Don't Forget Tisha B'Av!

I have had it with liberals of all advocacies whining, as they do on Facebook, “Whyyy didn’t we learrrrnn about THISSS in school?"

Well, maybe it’s because history is infinite. It is not just one thing; all things are connected. You learn basics in elementary school, more details in middle school, concepts and linkages in high school, and particulars in college. In fact, you never stop learning about history if you read. So all these things that snowflake bozos bitch about not being taught are not unknown. What they want is a history curriculum attuned to their desires, which of course would not be history at all but curricula of cultural superiorities.

If history teaches anything, it teaches that there is no single accurate viewpoint, but a patchwork of ideas, movements, and individuals that rose to an occasion for better or for worse.

Is there a single person reading this who did not know about Juneteenth until George Floyd was killed? Yet apparently we need a national holiday so Republicans can have something to claim they did for African-Americans. We have Lincoln’s birthday (subsumed into President’s Day), we know when the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, we all know about the beginning and end of the Civil War and Reconstruction. We know about Bloody Sunday at Selma and we celebrate MLK’s birthday as a national holiday.

By all means, take note of Juneteenth, as we might note St. Patrick’s Day, Pulaski Day, and, yes, Columbus Day. Without Columbus, we wouldn’t be here to complain about the kind of oppression that has gone on since the beginning of time and conducted by every single nation-state and ethnic group. But do we need national holidays for Americans of Greek, Turk, Czech, Polish, German, Armenian, or Palestinian descent?  (I am very sensitive to national “days” because out of 365, only one commemorates nothing – “National Nothing Day,” which falls on my birthday.)

So we do know stuff because we are exposed to history texts, teachers, and books, not to mention "Jeopardy." What many of us learn about our own heritage is done through religious and family instruction. Must everything with a political following be made into a national observation? Maybe so, and then watch for “Juneteenth” mattress sales. But stop the mewling that “the white power structure didn’t teach us what they wanted hidden.” There is only so much to teach in schools and only so much to be absorbed by tiny minds that overpopulate social media.

Now, what about Tisha B’av? (Pssst, it's July 29-30.)

Hit the Road, Pelosi

Nancy Pelosi, it is time for you to go, you weak whimpering feckless piece of antiquity. Here you are on  Trump: It’s the fault of the press, not of a Democratic party that couldn’t organize its own memorial service.

From an interview with Politico:

"What of Hollywood’s role in making Donald Trump a reality TV star? Do you blame the industry for the current state of U.S. politics as it relates to Trump?”

 “Well, let me say I’ve never seen his reality show, so I don’t know if it was any good or what. I do think that he was assisted by the communications industry, not just Hollywood, but the press as well, because all they do is enable him, and that is really a sad thing.  “I’ve said to many of my friends in the press, ‘You’re accomplices, whether you want to be or not,’ [and they say,] ‘If he’s saying it, then it’s news.’ I don’t think it’s news, but it monopolizes the airwaves. So there is a lot of responsibility to go around in terms of the creation of whatever that is in the White House.

“But he has a tactic, one that is used by autocrats, which is, ‘Just as long as they’re talking about me, no matter if it’s bad, then you’re not talking about my opponent.’ When [the press was] talking about him, they weren’t saying what Hillary was going to do about health care, to make our economy fair.”

As Col. Potter would have said, “Horse hockey!”

A couple of points, old lady:

1) Anything a president says is news. Period. Because if it isn’t, you and your Democratic minions would have no idea a) what is going on or b) what you can complain about. 

2) The press, by reporting what he says, should be an agent for change, but most people don’t want to act on the facts so why don’t you just say what you  mean – “the public is too stupid and hateful to do the right thing.”

3) The press WAS reporting what Hillary (oh only a woman can demean her by using her first name?) said on health care. But nobody fucking cared!!! And I dare anyone now to state succinctly what her plan WAS. Even if you can, what was and is needed is a short nasty memorable slogan and the gumption to fight dirty. Michelle Obama was dead wrong about “going higher.”

4) By declaring that the press didn’t explain what Clinton was doing “to make our economy fair,” you load the issue with the false trope of fairness. That was Clinton’s job, not that of the press!

5)  You handed Trump a campaign victory by agreeing to a trade deal, which, whether good for the country or not, will give him an accomplishment that will further energize his base and peel off Democrats.

I know people will say “look at what she did for women in politics, in regaining a House majority, and standing up to Trump.” All that is old-school machine politics at best, and at worst gaining power only for the purpose of exercising it, not for any larger vision. She has now cravenly adopted the autocrat’s real mantra: Blame the messenger.

Portrait of Mobsters

From a book about a central character in the New York City business world in the 1980s by journalist Selwyn Raab:

“Flattering print and television stories about his opulent lifestyle, his unorthodox mannerisms, and his …invincibility magnified his opinion of himself. …  ‘He was made to order for the press. The way he looked, dressed, his arrogance toward the law. The press was manipulated by him and turned him into a folk hero’ (said a U.S. Attorney.) … He was heard fulminating at the government’s vendetta to convict him and how tough the law would be on him if he were ensnared.  Yet he repeatedly committed the fundamental mistakes that earlier had gotten him into difficulties, until they proved to be fatal. … His inability to judge loyalty and talent were pitfalls for (him.”

The author also expounds at length about his and his associates’ foul public insults of federal prosecutors.

The passages are actually about John Gotti, but it adds to the portrait of Donald J. Trump as the greatest organized crime boss ever.

My only optimism is that he will talk himself into impeachment, exile, or prison.

Bye, Bye, Bernie

I did not support Bernie Sanders last time, and will not again, even though I might positively check most of his policy boxes. 

I gave him another chance while watching his CNN “town hall” but had to leave after a few minutes when I realized what a horrible candidate he is. He is unlistenable-to with a whiny Brooklyn accent; lengthy explications when a bumper-sticker-answer might convince, God forbid, excite someone; condescension and utter lack of genuineness. He is the most unlikeable politician I have ever encountered.

Today, I read this, and now believe he is a useless, horrible, specimen of a human being, as well -- Trumpian, by way of despising a free press and possessing not an ounce of humility or humor. He is a nightmare because, like Trump, he attracts politically brainless political neophytes. But unlike Trump, his voters have demonstrated they would rather lose the presidency than exhibit any common sense.

Since it is unlikely that either the House or Senate would become Democratic Socialist after a Sanders victory, try to imagine him managing the daily push-and-pull of events. 

I cannot.

Is marriage a right or just a rite?

A major argument for same-sex marriage is that it is a family value that conservatives ought to be happy to encourage.  But that argument is as silly as opposition based on what the Bible says. Face it: LGBT people want the same rights as other people, and opponents of same-sex marriage think that homosexuality is immoral. It seems to me that both views ought to be respected. But why on earth is marriage the arena in which notions of equality and morality are fought?

A long time ago, many progressive people scoffed at the notion of marriage. They asked how can either a civil or religious ceremony bind two people who should be able to live together as long as they both shall love? Now, many of these people say the marriage act is essential for two people in love, as long as both are gay. The argument seems to be that everyone is entitled to equal protection of the law, which now favors married couples at the expense of singles. It makes sense to me, but why on earth are married people getting breaks in the first place? The only reason I can figure is that the state, for whatever reasons, believes marriage is important.  But what I can’t figure out is why the legal framework for marriage is up to the 50 states (or any level of government, anyway).

I don’t care how two people (or three or four; or gerbils or hamsters) choose to amuse themselves in private. Why should the state care? If there is a social good behind the institution of marriage, it seems to me it is because children thrive when their parents are married, and historically the more children a marital unit has, the more hands there are to work and to make up for infant mortality (neither of which is a big problem right now.)

If one is to argue that the purpose of marriage is to procreate, the question arises regarding couples who are infertile, those who choose not to repopulate and those who marry past the age of fertility. Should they be prevented from marrying? Of course not. Nor should anyone else. But, again, I ask, why should they marry in the first place? And, more important, why is it any of the state’s business to approve or disapprove of historically notorious promises of love and fidelity.

 

As the old gag goes about why marriage is important: "Why fight with strangers?"

Killer Congressmen

The following current, retired, defeated or dead members of the U.S. Congress voted in 2009 to kill a U.S. Park Service ranger. The murder, by a brave wounded warrior of our heroic wonderful armed forces, didn't happen until Jan. 1, 2012 in a national park -- which had been opened up to loaded weapons by the following defenders of freedom.

I wonder if Gabby Giffords would change her shameful vote now.

SENATE

Barrasso (R-WY) Baucus (D-MT) Bayh (D-IN) Begich (D-AK) Bennet (D-CO) Bennett (R-UT) Bond (R-MO) Brownback (R-KS) Bunning (R-KY) Burr (R-NC) Byrd (D-WV) Casey (D-PA) Chambliss (R-GA) Coburn (R-OK) Cochran (R-MS) Collins (R-ME) Conrad (D-ND) Corker (R-TN) Cornyn (R-TX) Crapo (R-ID) DeMint (R-SC) Dorgan (D-ND) Ensign (R-NV)

Enzi (R-WY) Feingold (D-WI) Graham (R-SC) Grassley (R-IA) Gregg (R-NH) Hagan (D-NC) Hatch (R-UT) Hutchison (R-TX) Inhofe (R-OK) Isakson (R-GA) Johanns (R-NE) Klobuchar (D-MN) Kohl (D-WI) Kyl (R-AZ) Landrieu (D-LA) Leahy (D-VT) Lincoln (D-AR) Lugar (R-IN) Martinez (R-FL) McCain (R-AZ) McConnell (R-KY) Merkley (D-OR) Murkowski (R-AK)

Nelson (D-FL) Nelson (D-NE) Pryor (D-AR) Reid (D-NV) Risch (R-ID) Roberts (R-KS) Sanders (I-VT) Sessions (R-AL) Shaheen (D-NH) Shelby (R-AL) Snowe (R-ME) Specter (D-PA) Tester (D-MT) Thune (R-SD) Udall (D-CO) Vitter (R-LA) Voinovich (R-OH) Warner (D-VA) Webb (D-VA) Wicker (R-MS) Wyden (D-OR)

HOUSE

Aderholt Adler (NJ) Akin Alexander Altmire Arcuri Austria Baca Bachus Barrow Bartlett Barton (TX) Bean Berkley Berry Biggert Bilbray Bilirakis Bishop (GA) Bishop (UT) Blackburn Blunt Boccieri Boehner Bonner Bono Mack Boozman Boren Boswell Boucher Boustany Boyd Brady (TX) Bright Broun (GA) Brown (SC) Brown-Waite, Ginny Buchanan Burgess Burton (IN) Buyer Calvert Camp Campbell Cantor Cao Capito Cardoza Carney Carter Cassidy Chaffetz Chandler Childers Coble Coffman (CO) Cole Conaway Costa Costello Courtney Crenshaw Cuellar Culberson Dahlkemper Davis (AL) Davis (KY) Davis (TN) Deal (GA) DeFazio DeGette Dent Diaz-Balart, L. Diaz-Balart, M. Dingell Donnelly (IN) Dreier Driehaus Duncan Edwards (TX) Ehlers Ellsworth Emerson Etheridge Fallin Flake Fleming Forbes Fortenberry Foster Foxx Franks (AZ) Frelinghuysen

Gallegly Garrett (NJ) Gerlach Giffords Gingrey (GA) Gohmert Goodlatte Gordon (TN) Granger Graves Grayson Green, Gene Griffith Guthrie Hall (TX) Halvorson Harper Hastings (WA) Heinrich Heller Hensarling Herger Herseth Sandlin Higgins Hill Hinchey Hodes Hoekstra Holden Hunter Inglis Issa Jenkins Johnson (GA) Johnson (IL) Johnson, Sam Jones Jordan (OH) Kagen Kanjorski Kennedy Kind King (IA) King (NY) Kingston Kirkpatrick (AZ) Kissell Kline (MN) Kratovil Lamborn Lance Latham LaTourette Latta Lee (NY) Lewis (CA) Linder LoBiondo Lucas Luetkemeyer Lummis Lungren, Daniel E. Mack Maffei Manzullo Marchant Markey (CO) Marshall Massa Matheson McCarthy (CA) McCaul McClintock McCotter McHenry McHugh McIntyre McKeon McMorris Rodgers McNerney Meek (FL) Meeks (NY) Melancon Mica Michaud Miller (FL) Miller (MI) Miller, Gary Minnick Mitchell Mollohan Moran (KS) Murphy (NY)

Murphy, Patrick Murphy, Tim Murtha Myrick Neugebauer Nunes Nye Oberstar Obey Olson Ortiz Pallone Paul Paulsen Pence Perlmutter Perriello Peterson Petri Pitts Platts Poe (TX) Pomeroy Posey Price (GA) Putnam Radanovich Rahall Rehberg Reichert Reyes Rodriguez Roe (TN) Rogers (AL) Rogers (KY) Rogers (MI) Rohrabacher Rooney Ros-Lehtinen Roskam Ross Royce Ryan (OH) Ryan (WI) Salazar Scalise Schauer Schmidt Schock Schrader Sensenbrenner Sessions Shadegg Shimkus Shuler Shuster Simpson Sires Skelton Smith (NE) Smith (NJ) Smith (TX) Smith (WA) Souder Space Spratt Stearns Stupak Sullivan Tanner Taylor Teague Terry Thompson (MS) Thompson (PA) Thornberry Tiahrt Tiberi Titus Turner Upton Walden Walz Wamp Welch Westmoreland Whitfield Wilson (OH) Wilson (SC) Wittman Wolf Young (AK) Young (FL)

Capital Day

Had a satisfying Labor Day, indulging first in my love of small-town parades and then a baseball game from prime seats with my family.

As the columnist E.J. Dionne says, it should be called “Capital Day,” because it is no longer about the labor movement, which has gone the way of the milkman, but just another faux-patriotic day that marks the end of summer, the start of school, renewed mattress and car sales and the continuation of political campaigning. It irks me that moron broadcasters remind us that Labor Day is the traditional start of the campaign season. It is the traditional start of the campaign season in a campaign year, not the year before! Thus the lamestream media create traditions and rewrite history.

This Labor Day comes in the midst of a national orgy of wallowing in a disaster of 10 years ago; every public or broadcast reminder of 9/11 is tied in with promoting a particular network’s program or selling a product in the name of veterans. I probably should find a cave to hide in for the next week, but instead I will probably continue to challenge public displays of phony patriotism.

Anyway, here are some photos of the Kensington, Md., Labor Day parade, where the local and state pols are available for casual chat and ride in antique cars, where they ride behind the other horses’ asses (of mounted state troopers) and nursery schools, dancing schools and pirates entertain passersby, kids and dogs.

I wouldn’t miss it, and look forward to being there next Memorial Day, which has now become the start of summer and a chance to glorify current and future wars by paying pretend homage to the cannon fodder of past ones.

The Chicago Code

When my public affairs career at FDA came to an abrupt end, I blamed the Chicago machine politics of Barack Obama for putting in place incompetent kids who had no clue as to media relations, personnel management or general qualities of being human.

More evidence comes from this account earlier this week by a reputable suburban Chicago newspaper of new Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s press secretary. The Rahm administration was inaugurated just as the one TV drama that captured Chicago corruption so well ("The Chicago Code") was canceled, even though it was on Fox.

It is no longer clear to me whether Emanuel was a creation of Obama or vice versa. In any event, here is one more example of Obamachine contempt for transparency -- and here is one less Democratic vote for president.

The questions that Emanuel's press secretary won't answer
By CHUCK GOUDIE
Once Rahm Emanuel takes the oath and becomes Chicago' s mayor today, you will be hearing and seeing a lot more of a young woman named Tarrah Cooper. She is beginning the job of a lifetime, even though she doesn't have much life time behind her.

Ms. Cooper (who pronounces her first name as Tair-uh, not Tahr-uh) is going to be the “face” of the Chicago mayor's office, as Mr. Emanuel's newly anointed press secretary. At the tender age of 25, she is certainly a fresh face.

Never having heard of Cooper before Emanuel returned to the Chicago political scene last fall, I was curious to find out about this person who would be responsible for espousing the positions and platforms of Chicago's first new administration in two decades; would be the go-to contact for information about important daily news stories; or, heaven forbid, be the public source in the office if there was a calamity of some kind.

Never having heard of Cooper before Emanuel returned to the Chicago political scene last fall, I was curious to find out about this person who would be responsible for espousing the positions and platforms of Chicago's first new administration in two decades; would be the go-to contact for information about important daily news stories; or, heaven forbid, be the public source in the office if there was a calamity of some kind.

Last month, after learning that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had issued a scathing report against Mr. Emanuel's school superintendent to-be, I contacted Ms. Cooper for a response. The EEOC in Rochester, N.Y., where Jean-Claude Brizard had been running the public schools, determined that he had an age, race and gender bias when firing a top administrator.

I asked Cooper whether this had been known to Rahm Emanuel and why he nevertheless selected Brizard? Had Emanuel not known? Was Brizard's job offer being revoked?

In our very first conversation, rather than simply answer the questions, Ms. Cooper stated that she wished to speak “off the record.” I informed her that I wouldn't have such a conversation, especially not with someone who is in the business of providing public information. Seemingly frustrated by that, she said that she'd have to call back.

During a series of subsequent calls and emails, Ms. Cooper waged a relentless, several-hour campaign to convince me that such a finding by a federal panel against their choice to run the Chicago schools was not a news story. Sounding like a robocall, she persisted in the theme that “this isn't a story.”

As we prepared the report for broadcast, Cooper also sent two emails containing misleading and false information. First she stated that “an independent investigation found that Mr. Brizard did nothing wrong.” But that report was prepared by a firm hired by Brizard's school board and hardly independent.

Next she wrote that “a court of law has proved that he did not do anything wrong.”

That was completely false. A civil suit is still in the early stages. Ms. Cooper, who did not respond to several requests for comment on this column, just graduated from the famous University of Missouri journalism school in 2008, so what she learned should still be fresh.

She worked as a reporter on Mizzou's TV station and interned at MTV in New York.

Before joining the Emanuel for Mayor campaign, she worked at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in Washington, D.C., where her bio states “she helped to manage the Department's messaging, priorities and actions for numerous national incidents including the H1N1 epidemic, the December 25th and Times Square attempted bombings, the Haitian earthquake and the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill.” Based on DHS alerts, it seems she spent considerable time processing forms submitted by reporters to attend agency events.

At city hall, she succeeds longtime mayoral press secretary Jackie Heard, who was paid a salary of nearly $180,000 per year. On April 23, I sent Ms. Cooper a number of questions for this column. They included:

• Is there a set of written guidelines or protocols that you are working from in dealing with reporters and news organizations?
• How involved is Mr. Emanuel in setting the tone for dealing with the press and in what manner? Does each story inquiry get run by him?
• Which of these best describes your view as press secretary in dealing with Chicago's major newspapers and TV and why: Tools for getting out message as we see it; aimed at embarrassing or uncovering negative aspects of the administration; a necessary evil that has to be controlled.
• How will your cooperation with news organizations be based on the nature and tone of their day-to-day coverage?
• Does your youthfulness and lack of experience symbolize what seems to be administration focused on hiring managers under 35?
• What qualifies you to be press secretary for the mayor of the third-largest city?
• How much will you be paid?
• What are your career aspirations?

In more than three weeks she has yet to answer any of the questions. After asking a few times to meet me “off the record,” which I declined, Tarrah Cooper has stopped replying.
It is interesting that the mayor's new press secretary felt no inhibition about displaying hundreds of personal photos on her public Facebook page, showing her partying with friends, in beach attire and at a slot machine.

When you are 25, apparently some things are OK to be put on the record.

Chuck Goudie, whose column appears each Monday, is the chief investigative reporter at ABC 7 News in Chicago. The views in this column are his own and not those of WLS-TV. He can be reached by email at chuckgoudie@gmail.com and followed at twitter.com/ ChuckGoudie.

Transparent Vindication

As loyal readers may recall, I was suddenly defederalized last October a few weeks short of being legally immune from employer abuse of the kind administered to at least four older workers in the FDA public affairs shop.

Everyone knew the that new boss was not only not the same as the old boss but actually was parachuted in from a planet where “communication” meant silence, “transparency” meant hiding information and “public service” meant “no we can’t.”

Now, however, it seems that either her ability as a manager was exposed to her bosses or she failed to toady enough to the Obama hacks. (I can’t prove anything, but I suspect the former.) She is, I am reliably told, leaving government to join an advocacy/lobbying group run by the state politician whom she worked for before arriving in DC to wreak her damage here. In Washington, departing a high profile job in only one year is not a sign of success.

Anyway, this is not the story of one guy having a problem with one bad boss. I have moved on happily from other ones and survived. This is a story about how what happened in front of my naive eyes seems emblematic of what is going on elsewhere in government -- the wreckage of Obama's pretense of bringing a fresh way of doing things to Washington.

Many of my own observations are confirmed by an op-ed in today’s Washington Post detailing how this administration is more secret and contemptuous of public information than the Bush administration.

In the meantime, I remain one of the uncounted unemployed. Vindication doesn’t put food on the table, but it does taste sweet to announce, “Boss, thy name is ‘Payback.’”

Mourning in America

I will watch the Super Bowl this weekend and try to keep up with events in the Middle East. But I will otherwise keep the television off lest I become convulsed with nausea at the national outpouring of treacle over the 100th birthday of Ronald Reagan.

I was a reporter who had the privilege of covering the White House for four and a half years, encompassing the middle of his tenure. I believe I was as fair in my coverage of him as I was in coverage of anything else I reported. And I stood on a street corner to pay my respects as his hearse rolled through the streets of the capital city.

This recollection is merely a futile attempt to command the tide to stop, to speak up against the worship by weak, ignorant people of a saint who did what he could to drown this country in debt, death and decline. In my view, both close up and in retrospect, Reagan was a tool of an ideology that while it did not wreck America, certainly hampered the social, economic and international standing of this great country.

His life story was one of denial – the result of having to mediate between his mother and a drunken father; getting his first professional break by “re-creating” (that is, making things up) broadcasts of far-away baseball games; acting in movies whose lines or plots he would later in life believe to have been true; and moving from a union leader to a shill for one of the worst (or best, if you will) icons of runaway capitalism, General Electric.

Every president makes mistakes of policy, but the lasting damage Reagan did to this country was to advance and repeat the shibboleth that government is your enemy.

He would often tell adoring audiences – almost always all-white and middle-aged –“The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” (I am not sure he used that line when appearing before military audiences, which was his wont, because his handlers would never let him near an unfiltered crowd.)

First, let’s review some of the greatest hits of a president who some observer long ago aptly called an “amiable dunce.”

--Voodoo economics
--The Laffer Curve
--Ketchup is a vegetable
--Deficits don’t matter
--Evil empire
--We begin the bombing in five minutes
--Opposed sanctions against South Africa
--Opposed the Martin Luther King holiday as an economic loss to the country, signing it into law only after Congress passed it by a veto-proof majority.
--Opposed the original Voting Rights Acts, and originally opposed its extension in 1982, signing it into law and taking credit for it only after Congress passed it by a veto-proof majority.
--Sent Marines to Lebanon where they took the low ground at the airport and lost 220 of them in a suicide bombing, the Corps greatest single-day loss of life since Iwo Jima.
--Three days later invaded Grenada, a campaign in which more than half the U.S. deaths were from friendly fire and in which more medals were handed out than there were troops on the ground.
--Presided over the most corrupt administration in recent history, with at least 100 appointees tarnished by conflicts of interest, indictments, convictions or firings.
--Five years after vowing “we will never negotiate with terrorists” authorized the trade of arms for hostages, and then sent his hapless vice president out to explain to the public, “Mistakes were made.”

Ronald Reagan believed the government should stay out of people’s lives, except when they were in the bedroom, and he prevented family planning aid from being offered to developing countries that we preferred to keep poor and thus more susceptible to communist influences.

He glorified family values though he was a divorcee and spent six or seven years on the dating market as one of Hollywood’s most eligible bachelors. I remember the day he met his 2-year-old grandson for the first time -- and called him by the wrong name. His elder son, the adopted one, was sexually molested at camp as a child, but did his father ever know? He had no use for his younger son or younger daughter, who opposed him on most major issues, and when there was a family portrait at Christmas, it looked like a hostage photograph.

He was a union president, but he hated workers, using his presidency to smash organized labor. He was a liberal Democrat but “named names” that put former colleagues on the Hollywood black list.

His hatred of government began only when General Electric started paying him to host “Death Valley Days” and then to propagate the company’s capitalism-uber-alles in lectures to GE employees all over the country. To paraphrase what he later said about the Panama Canal, They bought him, they built him and they were going to keep him. He became a conservative because during World War II, when all the other leading men in Hollywood were actually away at war, he got better and better movie parts, earned more money and had to pay taxes at a historically high level.

As a political performer, Reagan read a script great, keeping you on the edge of your seat waiting from him to drift into a miasma of mental mulch, only to recover in time and complete the sentence with a punch – though the sentences were usually false pieties that rarely made any policy sense.

He told great stories, but the best ones were not true, such as the one about him helping liberate concentration camps, or the one about the heroic Air Force pilot who, after his plane was brought down by enemy fire, comforted a wounded crew member by telling him, “That’s all right, son, we’ll ride this one down together,” leaving listeners wondering which one of the dead airmen related the story in the first place.

Everyone said he was personally warm, but only to those he thought could help him. To the extent that he was even made available to the press or public – which was hardly – I was in his face constantly as part of the press pool. After four and a half years, I am utterly convinced he had no idea who I was, or at least could not attach my name to my face. I bring this up because almost every other politician I ever met had as a chief political asset that very skill. In short, his only political skills were a smile and a shoeshine.

He appealed to the worst in Americans and was venerated because he tapped into the fantasies of white working people who wanted to follow him backwards into some nonexistent golden age when morning in America meant, racism, poverty, war and being what that unctuous Chris Mathews calls “regular people.”

His skill was in adopting simplistic slogans by which he governed. He was, indeed, the godfather of the hate-mongering vermin who now operate the Tea and Republican Parties in his name. He might even be appalled.

So upon the centennial of his birth, all I can say is that Abraham Lincoln was wrong. You can fool all of the people all of the time. The only reason his acolytes want to memorialize him as the greatest ever is because they know he was the biggest goddamn phony ever to rise to the presidency and they are afraid history will judge him so.

Wallowing

Through cable TV, the Internet and even AM radio, the United States today is doing what it does best . We are wallowing like pigs in a mudbath of bathos. I am unaware of other nations that celebrate their defeats as much as, if not more than, their victories. Where were the public demonstrations for the recent 65^th anniversaries of V-E and V-J Days?

Yet, you cannot open your eyes or ears on this day and not hear a radio commercial promising proceeds of some fly-by-night promotion going to “wounded warriors,” see a newspaper picture of a sports start giving an autograph to children of someone killed on 9/11, or experiencing politicians of all stripes (including yellow) just before an election dwelling on morbid memories. The victims of 9/11 shouldn’t be forgotten – by their families and friends. But how should I remember someone I don’t know and who did nothing but show up for work on time or board an airplane?

The rest of us are 9/11 victims, too -- of a peculiarly morbid American fixation on terrorism by which we daily accept the victory of the skyjacking Muslim murderers. Our every movement in or near public buildings, our phone conversations, our travel, and even our thoughts are now circumscribed forever lest we “give in” to terrorists.

We gave in from the beginning.

“Terrorists” (and I suppose I would have to include freedom-fighters known by various names such as Minutemen, the Irgun, Algerian rebels or Viet Cong) win at the very moment they replace the concept of “territory” to be won with “terror” that robs ordinary people of their ordinary lives.

We are perpetually honoring servicemen and women who signed up out of patriotism, a lust for adventure or the need for a job and then feel they are denigrated for doing their jobs if we don’t stop every couple of minutes as a nation to worship them. But why don’t we actually fight back against the real enemies – Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran, and, yes, the brand of Islam that will fight until it takes over what is left of the world? That would take a much larger mobilization and a larger dollop of courage than the United States is willing to expend – especially when it is so much easier to bitch, moan and wallow

President Obama epitomizes the lunacy that attaches to the memorialization of a terrible event by saying that we must not let our anger override the constitutional rights of our citizens -- at the very same time that his secretary of defense and top military commander “ask” a wacko Christian preacher to give up his constitutional right to burn a Koran.

This fruitcake Terry Jones is the only honest one among those using 9/11 for their personal glory. He believes Islam is evil and wanted to do something about it. If Obama, Secretary of Defense Gates , General Petraeus and the flag-waving news media were honest, they would have ignored Jones. If Muslims acted against American interests as a result, they would have gone to real war against Islam, saying that the American culture believes in freedom of expression and we will fight you to all our deaths to defend that freedom. Not just make laughably empty speeches.

Listen Up, Louisiana

Pardon me, but what the hell are those rabid right-wing Republicans who have run Louisiana for a generation doing by calling for government intervention after they have sold themselves to the oil industry? A foreign company, at that! And what the hell are those dingbat dimwit Democrats doing demanding Obama do something. Like what? Suspend the Constitution? Seize an oil company? Arrest and jail executives without a trial? Call Superman?

How about if Louisiana had bothered to build defenses against floods and get other industries besides petrochemicals to sustain itself instead of racing stupid-go-lucky toward the bottom of every ranking of poverty, employment, education and culture?

Remember what conservatives used to say to welfare recipients – if you don’t like the benefits, “vote with your feet” and move to another state. Hey, Louisiana, you got what you paid for. Now hoist your rucksacks and hit the road, shut up or start electing people who truly have your well being at heart.

D.C. Droppings XXIII

Local Boy Makes Bad

A Chevy Chase, Md., senior at the University of Virginia who graduated from a top local prep school (already three elements that make me gag even in the best of times) is alleged to have killed his ex-girlfriend. Both were beautiful people, good students and members of the school’s top-rated lacrosse teams.

This was a natural news story locally, but only here could the routine televised “I couldn’t believe he could do such a thing” testimonial came not from a clergyman, a neighbor or a former teacher. The character witness in this neck of the woods was his nanny!

Grant Wasn’t Just a Northern General

Turns out, as we kind of knew all along, that the most Republican of states get the most return on their tax dollars; that is, the states that are the bottom of every list of everything good – think Mississippi, Alabama, Florida -- get far more in federal grants, contracts and other spending than they contribute in taxes. And much more than Democratic states.

As Dana Milbank in the Washington Post suggests, maybe these Gulf state politicians ought to reject any help from the Coast Guard, NOAA or EPA in cleaning their fouled waters.

The Back Doors of Justice

From both a civic and an architectural point of view, the Supreme Court has handed down yet one more inexplicable decision.

It is closing the grand front entrance emblazoned with the motto “Equal Justice Under the Law” under which millions of Americans, including more than a few scoundrels, have passed or at least photographed. The given reason is security. The real result is one more diminution of the majesty of the American legal system, whose chief judges prefer tailoring not just the people’s access, but the law itself, to fit through the back doors of justice.

I am reminded of what Abby Hoffman said during the Chicago Seven trial: “In the halls of justice, the only justice is in the halls.”

D.C. Droppings -- XXII

Pulitzer Praise

I never admitted it, though no one ever asked, but I fell in love with an op-ed columnist -- a Republican, conservative Southerner. But the author's writing is superb, and the ideology, such as it is, is never predictable.

That she is young and blonde helps, too.

Kathleen Parker won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary yesterday, and deservedly so, I thought, because she can think and write at the same time.

Decades ago, I liked to read George Will because although I have never agreed with him (except to root for the baseball team our sons were on) because he could write. But about 25 years ago he had written all the words in the language several times over and now makes less sense than ever (for example declaring that the Constitution should really not allow all people born on U.S. soil to be citizens.)

I will read anyone, regardless of opinion, whose writing and style I enjoy and envy. I say envy because although some people think I can write, I really can't make a lot of points with as much grace as I would like. To me, words are nails and I am a hammer.

Anyway, I have liked Ms. Parker from the start of her stint maybe 18 months ago, and today's column is another example of humanity glistening through a usually turgid Washington Post op-ed page. Grab a hankie, first, though.

Let's Go to the Videotape!

Friday, May 1, 1970 dawned a beautiful spring day, though not so beautiful for civilian Cambodians who, while not at war, were bombed by Richard Nixon in contravention of civilized behavior unmatched until the 43rd presidency. Due to the weather, a previous scheduled outdoor rally of anti-war activists drew a crowd. Four days before Kent State and other campuses erupted, the University of Maryland -- long a hotbed of social rest -- went to war.

In reality, the occupation of the main commercial road bordering the campus, was as predictable as the takeovers of the same real estate in previous generations after panty raids or football games. It was a lighthearted attempt at protest. Eventually, the Maryland National Guard was activated, and no satirist could ever have painted a picture like what really happened when some male protesters disappeared and re-emerged a short time later in uniform.

What I will never forget is that when the fierce-looking Guard personnel carriers rolled down U.S 1, protesters cheered. The reason: They were replacing the local police.

The bastard sons of those bastard cops are still on the job in Prince George's County, Maryland, but this time through the magic of videotape, the entire world saw what they do for sport. After the annual seizing of Route 1 after a basketball defeat of Duke, the cops beat an apparently tipsy student whose only crime was skipping along the sidewalk.

Everyone in the D.C. area know that this police force, which just came out from under federal supervision after decades of brutality cases, cover ups and mysterious jailhouse deaths, has been like that forever. Now, some serious shit should hit the fan. They beat up the grandson of a retired judge, who commented:

"They should go to jail ... And my opinion is: it was assault with intent to murder, or assault with intent to maim -- both of which are felonies in the state of Maryland."

Although Prince George's County is majority black and the wealthiest black political jurisdiction in America, the cops -- of both races -- are stuck in 1960 when, according to the student newspaper account of the first drugstore sit-in arrests, an arrestee shouted, "You can't do this. This is America." Whereupon a county cop replied, "This isn't America. This is Prince George's County."


Haley's Vomit

That police force would be more at home in Mississippi, whose record on race, poverty, education and health rank them as a developing country run by an enlightened despot. The despot is a porcine, lard-jawed, slime-dripping Gov. Haley Barbour, former chair of the Republican Party, former political director for Ronald Reagan, one-time king lobbyist and friend of Jack Abramoff -- and always a racist.

I covered him briefly in 1976 when Barbour, as a state party leader in a state with few Republicans, held his national Republican convention delegation together to renominate Gerald Ford. Had he not, Reagan would have been nominated. He was charming then, but the timbre of his voice and his entire body language told me I would not want to be anywhere near this man off the job.
When Katrina hit the Louisiana-Mississippi coast, Barbour -- whose state got the Bush Administration's largess based on shared Republican values -- rushed to get on television. His first reaction to the disaster was to announce that looters would be shot. After the storm, his main project was getting federal funds to rebuild the offshore casinos in his waters.

He was in the news against this past weekend when he was asked about the Virginia governor's proclamation commemorating the confederacy without mentioning slavery. Said Barbour, everyone knows slavery was bad and that somehow mentioning it as the cause for the Great Treason of 1861-1865 was just a bunch of "diddly."

Maybe even some troglodyte white Republicans (are there any other kind?) will be offended enough to deny Barbour his place as a political leader on this planet. But I'm not counting on it.

End of an Era

Nov. 24, 1963 was cold and damp, and I stood on Pennsylvania Avenue observing the cortege that bore the body of John F. Kennedy to the Capitol where he would lie in state.

Aug. 29, 2009, was hot and oppressively humid, and i stood on Constitution Avenue (just before it joins Pennsylvania Ave.) and observed a less crowded, less formal procession of Edward Kennedy from his last visit to the Senate he loved to his gravesite, near his brothers, in Arlington Cemetery.

In June of 1968, at age 20 and without the resources or logistics, I was unable to ride the Robert F. Kennedy funeral train from Washington to New York, after receiving a last-minute invitation as a leading college journalist.

For better or worse, the Kennedys made a difference in this world, and while much was made of the huge extended family and the courtesies they extended to mourners (as pictured below), I don't see anyone capable of carrying the torch.

Former Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once wrote, "three generations of imbeciles are enough." Well, the first two generations of Kennedys in America were not imbeciles, but the third one sure is.

Joseph Kennedy III was among the dumbest members of Congress before he chose not to run because of marital infidelities. He later became chief American pitchman for the Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez (owner of Citgo, by the way.)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is a flaming conspiracy nut who believes the government infused children's vaccines with a chemical that caused autism. His views comparing the Bush administration to fascism I happen to agree with, but his language, his facts, his judgment and his general persona make him utterly incapable of persuasion or leadership.

His older sister, Kathleen, was lieutenant governor of my state and failed to distinguish herself and then lost an utterly winnable campaign for the governorship.

Others in that generation are either dead from drugs, dead from reckless aviating or acquitted of rape.

Anyway, here are some photos from the pre-crepuscular motorcade that took Ted Kennedy to the darkness of Arlington Cemetery and eternity.






(The yellow blob reflected on the left side of the hearse panel is me.)

Self Explanatory Exploitation

and ...

Family exploitation (Jon on Fox5-TV, Washington, about his memories of Kennedy).

Enough Can't Be Said

It never fails to amaze me how many average Americans who vote Republican and hate liberals would be totally screwed if it were not for people like Ted Kennedy and things they take for granted.

They are like the people who call health care for all a socialist un-American plot but who warn politicians not to touch their Medicare. They are like the young TV station employee I read about today who, upon looking at Walter Cronkite's coverage of the JFK assassination, asked, "Where was the 'live' bug?"

Here is a thumbnail of his legislative career.

• Voting Rights Act and extensions
• Ban on poll taxes
• The Teacher Corps (now defunct, but partially replaced by Teach for America)
• Liberalizing laws for non-European immigrants
• Fair Housing Act
• Title IX
• The Equal Rights Amendment
• Lowering of Voting Age from 21 to 18
• The Americans with Disabilities Act
• Health care portability (Kennedy-Kassebaum law)
• Medicare Part D (prescription drug benefits)
• No Child Left Behind Act
• Minimum wage increases

Hypocritic Oath: First Do Harm

I try hard to love my country, but damn it’s hard when Americans seem to be the most ignorant people on the planet and they elect liars and demagogues who harm the most basic interest any person has – personal health.

Here is who I am talking about:

Republican Rep. Brian Bilbray, of San Diego is asked about the verbal thuggery his party is fomenting at town hall meetings held by Democratic lawmakers and says this “fear” and “paranoia” is the reason why health care reform should not be rushed through Congress. Until two weeks ago, when the Republican Party and its paid cheerleaders, decided to spew lies, frighten the elderly to death and stand silently by their henchmen disrupt democracy, no one at all had any fury at all about this legislation. So, maybe Mr. Bilbray should have been asked by the wimps on MSNBC who was spreading the fear and paranoia?

We know who they are. They are the four horsepersons of the Apocalypse. Their names are Gingrich, Palin, Limbaugh and Shirley. The last one is Craigon J. Shirley, whom I met fairly pleasantly about 25-30 years ago when he was a young radical bomb thrower. He is a p.r. operative for the rightest of the right wing. He is beyond conservative, although to call someone a verbal stormtrooper would not advance any argument.

He was behind the infamous and racist Willie Horton ad on behalf of George H. W. Bush and behind this ad now appearing wherever ignorance and hatred are a matchstick away from open violence.

As for the other well known hypocrites, we know who they are. Thanks to Rachel Maddow of MSNBC , we learn that Limbaugh, who is calling health care supporters pro-Nazi, actually has been paid to promote the living wills he and others now claim are a Democratic plot to kill the elderly.

Also, thanks to Maddow and others, we learn that Sarah Palin signed a proclamation during her brief governorship favoring living wills. And Newt Gingrich, who has called Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor a racist and the Obama health care plan Naziistic, wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post earlier this year calling for – you guessed it – living wills as part of the Medicare program. So Limbaugh, Palin and Gingrich were for "death panels" before they were against them.

And then there is that cowardly little hog farmer Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the chief Republican negotiator on health care legislation, who has been pretending to be bipartisan and who President Obama naively believes is a moderate.

Grassley doesn’t have town hall meetings; he has pig sty meetings, and this week, while having led America to believe he was delaying action in Washington to improve the bill, he was telling his rube electorate that he opposes “pulling the plug on Grandma” (which is not in any bill) and that he is to be lauded for “putting my finger in the dike.”

Meaning he never had any intention of getting health care reform legislation at all, much less improving it. The next time Iowa is flooded or hit by tornados, Obama ought to put his finger in the dike of disaster assistance.

Why do I call the American people stupid? Aside from the foregoing, consider the following, courtesy of Bill Maher.

• About one-third of the American people – Fox News viewers – believe that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks.
• A majority of Republicans and majority of southerners do not know whether President Obama is American.
• A majority of Americans cannot name their member of Congress.
• Two-thirds cannot identify Roe v. Wade and two-thirds do not know what the Food and Drug Administration does.
• A near majority of Americans believe God created mankind pretty much as it exists now.
• A majority believes U.S. foreign aid is about 25 times higher as a percentage of the budget than it really is.
• 18 percent believe the sun revolves around the earth.
• Half don’t know that Judaism preceded Christianity.

And that, my fellow Americans, is why I believe this country deserves what it elects. Fortunately, I will be dead (and I have a living will) before this country collapses from sheer ignorance.