Hilarious Posting on Huffington!

Jeffrey Shaffer has an absolutely hilarious (and spot on) posting on his blog on The Huffington Post. I urge you to read it!! Thinking the Unthinkable

Kennedy Cowardice

Caroline Kennedy declares that Obama will resurrect Camelot. Ted Kennedy says Obama will resurrect Camelot. The infotainment media dreams that Obama will resurrect Camelot. Crap.

I was an Obama supporter until the weekend before the New Hampshire primary. I even donated money to his campaign, ($25- not a lot for most of you, but it was a significant contribution for me). However, as the sudden adoration among the Talking Heads for Obama exploded that Friday and Saturday, I began to realize that I had been a victim of the bandwagon effect. I had bought into the hype. So, I asked myself: Just What Has Barack Obama done that Qualifies Him to be President? Three years in the US Senate? Two years in the Illinois legislature? A member of the South Chicago political machine?

John Kennedy had fourteen years of experience in Congress before he ran for President. Robert Kennedy had a decade as counsel for various Congressional committees, four years as Attorney General, and three years in the Senate. Obama can make a rousing speech.

It was opportunistic cowardice for Ted Kennedy to endorse Obama at this stage and it is in the tradition of his brother Robert. In 1967, anti-war Democrats were begging Bobby Kennedy to enter the ‘68 race against Lyndon Johnson. He hesitated, refused, demurred. Finally, in frustration at Kennedy’s ambivalence, Eugene McCarthy entered the race as the anti-war candidate. It was not until McCarthy’s showing in the 68 New Hampshire primary that Bobby Kennedy entered the race, enraging those people who had put their political careers on the line to work for Gene McCarthy. Bobby didn’t enter the race until McCarthy had knocked LBJ out of the race. This was, of course, lost in all the Camolot-nostalgia mythologizing after Bobby’s murder, but it is exactly what Teddy did this week. He waited until Obama had a big win in South Carolina before endorsing him. It would have been courageous to do so weeks ago when Hilary was the undisputed leader. That would have meant something. Now, he’s just jumping on the band wagon and not risking anything. Teddy’s a coward.

Huckabush, Bestiality, and Reality

Governor Huckabush has done it again. In a speech declaring that the U.S. Constitution should be brought in line with Biblical law (stoning adulterers to death? not wearing mixed threads? selling disobedient daughters into slavery?), “I-Like-Mike” has declared, with a straight face, that permitting gay marriage will open the way to legalizing pedophilia, bestiality, and polygamy, (a nice swipe at Mitt Romney and underhanded way to pander to the backwoods evangelicals in the South who are prejudiced against Mormons), . This campaign didn’t work for Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania, but the collective IQ of South Carolina residents is probably quite a bit lower than that of Pennsylvanians. After all, South Carolina is the state where Huckabee’s supporters are promoting the Confederate flag (the symbol of the greatest treason in American history and a symbol comparable to the Swastika, the hammer and sickle, and anything Al-Qaeda might use). South Carolina is also where Huckabee’s supporters are accusing John McCain of collaborating with the North Vietnamese when he was being beaten and tortured in a North Vietnamese prison camp. It is also where Huckabee’s supporters are accusing Senator McCain of fathering a mixed-race daughter (an obvious lie, but one which carries great strength in the first state to secede from the Union in 1861).

I used to think Rudy Giuliani was the most dangerous candidate running for President. No one has profited from 9/11 more than Giuliani with the huge speaking fees he was charging, the huge book royalities he received, and the secret customers of his alleged consulting firm. However, now that he has made himself impotent in this campaign, I must say that Governor Huckabush has become the most dangerous man in the campaign. He can say the most heinous things with a disarming smile and a chuckle and make even the most moderate Southerner comfortable with his outrageously un-American pronouncements. He refuses to disavow the filthy tactics of his supporters, and he panders to the ugliest prejudices of people to gain votes.

 If there are any Republicans of conscience in the Confederacy, they MUST stop Huckabush from getting the nomination.

Chris Matthews’ Meltdown

In one of the most pathetically emotional performances I have seen in fifty years of watching television news, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews gave up all pretense of objectivity during the last several days of covering the New Hampshire primary. In his near homoerotic infatuation with Barack Obama, he has smeared Hillary Clinton and the voters of New Hampshire in vicious and vile ways that deserve the same contempt and outrage poured out on Don Imus previously. In his dream of reliving the sixties and resurrecting John F. Kennedy through Senator Obama, he declared on “Morning Joe” that the only reason Hillary is running for President and sitting in the Senate is because Bill cheated on her. He then claimed that there was nothing wrong with the polls that suggested Obama would win, just that the voters of New Hampshire were racists and lied when polled. It took Tom Brokaw on Tuesday night, Keith Olbermann on “Countdown,” and Matthews’ boss Dan Abrams to put him down, though not by name.

Brokaw chided him by saying that the news media had allowed its enthusiasm for Obama to cloud its objectivity. Olbermann pointed out that the polls were correct in predicting the Obama vote but that the undecideds broke for Clinton. Abrams said the same thing and pointed out that the size of the Clinton rallies, despite the wildly exaggerated claims of Matthews and others, were the same size as Obama’s and that there are many people in the news media who dislike Senator Clinton, and not just the right-wing nuts on talk radio and False News.

Matthews and his Boomer compatriots need to get over the sixties. The decade of The Sixties is not coming back. John F. Kennedy is not coming back. Obama is not Kennedy. Get a life.

MSNBC’s Obamathon

(I was inclined to support Obama until this weekend). Multiple-choice: Barack Obama is the second incarnation of: a). JFK, b). MLK, c). Jesus Christ, d). all of the above. If you have watched MSNBC’s 24 hour coverage of Obama’s triumphant arrival in Jerusalem, you know that the answer is “all of the above.” Beginning this morning with Joe and Mika, continuing with Chuck Todd and Tim Russert and all the others who have “never seen anything like this,” we were told that there was a groundswell of support for Obama, that he was everything we were looking for, and that he represents the new as Hillary and Edwards represent the old. I was inclined to support Obama until the infotainment industry took it upon itself to anoint Obama the Savior of America.

Obama gives an inspiring speech. He is honest, articulate, and inspiring. But, I start getting nervous and suspicious when the chattering classes all of a sudden coalesce around one candidate and get carried away with their own enthusiasm.

I did not watch False News because any network that hires Steve Doucey has no credibility and Roger Ailes is the second incarnation of a). William Randolph Hearst, b). Father Coughlin, c). Satin, d). all of the above. I can’t stand CNN anymore because they have no one besides Wolfe Blitzer and Christiane Amanpour who doesn’t have puffy lips, big tits, and a complete inability to read a teleprompter (and that includes Anderson Cooper). So, I was stuck watching Chris Matthews declare that the reason New Hampshire broke his heart and voted against the candidate he’s been shamelessly promoting since the 2004 Democratic convention is because New Hampshire Democrats are racists who tell pollsters one thing and then vote another. Crap.

I find Barack Obama inspiring, honest, and articulate. But, I have concluded that he’s just what the news media wants: image and style. We need experience and he’s not ready yet. Yes, he’s African-American, but there are a number of African-Americans better qualified to be President, and I’m not talking about the White Man’s Favorite Black Man, Colin Powell. Harold Ford, Deval Patrick, and Julian Bond come to mind. But, Obama may be another Jimmy Carter: honest and inspirational, but unable to handle the world of Washington. The times are dangerous and require someone who has been there and done that.

For forty years, the boomer left has been fantasizing about the Resurrection of JFK, or rather the Resurrection of the Mythologized JFK, for the real JFK authorized wiretaps of Martin Luther King, fudged and procrastinated on civil rights legislation, outhawked Nixon in the 1960 campaign, and, Oliver Stone’s wet dream notwithstanding, was escalating the American presence in Vietnam before he died. Chris Matthews even waxed about how Barack and Michelle remind him of Jack and Jackie. Vomit. Give up the hyperbole and stick with reporting the facts, Chris. And, while you’re at it, shut up and let someone else talk occasionally.

The Democrats must nominate Hillary, John Edwards, or Bill Richardson. Obama can be Vice-President until he gets the experience and then I will happily vote for him. In the mean time, Chris Matthews and the rest of the gang at MSNBC will have to curb their enthusiasm and remind themselves they’re journalists.

Thoughts on Obama, Clinton, McCain, and Huckabush

I was a reluctant Republican until George W. Bush proved the truth of the adage that anyone in America can grow up to be President. I was so disgusted and outraged that Southern fundamentalists would gladly hand the party nomination to someone who was completely clueless about basic geography, basic economics, and basic science that I immediately changed my registration. Since then, having worked in the corporate world and been exposed to the political world, I know what conservatives really think underneath the rhetoric about freedom. Freedom is actually the last thing most Republicans, conservatives, and fundamentalist Christians want.

Therefore, Governor Huckabush is the last candidate running whom I would want to see in the White House. I would think even Southern fundamentalists would be bright enough to see what happened the first time we elected a Southern Governor who was completely clueless about foreign policy. Senator McCain is an honorable man who was trashed by Bush and his fundamentalist supporters in 2000. McCain was sitting in a North Vietnamese prison camp while W. was avoiding service in the National Guard and partying his a** of in Texas. McCain is someone who should be seriously considered.

The Democratic side is more difficult. Emotionally, I would like to go with Obama. He is articulate and inspiring. Yet, I haven’t seen him tested in the ways Clinton has been. I like Edwards rhetoric, but I wonder if he can get his program through a Senate that would need 60 Democrats to prevent Republican filibusters. Obama talks a good talk about bipartisanship, but could he simply be another Jimmy Carter, a good and decent man who fails in Washington because he doesn’t understand the system?

I am torn. My heart says Obama. My brain says Clinton or McCain. I’m afraid.

Huckabush

So, the Republicans have a front-runner for the nomination who is a Southern Governor and a fundamentalist Christian who thinks Pakistan is in Central America and claims he has nothing to do with the followers and supporters of his who make anonymous phone calls and send out mailings trashing his opponents’ character and religion. Is this 2008 or 2000?

I have a frightening sense of Deja Vu. Mr. Huckabee’s ignorance of foreign policy and his pandering to the evangelical wing of the Republican Party are a repeat performance of Texas Governor George W. Bush’s 2000 campaign, when Bush said he thought the leader of Pakistan was General General, couldn’t saywhere Iran was, and claimed he couldn’t control those organizations in South Carolina working for him that were spreading the lies that John McCain had illegitimate black children.

Some parties just never learn.