The diorama, the fawning blog-roll and the endorsement to be awarded to the most creative final four placard. For those of you who were disappointed that I didn't mean Pat Leahy, former New York Jets placekicker, I'm sorry. The Hummel people wanted too much to do his diorama.
It really is a beautiful piece, though. It's a triptych, actually.
FIRST PANEL. There's all of the world laughing at Leahy when Dick Cheney curses him out publicly and Leahy -- instead of telling Cheney "Fuck myself? Yeah, Dick, I'll 'fuck myself' right here and now, jerking off with the fantasy of pissing on your grave and raping your monstrous wife and unusual daughter you evil cocksucker!" -- starts crying like a baby. Boo-hoo. As Carville sez, the aggrieved party never wins these things; the aggressor always does.
SECOND PANEL. Pink (his skin color, not his sexual nor political orientation) Pat congratulaing Torture Czar II, Michael Mukasey, upon allowing his appointment as Attorney General while signing order permitting Harriet Myers and Joshua Bolten to continue to defy Congressional subpoena instead of sending their sorry asses to Marion Federal where they belong.
THIRD PANEL. Pat in tears once again at the sad fact that the far more masculine Junior Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and DNC Chairman Howard Dean have completely passed his pinkness as the political power in the Green Mountain State, expressing his frustration by whining that Hillary Clinton not be allowed her constitutional right to have at least one ballot taken in Denver. Does Pink Pat think that he might have a place in an Obama cabinet? Or as an Obama appointee to the Supreme Court. Obama isn't stupid. He knows a limp piece of shit who's completely useless when he sees one. Obama himself has asked Leahy to shut the fuck up and to let the process work itself out.
Yes, Senator Leahy has followed the fine examples set by Reid, Pelosi, Daschle and 1000 other fake Democrats. Junior U.S. Senator Howard Dean (D-VT) has a nice ring to it. As does Senior Senator Sanders. But the sweetest sound is "The Honorable Patrick Leahy, University Of Vermont adjunct professor on Constitutional Law."
Any Democrat with the integrity to grant super-constitutional privilege to Bush Administration officials, yet urge the denial of a prominent fellow Democrat not only her DNC trade-association priviliege of receiving at least one full delegate vote but also her constituitional right to continue her campaign having complied with all the rules involved is exactly the kind of man "we" need in a leadership position.
Somehow, I doubt you or I could get away with not answering a Congressional subpoena without expecting to enjoy a few months of bologna sandwiches and cling peaches in heavy syrup. But gotta love statesmen like Pat Leahy. What really has this guy done for the Democratic Party other than sitting on his ass? Has Leahy as Chairman of the Judiciary committee done anything other than help the Republican party? So, here's proposal. Shelby of Alabama switches back to the Democratic Party. Leahy switches to the Republican Party and we'll see how he does against Dr. Dean.
This from Marie Cocco of the Washington Post: "Leahy was particularly odious when, after declaring Clinton had 'no way' to win the nomination, he offered her a very warm seat. It happens to be one she already holds and it is, of course, comfortably below the glass ceiling. 'Frankly, I feel that she would have a tremendous career in the Senate,' Leahy declared.
Longer than yours, scumbag, longer than yours. I'll be "Frank," Leahy. You be Shirley.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$Once I start reading some of the articles, I really get obsessive, so please tolerate some more American politics.
If anybody had any doubts by the way that the MSM would drop Obama like a bad habit when McCain began to gain some momentum, those doubt should be gone by now. Obama has been "outed" by those able neo-cons at Politco for being -- gasp! -- a liberal.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/9269.html
I don't think that's bad at all. I like it. It will make it easier for me to root for him to beat McCain. I understand why Obama would want to position himself differently for the race for the nomination. It's worked until just a little while ago. And if this particular story gains any traction, Obama may have to crank it up again for a speech on ideology which, I have no doubt, will be equally good if not better than his race speech, equally intellectual, and equally a brick for the average voter. Oh, well. I am also encouraged to see that one of the big-boys, Atrios at Eschaton, convened some other well-knowns for stratgies to fight the MSM in the fall.
http://www.attytood.com/2008/03/udated_liberal_bloggers_say_me.html
I'm pretty sure Obama will be the Democratic nominee, but there are plenty of scenarios in which she runs the table from here -- certainly PA, WVA and PR look like gimmes. I would guess he'll win North Carolina, but take a look at the John Heilmann piece in New York Magazine.
http://nymag.com/news/politics/powergrid/45604/
If there's anything that might create the upset victory for Clinton in NC and perhaps a subsequent call for Obama to lay it down (which he shouldn't), it's in the Heilmann piece. A big endorsement for Clinton from Edwards and she could win it. It would not be a terrible idea for Obama to go back to Edwards and say "sorry, man, I goofed, but we all do during any campaign and maybe I wasn't at my best following South Carolina."
And I thought that The Hungry Mother was making an April Fool's Day joke about Obama bowling a 37 in Altoona. I looked it up. It's absolutely true. A reasonably-coordinated 9-year old child can break 37 EVERY TIME! This had to be some very weird, deeply-finessed, joke on Obama's part. Maybe he was making fun of bowling to hold the Katha Pollitts and Katrina vanden Heuvels in the flock or something. But Obama's a pretty athletic guy. He'd pretty much have to try to make less than 80! I wasn't kidding about the bowling at all. That's serious business anywhere in PA outside of Phildelphia and it's wealthier suburbs. Anywhere there are large populations of Slavic-Americans, there's bowling and it's no kind of joke.
He's also going to have to sit down privately with Clinton, well before June, with no aides or reporters around for a totally honest, off-the-record discussion in which he says to her "you were right, I had a helping wind from the MSM most of the way...I think we should both fight this hard to the bitter end but you know you can count on me if you beat me in Denver and I want to know I can count on you if I do...If it's me, I'm going to need your advice on how to handle a media that's out to get me and if it's you, I'll give you some names of TV folks and reporters I depended on and some tips on what they're looking for to get them to tank...Most of all, we have to keep fighting each other because the McCain media and some of our own party leaders who are scared of us want us to stop...let's both show them they don't own us even if we piss each other off a little in the processs."
Clinton's got to respond by agreeing and saying she'll help him fill in the blanks on all the Armed Services bullshit.
That would take a tremendous amount of finesse on Obama's part which he really hasn't shown yet, but he seems to have soaked up a decade's worth of savvy in a few months, so there's no reason he can't do it when the time comes. And if you delight in seeing the MSM befuddled and embarrassed and pissed-off as much as I do, you'll really enjoy it when they see the two united not in fear of criticism but in strength and sportsmanship.
I just know he can get off this idea that he's Jesus Christ's younger brother and she can get off this idea that she's General Patton. Things look bleak now but there really is no reason either of these two flawed as they are can't beat that fucking putz McCain.
U-C-L-A. Fight-fight-fight.
Kelso's Nuts love you.
22 comments:
I think that Leahy would be a good candidate for a Gonzales-like Atty General.
The MSM have really taken Obama's 37 in Altoona, where my father was born, and run with it. I think not being able to bowl is a plus, not a minus.
A good half-court set shot (wow, that dates me) is much more credible than a 200 on the lanes.
HM: I'm a horrible bowler but I have a very, very close friend who has a PBA card. One of the first people to believe in me and back me with serious money came from deep in the bowels of the Eastern Nassau/Western Suffolk County, Long Island, bowling world. He knew all the NY guys from hustling days: Petraglia, Laub, Lemongello, Zion, etc. One of my closest friends in college was a 12-and-under champion in Minneapolis.
So, I know what the bowling subcultures are like. They are "White-ethnic" (as opposed to WASP or Jewish, although Laub and Zion could bowl a little!) and lean strongly Democratic. At the higher levels, because of the betting, a strong libertarian streak is in the "mix," to make a bowling pun.
In more rarefied evirons, being a good bowler is irrelevant. It is VERY RELEVANT for a male Democratic candidate who wants to connect in PA or OH or WVA for that matter. That's why I wrote that if he couldn't bowl for real, he should stay away in areas where bowling's a big deal.
Golf might be a perfect game for him campaign-wise They say he likes poker and given that Ivey is probably #1, and that the poker world is so heavily Democratic, he fucked it up in Nevada by doing the religious schtick and campaigning against gambling there.
I could have told him that. Let me give you an example of what poker means all over the world and especially in the United States. Phil Ivey was taking a flight somewhere and passing through security. As he was picking up his stuff and putting on his shoes, the DHS guy asked Ivey for his autograph. Right behind Ivey in the line was another well-known Black man, Joe Dumars, former superatar Pistons guard and current Pistons GM. Dumars gets his stuff and asks the DHS guy if he wants HIS autograph. The DHS guy looks at him blankly and says "who are you?"
I understand that Obama's not a bad basketball player for a man his age, although that's about as far as it goes. The story of his not making the varsity at a private school in Hawaii says he's not a GREAT basketball player, but he's probably good enough to hit 6 of 10free-throws during the half at a Bulls game.
Leahy would be a terrible choice for Attorney General because he doesn't even have Gonzales or Ashcroft's courage of conviction.
Look at the attorneys general since JFK
Robert F. Kennedy
Nicholas Katzenbach
Ramsey Clark
John N. Mitchell
Richard G. Kleindienst
Elliot L. Richardson
William B. Saxbe
Edward H. Levi
Griffin B. Bell
Benjamin R. Civiletti
William French Smith
Edwin Meese III
Richard Thornburgh
William Barr
Janet Reno
John Ashcroft
Alberto R. Gonzales
Michael B. Mukasey
The ones on that list with Leahy's weak personality are the forgettable ones: Saxbe & Barr.
The rest were ass-kickers, whether good ones like RFK, Katzenbach, Clark, Richardson, Levi, Bell, Civiletti, and Thornburgh.
Or total fucking ass-hats like: Mitchell, Kleindienst, Meese, Smith, Reno, Ashcroft, Gonzales and Mukasey.
It's obvious who Obama's attorney general would be, and I think he'd be a good one: Deval Patrick.
Nice work in this post, compadre. And I'll do the cheer too:
U-C
(clap, clap)
L-A
(clap, clap)
U-C-L-A
Fight! Fight! Fight!
SuziRiot:
What galls me especially about Leahy and about Feingold and Boxer at times, although Leahy most of all because he's the most senior of the three and has the weakest spine is that while it's hard to find too many senators with a voting record as good, he never FIGHTS.
I've seen just in the past few years BYRD and DODD, both far more "moderate" that LEAHY take on unpopular fights and really stay with them. I've seen Republicans like Gordon Smith and John Sununu take on tough fights that have easily lost them the love of the Repbulican power establishment.
And while Trent Lott never used the right "language" he's probably been better on all aspects of Hurricane Katrina than any Democrat has.
Christ, who was braver than Mitt Romney when push came to shove?
So, in a way Leahy is a worse Trojan Horse than Lieberman ever was because we expected nothing from Lieberman. Everything he did right was a lagniappe. With Leahy, we're led to expect the world and we get nothing.
it is posts like this that keep me coming back. how come no one else has the balls to say this is beyond me.
LIBS: Thanks for the compliment. I think there are a number of factors which explain why you don't read this sort of stuff in a lot of places. Every blogger thinks that for a break here or a break there he or she will have the next DAILY KOS. But to do that one must hew to an orthodox set of views. As in most human endeavor, you are almost better off FAILING CONVENTIONALLY than you are SUCCEEDING UNCONVENTIONALLY. While I don't like it, and occasionally get irritated by it, I've come to accept that I'm going to average 5 or 6 comments and that's more or less it. So, when the mood hits me to write something about no matter what, I write it.
Since I don't keep a diary, this blog stands in for one and I do myself no favor by tempering what I write. Or by staying away from subjects or viewpoints that might offend or bore people. What's the worst that can happen? People will stop reading my blog? WOW. Only a few people read it anyway.
And none of what I write is really brave or controversial anyway.
But none of that happens. This blog is not for everybody. It's an acquired taste, so I usually get people here who dig it.
I liked a part of the movie RUSH in which one of the drug-addicted cops says to the other with regard to the drug trials that everyone's lying -- the prosecutor, the defense, the cops, the defendants, and the judge -- and they all know it. They only ones who don't know everyone's lying is the jury.
I mostly feel that way about the media and conventional wisdom in general. Everybody's lying and they know they're lying. While I'm only giving my version of the truth, I know I'm not LYING.
I have many of the same viewpoints. Hell, I get a bunch of people who will read my blog but as soon as I write about something they don't agree with 100% then they leave in a huff. Oh well...I think it is important to be authentic. Trying to fit in and do what everyone else does feels so high-schoolish to me. I didn't fit in then and damnit I sure am not going to start fitting in now.
Obama's 37 was in 5 or no more than 6 frames -- you know on a campaign they would never take the time to throw a whole game. He had a couple of gutters in there, not surprising given he was in shirtsleeves and Church's oxfords, not to mention that anyone could get the shanks while being watched by a few dozen people including some 200-average bowlers. Then he had an 8- and a 9-; overall not the disaster it's been portrayed as, and Kelso, you who view the media with superstition, should've known that "Bowlinggate" was being blown out of proportion. Also I heard before they started he protested "I don't roll on Saturdays; I'm shomer shabbas." Okay, just made that last part up.
the amount of time the media (especially King Douchebag Joe Scarborough) has wasted on the 37 in bowling is astounding.
i sit at work and watch Morning Asshole (Joe) because i just couldnt stomach the crap on the Today Show. now i think i am going back to the sewing tips and fake Lauer interviews over Scarborough and his lackey Mika Brzenski -- who has none of the smarts of her father. Scarborough is king of the douches.
as for Leahy -- what a weasel. he talks such a good game, and then is zero on the action. then again so is 98% of the us congress.
i am so fed up with this whole process that i have resorted to reading cooking blogs.
8-)
LIBS: That's their problem, not yours. I have no end of disagreement on any number of things I write but the people who diaagree the most often have been my most loyal readers and supporters. "UN MAL ARREGLO ES MEJOR QUE UN BUEN PLEITO" is sort of the motto around here. The cleverest translation I've come up with is A BAD HANDSHAKE IS BETTER THAN A GOOD COP. No one should ever quit good blogs over small points of disagreement.
G'sB: Now, I'm confused. When I first mentioned the bowling it was in the vein of an Obama-friendly media doing some "isn't-that-sweet-he's-bowling-with-the-proles" kind of thing. Then I heard the score,first from THE HUNGRY MOTHER and again from Jack Cafferty on CNN and I saw a post-bowling speech by Obama which really bordered on the petulant. He got a real cross look on his face and said he was going to rip up the White House lanes and put in a 2nd basketball court. Here we call such a statement "METIENDO LA PATA" (closest translation is "STEPPING ON YOUR DICK).
The shirtsleeves and Church's shoes shouldn't have a well-coordinated adult man from making 90 and how long would 10 frames by three guys have taken? 15 minutes? I have to get clear on this.
I guess the point of "bowling-gate" is that heaven help the White Democrat who throws up nothing but bricks in a H-O-R-S-E game at West 3rd Street.
I don't seem to recall Hillary Clinton trying to play hopscotch or double-dutch or Carole Moseley-Braun trying to play squash in Winnetka to get a few votes.
And as I've suggested this could get way, way worse in the fall. Obama may get called upon to go deer-hunting in Ohio in October and the recoil of a small-gauge deer-rifle could well dislocate his shoulder if he wasn't prepared. I hope for all our sakes that John King or Jessica Yellin are waiting in bushes with a freshly-killed 12-pointer just in case.
Let Obama show up a week later with his arm in a sling from THAT against McCain and all the Lee Hamilton endorsements in the world won't help him keep a single White or White Ethnic male vote on the big day.
If Axelrod is smart he'll have Obama in the general election laying off the athletic or blood-sport thing in trawling for Slavic votes and just have him go out with a bunch of old UMW officials mushroom-picking. The would cover all the bases. The Slavics would appreciate him having participated in a Slavic tradition. Labor would like him for have given Trumka's boys their props. And the Katha Pollitt vegans would like the cross-cultural vegetable thing!
Look, I want the guy to BEAT McCAIN, not make an ass of himself.
D-CAPny: I've only seen Scarborough on Bill Maher's show and I thought he was pretty obnoxious. Unlike you, however, I think that this bowling business is a great taachable moment for Obama. He should have gone back an listened to his own excellent speech on race which joined the unemployed Slavic guy's interests to those of African Americans' to those of even the Aryan separatists. It was a cultural fuckup, no ifs ands or buts. Sorry. Much like Perot's saying "you people..."
I'm glad you agree with me on Leahy. I really don't care whom he endorses for president as long as it's a Democrat. I do care that he has been useless in his chairmanship. He could not have done more damage had he been like Rick Santorum or somebody. And I think the ascencion of Sanders (who's great on everything) and Dean (who's great on most things and don't forget was the first big-time pol to feature Gay civil unions, an anti Iraq War policy, and single payer health) is a great thing for my former party and for Vermont.
Here's my prediction-
Dems Lose! Dems Lose!
Barack made a fatal error trying to pander to too many people.
He let someone else (Wingnuts) bring up the race issue. Now it's out of his control. If he spoke up from the get go, he could have controlled the damage.
Big Mistake.
He's now the supporter of a "Reverse Racist" (Wright).
Southern Wingnuts love Reverse Racism.
Whatever the fuck that is.
As for speaking your mind, people say they want "honesty," but they don't mean it.
They want "honesty" if, and only if, it aligns perfectly with what they already think/believe.
By the way, people are far more than their thoughts, and feelings.
Too many people wrap the entirety of who they are around what they think/feel.
Thoughts, and feelings are transient.
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I really enjoy reading your blog. I would like to invite you to visit my blog.
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