Oh, I wish I was a congressman named Weiner, that is what I'd surely like to be...

After days of dominating a modern news cycle mutated by its own ubiquitous nature into a giant, sucking maw which devours and then disgorges random bits of information in waves, Anthony Weiner today held one last surreal, disastrous news conference in which he clumsily attempted to leave the stage but which itself turned into another in a series of unforgettably gonzo media happenings.  Unbelievably given the nature of his fame, Weiner has managed – unintentionally, surely – to take up more of the new media’s time and energy than the Arab Spring demonstrations that are changing the first quarter of the 21^st century.   His tragic, stupid, deranged story took up 17% of the news between June 6^th and June 12^th and was covered scrupulously to the point of repulsion by every major network till we all wanted to puke.   That is more coverage than anything else.  Think about that…

Wolf Blitzer, a man who has covered the majority of the history-making stories of the last 25 years, now has to suffer the indignity of standing beside a stage where this guy, who is famous for the same kind of stuff that gets winos arrested near elementary schools, bathed in sweat with camera lights bearing down on him unmercifully, tries his best to explain his leaving office as the result of some mysterious compulsion that is out of his control.  Shaaa…right.   George fucking Stephanopolous, senior political advisor to Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign has to stand in front of a camera doing a “Special Report”, interrupting The Young and the Restless, facing whatever viewers not yet retching uncontrollably and trying to put it in “perspective”.    How in the world have we come to this?   Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, and Walter Cronkite are not just rolling over in their graves; they are sitting together somewhere in their underwear, ashtray full of cigarette butts  slamming straight vodka shots until they pass out in a bleary-eyed despair, cursing quietly and trembling.

On another note almost too depressing to contemplate, we have the story out of Arizona about their top education official, a former Hitler-youth committee chairman named John Huppenthal, who has decided – against all available evidence – that an extremely successful Mexican-American studies program nonetheless is illegal because it, “"promotes the overthrow of the U.S. government, promotes resentment toward a race or class of people, are is designed primarily for pupils of one ethnic group or advocate ethnic solidarity.”  Arizona’s own education auditors reported that students enrolled in the class graduate at a higher rate than comparable students who didn’t take the class and that there was no discernable evidence to indicate that the class was in any way illegal or in violation of the law - which was passed last year - or exclusionary in any way.   Herr Huppenthal, however, insists that the classes are un-American and promote one culture to the detriment of all the others.   Now it may be because of old cowboy movies, spring training baseball and that Eagles song about “standin’ on a corner in Winslow Arizona…”  but I thought Arizona was a cool place.  Now with this Eva Peron wannabe, Jan Brewer, ruling with an iron hand, passing the stop, drop and spread ‘em immigration law and acting like half-mad Victoria Barkley, I think the place is an experiment in Aryan thinking run amuck.  That the whole god damned state is on fire might give me pause if I was the one who has set it on its current course;  maybe Mexicans are God’s children after all and  I pissed him off and need to rethink things.

Just another couple broken hearts...

So Bachman was proclaimed by media consensus to be the star of the republican "debate" the other night.  It was quite a scene - kinda like the cabin in the woods after Snow White left to go home to the castle.  "Wait; what are we doing...?"  But how was it that Bachman attained the lofty heights of brief but brightly shining stardom?  By being fiery and having a lot of energy.  Yeah, well so did Mussolini... Oh, and she "knows how to play the game".  To stand out on that stage and win the praise of the whores and carnival barkers in the media is akin to being the Tunisian street vendor who set himself on fire and precipitated the Arab Spring uprising.  Hard not to notice but ultimately the blackened embers get kicked to the curb and the crowd moves on. 

Anyway, enough about that.  Did you catch Jon Stewart laying into the media for their breathless reporting about Sarah Palin's emails?  He had it exactly right - it's no wonder she still walks among us; there are 25 fucking reporters following her everywhere she goes, recording her every confused utterance and semi-coherent comment and posting that shit on page 1. Memo to all the "hard-hitting journalists" out there who are trying to make their career by scooping the other 24 "hard-hitting journalists" sniffing around this woman; she is just a dim-witted dupe created by the republican party to be the mosquito bitten savior of a doomed McCain presidential bid and really, seriously, that's it.  There's nothing else going on in there...sheesh.

I have to also say something about some of these cotton-candy brain democrats who give liberals a bad name…well, liberals deserve it, actually, and the democrats deserve all the scorn they get heaped on them too for the most part.  The only reason I give them any slack is that I don’t think they operate based on pure, naked, blatant self interest, like the republicans do.  They may be misguided about any number of things but you don’t generally find as many bald-faced haters among them and for that they win the “who-sucks-less” competition but not by much.  But it was reported today that a leadership group of congressional democrats are meeting this week at various venues plotting strategy regarding the handling – so to speak – of the problem of Anthony Weiner and his infamous penis.  Fellas, fellas, fellas…please; why are you agonizing over this idiot?  It just reinforces the notion that the democrats are a bunch of indecisive, overly sensitive softies who care more about Tony’s “illness” and “treatment” than winning an election.  Just kick the son of a bitch to the curb and get on with solving some of the country’s problems.  It wasn’t the democratic party who went closet exhibitionist – it was Weiner, a guy with a big schnoze trying to prove that his dick was just as big.  You need to leave him to his elaborate masturbatory fantasies and anonymous 14 year-old girlfriends, tell the world that you want nothing to do with him. Don’t defend him or worry about him at all.  He’s dead to you…

And a final word about Governor Rick Perry of Texas, the swell guy who thinks that a day of prayer in a football stadium is the way to address all of the nation’s problems through a direct up-link to the lord.  It was reported today that a Mexican national on Texas’ death row as a result of what can fairly be described as a questionable conviction, is calling on the World Court to intercede on his behalf.  By treaty, foreign nationals convicted in countries who have signed the treaty are entitled to consular assistance in the form of attorneys or other legal aid and 51 Mexican nationals were not advised of the availability of this assistance before they were tried and convicted and parked on death row.  Now the World Court has called upon the US – as a signatory to the treaty – to honor its responsibility and, at a minimum, delay the executions while the issues are adjudicated.  Now Governor Rick – who clearly believes he has god’s ear in matters of importance to him, (like queers and wetbacks and abortionists and such), doesn’t see it as his duty to assist his country in adhering to a legally binding treaty when it comes to a damn Mexican accused of killing and raping a good young Texas girl, even there is some doubt about the evidence and, ultimately, his guilt.  But his spokes-person said in so many words, “We don’t give a shit what the World Court says – they got no jurisdiction in Texas and no sway over Texas’ sovereignty.”  Well no Rick, you’re right; your little corner of the world can legally do pretty much what you want and I know it has to be pretty easy to play the just-a-dirty-illegal-Mexican card down there along the border these days too.  The Supreme Court even sided with you.  But damn, boy, if I were you I’d give up that time share in Mazatlan for the time being because the Mexicans are pretty pissed about it and not likely to forget.  The next time an American is accused - rightly or wrongly - of a serious crime in Mexico, they're apt to go for the Iranian solution - lock them up and throw away the key.  You better hope it's no one in your family.

And I can’t help thinking that this bible you’re so fond of citing might – if you read the right section - lead you to reconsider the righteousness of your position – that of a pseudo-patriotic Christian man oblivious to both any hint of Christian behavior and the right thing to do for his country.  No, you’d rather puff your chest out, jangle your spurs and show everyone how big your dick is – maybe you and Weiner ought to get a room.

Oh Lord, won't you buy me, a Mercedes Benz...

Reading the Sunday paper is a traditional experience that the web will never replace but it is rife with danger and the potential for upsetting my mood and pissing me off all day and today was no exception.  

First up is the story about Rick Perry, governor of Texas and by some accounts a stealth candidate for the 2012 republican presidential nomination – a race so far populated by more freaks than a carnival midway.  He has – coincidentally – called for a “day of fasting and prayer for our troubled nation” in August, and invited a bunch of his fellow govs to join him for this “a[political Christian prayer service” in a Houston stadium.  Well YeeeHaw, Rick, just what part of the separation of church and state do you not understand?  Maybe it’s the part about, well, the whole separation thing – about the government not even hinting at the establishment of a particular religion as the chosen one.  Any mullahs coming over that day, Rick?  How about a rabbi or two…?   No?  Hmmm.  Do you think that’s because the web site promoting the event is thematically in line with the American Family Association and its insistence on a strict conformity to “the infallibility of the bible, the centrality of Jesus Christ and, (this is my favorite part; you can practically smell the sulfur), the eternal damnation that awaits non-believers"?  Whoaaa there partner…I know it seems like a good idea now to play to the religious zealots that populate the republican party – the tea party knuckleheads, the white, Christian, gun toting, woman and minority hating, flag waving mob of Obama-ain’t-one-of-us chumps who, for some reason, reflexively support guys like you while you scheme to cut their Medicare benefits and Social Security payments but it may not play that well in all corners of the country.   And I’d be really curious to know exactly what y’all are praying for; death to gays?  Death to baby-killing abortionists?  Death to tree-hugging, Save-the Whales, enviro-freaks?  Feminazis…?   You know, Rick, you might better try to figure out how to stop your fellow god-fearing Texans from smuggling guns into Mexico to enable our brown brothers to be better able to kill each other and anyone unluck enough to be anywhere nearby.   Heaven help us…(so to speak).

I've probably said enough about Anthony Weiner but until this guy gets the hell out of sight he is just one punch line after another.  Today, accompanying a story about him seeking that universal refuge of every scoundrel who soils himself in public - rehab, there is a picture of him walking somewhere, surrounded by slathering reporters and jostling photographers, literally carrying a bundle of dirty laundry.  That’s right – this is not a metaphor or the use of some clever descriptive phrase; he is actually carrying his dirty laundry in public.  I don’t know what to say about this except that this is the rare, extremely unfortunate naughty boy who has ruined his career because of a sex scandal that didn't involve any actual sex – a perversion of the social media phenomenon that is probably all too familiar to 14 year-old girls who have to fend off slightly perverted 30-ish friend requests with both hands.   If our representatives were all subject to scrutiny because of thinking about sex…well those people calling for every politician’s head on a pike would surely have their wish.

And, as there has been virtually every day for the last eight years, there are stories of car bombs and civilian deaths in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and now most recently, Syria.  If ever there was a clear signal to the US that it is folly to continue with the foreign policy of the last 20 years vis a vis the Middle East it is the unending violence that bedevils these countries on a daily basis.   At some point it has to beg the question; what have we accomplished in the last eight years of interventionist, semi-imperialist foreign policy?   We have avenged a profoundly cowardly attack on our soil that killed 4,000 innocent Americans with the deaths of over 6,000 American troops, including 5 more today in an Iraq that is supposed to be sufficiently stable to allow us to leave but whose government coalition threatens to collapse at any moment.   There have been who-knows-how-many civilian deaths – 100,000?  Trillions of dollars spent with a defense budget proposed to grow by 5 billion more than the pentagon actually wanted by our god-fearing, flag waving republican friends while they continue to slash funding for almost everything else.   Again, what have we accomplished?  I would argue, nothing.  We are no safer from al Qaeda – that’s a red herring dragged across our paths to try to keep our “patriotism” aroused and engaged.   Al Qaeda is just a bunch of angry guys who cling to the woeful notion that they can take the world backwards four or five hundred years and start over the way they want it.  No one but them shares this desire which is why it will ultimately fail. 

The citizens of the Middle East have roused themselves to revolt against the 14^th century tyranny and petty quasi-royalty who have ruled them for so long.  But rather than giving me hope this just looks like the same mob more out of control than ever and less capable of successfully governing themselves as well.   Has our wading chest-deep into this treacherous muck given anyone anywhere a brighter future, made us a more prosperous nation – done anything tangible for you as a citizen?   Please, Barack, if you do nothing else, get us the hell out of there and budget an enormous amount of research and development money to alternative energy creation so we are no longer held for ransom by people who we cannot influence and whose century old animosities we will never staunch, no matter how many $100 dollar bills we use. 

"Freak out in a moonage daydream oooooohhhhh yeah..."

I spent some time this morning lying in bed watching CNN and was struck by trhe thought that politicians are really like admistrative drones crossed with PR guys.  If you're primarily interested in staying in office for as long as possible you have to get pretty good at promotion and promotion is just making sure everyone knows who you are, first and foremost, and then hopefully make them like you as well.  All the time you are practicing obscure and arcane manifestations of Robert's Rules of Order and related ceremonial pogroms.

If you watched this morning, would you have seen any elected person standing in front of a camera and telling the truth about anything?  I sure didn't.  And the people reporting the news are even worse in terms of being shallow apartchiks.  I sometimes wonder if they even know what they're saying.  Last week a Faux News bimbette prattled on about Sarah Palin while a shot of Tina Fey on SNL as the very same Queen of Nonsense was shown over her shoulder.  She didn't flinch - certainly because she didn't notice - and jabbered on.  Maybe nobody at Faux News noticed.  These people almost universally look good but you just know that they are way more interested in how their hair looks for the most part.  There are exceptions but with a 24 / 7 new cycle it's almost inevitable that some of what passes for news is just inconsequential gibberish.

 I think the only people telling the truth in the media now are comedians - they're the only ones who can afford to and, more importantly, the only ones who want to.  Not surprising when you think back to Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, and a long line of comedians who had license to poke fun at the politicos, kind of like the stuff that clowns can get away with doing.  Was it Shakespear who said, "much truth is said in jest"?  I guess that's our job.

I survived a trip to see my urologist last week - nice, uh...seeing you again, Bob.  Jokes about urologists are just too easy so I will keep the comedy to a minimum but man, I am tempted.  I currently have a client who is also a urologist and who knows the guy I just went to see.  I mentioned that it was kind of a funny coincidence - my acquiring him as a client a week or so before my appointment - and he asked me to be sure to say Hi to Bob for him, chuckling to himself about Bob's sense of humor.  I told him I would but I wanted to ask him if there was, like, a secret salute or double secret handshake that urologists use when they meet - maybe hand signs like gangs use, only limited to just a couple of fingers.  At least this time he didn't have a resident with him observing like during my first visit.  Nothing like being in the - let's just say undignified - position on the examining table and having TWO guys scrutinizing your plumbing and discussing it.  The worst part was when the doc made some observation and then let his boy, Wang, get a, ahem, feel for himself what he was describing.  Lucky for me he was an Asian dude and hand very small hands.  I spent a couple of disquieting hours wondering if pictures were going to show up on the internet.  I'm not really comfortable with the idea of a wacky urologist but I got a clean bill of health again this year so I have a year to try to think of something funny to say to him next December when I go back to see him.  I'll just think of it like a special treat from Santa as I sit shifting uncomfortably in my seat in his waiting room.

Speaking of...well, showing off your junk to a virtual stranger in a weird, non-bedroom location, Representative Anthony Weiner admitted that he did indeed Tweet his pee-pee to various women he did not know for some reason, after telling everyone stridently and indignantly that he didn't.  There is no truth to the rumor that there were injuries to numerous democrats as they stampeded in all directions trying to get away from him, giving lie to the stereotypical republican accusation that democrats are too liberal because they like to let it all hang out.  In a stance that is difficult to understand, Mr. Weiner insists he won't resign, stating emphatically that the people of New York need him to stay in office and not resign, because doing so would mean leaving New York represented by a bunch of selfish, overly conservative dicks.  He also insisted that, in spite of his flaunting of his penis over the internet, he really is a nice guy.  Now he insists that he's just taking a "leave of absence" from the House to "get treatment".  Man, I do not want to know what that means but him ever coming back from wherever he's going is about as likely as Ali Abdullah Saleh returning to Yemen in anything but a coffin.  No please excuse me - I need to go pour over Palin's emails from when she was governor of Alaska.  I'm sure it's full of insightful and thoughtful analysis of poltical philosophy and the ethical and moral imperitives that should guide our behaviour in a democracy...kinda like Aristotle but with a big fur coat and lipstick...

Eye of Newt and brain of Colter; what a poisonous brew...

I didn't start out expecting to only write about politics; my intention was to write about things that are funny, mostly.  But for the last few days typically superficial and cliché ridden political types cross with the unrelenting scrutiny resulting from the new media world we inhabit and hilarity ensues spontaneously and without warning, overwhelming my desire to write about how it pisses me off to stand in line at a cash register while a little old lady takes five minutes to fish exact change out of her cute little change pouch or how beautiful the Stanford Plateau is in the late afternoon light or how a visit to my urologist cracks me up or how much I love mangoes.  No, I can’t stop thinking about Newt Gingrich, Anthony Weiner, Ann Coulter and Michelle Bachman.   Wow…just seeing all their names together in one sentence boggles the mind.

Poor Newt has been attempting to replicate the success of John Kusich in going from Faux News talking pin-head to actually governing – in Kusich’s case, union busting in Ohio – but suddenly finds himself standing there all alone after virtually his entire re-election campaign staff quit en masse today.  Now it’s not terribly unusual for staffers to come and go – that’s to be expected.  But while Newt and Mrs. Newt were off cruising the Greek islands, his staff quietly decided he wasn’t serious enough about running a competent presidential campaign and dropped him like a bad habit.  Not the most promising of developments for someone who thinks he’s the smartest guy in the party, is a bit of a loose cannon in terms of Elephant orthodoxy and basically talks too much any time there’s a camera within a hundred yards.  He, of course, insists that he will simply start fresh tomorrow and will continue to run an “issues-oriented” campaign.  Uh…yeah…sure, Newt.

What can you say about Anthony Weiner that hasn’t already been said?  The guy was stupid enough and horny enough to Tweet his junk all over the internet, then say it wasn’t his, then admit that he made some serious mis-judgments, (Geez, Tony…ya think…?), then admit that his wife is pregers while his cyber-mistress flogs her 15 minutes of fame like a drunken muleskinner.  You couldn’t make that kind of story up.  The poor demented bastard is refusing to resign and is hoping against all odds that a spaceship lands on the Washington Mall to take a little attention away from him but he is so screwed and irrelevent that he isn’t even top ten on Yahoo’s most searched list.  Abe frickin’ Vigoda is on the list but Representative Lookatmydick isn’t on there.  He doesn’t have to worry about keeping his head down – he is utterly irrelevant and if he didn’t have a vote in the House of Representatives he’d be just another ordinary pervert who probably wasn’t breast fed.  At least Newt’s staffers met with the press and gave a statement before they quit – Weiner’s people are still hiding behind the drapes hoping no one notices their shoes.

Michelle Bachman…Christ; I can’t even believe this fruit cup is deluded enough to think she can carry her own state of Minnesota.  She is the epitome of politicians supported by the tea party clowns; white, ignorant about most everything, dumb as a bag of hammers and a biblical literalist who thinks Jesus is going to be coming back in the next 20 or 30 years.  I don’t know about anyone else, but kind of person scares the shit out of me.  Why support any kind of reasonable foreign policy if the world is just going to end anyway?  And where is China again now?  Don’t those people all speak Chinese?  If global warming is true it must be god’s will so let’s just go with it.  How does one state end up electing her and Al Franken?  But the juicy part of today’s story is about her hiring of wiley old Reagan campaigner, Ed Rollins, former mastermind of below the belt tactics, obfuscation and outright lying and a revered figure in the republican party who must have gotten into the peach brandy or the brown acid because he stuffed one foot halfway down his throat on his first day on the job, bitching about Sarah Palin’s fitness for the presidency when she isn’t even running.  Smooth move, Ed.  Piss off the queen bitch of the party and someone who – god help me for saying this – can influence lots of people to vote for her chosen candidate if she decides to take the money and go work on her tan somewhere next year. 

Finally, speaking of Bitch Queens, we come to the fiercest one of all, Satan in pumps, Ann Coulter.  I’ll say this for her; she doesn’t pussy foot around with niceties and inconvenient forays into reality.  Fuck that.  She is a foul, loathsome, stranger to the truth but she isn’t one for air kisses and slap fighting.  She the person in a fight who stabs you in the nuts and I respect that.  I also think she’s a self aggrandizing media whore whose fidelity to her stated guiding principles is suspect and who seems to really dig being the person that fat old republican guys with lots of nose hair jerk off to when they are not too busy reading Field and Stream.  Her whole, “Liberals are evil, hateful, lazy, un-American, fuzzy thinking minority lovers” schtick is tiresome in the extreme but she’s nothing if not determined to find kindred souls among the Hate-Obama Tea Party knuckleheads and I wish her all the best and I hope she becomes a prominent member of Mitt Romeny’s campaign. 

I’ll try to write about something lighter tomorrow…

"The lunatic is in my brain..."

That line from Pink Floyds legendary Dark Side of the Moon album kept popping into my head this weekend as I thought about what I wanted to write about and continually came back to Sarah "Man She's a Hot Republican Babe" Palin and her somewhat off kilter interpretation of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.  How someone that addled on a regular basis can be taken seriously as the mayor of a tiny reindeer turd of a place like Wasilla, Alaska is itself a stunning indictment of the intelligence of the American voter.  And now she is humping across country in her version of Willie Nelson's stoner bus, stopping randomly here and there to appear at a knot tying contest or a "Most Beautiful Pig" judging, presumably testing the waters for a presidential run in 2012.  How loopy is that?

What is it about modern American politics that makes it seem like a casual stroll down the midway of an alien carnival?  Where are the dignified statesmen, (or women) - the people who can inspire us to do great things and think of someone other than ourselves?  It seems like there are so many things that have changed so fast but the combination of an American public dumbed down and distracted by the cult of celebrity and the massive amount of information washing over us every day - every minute of every day - seems to have created a political class long on sound bites and short on practical, reasonable, cooperative solutions to issues with which we're confronted.  It seems they are less and less interested in seriously addressing issues  in any kind of problem solving way - most seem more interested in scoring political points to promote themselves and defeat the other party.  But to what end?

If perpetuation of power is the aim then there really is no point.  In that context, Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman and Mr. Weiner who seems unnaturally interested in showing off his dick seem like the ultimate expression of this "means to no end"; the logical outcome of 20 years of political madness.  Sadly, Weiner showing off his junk seems like the perfect metaphor for what passes for political discourse.  Clearly there is a sizable portion of the countr that wants nothing more than to make sure Obama isn't re-elected.  You have to wonder what causes that level of antagonism.  I heard a serious discussion the other day on the issue of raising the debt ceiling and the fact that the republicans are willing to hold the country for ransom in order to make sure that doesn't happen.  They actually are putting forth the proposition that the average person is deeply concerned about this and therefore it it their duty as representatives of the people to act in patriotic rigor to save us from ourselves.  What unmitigated horseshit.

The average person wants a job.  It reminds me of the kind of blather used to justify various interventionist activities over the last 40 years - you know; the idea that we have to defend and promote democracy because people everywhere are yearning to be free and want to be able to vote and get a cheeseburger.  Please...most of the world just wants to eat good food, drink clean water and take a crap somewhere so they don't have to trip over it.  They don't give a damn about high minded ideas of democracy and freedom as they are constituted in the foreign policy rhetoric of politicians.  They're freakin' hungry. 

If you drill down deep, Americans want the same thing.  Of course, here it's complicated because this is a damned complicated place.  But why are people anti-immigrant?  Because they think immigrants take their jobs and use to much of the taxes they pay for health care, etc.  That reduces the wealth of those Americans and that's what they don't like.  They want to be able to go buy stuff.  Palin talks about the second amendment all the time, like she's Jeremiah Johnson's bitch, but to be honest most people don't give a shit about that either.  They're pissed at the government because they too use too much of OUR money and for Christ's sake, they give it to the god damn immigrants.  Or poor people.  Anyway, to sombody not like them so to hell with the government and lets throw some tea over the side and show the bastards. 

What is sickening is that there is an enormous political class that seeks to appease and tranquilize these people by playing to these base instincts in the most shallow and disingenuous way.  Then they go on the Sunday morning news programs and try to sound high minded; "Well, the country can't" this or "The American people want" that.  It's self serving nonsense for the most part.  Does a majority of America really consider the Taliban a pressing security issue?  Seriously...?  How about the Lockheed-Martin propsal for a new advanced strike fighter plane - the one with the price tag of 1 TRILLION-fucking dollars!  Last time I checked, the Taliban doesn't have a fighter plane that can threaten our dominance of the skies over southwestern Asia.  Hell, they're pratically throwing rocks.  They fill an empty Coke bottle with gasoline and wire it to a TV remote and kill American soldiers, all the while hiding in the bushes and giving us their version of the finger.  And the big 9 American defense contractors push and shove to see who can grab and hold onto of the choicest teat to suckle in the name of providing for the common defense.

Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid and John Boner and Nancy Pelosi ought to be ashamed of themselves but that presuposses a level of awareness that's yet to be in evidence.  "The lunatic is in the hall..."

Obama doesn't suck, or why I hate republicans...

That hysterical screeching you may have heard this morning was probably the once and future presidential candidate, Mitt "The Wit" Romney, son of former Nixon cronie George Romney, a widely vilified figure of early 70's facism and erstwhile governor of Michigan, back when it wasn't a failed state.  Mitt took a run at the presidency last time around, only to be hoisted on the red-hot petard of his own version of government health care devised while he served as governor of Massachusetts.  Well, that and the fact that the mean-boy far right was deeply suspicious of him, thinking he was a softy at heart and probably sympathetic to all sorts of distasteful things like immigrants.  So Mitt took off the kid gloves this morning and loudly proclaimed Obama a failure for his inability to improve an economy struggling to get to its feet like a second class boxer gone down for the last time in round nine.  Well Mitt, I'm here to tell you that "failure" might be a little strong and, in case you're interested, to explain why.  Sarah, Michelle, some of you other blithering idiots; pay attention cuz this will take a few minutes.

Since the republican party as a whole is, as usual, slavishly lapdancing for whatever fiendish corporate rainmaker is throwing the most dollar bills, they probably know full well that the US economy is in deep shit and unlikely to recover fully for a long, long time, if ever.  But they have a vested interest in making it be Obama's fault, as if he has been sole responsible for the situation in which we find ourselves.  Shame on you guys and gals; political yearning and expediency doesn't forgive all such sins, you know.  But in the hope of stirring some reasonable political discourse, I will put forth this brief but stunningly accurate summation.

After WWII we were the last country standing, in an industrial sense, and therefore had the run of the place.  We could make all manner of stuff and, because everybody in the US was working, someone would buy it.  It didn't matter that much if it made sense - witness gigantic tail fins on autos and the emergence of electric can openers - it would sell.  And with no foreign competition quality didn't matter any more than a sense of good design.  The party hats were on and everybody had a cigarette.

 Over the intervening 60 years a lot has changed.  As other nations recreated their industrial capacity the captains of industry, knowing how to make a buck and exploit people at the same time, moved more and more of their operations to foreign producers.  Or foreign producers sprang up on their own, chasing greenbacks for all they were worth.  One way or another, much of the US industrial capacity went into decline. Americans by this time were used to the idea that they were the chosen ones and entitled by God to have the good life - two cars, mom at home with the kids and dog, color TV's and a stiff martini at the end of the day.  But a problem started to appear when fewer and fewer manufacturing jobs were available because now there wasn't enough money for every middle class family to have all that stuff and buy a new car every two years, etc.  So we also started to build things like highways and bridges and airports, all while promoting the American Dream of homeownership.  Now the middle class jobs would be carpenters and plumbers and all manner of construction workers.  That worked for a while.

But the income of the middle class worker has been stagnant in real terms since the 70's.  Living the dream American life was slowly more and more enabled by the sale of cheap goods from overseas - from those manufacturing facilities we had decided weren't worth keeping any more, or weren't sensible from a cash flow persepctive.  Go to Wal-Mart and virtually everything you buy is from China.  Workers there make $2.00 a day churning out plastic containers and cheap textiles, pots and pans - and the American middle class can continue to have the illusion of the American Dream because they can go shoping and buy stuff.  Wall Street has been on an unrelenting upward trajectory since the 60's.  The corporate clowns are getting rich and have somehow sold the notion that they shouldn't have to pay taxes and the Tea Party knuckleheads are their storm troops, agitating for less government even as many of them become more dependent on it.  This part of the story I really can't explain.  It almost seems to me that the racism that lies barely hidden under the big old flag the tea party people are waving has trumped their own best interests and that is truly hard to understand.  Kinda like using a .45 to get the fly off your nose... 

The housing bubble was unsustainable and once it burst it revealed that the dream American life was a hollow shell built on a whole series of illusions.  For ten years Americans had been living off their homes as faux equity and loose credit provided splurge money akin to the bowl of coke at the party at the rich guy's house.  Hey, it's free right?  Why shouldn't I have some? We've got rich and poor but the middle class is shrinking to the point of disappearing and yet they seem to support the Paul Ryans of the world who want to cut their benefits while cutting taxes for the wealthiest 1% of taxpayers and increasing the defense budget.  WTF? 

Back to today - or better yet, 2009 - when Obama actually started trying to govern when the shit was still flying off the fan blades and we were on the verge of a mass curl into the fetal position, and fear and dread were thick in the collective vibe everywhere.  Two thirds of the economy is consumer spending but the consumer wasn't buying "stuff" anymore; they didn't have the money, their house wasn't worth shit anymore and their 401k was about to be decimated.  If the consumer doesn't spend we're dead meat and we've all been too freaked out to do much of anything but hunker down and cross our fingers.  That's what Obama faces now in trying to "fix" the economy - people with no savings, no equity, no buying power and no job.  And the elephants say they could do better if only we'd agree to some more tax cuts for corporations.

The elephants all say that lower taxes are the solution and while we're at it, let's cut off services for the poor and run all the illegals off and maybe some of the legal immigrants too - hell, they're foreigners.  And cut waste from the schools and salaries for the damn teachers who can't seem to teach our kids anything anyway.  But don't touch the defense department because - well, we're busy as hell fighting for our freedom in the freakin' desert in godforsaken Afghanistan and plus we also need new aircraft carriers and a new 21st century fighter plane because the bad guys hanging around in the caves get really scared when those suckers fly over going really fast. 

On one hand I almost want to see some donkey of a republican win in 2012 because for sure we could say I told you so, you stupid bastard.  But that's too much like what they want to happen, for people to just say, fuck it, and stop paying attention to them, let them have their way.  I think I'd rather see if by some miracle we can turn the corner enough to get our feet under us and find a way to proceed to the end of the century without turning into France under Louis the XVI.  But no matter what, we need to understand that this ain't going to be like it was for the last 30 years; we've been fooling ourselves into thinking that we're the only country great enough to have Levis jeans, Sony Playstations and indoor toilets. That ship has sailed...