly been audacious. It’s also been stupid.
Karl’s taunts hurled at CBS are designed to get CBS to put all its cards on the table before Karl goes out wading any further into what he obviously recognizes is a minefield. It’s not that he doubts that CBS did their investigation and confirmed Simpson’s credibility. He knows that they did. And he’s frantic to discover exactly what the evidence is.
Rove has a fundamental problem. His denials will not stand up under scrutiny. And worm and evade as he may, he can’t avoid that simple fact. Which is another reason for us all to say we’re dying to hear Karl Rove’s views about the Siegelman case—as soon as he’s placed under oath and agrees to submit to questioning about them.
In the meantime, tune in tonight for CBS 60 Minutes. (Full disclosure: I have been repeatedly interviewed for the program’s Siegelman coverage.) We’ll see a snippet or two from Scott Pelley’s recent interview with Governor Siegelman. And something tells me that Karl Rove will continue to figure prominently in this story.
Karl Rove likes to compare himself with Mark Hanna, the powerful industrialist and senator in the waning nineteenth century who is often credited with the transformation of American political campaigns. Hanna showed that money could be a powerful tool to sculpt the nation’s political course. He raised $3.5 million for the 1896 campaign of his friend, William McKinley–up to that point an unimagined sum–and he brought in a campaign staff of 1,400, crafted leaflets, did the first direct mailings, devised the notion of surrogate speakers, and refined the notion of political messaging. When I have spoken with Rove’s friends and his competito
rs in Texas, Alabama, and other states where he refined his skills, I usually hear a litany of praise. “Karl is a master tactician,” they say. They turn almost immediately to his uncanny ability to spot and target “his voters,” and his use of direct mailing and other techniques. One Texas philanthropist described bringing Karl Rove in to work with her board in raising money for a museum as the “smartest thing I ever did.”
But then we come, very quickly, to the dark side of the genius of Karl Rove. In 1970, Rove, using a fake ID card, entered the campaign office of Alan J. Dixon, a candidate for Treasurer of Illinois. He stole a box of Dixon’s campaign letterhead and used it to solicit homeless people to attend Dixon’s campaign events, promising free food and alcohol, and disrupting the events.
George H.W. Bush fired Rove after discovering that he had planted a story with his friend columnist Robert Novack attacking chief Bush presidential campaign fundraiser Robert Mosbacher.
But all of this is minor. The graver matters go to the tactics he embraces. In a strategy memorandum he wrote in 1986 for Texas Governor William Clement, Rove quoted Napoleon: “The whole art of war consists in a well-reasoned and extremely circumspect defensive, followed by rapid and audacious attack.”
But what were the elements of the “audacious attack?” As James Moore documents in his political biography of Rove, Bush’s Brain, politicians who faced Rove in election contests had recurrent problems.
One was rumor campaigns questioning their sexual orientation, adulterous liaisons and similar tawdry matters. Prime examples of this were the rumor campaign launched against Texas Governor Anne Richards suggesting she was a lesbian, and even more pointedly, the curious telephone push-polling during the decisive 2000 Republican primary in South Carolina, suggesting that John McCain had fathered a child in an adulterous relationship with a black woman (McCain and his wife have an adopted daughter from South Asia, whose photograph with her father was circulated in connection with these insinuations).
Second, Rove’s opponents would regularly find that they had suddenly become the target of a criminal investigation, and details concerning the investigation would be aggressively fanned to the press. Rove mastered this technique in a contest for the Texas Agriculture Commissioner’s post that he managed for now-Governor Rick Perry.
Third, and probably the most characteristic of the Rovian tools—“swiftboating.” Rove would cultivate groups which were arguably distant from the campaign proper which would run extremely well funded vitriolic ad hominem attacks on the adversary. The most vivid display of the technique, and indeed the case that produced a new verb for the English language, was the use of military veterans to attack John Kerry over his military record in Vietnam. For a candidate who abandoned his station as a Air National Guard Reservist, refusing to take a physical, and refusing combat service to launch a massive attack on a war hero with a silver star and host of other medals was, well, “audacious.” And ultimately very effective.
These days, Karl is taking a bit of heat over his involvement in the Siegelman case. As I noted in a recent on-air discussion with Dan Abrams, nearly every stone you overturn looking through this case reveals traces of Karl Rove. Rove was serving as campaign advisor to William Pryor, who, as a rabidly partisan Alabama attorney general, launched the investigation into Siegelman almost as soon as he was sworn in as governor. Rove’s close friend and associate William Canary was advising a Republican running against Siegelman, and busily raising money for him as his own wife, Leura Canary, pursued a criminal investigation against Siegelman as U.S. Attorney. A Republican campaign worker disclosed internal discussions about using a criminal prosecution to take out Siegelman, and Rove’s name appeared at every turn, uttered by a person close to Rove. And then the same source, Jill Simpson, described some of her own interactions with Rove in a 60 Minutes segment, followed by another interview on MSNBC’s Dan Abrams show. And we haven’t even begun to discuss the Washington angle…
Rove seems suspiciously concerned about the Simpson allegations, and he’s striking back. The curious thing is that he’s using many of his darker tactics to do so, a move which could well serve in the end to strengthen Simpson’s accusations.
As usual, the Rove approach involves surrogates in the media and the blogosphere. In what may be a sign of desperation, however, Rove is making many of the attacks himself, or is leaving a clear set of fingerprints behind.
Take Rove’s interview in the current issue of the men’s fashion magazine GQ. Here’s how Bush’s brain responds to a query about the Simpson allegations:
[rolls his eyes] Will you do me a favor and go on Power Line and Google “Dana Jill Simpson” [the Republican lawyer who told 60 Minutes that Rove asked her to take a picture of Governor Siegelman cheating on his wife]? She’s a complete lunatic. I’ve never met this woman. This woman was not involved in any campaign in which I was involved. I have yet to find anybody who knows her. And what the media has done on this… No one has read the 143-page deposition that she gave congressional investigators—143 pages. When she shows up to give her explanation of all this, do you know how many times my name appears? Zero times. Nobody checked!
Q: Then how did this happen?
Rove: Because CBS is a shoddy operation. They said, “Hey, if we can say ‘Karl Rove,’ ‘Siegelman,’ that’ll be good for ratings. Let’s hype it. We’ll put out a news release on Thursday and then promo the hell out of it on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.” And Scott Pelley—the question is, Did [60 Minutes correspondent] Scott Pelley say to this woman, “You say you met with him. Where? And you say that he gave you other assignments earlier. When did he begin giving you assignments, and what campaigns did you work with him in? What evidence? I mean, this woman, she said she met with him: Okay, you met with him—where? Did you fly to Washington?” Now she says that she talked to me on the phone and she’s got phone records. Of calls to Washington and Virginia. But what’s Virginia? I don’t live in Virginia. And it’s 2001. What is in Virginia? It’s not the Bush headquarters; that was in Austin, Texas. What is in Virginia? So—but look, she’s a loon.
Note Rove’s thematic line: Simpson is “a complete lunatic… a loon.” It apparently gets worse than this. In the original interview, as reported in at-Largely, Rove apparently made scurrilous insinuations about Simpson’s family life and her relationship with her children. GQ made the wise decision to strike them from the published text.
But we should keep one fact in sharp focus: the allegations that Jill Simpson makes are all things that Rove has done, and been caught at, in innumerable other campaigns. They belong to his established modus operandi. And vehement denials are another part of the Rove rapid response pattern.
Rove talks about telephone calls to Virginia and denies that they could relate to his dealings with the Bush campaign and transition team. But public records show that the Bush-Cheney transition effort was headquartered in McLean, Virginia.
Rove tells us that CBS, the nation’s leading news broadcaster, is a “shoddy operation.” But Powerline, a rightwing blog site with close ties to Rove, famous for its vicious political attacks, is the ultimate source for information. Powerline can, of course, be counted upon to come through for Rove in a pinch, and that’s exactly how they’re being used here.
It’s true that the deposition taken of Simpson did not include discussion of Simpson’s accounts of dealings involving Rove other than the now-famous discussion with Rove’s pal William Canary right after the 2002 Alabama gubernatorial contest. But as Rove knows, that issue was covered exhaustively in the investigator’s examination and by several national journalists, not just CBS.
Today, the editors of the Tuscaloosa News call this just right:
Rove can hardly afford to hurl around accusations of shoddy operation. Ethics and morals mean little to him. He has proven time and again that he will do anything to get his way in politics.
And John Mashek at U.S. News & World Report, looking at the evidence of Rove’s involvement in the Siegelman matter, put it this way:
Rove’s methods are a direct contrast to the conduct of two now deceased GOP consultants of the past, John Deardourff and Bob Teeter. Deardourff was the TV ad specialist, while Teeter did the polling and strategizing. As a team, they played to win, but they operated with class and integrity. Rove has neither.
What’s gotten Karl worked into a lather? It’s simple. Jill Simpson and the United States Congress are saying exactly the same thing: Karl, if you’re so clear about this, then certainly you will have no problem appearing in response to a Congressional subpoena, swearing an oath and answering questions–just as Simpson did. Moreover, Congress wants to ask him just the same questions that GQ asked, and that he happily answered. How does Rove explain agreeing to be interviewed by a fashion magazine, but refusing to answer the same questions when formally posed by Congress? And certainly Rove should also turn over documents and answer questions about them, just as Jill Simpson did. Rove’s conduct in chatting up the media but refusing to testify before Congress on the same subjects has certainly been audacious. It’s also been stupid.
Karl’s taunts hurled at CBS are designed to get CBS to put all its cards on the table before Karl goes out wading any further into what he obviously recognizes is a minefield. It’s not that he doubts that CBS did their investigation and confirmed Simpson’s credibility. He knows that they did. And he’s frantic to discover exactly what the evidence is.
Rove has a fundamental problem. His denials will not stand up under scrutiny. And worm and evade as he may, he can’t avoid that simple fact. Which is another reason for us all to say we’re dying to hear Karl Rove’s views about the Siegelman case—as soon as he’s placed under oath and agrees to submit to questioning about them.
In the meantime, tune in tonight for CBS 60 Minutes. (Full disclosure: I have been repeatedly interviewed for the program’s Siegelman coverage.) We’ll see a snippet or two from Scott Pelley’s recent interview with Governor Siegelman. And something tells me that Karl Rove will continue to figure prominently in this story.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Court of Appeals Sets Governor Siegelman Free
Court of Appeals Sets Governor Siegelman Free As Congress Calls Siegelman to Testify in Continued Probe of Political Prosecutions
Scott Horton March 27, 2008
Today was a news double-header for former Alabama Governor Don E. Siegelman. In an order issued by the Court of Appeals in Atlanta, Siegelman’s request to be set free pending his appeal was granted. The court noting that it had reviewed the decision of District Court Judge Mark Fuller for “clear error” and had considered legal issues de novo stated that:
Siegelman has satisfied the criteria set out in the statute and has specifically met his burden of showing that his appeal raises substantial questions of law or fact.
Meanwhile in Washington, the House Judiciary Committee made clear that it was far from finished with its probe into allegations of prosecutorial misconduct in the Siegelman case.
Committee investigators express concern about the Justice Department’s continuous obstruction of efforts to investigate political influence in the Siegelman case and a group of others in which prosecutors have adopted unprecedented theories in an effort to take down prominent Democrats. In the Siegelman case, Justice Department officials have refused to provide evidence under oath, claiming privilege, they have answered written queries with misleading and openly false statements, and they have refused to turn over documents requested by the Committee. Attorney General Mukasey has been repeatedly asked by members of both the House and the Senate Judiciary Committee to examine the extraordinary evidence of misconduct by the U.S. Attorney’s offices in Montgomery and Birmingham, and he has declined to do so. The Justice Department’s stonewalling has thus been complete, top to bottom, and in view of the Justice Department’s refusal to engage in basic self-policing, Congressional oversight is urgently needed. The Judiciary Committee has now concluded that it has no alternative but to require that Siegelman appear before it. The Judiciary Committee has received tens of thousands of appeals from citizens around the country demanding that it take action to hold the Justice Department to account for its misconduct–much of this occurring after CBS News’s 60 Minutes and MSNBC’s Dan Abrams ran a series of exposes revealing extremely troubling misconduct in the course of the prosecution.
Here is the Associated Press’s account:
The House Judiciary Committee has asked the Justice Department to temporarily release former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman from prison to testify before Congress in early May about possible political influence over his prosecution.
A spokeswoman for the committee said Thursday that Siegelman, who is serving more than seven years in a Louisiana prison, would travel to Washington under guard of the U.S. Marshals Service. She said Committee Chairman John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, wants to hear directly from Siegelman because lawmakers are having trouble getting information elsewhere, including from the Justice Department.
The AP also reported that Attorney General Michael Mukasey had indicated he would seek to block the Judiciary Committee’s efforts to have Siegelman testify. That was consistent with prior Justice Department decisions aimed at gagging Siegelman and preventing disclosure of Justice Department misconduct in his case. Mukasey’s opposition was mooted when the Court of Appeals directed his release.
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/03/hbc-90002739
Scott Horton March 27, 2008
Today was a news double-header for former Alabama Governor Don E. Siegelman. In an order issued by the Court of Appeals in Atlanta, Siegelman’s request to be set free pending his appeal was granted. The court noting that it had reviewed the decision of District Court Judge Mark Fuller for “clear error” and had considered legal issues de novo stated that:
Siegelman has satisfied the criteria set out in the statute and has specifically met his burden of showing that his appeal raises substantial questions of law or fact.
Meanwhile in Washington, the House Judiciary Committee made clear that it was far from finished with its probe into allegations of prosecutorial misconduct in the Siegelman case.
Committee investigators express concern about the Justice Department’s continuous obstruction of efforts to investigate political influence in the Siegelman case and a group of others in which prosecutors have adopted unprecedented theories in an effort to take down prominent Democrats. In the Siegelman case, Justice Department officials have refused to provide evidence under oath, claiming privilege, they have answered written queries with misleading and openly false statements, and they have refused to turn over documents requested by the Committee. Attorney General Mukasey has been repeatedly asked by members of both the House and the Senate Judiciary Committee to examine the extraordinary evidence of misconduct by the U.S. Attorney’s offices in Montgomery and Birmingham, and he has declined to do so. The Justice Department’s stonewalling has thus been complete, top to bottom, and in view of the Justice Department’s refusal to engage in basic self-policing, Congressional oversight is urgently needed. The Judiciary Committee has now concluded that it has no alternative but to require that Siegelman appear before it. The Judiciary Committee has received tens of thousands of appeals from citizens around the country demanding that it take action to hold the Justice Department to account for its misconduct–much of this occurring after CBS News’s 60 Minutes and MSNBC’s Dan Abrams ran a series of exposes revealing extremely troubling misconduct in the course of the prosecution.
Here is the Associated Press’s account:
The House Judiciary Committee has asked the Justice Department to temporarily release former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman from prison to testify before Congress in early May about possible political influence over his prosecution.
A spokeswoman for the committee said Thursday that Siegelman, who is serving more than seven years in a Louisiana prison, would travel to Washington under guard of the U.S. Marshals Service. She said Committee Chairman John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, wants to hear directly from Siegelman because lawmakers are having trouble getting information elsewhere, including from the Justice Department.
The AP also reported that Attorney General Michael Mukasey had indicated he would seek to block the Judiciary Committee’s efforts to have Siegelman testify. That was consistent with prior Justice Department decisions aimed at gagging Siegelman and preventing disclosure of Justice Department misconduct in his case. Mukasey’s opposition was mooted when the Court of Appeals directed his release.
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/03/hbc-90002739
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
A closer look at McCain’s unearned credibility
Following up on John’s item from the weekend, NBC’s Chuck Todd conceded that the media gives John McCain a pass on his errors of fact and judgment, because he has credibility “in the bank.”
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Monday, March 03, 2008
Going to Jail for Being a Democrat: How Alabama Gov. Don Sie
Once a popular governor of Alabama, Siegelman was framed in a crooked trial and sent to prison by the corrupt Bush administration.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Saturday, March 01, 2008
An Open Letter to Powerline (and others): For the love Rove
In your open letter to CBS News about their 60 Minutes broadcast on the Don Siegelman case, you begin by readily admitting that you are a late-comer to the story. Yet despite not having the facts or apparently seen the investigative reports done well before the CBS broadcast aired, you feel capable enough to issue an opinion...
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Bush League Justice - The Don Siegelman Story
Siegelman's Daughter States That Her Father Knows Karl Rove Is Behind His Prosecution | Says Judge 'Trying To Keep Her Dad Hushed As Long As He Possibly Can'
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
The permanent Republican majority: Part one
The idea that a prominent politician -- a former state governor -- could be tried on charges that many observers consider to be trumped-up, convicted in a trial that involved numerous questionable procedures, and then hauled off to prison in shackles immediately upon sentencing would be almost unbelievable. Don Siegelman, governor of Alabama...
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Monday, January 28, 2008
State of the Union...The Speech Dubya Would Like to Give.
Good Evening!
Ms. Speaker ---Hi Sweetie. Hasn't it been a fabulous year? Vice Dick... Yo Dead Eye, thanks for keeping that squirmy little Dennis Kucinich and his impeachment resolution out of my face.
Waves and points to where members of the Supreme Court are sitting.... A special thanks to the fabulous Supreme 5 for putting me in this office. It's been fun guys! Good evening to you.
Anyway, I'm so thankful, and so gracious—I'm gracious that my brother Jeb was governor of Florida in 2000. AND Kat Harris....Damn I miss seeing that bitch in this grand audience.
Every time I come to this rostrum, I chuckle with glee that all you suckers have to bend over and kiss my ass for another year and what a year it's been! I recall one speech in this chamber when I told you that our differences in these two chambers will discussed in a civil manner.
Snicker...giggle.... I can't believe you Democrats and your damn fool bi-partisanship! Thanks DemoRats for a FABULOUS 7 yrs. Just watch what I have in store for you in my final year IF I decide that it is my final year.
I told you that I (ME... the Decider) will make choices that determine the future and the character of my country. Hehehehehe! You didn't have a clue when I talked about charting a different course. Sorry about that missing surplus but we had to fight against those terrorists over there so they don't come over here.
Pay down an unprecedented amount of the national debt? Did I say that? Oooops, sorry about that...hehehehe.... Well, you know those damn terrorists just messed up my grand plans. Thanks again Uncle Dick. Enjoying that off shore account in Dubai?? Money left over from paying down that debt... ho ho ho ROTFLMAO! What a speech!
Every year this speech just gets better & better!
Whew! What a trip! "I don't particularly like it when people put words in my mouth, by the way, unless I say it".
Oh boy ('scuse me Osama errrrr uh ah Obama...sorry about that. hehehehe) did I ever pursue those terrorists! Poor Osama (hehehehe) ........ sorry about that old bud. Enjoying my ranch in Paraguay? How about those weekenders at my favorite pig farm in Crawford, Texas? We've had some great times, eh? (snickering ) You still owe me for getting your family & friends out of the U.S. immediately after Uncle Dick's 9-11 adventure. You and Kenny Boy having a good time? YEAH! (Thumbs up)
Yep, I warned you about that radical Islam and called my best bud, Osama a terrorist. You didn't have a clue that it was my secret code to the 9-11 gang to get prepared did you? Too late now suckers. I own you body and soul thanks to those handy telephone tapping games!
As for those Iraqis, their population has been reduced to where they will have very little competition in their businesses. They can now sit back and enjoy their new found freedom under the protection of MY army for the next hundred years.
Hey, how do you like that great big embassy in Iraq? Oh, you don't know about that? Surprise! Surprise! It is the world's largest embassy. You didn't think that I, The Commander Guy, was going to do anything half-assed did you? Big! Big! Big! That's my motto as your commander in chief.
"My administration has been calling upon all the leaders in the—in the Middle East to do everything they can to stop the violence, to tell the different parties involved that peace will never happen." (Bushism) Yep... We're gonna be there a long, long time. Get used to it.
You get any ideas about messing with me, the Decider & you'll get a bad case of whoopass. Just ask Joe Wilson & Valerie Plame! They don't call me king george for nothing!
My secret government still bothering you? Tough! I'm the Decider, the commander guy & I make my own rules. If you don't believe it go to the White House web site and read all MY LAWS. I have a signing statement for every occasion.
Me, torture prisoners? Prove it suckers! You ain't got nothing on george bush that I don't have something on you that will overcome your silly accusations.
Now for the current situation. Damn, do I have to solve everything? While I was busy with my highly successful wars (Yes they are successful because I say so) somebody was screwing around with the economicals of this country. Now I have to solve this mess or at least cover it up till I get my comfortable, rich ass propped up in Paraguay. Hey, wanna buy a fabulous pig farm in Texas to help my economical situation?
Anyhow, I'm going to stimulate this mess caused by Wal Mart....er Wall Street by giving you a big fat check but first I have to get something on those damn Democrats so they don't stick that food stamp crap back in my fabulous bill. Of course they will try to take out my fabulous tax breaks for my rich buddies too. There really ought to be a law against being a DemoRAT.
So, you little old peons are going to get a big fat check....might be as much as $600... and I want to you to get off your welfare asses and spend that thing as fast as you can. Thanks to me you are going to be rich, rich rich so...Go shopping. Spend, spend, spend just like I do. Gotta get that money moving around to make it look like the economicals is rebounding in the remaining months of my term as your un-elected pRes.
Ha! ha! ha! Just popped into my head that some of you might still be pissed because those fabulous Supremes appointed me, when that damn Al Gore was counting and showing that he might win. Too bad losers!
The agenda I have set before you tonight is worthy of a great man like me. Just think when you walk through that Statuary's Hall in the Capitol building you can be visualizing what my statue will look like. Make it big and fabulous.
I came here for a reason. I have kept my promise to those fabulous corporations. I don't give a damn about you middle class & welfare queens. You will be working for my buddies for the rest of your miserable lives for minimum wage. If you want to crawl out of those crumbling huts & repossessed houses you will have to get your fat asses to Harvard or Yale like I did and get that "C' average.
Then you can be presudent, just like me! In the meantime here's to you dumb klutzes who will never be as importantical as me....
Praise the Lord and goodnight.
Exit podium with both middle fingers held high!
..................................................
Back at ya Dubya! And in old fashioned Southernese, Kiss my Grits!
May your last year in office be a living hell ....FOR YOU!
It's only fair after we were forced to tolerate your ugly, smirking ass for 7 long years, going on 8.
Ms. Speaker ---Hi Sweetie. Hasn't it been a fabulous year? Vice Dick... Yo Dead Eye, thanks for keeping that squirmy little Dennis Kucinich and his impeachment resolution out of my face.
Waves and points to where members of the Supreme Court are sitting.... A special thanks to the fabulous Supreme 5 for putting me in this office. It's been fun guys! Good evening to you.
Anyway, I'm so thankful, and so gracious—I'm gracious that my brother Jeb was governor of Florida in 2000. AND Kat Harris....Damn I miss seeing that bitch in this grand audience.
Every time I come to this rostrum, I chuckle with glee that all you suckers have to bend over and kiss my ass for another year and what a year it's been! I recall one speech in this chamber when I told you that our differences in these two chambers will discussed in a civil manner.
Snicker...giggle.... I can't believe you Democrats and your damn fool bi-partisanship! Thanks DemoRats for a FABULOUS 7 yrs. Just watch what I have in store for you in my final year IF I decide that it is my final year.
I told you that I (ME... the Decider) will make choices that determine the future and the character of my country. Hehehehehe! You didn't have a clue when I talked about charting a different course. Sorry about that missing surplus but we had to fight against those terrorists over there so they don't come over here.
Pay down an unprecedented amount of the national debt? Did I say that? Oooops, sorry about that...hehehehe.... Well, you know those damn terrorists just messed up my grand plans. Thanks again Uncle Dick. Enjoying that off shore account in Dubai?? Money left over from paying down that debt... ho ho ho ROTFLMAO! What a speech!
Every year this speech just gets better & better!
Whew! What a trip! "I don't particularly like it when people put words in my mouth, by the way, unless I say it".
Oh boy ('scuse me Osama errrrr uh ah Obama...sorry about that. hehehehe) did I ever pursue those terrorists! Poor Osama (hehehehe) ........ sorry about that old bud. Enjoying my ranch in Paraguay? How about those weekenders at my favorite pig farm in Crawford, Texas? We've had some great times, eh? (snickering ) You still owe me for getting your family & friends out of the U.S. immediately after Uncle Dick's 9-11 adventure. You and Kenny Boy having a good time? YEAH! (Thumbs up)
Yep, I warned you about that radical Islam and called my best bud, Osama a terrorist. You didn't have a clue that it was my secret code to the 9-11 gang to get prepared did you? Too late now suckers. I own you body and soul thanks to those handy telephone tapping games!
As for those Iraqis, their population has been reduced to where they will have very little competition in their businesses. They can now sit back and enjoy their new found freedom under the protection of MY army for the next hundred years.
Hey, how do you like that great big embassy in Iraq? Oh, you don't know about that? Surprise! Surprise! It is the world's largest embassy. You didn't think that I, The Commander Guy, was going to do anything half-assed did you? Big! Big! Big! That's my motto as your commander in chief.
"My administration has been calling upon all the leaders in the—in the Middle East to do everything they can to stop the violence, to tell the different parties involved that peace will never happen." (Bushism) Yep... We're gonna be there a long, long time. Get used to it.
You get any ideas about messing with me, the Decider & you'll get a bad case of whoopass. Just ask Joe Wilson & Valerie Plame! They don't call me king george for nothing!
My secret government still bothering you? Tough! I'm the Decider, the commander guy & I make my own rules. If you don't believe it go to the White House web site and read all MY LAWS. I have a signing statement for every occasion.
Me, torture prisoners? Prove it suckers! You ain't got nothing on george bush that I don't have something on you that will overcome your silly accusations.
Now for the current situation. Damn, do I have to solve everything? While I was busy with my highly successful wars (Yes they are successful because I say so) somebody was screwing around with the economicals of this country. Now I have to solve this mess or at least cover it up till I get my comfortable, rich ass propped up in Paraguay. Hey, wanna buy a fabulous pig farm in Texas to help my economical situation?
Anyhow, I'm going to stimulate this mess caused by Wal Mart....er Wall Street by giving you a big fat check but first I have to get something on those damn Democrats so they don't stick that food stamp crap back in my fabulous bill. Of course they will try to take out my fabulous tax breaks for my rich buddies too. There really ought to be a law against being a DemoRAT.
So, you little old peons are going to get a big fat check....might be as much as $600... and I want to you to get off your welfare asses and spend that thing as fast as you can. Thanks to me you are going to be rich, rich rich so...Go shopping. Spend, spend, spend just like I do. Gotta get that money moving around to make it look like the economicals is rebounding in the remaining months of my term as your un-elected pRes.
Ha! ha! ha! Just popped into my head that some of you might still be pissed because those fabulous Supremes appointed me, when that damn Al Gore was counting and showing that he might win. Too bad losers!
The agenda I have set before you tonight is worthy of a great man like me. Just think when you walk through that Statuary's Hall in the Capitol building you can be visualizing what my statue will look like. Make it big and fabulous.
I came here for a reason. I have kept my promise to those fabulous corporations. I don't give a damn about you middle class & welfare queens. You will be working for my buddies for the rest of your miserable lives for minimum wage. If you want to crawl out of those crumbling huts & repossessed houses you will have to get your fat asses to Harvard or Yale like I did and get that "C' average.
Then you can be presudent, just like me! In the meantime here's to you dumb klutzes who will never be as importantical as me....
Praise the Lord and goodnight.
Exit podium with both middle fingers held high!
..................................................
Back at ya Dubya! And in old fashioned Southernese, Kiss my Grits!
May your last year in office be a living hell ....FOR YOU!
It's only fair after we were forced to tolerate your ugly, smirking ass for 7 long years, going on 8.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Wake Up America: Dubya’s New and Unimproved Screw You America Scheme
GOOD MORNING AMERICA! Wake up and get your lazy ass out of bed. You are about to be the recipient of another george bush screwing in the form of a tax rebate.
Remember that magnificent tax refund/rebate check that you got early in 2001? I wonder how many of you had to repay that whopping "refund". I know a number of people who had to do just that.
Do you recall the screeches of righteous indignation coming from the little peons on the republican side of the isle when they learned they had been royally screwed. Those poor fools are still working minimum wage jobs & believing king george when he tells that they can be president just like him some day. Gosh, all it takes is a 'c' average. Dubya just leaves out that minor detail....that they must have someone with the money to buy the 'c' and then steal the election for them.
No big deal. Right? Yep.... they are going to be rich, rich, rich..... some day. They know that because king george told them so and we know george never tells a lie does he? (I actually typed that without ROTFLMAO).
But back to the george bush refund, rebate or whatever he is calling it.
The first figure I heard was an $800 rebate. Someone else mentioned $1000 and then later on I heard a figure of $250! Your guess is as good as mine as to which figure, if any of them are correct. What common sense tells "We the People" is that it's drop in the bucket..... some more of that trickle down economics which has kept us waiting for over 25 years for that windfall and........ still waiting. This magnificent rebate is just another dirty trick, an attempt to save themselves.... the mighty 1%!
That working person who lives paycheck to paycheck has a better grasp of economics than all those "professionals" who are being paid by us to handle the economic business of this country. All it takes is a little common sense to figure out that we cannot spend more than we have, that if we have a credit card we must keep it under control at all times.
Alan Greenspan, in an interview on Democracy Now, said that we Americans need to be paid less, that we make too much money. Now you don't think he was talking about those Wall Street CEO's who paid themselves over $32 BILLION in bonuses as the financial situation in this country continues to worsen do you?
I have an idea. Why don't we take back that 32 Billion+ and give it to those in minimum wage jobs? The people who have 'busted' their asses to make money for those greedy corporations....that elite 1%? By the way, why don't they pay Social Security on all their income, same as us little old peons? Seems to me that might help solve the national debt AND save Social Security!
Rebate? Economic stimulus? If you believe this once again, you deserve what's coming. If you believe Bush when he expresses concern then you should take a closer look at that ever present smirk. He's no more concerned about you than he is about one of the frogs that he tortured by shoving a firecracker up it's butt & watching it explode.
Did you ever notice how pained Dubya looks when he has to pretend to be concerned about something? Yep, people when you see that painful look on Bush's face don't believe for a minute that it's because he is concerned about you. He doesn't give a damn about you. He is in panic mode because his Wall Street buddies are in trouble.
He's panicking because "We the People" have reached the point where, because our jobs have been outsourced & tax breaks have gone to those who need it the least, that we can no longer support him, the wealthiest of the wealthy. He is panicking because the top 1% may have to start supplementing each other. (Now that might be fun to watch!)
So much for that great supply side economics! The bottom line for 'Bushonomics' is that it would be more appropriately named piss on people economics.
By the way, where is Dubya going to get the billions needed for this rebate? Why borrow it, of course & most likely from the Chinese!
And here we were worried about those big bad terrorists while Dubya & Dead Eye Dick have been selling out the country to the very people who most likely have the capacity to attack us. But then why should they attack when they own most of our national debt, they are selling us billions in crappy or poisonous manufactured goods & buying up businesses in the U.S.? They are taking over our country from the inside out. No need to sacrifice their goose stepping soldiers & all those pretty tanks.
Yeah..... Wake up America indeed. Impeachment is off the table according to Goddess Nancy Pelosi? Why would her Royal Do-Nothingness take impeachment off the table when these fools have done more than all the other administrations combined to destroy our country from the inside out?
Because she's one of them??
This picture & the positioning of Dubya in front of the sign in the back ground inadvertently says it all!
Remember that magnificent tax refund/rebate check that you got early in 2001? I wonder how many of you had to repay that whopping "refund". I know a number of people who had to do just that.
Do you recall the screeches of righteous indignation coming from the little peons on the republican side of the isle when they learned they had been royally screwed. Those poor fools are still working minimum wage jobs & believing king george when he tells that they can be president just like him some day. Gosh, all it takes is a 'c' average. Dubya just leaves out that minor detail....that they must have someone with the money to buy the 'c' and then steal the election for them.
No big deal. Right? Yep.... they are going to be rich, rich, rich..... some day. They know that because king george told them so and we know george never tells a lie does he? (I actually typed that without ROTFLMAO).
But back to the george bush refund, rebate or whatever he is calling it.
The first figure I heard was an $800 rebate. Someone else mentioned $1000 and then later on I heard a figure of $250! Your guess is as good as mine as to which figure, if any of them are correct. What common sense tells "We the People" is that it's drop in the bucket..... some more of that trickle down economics which has kept us waiting for over 25 years for that windfall and........ still waiting. This magnificent rebate is just another dirty trick, an attempt to save themselves.... the mighty 1%!
That working person who lives paycheck to paycheck has a better grasp of economics than all those "professionals" who are being paid by us to handle the economic business of this country. All it takes is a little common sense to figure out that we cannot spend more than we have, that if we have a credit card we must keep it under control at all times.
Alan Greenspan, in an interview on Democracy Now, said that we Americans need to be paid less, that we make too much money. Now you don't think he was talking about those Wall Street CEO's who paid themselves over $32 BILLION in bonuses as the financial situation in this country continues to worsen do you?
I have an idea. Why don't we take back that 32 Billion+ and give it to those in minimum wage jobs? The people who have 'busted' their asses to make money for those greedy corporations....that elite 1%? By the way, why don't they pay Social Security on all their income, same as us little old peons? Seems to me that might help solve the national debt AND save Social Security!
Rebate? Economic stimulus? If you believe this once again, you deserve what's coming. If you believe Bush when he expresses concern then you should take a closer look at that ever present smirk. He's no more concerned about you than he is about one of the frogs that he tortured by shoving a firecracker up it's butt & watching it explode.
Did you ever notice how pained Dubya looks when he has to pretend to be concerned about something? Yep, people when you see that painful look on Bush's face don't believe for a minute that it's because he is concerned about you. He doesn't give a damn about you. He is in panic mode because his Wall Street buddies are in trouble.
He's panicking because "We the People" have reached the point where, because our jobs have been outsourced & tax breaks have gone to those who need it the least, that we can no longer support him, the wealthiest of the wealthy. He is panicking because the top 1% may have to start supplementing each other. (Now that might be fun to watch!)
So much for that great supply side economics! The bottom line for 'Bushonomics' is that it would be more appropriately named piss on people economics.
By the way, where is Dubya going to get the billions needed for this rebate? Why borrow it, of course & most likely from the Chinese!
And here we were worried about those big bad terrorists while Dubya & Dead Eye Dick have been selling out the country to the very people who most likely have the capacity to attack us. But then why should they attack when they own most of our national debt, they are selling us billions in crappy or poisonous manufactured goods & buying up businesses in the U.S.? They are taking over our country from the inside out. No need to sacrifice their goose stepping soldiers & all those pretty tanks.
Yeah..... Wake up America indeed. Impeachment is off the table according to Goddess Nancy Pelosi? Why would her Royal Do-Nothingness take impeachment off the table when these fools have done more than all the other administrations combined to destroy our country from the inside out?
Because she's one of them??
This picture & the positioning of Dubya in front of the sign in the back ground inadvertently says it all!
End of conversation? Not if you don't want it to be. Not if you care about your country. Rebate my arse! It's impeachment time!
Please Cut the Crap! George W. Bush, and Dick Cheney must be impeached, and the process must start now. There are no excuses left. It doesn't matter if the process gets dragged out until we're into the next election cycle. It doesn't matter if Bush and Cheney are thrown out on their asses on January 19, 2009, and Nancy Pelosi only has one day as a caretaker president. This is no longer about process, and it's no longer about political expediency. This is about our Founders’ most precious gift to us. It's about the rule of law, and justice for all.
Impeach The Crawford SOB and his corrupt administration!
Congress -- 800-828-0498, 800-459-1887 or 800-614-2803 Tell them to impeach those crooked SOB's
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