KELSO HAD PLANNED A LONGER TIME-OFF, BUT HE'S STARTING TO FEEL VERY STRANGE ABOUT THINGS...

...and the best way to deal with that feeling is with extra vitriol, with a caustic soda chaser.

Let's start with an oldie but goodie, Barack "LeBron James" Obama. The story basically goes like this. During the week of the 2004 Democratic National Convention, the one at which Obama droned on like hectoring nun and became "rock star," leading big in the Illinois polls for Senate, he had been strutting around the convention making an arrogant ass of himself at press conferences and generally pissing off Kerry, Dean and Sharpton (up your ass sideways and get off the website if you have any intention of mentioning Tawana Brawley). An Obama advisor, perhaps David Axelrod (a native-Ohioan who specializes in running high-profile Black Democratic campaigns) told Obama to cool it. To which Obama replied: "Fuck you. I'm LeBron James." Err...no, fuckhead, you are NOT LeBron James. You were a high school basketball crybaby who got benched his senior year for being a crybaby and sucking besides in that HS basketball mecca known as Hawaii.

And that speech. Boy that was something wasn't it? "We worship a mighty God in the Blue States..." No, no sale on that one either. Or more fittingly, "who's 'we,' White Man? (PUN INTENDED)." Katha Pollitt the great political columnists really nails this particular avocado seed to the roof in her Nation piece "Onward, Secular Soldiers".

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070924/pollitt

There's your link and the whole piece is well worth reading...

...but for Kelso the key parts were these: "I'll bet most right-wing Christians have never even seen a copy of The Nation. We might as well just say what we think. Besides, a huge percentage of us are Jewish! If we found "faith" we'd be brushing up on our Hebrew, not accepting Christ as our personal savior or filling up the pews at Our Lady of Sorrows. From the right-wing Christian point of view, we'd still be suspect, alien and bound for hell...As for Democrats, Oh Democrats! Who said this: "You need to embrace Christ precisely because you have sins to wash away--because you are human and need an ally in this difficult journey." I need to embrace Christ, Senator Obama? I don't think so!"

How weird is it that Kelso had just been writing about wanting to learn Hebrew and Arabic?

So, may we please -- finally -- view this dildo with some sanity? Barack Obama is NOT the liberal alternative to Hillary Clinton. He's the religious conservative alternative to the better politician and stronger person. And how wonderful look how special we all are awarding rock-star status on a Black man. Last Kelso checked Obama's skin color is what they call down here trigueno and isn't maybe 3/16 inch darker than Kelso's on the color wheel. Oh, but wait, poor little crybaby can't get a taxi in New York. Boo-fucking-hoo. Kelso can, so fuck you. Poor baby can rent a limo instead. It was Danny Glover who first made an issue of this and who's he backing? John Edwards.

Poor Mr. Uplift-The-Race-Bootstraps religious dickhead Obama. From where does this terrible condition of being African-American derive? From being a wealthy Kenyan diplomat and politician's son! Kelso should be so lucky. Kelso Sr wasn't any fucking lechugo "fortunate one" to quote the very appropriate 60s song. But Kelso Sr can HOLD his liquor and love his family, thanks. Kelso's crying a river that Obama Sr died a drunken disgrace.

Barack Obama is the true Republican in the race on the Democratic side. Read the Pollitt quote. Take note of his closeness with Lieberman. Or his newly-found eagerness to mix it up with Iran. Or just listen to the words he says. If in the terribly unlikely event that Mr. Hopeful Audacity of whatever the fuck his book is called is the Democratic Nominee (odds against in the market now 10/1, longer than either Edwards or Gore), and by some fluke the Republicans send out either one of the "creationists," Huckabee or Brownback, Kelso will vote for either of the latter because both are far to Obama's left on everything (war included) except choice and let's just say Obama's not a real, real big fan of choice. Obama, though, will soon be an afterthought. Either he'll settle in to a comfotable position as Senator-for-life or Jesse Jackson, Jr., will take him apart in the primary or Patrick Fitzgerald will get him in the 2010 Illinois Senate election.

Obama may be a trigueno but he sure has some views that are pretty damned mono (like Aryan-looking in the local idiom NOT MONKEY, PC WISEASSES!) But funny thing, mono, blanco, trigueno, negro, down here doesn't mean all that much. Everybody mixes and plays nice to the point that Kelso does not know the Equatorial Spanish word for "bootstraps," as if "bootstraps" were ever a factor in Obama's life.

It's time for some good news, though, from down this hemisphere. It seems like Condi Rice's fantasy is being short-circuited by two very odd-bedfellows: Bush-hater Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Bush-lover Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. Both seem to have come to their senses and have begun a cease-fire in the little proxy war along the border, with a POW exchange to happen within days. Uribe is no fool. He likes being President and has seen the writing in neon all over Latin America. Bush really has to reconsider that South American land purchase. He will truly be, to quote from the old Billie Holliday song, The Loneliest Man In Town. Another big boo-fucking-hoo.

There's something very different about the whole vibe here. The political debate kind of mirrors the informality yet emphasis on courtesy among the people. The issues are pretty much what's normal (or should be): the economy, taxes, canal tariffs, prices of staple foodstuffs, those boring issues, no GOD, GAYS AND GUNS AND LET'S SEE JUST HOW MANY WARS WE CAN ALL FLAG-WAVE FOR AND LOSE AT ONCE. The idea of a cover story on a local newsweekly "Is Panama Ready For A Black President?" or "Is Panama Ready For A Woman President?" "Is Panama Ready For Gay Marriage?" is just laughable. Been there. Done that. Own the coffee mugs, hoodies, bobble-head dolls and commemorative set of souvenir Allen wrenches. Yeah, that's right, Panama. Scary Third World home of Noriega and the rain forest! No, first-world international center of banking and trade.

A smaller cultural note but as we've paid tribute to Ms. Pollitt we have to make approving reference to something which she, as a feminist, might not like. There remains an old-fashioned machismo but it blends very nicely with a new kind of feminismo -- nothing real, real important that Oprah would be interested in just Western European standards of pay equity, access to professions, and free, unfettered reproductive choices of all varieties. Especially contraception. And as far as that machismo goes, Panamanians seem to have figured out the old Chris Rock or Jerry Seinfeld joke about romantic unions of men and women (or men and men or women and women) being unions of two, the two people. As opposed to Middle Class American unions which seem to have "three" participants: the two people and THE RELATIONSHIP. Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld certainly made these watch-words very clear for their writers: "NO HUGGING, NO LEARNING." This is exactly why Kelso doesn't believe for a second in Thom Hartmann's theory that there's a conspiracy among the rich to crush the middle-class. No conspiracy is necessary. Rich and poor get that money talks and bullshit walks. Middle-Class Americans? Just give them their self-improvement shit and they'll bury themselves without any help at all.

The American obsession with Pop Psychology just seems weirder and weirder by the day to Kelso. And we've determined that it is definitely not a sign of social progress. We are also willing to wager a good amount that it is an okey-doke which may be a sign of social regress. Show Kelso someone who's willing to trade political power for political correctness, and Kelso will show you a goddamaned fool. A goddamned fool who's lost every bit of "surplus value." Wait? Kelso didn't really write what I think he wrote, did he? He didn't really refer approvingly to the writings of Karl Marx? Phew, didn't think so.

Social progress? I got your social progress right here. No, really. When Kelso complimented his licenciada y abogada on a spectacularly elegant piece of legal work, saying that she'd probably be the President of the Republic in 20 years, her dead-serious response was "well, that's the plan." Regular readers know that the right response is an approving smile, not "You go, girl."

But then again whether it's Jerry Seinfeld or Larry David or Karl Marx, we Jews do tend to see a bigger picture now and again. In that spirit we celebrate a semi-disgraced landsman -- busted hedge-fund manager Victor Neiderhoffer -- for some foresight. In Neiderhoffer's self-indulgent book written years before the term "mainstream media" was common currency, he made one truly perceptive remark. He said that in terms of getting "the news" meaning learning something he didn't know before, the National Enquirer was a way better source of real news than either the Tissue Of Lies or Newsweek. Regular readers also know that in this case the right response is "Go on, my son!" Wait. That's hypocritical and sexist. Yeah? Fuck you.

Let's Go Mets.

Kelso's Nuts love you