©2008 Stacy Taylor | Spikeorama Web

Some of the comments posted to my latest entry here highlight the problem facing this country, namely blind partisanship married to false hopes that anyone with a (D) following their name will lead this country from the gaping jaws of national disaster. “Know your brand!”? Ridiculous. This isn’t Levi versus Wrangler or Ford versus Chevy. “Cry in your beer.”? Forgive me for expressing an opinion that strays beyond the little white picket fence surrounding the Thomas Kincaid Democratic cottage on the green. A candidate is to be judged on their potential value to the United States, its citizens, and the constitution, not to his or her fealty to a party orthodoxy. And if they can’t be held accountable before they assume the highest office in the land, what can we expect once they occupy that office?

The Santa Ana’s are blowing huge today so feel free to dismiss the following to positive ions and seratonin depletion, but the more I learn about the Democratic presidential candidates, and their acolytes, the less enthralled I am.

First off, again, is this issue of “identity politics” , a moldy expression left over from the 60’s, connoting an attraction to a politician or candidate based not on shared principle or belief, but on shared race, gender, or ethnicity. Perhaps I’m just jealous that the only 2 white guys still standing in this race are the loathsome, war mongering McCain and the affable-yet-insane Huckabee, but I’m repulsed by the idea that some imagined shared history based on skin pigmentation or genitalia would drive huge numbers of people to vote for and support Obama and Clinton. But that’s unfortunately how it’s shaking out. Blacks and men are disproportionate in their support for Obama and women in their support for Hillary.

Additionally, a creepy resentment has apparently set in amongst some “feminists” because, after all, it was Hillary’s turn, damn it! So far, this anger hasn’t been specifically directed at Obama but, if it becomes so, the word “uppity” will be just below the surface. 

Meanwhile, the Rezko scandal continues to dog Barack and promises to really heat up in the general election should he get the nod. After all, it was a real estate transaction that brought down the Dukester, and this deal between Obama and Rezko looks a little slimy. So far there is no indication of any “consideration” in return for the lot purchase, but if anything comes out, however minor, watch out. Remember it was an appointment to a hospital board that landed the Alabama governor in federal prison, fairly or not.

I know what you’re thinking. “What does all this have to do with Change!, Ending the War!, Holding the Bush Crime Empire Accountable!, etc?” Well, I just get a sinking feeling as I watch the 2 Dems wonkishly and laboriously debate the nuances of their largely identical, unfunded health care plans, or listen to Hillary declare that she would call for an “examination” of NAFTA, or read about Obama’s groveling before the Israeli Lobby, that not a whole lot of Big Changes are in store anytime soon should one of those 2 win the election.

And of course we know that there will be big changes in store should McCain get the nod. We’ll all be dead or bankrupt helping to fight the lunatic’s 1000 Year War. This was no time for the Democrats to hoist up the 2 iffyist presidential candidates in my or anybody else’s lifetime. This was no time to experiment. The stakes were too high.

Jesus, “Finger”, just f***ing stop with your phoney contrarian b.s. This board is not about you insinuating yourself on a bunch of folks who actually have a clue. You are the heckler that is escorted from the concert hall. Get a clue. I hesitate banning you from this sight, but I could. My belief in non-censorship and democracy is the only reason you’re tolerated. Consider this a warning. I don’t mind people disagreeing with me and, in fact, benefit from it. But your constant hectoring of others who post here is a goddamn irritation. If you have something constructive to add to this forum, feel FREE. If not, crawl back under the rock I inadvertantly flipped.

I feel obligated to post something here just because there’s been so much activity on the comment board of late. Unfortunately, I’m too busy this week doing 2 radio programs a day to really have the time to put together anything in the witty and satirical style to which you have become accustomed. So here, I’ll just blurt something out: Free floating gender bias, per se, is not the reason Hillary is losing the race to Obama. Hillary’s default position seems to be victimhood and indeed this  does play into a societal view that female=weakness. America would probably have no problem with a strong woman occupying the White House. It clearly has a problem, however, electing a weak, victimized woman to that position.

If above comments in any way were offensive to the state of Israel or any of it’s citizens, we offer our deepest and most profound apologies.

The campaign for the presidential nomination hit it’s nadir the day after the Tuesday primary sweep by Barack Obama. Obama’s wife, Michelle, during a Wisconsin campaign stop on behalf of her husband, said this: “Let me tell you, for the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country. Not just because Barack is doing well, but I think people are hungry for change.”

Holy Moses, the s**t really hit the fan. Right wing blowhards swarmed like piranhas around a downer school cafeteria Chino Holstein. Brit Hume sniffed and proclaimed Mrs. Obama’s utterance was the typical non-patriotism of an “ultra-liberal”. Bill O’Reilly popped another facial vein and invoked a “lynch mob”. And those guys are the more “reasonable” of the talking goon platoon. God knows what the Coulters, Becks, Hannities, and Limbaughs were snorting. I certainly didn’t wait around to find out.

Even a couple lib callers to my show suggested Michelle would wish she’d spoken more carefully upon further deliberation. And sure enough the apology/disclaimer eventually came from the Obama camp, that, of course, the potential first lady meant that normally she is really proud to be an American, but that this time she was really, really, really proud.

 To which I say “huh?”. I guess I’m really the black hearted traitor in the wood pile. I have a tough time even conceptualizing “proud American”. I guess I’ve always just thought it was a bumper sticker slogan or a trite political banality. Maybe I’ve lived through a little too many “proud American” traditions, from Selma to Saigon, from Watergate to Iran-Contra, from Rodney King to Hurricane Katrina, to believe for more than a minute that the accident of my birth within these borders requires me to choke back tears every time an Ohio astronaut orbits the earth or a California biologist develops a vaccine.

Hell, if this story lasts more than 48 hours, I’ll be almost ashamed to be an American. Let Brit Hume chew on that for a while. Hopefully, he’ll require a heimlich maneuver before he can express his righteous indignation again.

Thoughts on a variety of things:

First, the campaign for President is rapidly boiling down to an Obama/ McCain matchup, unless Hillary pulls out the stops and starts effectively swift-boating Obama on the inexperience thing. The problem with that strategy is that the country never before seemed more ready for an outsider in the White House and ready to blame the Washington insider pols for the mess we’re in. The Hillary-Reid-Pelosi-Hoyer establishment wing of the Democratic party have effectively taken the hope and zeal of the 2006 congressional takeover and ground it into a pile of unappetizing gruel, especially on the Iraq issue, and have concentrated their efforts on the election… at the expense of any meaningful new policies… using the Bush veto as a convenient excuse. So along comes Obama with his eloquence, passion, and outsider credentials and it’s no wonder folks fall into episodic incontinence at one of his campaign stops. And of course McCain, ever the “party maverick”, is the ultimate career politician who checked what was left of his soul at the primary gate when he obscenely groveled before the very “agents of intolerance” (Robertson, Fallwell, et al ) that he decried 8 years ago, while representing the party that a) failed to see 9-11 coming, b) lied us into the quagmire known as Iraq while effectively turning that secular country into a seething hornets nest of Muslim fanaticism, and c) managed to sieze defeat from the jaws of victory in Afghanistan which, if you read the fine print on pape 16 of your daily newspaper, is virtually back in the controlling hands of the Taliban. Oh yeah, and how’s that search for Bin Laden going anyway?

Shaping up to be a slam dunk for whichever Dem gets the nomination, so, naturally, the Repubs have already ratcheted up the Democrats-as-sissies rhetoric with all Gitmo/waterboarding/FISA cultism. Jesus, what’s up with some of these rightie talk show gasbags and their waterboarding fetish? Is that all they’re left with, “We’re the torture party!”? Is this election really going to come down to which party favors wet towels placed over the nostrils of “detainees”?

Bush briefly halted his I’m-the-next-Abe Lincoln self-love fest to remind Chris Wallace of Faux News that the Dems are still the cut-and-run party and that only God fearin’, tough talking, ridin’ high in the saddle chicken hawks like him and Cheney could deal with the threat of “terrorishm”, and talking of all the imaginary terrorist attacks that haven’t taken place on American Soil on the Republican’s watch. What’s the bet that at least one more orange level terror alert goes up sometime between now and November?

So, I’m actually beginning to believe that Obama, with his rhetoric of hope and restoring the stature of U.S. integrity around the world, could be just the right salve for the open wound known as Bush (and his designated ass-kisser, McCain). And even though it’s unlikely that he’ll be any more effective about changing the direction of this country any more than Pelosi-Reid-Clinton-Hoyer at least we’ll feel a hell of a lot better about ourselves for a few months. At least until the forclosure notice is tacked to the front door.

The excruciating 2 week sports nerd fest leading up to the Superbowl finally ended at 3:30 pm Sunday when the actual game began. It felt almost anti-climactic from the start, having to live up….or down…to the endless talk show babble and over analysis that preceeded it. Clearly more “expert” analysis was devoted , and more attention payed, to Tom Brady’s ankle injury than such mundane issues as universal healthcare and immigration reform. And with good reason. Obviously more people are interested in the Superbowl than the  issues that affect America’s future, or more precisely the issues like drivers licenses for illegal aliens that will have virtually zero effect on anyone’s life. Some bloke even included a blow-by-blow of the final few plays of yesterday’s game on this website. And worse yet, more attention was payed to the series of lame-ass commercials that played during the game than the game itself. America does have a multi-faceted way of amusing itself to death.

And it’s probably just as well that so-called Super Tuesday followed Superbowl Sunday this year so we could all take a break from McCain’s war mongering, Romney’s Wall Street pimping, and the lovefest that is now Hillary-Obama.

Actually I only decided to post a blog today for the oppurtunity to include a link to the best political ad of the season, one for Steve Novick, a Deomocrat currently running for U.S. Senate against Gordon Smith in Oregon. Novick has a prosthetic hand which comes into play in this ad which mocks the “which candidate would you like to have a beer with” banality: http://cgi.fark.com/cgi/fark/youtube.pl?IDLink=3372885.

I’ve delayed posting here for a few days because I was waiting for some momentous event that would propel me into a state of blogging ecstasy…something…anything…McCain’s head literally exploding on camera?….Chris Matthews french kissing Fred Thompson?….Huckabee appearing on the Today show to prepare popcorn-popper fried squirrel? Hillary having a “wardrobe malfunction”?

But alas. Nothing. Just stifled yawns and glassy eyes , and rote performances by a group of mediocrities that make Bill Clinton look like Thomas Jefferson. Maybe it’s that I’m secretly going to miss the little simian that’s currently occupying the White House. He’s provided me so much great material over the years. Or maybe it’s that I know the Bushies have dug this hole so deep I’ll be an old man when this country finally crawls back out.

God, please have this election tomorrow! Not to mix in too many metaphors, but this is reminding me more and more of American Idol. You know, how in the beginning of the season Idol is kind of amusing in a cruel way because the performances are laughable and acid-tongued Simon hasn’t yet grown bored with the whole charade? But after a few weeks, alas, when the culling phase is over, we’re left with just deadly earnest mediocrities singing bad Celine Dion songs, while a tone deaf America phones in their votes.

I look back fondly now to the M.L.K. jr. vs L.B.J. fiasco between Barack and Hillary. Little did I know that was going to be the highlight of the campaign and that for the next few month we’d be watching the cautious front runners from both parties lypsincing   catch phrases. I’m not even sure what I’m expecting and maybe that’s just the problem. Over the last 2 election cycles I did have high expectations for something to happen: impeachment, the end of the Iraq occupation, war crime tribunals, the passage of some legislation that actually meant something to somebody, or, for that matter, just some colossal pratfall by this dunce administration, a real step-on-the-banana-peel-triple-back-flip-face-down-into-the-cow-pie moment that would at least draw a a good belly laugh. But instead we’re witnessing the slow petering out of the Bush era and an amateur hour primary campaign to replace him. I’ve said it before: this cretin is going to exit the ring after 4 years and nobody will have laid a glove on him. And his successor is doomed to failure just because of the monumental mess he’s gotten this country into.

Wake me when it’s over.

Bits and pieces of the political flotsam floating around out there:

The Economic stimulus package was hammered out yesterday. Apparently the economy is like a giant clitoris; just tweak it occasional and wonderful things happen. Suffice it to say that nobody with any credentials believes that this is anything other than a “hey, we had to do something!” move that simply will shift money from one part of the economy into another. Or did you think that the federal government simply has bags of money sitting around in a warehouse waiting to be dispersed? And since virtually nothing is actually made in America these days, who’s economy will really be the recipient of this income? Likely the Chinese and the other hellhole slave labor encampments that crank out the consumer goods we just can’t get enough of. Another interesting thing about this legislation is that, because it has the taint of Bush all over it, Wall Street is reacting to it like you would to the Holloween apple with the embedded razor blade.

Another measure intended to avert a recession are the massive prime interest cuts announced recently by the fed, rewarding those wise Americans who’ve rolled up massive credit card debt while punishing the idiots who thought that saving money in an interest bearing account was a prudent idea. Silly fools.

Meanwhile the “Who is the biggest corporate whore” battle is still raging between Hillary and Barack in a series of he said/she said ads that make the Alec Baldwin-Kim Bassinger divorce look like a day at Knott’s Berry Farm. Even a scant understanding of each candidate shows clearly that neither candidate is particularly pure when it comes to their obeisance to Wall Street perogatives, but clearly Hillary is the one in the miniskirt, fishnets, and go-go boots  loitering at the intersection of Wall and Broad. Her approach to NAFTA is similar to her approach to the invasion of Iraq: they were both swell ideas that just haven’t turned out the way we expected. And since her husband’s and the DLC’s shift from trade unions to Wall Street for campaign contributions, is it any wonder that the once-great health care crusader is now recieving more $$$ from Big Pharm and the Insurance industry that the other candidates combined.

Oh yeah: and a big F-You to All the Democratic senators and presidential candidates (Hillary, Barack, Dodd, and Biden) who decided to sit out the Senate vote on the  trade agreement with Peru. Wouldn’t want to go on record as short sheeting the American worker during an election year, would we? And besides, billions of U.S. dollars are already flowing into Peru annually in exchange for their # 1 export, cocaine. How come untaxed drug money is not added to our trade deficit?

Meanwhile Mitt, Huck, McCain, and Guilani on a daily basis demonstrate how bereft they are of any ideas that can’t fit on a bumper sticker. More about them the next time.

Sorry I haven’t been posting much as cynicism has set in of late as I peek inside the sausage factory known as electoral politics in the good ol’ U.S. of A. From Huckabee’s preposterous outreach to South Carolinians that he used to fry up a mess-o-squirrel on a popcorn popper to the ever more ridiculous dung flinging face-off between Barack and Hillary, the view from here is that it’s extremely difficult to crank out any observations that are particularly original when the satire is already pre-packaged.

What really is there to say about the squirrel thing…or the moronic L.B.J. vs M.L.K debate? And what can you add to the preposterous discussion that Fred Thompson is the next Ronald Reagan…or that Guliani is the great warrior in the War on Terror…or that Duncan Hunter at one time thought he had a legitimate chance at the presidency?

I’ve made this point before: isn’t it interesting that three comics (John Stewart, Bill Maher, and Steven Colbert) and a journalist-turned sports reporter-turned comic (Kieth Obermann) have become the foremost political observers of our day? These guys know good material when the see it and with the writers still on strike, the candidates are writing the monologues for them.

Aside from that, I’m still a little depressed that my boy Edwards has descended to the role of the bright pupil in the back of the classroom endlessly raising his hand to answer the question when the teacher invariably calls on his 2 star pupils Hillary and Barack. And that Kucinich has been barred from the classroom altogether. And that the fossilized McCain can gain traction by threatening yet another war in the Middle East. And that a Wall Street whore named Mitt Romney has as good a chance of becoming the Leader of the Free World as anyone currently in the race.

And let’s face it folks, these aren’t even the big story lines. The big story line is whether Ladanian Tomlinson was tanking it in last week’s game against the Pats. I’m sure at the next debate that will be put in the form of a question and tossed at one of the candidates. And we have 8 more months of this?