Want Change, Do You?

I didn't talk about Joe, the plumber from Ohio because I thought he'd been done to death, poor thing. That was before I found out about this. It seems some bureaucrat at the State of Ohio has been looking Joe up on the Government databases and leaking that information to the press.

This man is not a criminal. He is not a terrorist. He poses no threat to the candidate Obama. Obama does just fine threatening himself, thank you. All he did was take advantage of a moment where he and Obama were in the same vicinity to ask the guy a question. Joe wants to buy the company he works for from his boss. The company makes more than Obama's caste demarcation line of $250k a year, so Joe as the owner would have to pay so much in taxes -- being rich and selfish now -- that it wouldn't make economic sense to buy the business. Joe the private citizen asked Obama the famous presidential candidate why this should be. Idiot Boy responds with some tired socialist exhalation about spreading the wealth, at which point every small business owner in America actually felt their intestines knot up.

So, how to salvage this situation. I know, let's investigate the crap out of this Joe guy. There's bound to be something embarrassing about him we can use to take attention off that lightweight doofus we're running for president. Look, he's not a licensed plumber. Maybe when his livelihood is wrecked he'll have less time to think of questions. And he owes back taxes. Hmm. Maybe a good foreclosure is what's needed to bring ol' Joe current with the great State of Ohio. You know he's divorced, right? The ex-wife is usually a font of salacious detail, especially if we camp out by the kids' school at pick-up time. They hate that. Let's see if he's behind on child support. They can yank your drivers license for that, you know. And while we're in there we can check to see if he owes for tickets or has any points against him. Please, please let him have a DUI so we can ask him if he was drunk when he asked that question.

It almost goes without saying that if a Republican presidential candidate had pulled these kinds of dirty tricks against a private citizen who had committed no crime the opposing party would be demanding he quit the campaign. But for some reason everybody's cool with the idea of investigating Average Dude as punishment for making a candidate embarrass himself by stating what he truly believes. Obama didn't think there was anything wrong with what he said until it was picked up by the news. This is all spite, all ego, and it's calculated to destroy a man's life. What if he had had an outstanding warrant? That's what they were hoping for, a chance to imprison a citizen who disagreed with their candidate. Why else check the Motor Vehicle records? What if it was a candidate you disagreed with trying that crap? What if it was you they were investigating? To quote a young lady in a conversation I recently overheard, "And he's not even President yet."


Oh, yeah. Silly me. Nixon resigned. In retrospect, he showed a lot of class that way.

I'm Baffled

The democrat party is supposed to be the one with the new ideas and all. Progressive. Whatever. So why is it that ever since I've been paying attention (I was for Ford against Carter when I was six) the democrat candidate is always portrayed as the smartest guy ever and their women are such noble creatures while the Republican is always dumb as a stump and their women are spendthrift kook control freaks?

Girlfriend, look out.

I don't know an awful lot, but I know we're being set up.

When the person you are dating drops their company manners it can be seen as a sign the relationship is developing. As you become more secure in the affections of your sweetheart, more of your real personalities come through. You begin to notice things about each other, things that cross the line between 'quirky' and 'obnoxious;' his secret love of Air Supply, her shopping issues, etc. You must decide which foible is a dealbreaker, and if you go on with the relationship you may hear, during the course of an argument, "You knew I was like that before...." See, it's your fault. They were honest about who they were. They don't have to change. You have to accept them. Be supportive. Or else you're a heartless jerk.

We have reached that point in our relationship with Misters Obama and Biden. Perhaps it is a good thing that the campaign has been going on since the Bronze Age; it's taken this long for the new to wear off. Obama's tacit approval of the hounding and investigation of a private citizen tells us what will happen to those who help Obama look bad. Remember, it wasn't that guy's question that was the problem. And now Biden has said in so many words we will face some kind of crisis in the first six months of Obama's administration, one that won't be handled appropriately, and we should all just suck it up and support the guy anyway.

Pass.

As a woman and a cynic, I respectfully decline. This relationship will turn out like so many others have. He won't improve; in fact, as he discovers our tolerance for bad behavior, he will only get worse, more unreasonable, more erratic. And it will always be our fault. We never beleived in him. We always stood in the way of his dreams. We were just so damn negative all the time.

I can totally see why Oprah digs him. Personally, I'd feel better with grown people in charge.

More Projection Than Sundance

James Carville is an ass. There, I said it. I feel cleansed. There have been simperings in the media before this, but leave it to Mr. Matalin to reinforce the stereotype of the unreconstucted ignorant bigot cracker. But first, allow me to address the dolts at the L.A. Times, since their story came first.

This started a few days ago, the murmurings that Gov. Palin might not be following the literal word of the Bible by being submissive to her husband, as if this made her somehow less than Christian. First of all, I should like to congratulate the author of the article, Teresa Watanabe, for reading a biblical passage without vaporizing or whatever. Second of all, if she were possessed of shame, she should feel it for blithely assuming that telling those backward fundies that Miss Sarah wasn't toeing Watanabe's interpretation of some obscure New Testament sentence fragment would be all it took to send them for the tar and feathers. Or perhaps she had a good old- fashioned stoning in mind. At least it's plausible to the layman that Gov. Palin practices some sort of faith. Unlike some people. Anyway, it's not like Christians-- other than my ex-inlaws-- keep score about who's the most observant. Sort of not what it's about. The whole brouhaha was concocted in the fevered imaginations of the godless, who arrogantly assume they are the clever ones. I thought ignorance was supposed to be bliss. These people seem awfully chapped.

Speaking of suppurating pustules, James Carville achieved the dubious distinction of making a statement of incredible racism against both blacks and whites simultaneously. I didn't think I'd live to see it.

Now let me be clear here, if Obama goes in this race with a 5- point lead and losing this election, the consequences are -- bull, man. I mean I don't think that's going to happen, but I think David it's a point to bring up. But you stop and contemplate this country if Obama goes in and he has a consistent five point lead and loses the election, it would be very, very, very dramatic out there."

Al Gore was 11 points ahead at this time in 2000, by the way.

The consensus has been that Carville meant riots. So he must think of black folks as unreasoning beasts that can be called out like dogs to ravage the countryside if whitey wills it. At the same time, he seems to think that the specter of angry blacks breaking windows resonates on a visceral level with the white and uptight. In short, blacks are animalistic and whites are supposed to fear them. Now, I like antiques, but honestly. Step out of the wayback machine, will ya?

These are the people who want to lead us into the future? These unevolved cro-magnons who think everybody is as heart-rendingly, teeth-grindingly, head-poundingly stupid as them? You know what? Get out of the damn way, and be grateful that some people think all life has value, even as a bad example to to others.