Hie thee, Dear Gentle Reader(s), to the Telnaes animated cartoon over at washingtonpost.com.
Although Gov. Richards made the statement about Bush I, it is very appropriate to Bush II.
Animated cartoon eyes are quite telling; notice, especially Telnaes’ ability with W’s eyes.
Sphere: Related ContentAndrew Sullivan has a snippet about President Bush’s pardons. It seems Bush is being generous to “S&L executives and others who swindled thrifts in the mid-1980’s...”
Hmmm. Wasn’t there a Bush brother, or two and a father, involved with an S&L in Colorado? Didn’t he come out without doing time? Something like Silverado? (Gotta love Google!)
Just askin’.
Sphere: Related ContentIt isn’t often, Dear Gentle Reader(s), that a liberal comes to the virtual assistance of Governor Palin, but it’s time.
This brouhaha about the press statement backdropped by a couple of turkeys being slaughtered is a lot of ado about not much.
One remembers, for instance, watching one’s mother grabbing a chicken by the head and then twirling it around until the neck was broken. (Then one remembers pouring scalding water over the chicken to prepare the feathers for plucking—not to mention the subsequent gutting!)
One also remembers one’s mother being given the knife when one’s father and neighbors were preparing to slaughter a young pig. One gains a certain respect for one’s mother who is capable of slicing open the neck of a pig, and placing a pan in the appropriate spot to catch the blood—to be used later in sausage.
A turkey being prepared for a Thanksgiving table? Bring it on. It’s the way of a carbon based world.
Go Sarah!
Sphere: Related Content…on my way to buy a new food processor, Dear Gentle Reader(s). The stock market fell to new lows.
Hmmm. Perhaps one ought to wait on new purchases…just in case one needs the money later on for macaroni and cheese boxes.
Nice going, deregulators, whoever you were/are.
Sphere: Related ContentDear Gentle Reader(s), there’s a teensy bit of evidence that the Bush II legacy has done more damage to the Justice Department than originally thought.
It’s a crisis of diminished confidence.
In today’s Los Angeles Times the lead editorial carries this title and subtitle:
Seeking Justice
Eric Holder has the credentials to be U.S. attorney general, but he may be seen as too close to President-elect Barack Obama.
Holder has the credentials, but is possibly too close to Mr. Obama? How close is too close? What was the relationship between John F and Robert Kennedy? Was AG Kennedy deemed a failure in the job as is the case with Alberto Gonzales?
The Times editorial board worries that Holden’s association with the Obama campaign might make him someone who could “be caricatured as a presidential insider.”
If the Obama administration is to be careful of caricature, then we are in for a very long 4 years.
The Gonzales Justice Department, and, to a lesser extent, the John Ashcroft Justice Department, were anomalies. The whole Bush presidency was, one is hopeful, an anomaly. That said, there shouldn’t be an undue amount of caution in supporting a President’s choice for a cabinet member just because of fear of caricature.
Let’s all get a grip, DGR(s). Our long winter of discontent is about to become a summer.
Sphere: Related ContentAndrew Sullivan, Dear Gentle Reader(s), occasionally mystifies. His obsession with Senator Clinton is well documented, but little other than his “gut” can account for it. He is rapidly amassing the same amount of virtual ink with his relentless focus on Governor Palin. Those are, however, gut mysteries which actually have no rationale beyond a sort of irrational rationale; and that’s Sullivan’s personal problem. Who cares? It’s his occasional logical mystery which is most bothersome.
Here is a quote about the current debate on the fate of Proposition 8 from “The Daily Dish,” Sullivan’s blog, which is offered for your consideration:
Both supporters and opponents have asked for a judicial ruling on whether the initiative can stand. My own view is that it should stand, and the court should decline to reverse it. We lost. They won in a fair fight.
“They won in a fair fight.” Really? One wonders. If the proponents of Prop 8 had not focused on children the final weeks of the campaign, would they have “won?” Had the focus of the campaign been totally about whether or not civil rights, found to be guaranteed under the California state constitution, should be stripped from neighbors, colleagues, and family members, would “they” have won?
Everyone talks about dirty campaigns; all’s fair in love and war—all bromides which paper over the immoral tactics some who debate an issue pursue. It’s one thing when “rogue” partisans run the Willie Horton ads, or the 527s demean Senator Kerry, or when Sarah Palin implies Barack Obama hangs with terrorists, but it’s quite another when a religious-based political group, with religious financial support and pulpit support resorts to lying and using children in the lie.
The proponents of Prop 8 were/are odious liars. Their campaign was not honorable.
The three witches never else spoke so much truth.
How, Andrew, is it that “They won in a fair fight?”
Sphere: Related ContentOne has a deep and abiding admiration, Dear Gentle Reader(s), for persons who have the ability to “play” with words and to see possibilities in the written language.
Today, for example, at the Palm Springs City Hall demonstration against Prop 8, there was a sign which originally read
ONLY
MORONS
HATE
and which had been changed, but a carat and a tilted M to read
ONLY
MOR^M ONS
HATE
Well, you get the picture.
God bless America!
Sphere: Related ContentIt's hard to believe, Dear Gentle Reader(s), that there is so much vitriol being hurled towards Governor Palin lately.
Frankly, it must be said loudly and often that Senator McCain and Senator McCain alone is responsible for Palin's disastrous debut on the national political stage. He hadn't met her, she wasn't properly vetted, she was not ready for the job, and she's been treated shabbily lately. He should be ashamed.
For the senator to choose an unprepared political tyro for the vice presidential nomination solely (sometimes the conventional wisdom is incorrect, but there's virtually no other rationale for her choice) to stir up the Republican base of evangelical Christianists was beneath contempt.
Presidential politics isn't, true, beanbag; but it doesn't have to be shooting a fish in a barrel, either.
Palin has energy which served her well on the stump. If she were more seasoned in policies outside of Alaska and if she were a Democrat, it would be easy to see her in federal politics in the future.
Until then, people should back off. While she bears some responsibility for accepting McCain's offer, it is McCain himself who bears the most responsibility.
Put him in the metaphorical barrel.
It's just logical.
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