What We Can Know

“Everything happens for a reason.”

If it weren’t such an odious cliché, the thought should be applauded as the highest form of Enlightenment thinking. However, the Age of Reason occurred about 400 years ago and has been replaced by an emphasis on the mystical and divine (which is why Rick Perry may be president in 2013 and not Barack Obama.)

Yesterday, New York Yankee Robinson Cano explained his prodigious output of six runs batted in a playoff game by saying, “Everything happens for a reason.”

The reason apparently is that Friday night’s game was suspended by rain, so it had to be resumed on Saturday.

I tossed and turned last night trying to examine what Cano meant. Did it mean the rain delay caused him to improve his swing? Did it mean that God had planned for him to win the game all along and that the delay was only incidental? Did the gods of baseball, or of Reason, make it rain Friday night and stop long enough for him to become – God, I hate to say it – a hero?

I happen to agree that all things happen for a reason, though we don’t always know what that reason is. Every action of every animate object on Earth is caused by some other action and has consequences for the future. But I don’t think Mr. Cano can know what the hell he was saying. He’s just another stupid athlete saying the same things all stupid athletes have said when a microphone held by a stupid TV reporter is shoved in their faces.

Crossed Wires

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy delivered of himself this stunner on Wednesday in another example of the right-wing’s crusade to Christianize America and pervert the Constitution by legislating from the bench:

“A Latin cross is not merely a reaffirmation of Christian beliefs. It is a symbol often used to honor and respect those whose heroic acts, notable contributions and patient striving help secure an honored place in history for this nation and its people.”

I wonder how the priests and nuns who trained Kennedy feel about the cross being minimized as a religious symbol when it is prominent on the walls of every Catholic school and dominates every Christian church.

Yes, the cross is more than just a spiritual symbol– not less of one as Kennedy asserts. It is the cudgel that has massacred millions of Jews, Muslims and heretics in continual spasms of pogroms, Crusades and witch trials. It has been twisted by Nazis , burned by Klansmen, wielded by vampire-haters and defended by racists.

Every cult has its symbols, and I don’t care if Christians want to use death panels to memorialize their leader, but do not try to convince me that the cross is now a totem of American patriotism.

Faith-based Hypocrisy

My outrage over the Catholic bishops forcing a rollback of abortion law as the price of health insurance reform in the House of Representatives is growing day by day to the point I am about to become a bigot.

Yes, anyone has a right to petition government, including religious leaders, as did Martin Luther King, most notably. The difference is that Protestant or Jewish leaders advocating certain social programs are informing their views based on what they perceive as doing good. The Catholic Church, however, is different in these respects:

• It insists its doctrine become law.
• It requires politicians to vote according to religious canon over what their constituentsmay want or face damnation, or at least denial of the sacraments. However it will not allow priests to hold high elective office, forcing from the House some years ago Father Robert Drinan – resign or be defrocked – because he was a liberal and, even worse, an intellectual policy expert
• It ordered 30-some liberal-to-moderate Democrats in the House last Friday how to vote on an amendment that the bishops negotiated, after they had seemingly been all right with a less vicious attack on women’s health the day before.

Shame on the Catholic Church, but bigger shame on the Democrats who violated their oaths of office by paying greater allegiance to the Vatican than to the Constitution.

Shame on the church but bigger shame on the Democrats who violate their oath of office by paying allegiance to the Vatican over the United States.

Then today, the Washington Post reports the Church is threatening to end their faith-based contracts with the District of Columbia to provide social services, including help to the homeless if the City Council passes, as is likely, same-sex marriage legislation that forbids discrimination against like-gendered couples.

Somehow, this seems un-Christian. But acting that way, of course, is the entire history of the Catholic Church, isn’t it?

However, among the institutions lower in my estimation than the Catholic Church is the Republican Party. You want hypocrisy? Take a look at my favorite author’s investigative piece showing that the insurance plan for employees of the Republican National Committee covers abortion.

Personal Musings - IV

Dellirious with Joy

Following up yesterday’s tale of woe with Dell, Inc., I am happy to report that I seem to have some satisfaction of my claim.

I got a return voice mail from the company’s p.r. guy offering to have me call him back for advice on how to solve the problem. But before I got the message, a customer service supervisor, one of about a dozen Dell employees I have talked to since Monday, connected me to a department I didn’t know existed – the Cancellations Department.

There, somewhere in Central America, Carlos (Badge 122203) kept me on hold on two occasions for several minutes each time, but he was able to cancel my order, which any number of other Dell employees and an e-mail response from the company told me was impossible. Even if I get delivery, I am to return it, prepaid, for a full refund.

I recommend that folks with a consumer complaint that is handled satisfactorily by phone ask for the customer service rep’s supervisor to tell him or her about the good job. They hear the bad stuff all day.

Thanks, Carlos.

Now, if anyone has advice on how I should obtain a high-speed, high memory laptop that will sit on a docking station, feel free to offer it here or privately.

Putting a Band-Aid on Cancer

I spent the day doing exactly that – trying to keep a several Band-Aids in place between the edge of my chin and my lower lip. Pretty difficult, given the musculature necessary to eat or talk.

The reason for putting a Band-Aid on cancer, which is equivalent in the argot of clichedom to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, was that, well, I had cancer.

Not surprisingly, given family history, fair complexion and childhood sunburns, I was diagnosed with a basal cell carcinoma. That’s cancer. But it doesn’t usually kill anyone unless it goes untreated for a really long time; and it is not the kind of cancer that spreads beyond its original boundary.

So I had it removed yesterday, which involved excruciating pain from the anesthetic injection (the face having nerves closer to the skin than anywhere else, I am told) and involved an ugly, literally defacing, wound. The Band-Aid just holds the Neosporin to the wound and is recommended really only to hide the disfigurement, which should recede into a very light manly scar after a few scabby weeks.

My point is not to recommend readers to rush to their dermatologists. But if you have a family history of skin growths, fair skin or early exposure to sun, pay attention. I made a routine check-up appointment to have him look at some unsightly growths. He looked around my arms, neck and back and said “those are no problem. But this one is.” (If you are lucky enough to have someone authorized to do so, have him or her check your back for changes in moles or growths. You don't exactly notice them yourself.)

It was a minuscule discoloration that I barely had noticed even though I shaved over it every day, but the doc recognized it right away. But being a doctor, he had an assistant call me a week after the exam to say the biopsy revealed it was cancerous and I should make an appointment to have it removed. But not for three weeks until the doc got back from vacation.

It Could Have Been a Chevy Plant

I just hate bad punctuation. Give this sign some commas, for Christs sake!

D.C. Droppings - XII

Another Reason to Hate the Yankees

But first, a bulletin from your nation’s capital: The Washington Nationals finally won a game.

Unfortunately, they did it while wearing the most disgusting uniform since the San Diego Padres showed up one Sunday last year in camouflage pants and jerseys. The Nats on Thursda wore a jersey and cap emblazoned with the stars and stripes woven into their logo.

The military-corporate fascism that infects the rest of the country has now invaded the baseball fields.

Every day at Nationals Park, the scoreboard shows wounded veterans who are guests of the club, which is great because there is almost no one else attending these games. But if you want to do something nice for legless, armless young men who are not on the Nationals roster, do it. But why announce it every day?

The reason: Major League Baseball owners are of one with their former colleague George W. Bushitler. They let no opportunity go by to require baseball fans to stand, wave, salute, cheer and ultimately sing their praises of war – starting with the prescribed “Star Spangled Banner” and ending in the 7^th inning with “God Bless America.”

Which brings me to the title of this posting. A man has filed suit against the New York Yankees, the very emblem of corrupt capitalism, the very team name that symbolizes America-hating in the rest of the world.

He is charging that his civil rights, if not his bladder, were violated when Yankee Stadium personnel refused to let him go to the bathroom during the playing of “God Bless America,” the God damndest piece of treacle ever written. According to news reports, it wasn’t a superpatriot from the Bronx taking advantage of an usher’s uniform: it was said to be Stadium policy that no one leaves his or her seat during the Nuremberg Rally masquerading as a 7^th-inning stretch.

I have talked about this before, and I thought voting for Obama would change the culture a little bit. But no such luck. The militarism is back bigger than ever – masters of war whipping up gullible fans and, worse, keeping them from urinating. Usually, when I am about to be assaulted by the American version of “Deutschland Uber Alles” and don’t feel like making a stand by refusing to stand, I slip out and pee. This year at Nationals Park, they pipe the abhorrent anthem into the bathrooms!

Obaminable

Speaking of Obama, he has gone off his effing nut by announcing there will be no prosecutorial investigation of the CIA agents who engaged in torture that is against international law and would result in their immediate arrest in most nations of the world. If I were president, I don’t know that I would make it a big deal either way, but I certainly would not preempt the historical necessity of creating a sworn record of what Bushitler’s Boys did in the name of my country.

I cannot fathom Obama’s action, because whatever political, national security or compassionate reason there may be for not imprisoning these traitorous thugs, he has, in effect, said, “They were only following orders.”

Joe the Scar

Until this week, I enjoyed watching “Morning Joe,” the MSNBC early a.m. talk show starring ex-Congressman Joe Scarborough, with news anchor Mika Brzezinski, smartaleck Willie Geist and the factually deficient fired newspaper columnist Mike Barnicle who likes to speak for the little guy but winds up drooling in slavish slobber to the host and every guest. He should slobber because he is the most useless appendage to the practice of journalism since Bernard Goldberg crawled out from under the Fox rock

Scarborough (who declined to run for re-election some years ago after a dead woman was found in his district office) is a conservative Republican, and until this week, he offered an intelligent, witty and friendly menu of ideas I don’t subscribe, but enjoy, listening to.

A few days ago, however, someone handed him a talking point and his true colors of super-patriotic jingoism emerged.

He said that a private memo drafted for the leadership of the Department of Homeland Security -- which expressed concern that service members returning from war could become ripe for recruiting by neo-Nazi and other hate groups when they find no jobs, no mortgages and a black president -- was actually a nefarious administration plot to “target” the military.

The memo implied no such thing. In fact, it was concerned with the young, low-paid, violent, head-shaved members of the military we are supposed to be saluting at baseball games becoming targets themselves.

And even at its worst reading, the fact remains that veterans are a disproportionate number of the incarcerated, are more prone to domestic violence than nonveterans, and numbered among them Lee Harvey Oswald and Timothy McVeigh. Veterans are also a disproportionate number of federal civilian employees because the federal government’s original affirmative action program gives veterans a substantial advantage over more qualified applicants.

Sure, an overwhelming majority of veterans are as upstanding as the rest of society’s dregs and geniuses, but if you were looking for suggestible, sociopathic violent young men, you would – just as major city police departments do – “target” the military.

Scarborough today also repeated the foul canard that Vietnam veterans returning home from the war were spat upon. It is a lie. How do I know this? I was involved in journalism at the time with access to every wire and every newspaper in the country. There was not a single contemporaneous news article reporting such actions and no police report has ever been filed about one. I also was fairly familiar with the ideology and personalities of anti-war activists.

Knowing what we know about journalism and human nature, it is beyond belief -- except for warmongering nitwits -- that a soldier could have been spat upon in public without anyone either assaulting the spitter, telling a newspaper or telling law enforcement officials who, even back then, were plentiful in airports and train stations.

I repeat: There is no record of any veteran being spat upon in public, and I offer a $1,000 donation to the charity of choice of anyone who can come up with contemporaneous documentation of such an incident -- not "my uncle's brother-in-law's cousin's friend heard about it."

All Hands ON Deck

Thank God for Capt. Chesley Sullenberger for refusing Katie Couric's idiotic attempt to bring God into the conversation about the US Air pilot's truly heroic feat in landing an airliner atop the Hudson River.

Couric asked him if he were praying as he assessed the situation, looked for Teeterboro Airport, communicated calmly with Air Traffic Control, glided at a perfect angle toward ferry boats, keeping the wings level, the tail down and the nose up.

The good Sully said something to the effect there may have been 150 people behind him praying but he was busy flying the airplane and trying to save their lives.

Basically, forget God. And fuck the morons in this world who want to attribute the historic feat of airmanship to unseen hands instead of to the merits of training, skill, advances in airplane design and government regulations. The hands were human hands on the stick. Where were God's hands all the times an equally experienced pilot crash landed and killed all aboard?

D.C. Droppings - XII

The Party's Over
President Obama (God, isn’t it sweet just to say that over and over again) will get most of what he wants in his economic plan. But true to form, like the fabled scorpion who cajoles a tortoise to carry him across the river, Republicans will try their best to destroy themselves just out of spite.

The GOP is as distasteful party as the NDSP of the Weimar Republic and Third Reich. They take perfectly good ideas and perfectly good words and twist them into crosses they bash intelligent people over the head with.

Take their bleating last week – bought hook, line and sinker by the mainstream media – that the Democrats won the House vote on the economic stimulus bill on a “party line vote,” suggesting that for all his post-partisanship, Obama failed. The mainstream media are supposed to portray things as they are, but they failed again this time.

The truth is that 12 Democrats voted with the Republicans while all Republicans voted against the Democratic bill. That is not a party line vote. The only party line being followed was the ghastly Republican line that said, “We don’t want Obama to succeed.”

One of these snot-noses (it was early and I didn’t catch which one) actually had the gall to complain that the Obama plan seeks to spend nearly a trillion dollars with hopes it will “trickle down” to the masses. “Trickle down,” of course was the Republican economic program since the says of the robber barons – pour federal money onto the elite and some of it might eventually make some laborer a few dollars better off by the time he retired.

“Trickle down” to me means the best part of these jamokes trickled down their fathers’ legs.

I have no clue as to which formula of tax cuts and spending increases will bring America back, and it is quite possible Obama does not either. But I know not one Republican leader has proposed an alternative. When you are looking at $895 billion in projects, it is pretty easy to snipe at small items. And when it comes to small items, look around for Mitch McConnell, Jon Kyle, John Boehner and that shanda Eric Cantor.

They are losers who condemned Democrats and others as unpatriotic for not giving George Bush everything he wanted in national defense but feel no such treason when they stand in the way of million of jobless, starving, emotionally crushed Americans.

Shame. Shame. Shame.

Journalism, More or Less
On a slightly lesser note, the mainstream media bought the whole Rod Blagojevich story that he was railroaded by not allowing the call witnesses at his impeachment proceedings. A lie. He could call anyone except a few people the prosecutor did not want to testify for fear of jeopardizing the criminal trial.

And on another familiar note, here is the lead I would like to have written following Super Bowl XLIII:

Jesus H. Christ, tired of sports figures hypocritically giving him credit for their own hard work and talent, turned on his biggest booster, Kurt Warner, Sunday and guided Pittsburgh Steeler Santonio Holmes' feet to remain inbounds to catch the winning touchdown that defeated Warner's "Cardinals" in the Super Bowl.

"I am waiting for that one-time grocery clerk to come out and blame me for his last second fumble, and believe me I can wait for eternity to hear it, but I doubt I will," Christ said. "I've got bigger things in which to intervene than a lousy football game," he added. "This is the last time I will do it, so Kurt, hang em up."

Toothless in D.C.
Today was 2-2. I am now recovering from the loss of my two front teeth. No accident, just genetics and mostly bad dental hygiene, and when the swelling stops, I will look really pretty with a perfect upper bridge. It will be the first time I will not have had a rather fetching space between them, and I am sad I won’t be able to spit water as far as I used to.

I guess that means I'm grown up.

A Mouse Aspiring to Become a Rat

Now I really hope the Senate rejects Roland Burris, the mousy little man who looks like a mouse and is now aspiring to rathood.

The mere fact that Burris, while winning statewide office twice, has also lost three Democratic primary races, was never on Gov. Rod Sonofabic's original E-bay list does in fact taint him. He was appointed by the black-hearted governor precisely because he is black-skinned and to help stave off impeachment and/or conviction by what will be a largely black-jury.

He was "appointed" to the seat only because of his race, yet he claims his previous losses in his own liberal Democratic party were based on race. He was "appointed" as the last desperate act of a black-hearted blackmailing prison-bound governor to screw the Democratic party in his state by making it hard to hold the seat in 2010. He arrived in Washington proclaiming his "appointment" was "what the Lord has ordained," thus verifying he is a charlatan who believes his benefactor is Rod BlaGODevich.

Roland Burris won two statewide elections as a "downticket downstater" riding the coattails of better candidates and lost three statewide primaries because he is dull and unimaginative. Not that the Senate doesn't have its share of losers. But at least they were elected by losers, not "appointed" by them.

So for him to say he is qualified is to mean his is above 30 years old, a United States citizen and a resident of Illinois. Other than that, he is a hack, a joke, a jerk, a social climber who should have heeded the ancient advice: "Never look a gift horse in the mouth." He should have looked at the horse's ass, instead. That is, the governor.

Now, there is a qualified senator who has yet to take his seat -- the multitalented Al Franken, who in this clip shows he knows what a song and dance is all about.

Aphorism of the Day

"Jesus was a community organizer.
Pontius Pilate was a governor."

Wright, Rights, Right Turns, Rights of Way, Rites

What Would Jesus Do? Kick Wright's Ass!
Watching the ego freak Jeremiah Wright, one could get whiplash. Last Friday, a calm, reasoned Wright, aided by lengthy video clips, put into proper context his provocative sermons about America. On Sunday, he addressed the NAACP and delivered an interesting, if rather dated and fatuous dissertation on linguistics. On Monday, he proved himself to be such a dithering fool that his performance before the National Press Club can only help Barack Obama, his congregant.

No one in America can be stupid enough to link Obama’s view with those of Wright. Wright's view is only that which he sees in a mirror.

The fact is, Wright is the perpetrator of what I think is the worst of all anti-black stereotypes, whereby the speaker dances around an idea using big words he figures no one knows, quotes phony experts, contradicts himself within the same speech and when questioned attacks the questioner for not having read the same tracts he read.

This behavior was already spoof-worthy by 1970, but now it threatens to obliterate the Obama campaign like Hillary Clinton promises to obliterate Iran.

Having attended a couple of dozen of these lunches, and having organized more than a few, I can never recall hearing a "papered house" standing and cheering, hooting and hollering and generally supporting the racist rantings of a speaker. I can never recall hearing a speaker personally mock the mistress of ceremonies or anyone else who asks a question. I can never recall seeing Nation of Islam goons protecting a speaker before. When a guest of the club needs protection, it is because he or she is afforded protection by the government.

I listened at home on TV and read the transcript a couple of times. The Underground Railroad ran not far from where I was raised, and all I can say about Wright is that he just fell of the “Stupid Railroad.” It would take too much space to explain fully the malice and avarice this man engenders. His speech Monday was just a performance that will naturally lead to a book, the profits of which will line his pockets with more than just the lint that also passes for his brain.

Carry Indiana
Supreme Court Justice Antonino Scalia told viewers of “60 Minutes” who are appalled at the Court’s legally ludicrous decision making George Bush president to “get over it.

The Court, as presently constituted, is nothing but a vehicle for delivering Republicans to office, as witness Monday’s decision upholding Indiana’s racist voting law. The state now requires a government identification in order to vote. This is akin to the poll tax another Supreme Court ruled an unconstitutional violation of black voting rights. Why? Because the very people who do not have government IDs, or who would have to travel and pay a fee to get them, are citizens and overwhelmingly Democratic. They are the homeless, the poor, the elderly. A photo ID is a restriction on voting. Indiana claims it will prevent fraudulent voting.

The decision might have been arguable but for the fact there is no recorded case of voter fraud in Indiana. What it was about was ensuring that Indiana votes Republican in the general election and, probably, for Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary.

A Pinto, Not a Lincoln
Speaking of Her Royal Phoniness, she challenged Obama to yet another debate. In putting on her cultural overalls, that woman, Hillary Clinton, said “we could do it anywhere in North Carolina” even on a flatbed truck. I wonder if that flatbed has the same Astroturf her husband bragged to Don Imus lined the floor of his pickup.

“Temerity” must be her middle name. The lyin’ queen suggested that she and Obama debate just like Lincoln and Douglas. John McCain is old enough to recall that the Lincoln-Douglas debates were not debates. They consisted of thoughtful, detailed one-hour speeches and 30-minute rebuttals, based on issues.

Cheap Pickup
A few weeks ago, Hillary Clinton did something no one can remember happening before. She endorsed the Republican candidate for president over a Democratic primary opponent by saing by saying John McCain could pass the “commander in chief” test but Obama could not.

Now she has joined McCain in an idea that hasbeen thoroughly ridiculed by transportation experts from both parties – a suspension of the 18.4-cents-a-gallon federal gasoline tax between Memorial Day and Labor Day.

What is wrong with this idea?

-- Drivers would get a puny amount in gasoline savings.
-- There is no way to know, given the complicated distribution system, whether the tax really would be refunded.
-- The gasoline tax pays for road repairs. Far more dangerous to the immediate future of you and me than dirty air is the fact that the nation’s roads, bridges, tunnels and overpasses are crumbling. Suspend the gas tax and hope another Interstate bridge doesn’t fall into the river.
-- It is political pandering, especially when she says the loss of revenue would be made up by taxing oil company profits. How long do you think it would take before
that tax is passed on to consumers?

What’s right with it?

It is one more argument for electing a real Republican over a Democrat who pretends to be one. Which is exactly what I intend to do. If the Supreme Court hasn’t taken my vote away by November.

Please Pass the Butter-up
Not since Sodom and Gomorrah has there been such concentrated gluttony, perversion and incest as the annual White House Correspondents Dinner, where publishers, editors and political writers invite Hollywood bimbos, posers, boobs and Pamela Anderson -- but I repeat myself, I repeat myself, I repeat myself.

While the dinner does raise money for journalism scholarships, it has descended into a Hieronymus Bosch portrait of the press and politicians sucking up to each other and both sucking up to Hollywood. Every year, the president comes and attempts to be funny. In recent years, he has been better than the professional comedians hired to entertain. Need I say more than Stephen Colbert, Rich Little and Craig Ferguson?

The real show is before the proceedings start when the famous, near-famous and wannabe famous officials and celebrities walk into the Washington Hilton on a virtual red carpet lined with local paparazzi. They needed an official “cheat sheet” to identify whom they were supposed to photograph. Following what everyone calls the most torturous event this side of Guantanamo come the “after-parties,” bacchanalias thrown by major publishers designed to assign press, politicians and actors to A- B- and C-lists.

May the last one out turn into a pillar of shit.

Popes, Presidents and Prime Ministers

In recognition of this being my 300th post since October 2006, I turned the spigot on. Read till you drop!

Thoughts pile up at the end of the week, mostly about the pope’s visit to Washington. I stayed home and watched it on TV, including the interview by NBC’s Brian Williams of NBC’s Tim Russert about the latter’s private audience with Pope Benedict XVI. Was I surprised that Russert, who fancies himself the king of the world, got to meet the pope? Nope. My only question is who kissed whose ring. (I am surprised that Wolf Blitzer was among the group.) Anyway, Williams said that Russert was on the set “wearing a different hat today” than he does as Washington bureau chief of NBC news and moderator of Meet the Press. The picture that immediately came to mind was of Russert in the world’s largest mitre to fit the world’s largest head.

In the been-there-done-that department, I’ve been in presence of a pope three times, probably ruining three days in the long life of John Paul II, who was elected after the death of Pope Paul VI and the death of Pope John Paul I just 30 days after ascending the throne of St. Peter. The former Karol Wojtyla was conservative enough to simply take the name of John Paul II instead of the natural progression to Pope George Ringo.

When he was in Washington in 1979, I was assigned to cover his visit to a chapel on the grounds of Trinity College, across the street from the basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. Nothing of substance happened, but I was there to gather “color.” What I phoned in was that the pope strode down a garden path, as per his itinerary, and as women hoisted up their babies, virtually throwing them at the man, he stopped like any American politician and kissed them.

About a year or two later, sitting in the living room of a couple we had met and grown to like because our kids were in the same Montessori school, I glanced a small framed photo on an end table. It was JP-I kissing the little girl of the family. It was strange, to say the least. I had been pretty much where the photographer had been. The young mother now runs Catholic schools in the D.C. area. We are still friends and the "little girl" can now really dance.

I later accompanied President Reagan on a trip to Italy and the Vatican, to which I had come armed with a rosary I bought for our friend’s mother and a pope-head bottle opener for her husband. The next day, as part of the press pool, I was in the Vatican library, I believe, when JP-II raised his arms and said something. I assume I was blessed personally along with the rosary and the bottle opener. My main memory of that photo op was noticing that the Polish pope was wearing ugly brown shoes. (It turns out, based on the ruby reds that Benedict XVI wore, JP-II’s footwear may have been simply in need of buffing.)

And I saw JP-II once more in South Florida later that year, when the Catholic-wannabe Reagan flew to Miami to greet the pope (an unusual departure from protocol by the Great Communicator in homage to the Great Excommunicator). It was there, after a long hot day of travel, where I said something that the pope, any pope, may have never heard before.

We press poolers, including TV camera people and still photographers, had been unexpectedly shunted into an anteroom of the Vizcaya mansion instead of being ushered into the site of the presidential-papal photo op. The velvet rope was suddenly dropped, and like cattle, we headed for the entrance to what I thought would a grand hall where we would have to race for position. Then, out of nowhere, a surly Vatican security guy blocked the door, apparently having not gotten the memo. I happened to be in line ahead of the still photographers, which was no big deal because when we got into the room, people like me always allowed the shooters to get the best position.

So a Newsweek photographer who could not see over my head that I had been blocked from entering, yelled, “Come on, Irrraaaaa!” So I immediately explained the situation in wire service brevity: “Fuck you, Larry!” At which nanosecond the guard stepped aside, we were free to enter the room and to see, gulping, that the pope was seated on a dais about 15 feet from the doorway.

I like to embellish the story by saying, the pope looked down upon me beatifically and intoned, “Fuck me? Fuck you, Allen!” But that didn’t happen. All that happened was that after I had left the White House after four and a half years, it dawned on me I was the only press corps regular who had not been invited to a State Dinner.

Another story from a papal visit I like is from a woman colleague who accompanied Vice President Mondale to a Vatican meeting and who was told she would not be allowed in because she was wearing pants. Enterprising as any UPI reporter, she rolled her pants legs up and met the pope in her winter coat, with only bare leg showing.

Finally, upon hearing Benedict’s studied remarks on the South Lawn of the White House, the biggest embarrassment America has ever produced, whispered into a live mike, “Awesome speech!”

But This Dude Made an Awesome Cliché

The BEAHEP this week met with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and offered to grill hamburgers for him. But I was most impressed by Brown’s non-answer to a British press question about the economy, in which he said, “And that's why we will not hesitate to take any action that is necessary ...”

Maybe it’s just the accent that makes Brits sound so erudite, but upon reflection, what he was saying – regardless of the issue at hand – is when it is necessary we will take action. Yes, of course. People, excluding the BEAHEP, generally will never hesitate to act when they have to act.

Bumper Sticker Politics

Let’s add to, “I am not a crook” and “Not indicted” Sen. Hillary Clinton’s suggestion that her supporters go door to door in Pennsylvania telling voters, “She’s not as bad as you think.”

Yes, it was a joke. But as Will Rogers once said, "I make jokes, but some of them get elected to Congress. “She’s not as bad as you think” is, in my opinion, the best rationale she has for continuing to run.

What people missed in that debate in which former Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos proved his loyalty, was that Hillary Clinton promised an all-out nuclear attack on Iran should it lob a nuke at Israel. She used the phrase “massive retaliation,” which anyone born after 1960 might not know was official U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union – an attack anywhere meant we would launch nuclear war.

Who knew that John McCain will be seen as the liberal if Clinton wins the Democratic nomination?

Darth Lightens Up

Vice President Cheney was the best the television and radio correspondents in Washington could do for a speaker this year. He did have one telling moment: He joked, I think, that he asked his wife if it bothered her that people call him Darth Vader. She said, “No, it humanizes you.”

Which leads to this question for people like Cheney, Clinton and Obama who feel the need to humanize themselves: What is it about you that is not human? The answer brings to mind the aphorism that in politics or in Hollywood, you have to be sincere -- and when you can fake it, you’ve got it made.

Merry Seasons Greetings

Cleaning out and reorganizing seemingly lost computer files, I found this from the turn of the century, an Internet-circulated list of distinctions between the Christian and Jewish holiday seasons.

I write as I watch a football game and must note that in addition to the Hail Mary pass that has become part of the sport's lexicon, Mary had yet another tie to the National Football League. She got the first post-season birth.)

And in a pre-footnote to item seven below, there was a recent article purporting that the three favorite Christmas songs are White Christmas, The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting etc.) and Holly Jolly Christmas. They were written by, um, non-Christians.

Anyway, here is an amusing commentary on why Christmas and Chanukah are not alike once you get past the C and the H.

Christmas is one day, same day every year: December 25. Jews also love December 25th. It's another paid day off work. We go to movies and out for Chinese food and Israeli dancing. Chanukah is 8 days. It starts the evening of the 24th of Kislev, whenever that falls. No one is ever sure. Jews never know until a non-Jewish friend asks when Chanukah starts, forcing us to consult a calendar so we don't look like idiots. We all have the same calendar, provided free with a donation from either the World Jewish Congress, the kosher butcher, or the local Memorial Chapel or other Jewish funeral home.

Christmas is a major holiday. Chanukah is a minor holiday with the same theme as most Jewish holidays. They tried to kill us, we survived, let's eat.

Christians get wonderful presents such as jewelry, perfume, stereos. Jews get practical presents such as underwear, socks, or the collected works of the Rambam, which looks impressive on the bookshelf.

There is only one way to spell Christmas. No one can decide how to spell Chanukah, Chanukah, Chanukka, Channukah, Hanukah, Hannukah.

Christmas is a time of great pressure for husbands and boyfriends. Their partners expect special gifts. Jewish men are relieved of that burden. No one expects a diamond ring on Chanukah.

Christmas brings enormous electric bills. Candles are used for Chanukah. Not only are we spared enormous electric bills, but we get to feel good about not contributing to the energy crisis.

Christmas carols are beautiful. Silent Night, O Come All Ye Faithful. Chanukah songs are about dreidels made from clay or having a party and dancing the hora. Of course, we are secretly pleased that many of the beautiful carols were composed and written by our tribal brethren. And don't Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond sing them beautifully?

A home preparing for Christmas smells wonderful. The sweet smell of cookies and cakes baking. Happy people are gathered around in festive moods. A home preparing for Chanukah smells of oil, potatoes, and onions. The home, as always, is full of loud people all talking at once.

Women have fun baking Christmas cookies. Women burn their eyes and cut their hands grating potatoes and onions for latkes on Chanukah. Another reminder of our suffering through the ages.

Parents deliver to their children during Christmas. Jewish parents have no qualms about withholding a gift on any of the eight nights.

The players in the Christmas story have easy to pronounce names such as Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. The players in the Chanukah story are Antiochus, Judah Maccabee, and Matta whatever. No one can spell it or pronounce it. On the plus side, we can tell our friends anything and they believe we are wonderfully versed in our history.

Many Christians believe in the virgin birth. Jews think, "Joseph, Bubela, snap out of it. Your woman is pregnant, you didn't sleep with her, and now you want to blame God. Here's the number of my shrink."

In recent years, Christmas has become more and more commercialized. The same holds true for Chanukah, even though it is a minor holiday. It makes sense. How could we market a major holiday such as Yom Kippur? Forget about celebrating. Think observing. Come to synagogue, starve yourself for 27 hours, become one with your dehydrated soul, beat your chest, confess your sins, a guaranteed good time for you and your family. Tickets a mere $200 per person.

D.C. Droppings -- XV

AUDACITY OF DOPE -- 1

For 20 years I held partial season ticket plans for the Baltimore Orioles (in the absence of a team in Washington, only 38.4 miles away), meaning my kids grew up as O’s fans. Among all four of us that meant we attended attended between 350 and 400 ball games there, including the nights Cal Ripken tied and then broke the “most unbreakable” record.

For most of those years they stunk. Which is odd considering the record they set on this date, having had more players on their payroll who were linked to illicit “performance enhancing” drugs than any other team.

For you baseball fans, look at this lineup up of Orioles named in the Mitchell Report.They could go out right now and win a few games, maybe.

1B -- Rafael Palmeiro

2B -- Brian Roberts

3B -- Manny Alexander

SS -- Miguel Tejada

C -- Greg Zaun

LF -- Jack Cust

CF -- Gary Matthews Jr.

RF -- Jay Gibbons

DH -- David Segui

Starting Pitchers:

Kevin Brown

Jason Grimsley

Ricky Bones

Relief Pitchers:

Todd Williams

Kent Mercker

Darren Holmes

Bench:

Larry Bigbie

Howie Clark

Tim Laker

For the past three years, I have been – and I will remain – a fan of the home town Washington Nationals and am staring at a bill of unimaginable proportions for a full season ticket plan in the team’s new stadium in 2008. We had/have a couple of no-account juicers, starting with the recently acquired Paul LoDuca and the departed Jose Guillen, Gary Bennett, Mike Stanton and the soon-to-be-forgotten Nook Logan.

The sad part is that so many of the names in the report are marginal players, the guys who in their quest to become the 25th guy on the team relegated the noncheaters to the minors. I am angry because as a season-ticket holder for 20 years, I paid to watch an adulterated product.

It will be interesting to see if one of the players mentioned in the report, Fernando Vina, will return for a second year to his job as an ESPN baseball on-air analyst or whether the only analysis required from him is his urine.

Toward the end of the 2002 season, according to the report, a bullpen catcher for the Florida Marlins was transporting drugs for certain members of the Florida Marlins and told investigators virtually every player on the team was ‘doing something’ ranging from steroids and greenies, to marijuana, etc.”

The following year, the Marlins won the World Series.

AUDACITY OF DOPE -- 2

It's been a bad week or so for Hillary Clinton. After declaring that the campaign in Iowa had reached a point where “now the fun begins,” her campaign had to backtrack from digging into Barack Obama’s kindergarten record and for having a top counselor wonder aloud if the Illinois senator had ever sold or given drugs that he admitted using to other people.

These Clinton people may be too clever by half, however. When one of her top strategists, Mark Penn, was asked by Chris Matthews about these gaffes (a gaffe being defined as telling the truth and getting caught at it), Penn said the Clintonistas had no intention to do harm. Besides, he said, the American people don’t want the campaign to be about Obama’s “use of cocaine” or about unfounded rumors that he was secretly a Muslim.

Gee, thanks for elevating the campaign, Mark.

JEWS, JESUS and BILL O'REILLY

You all probably have heard the story of the four young Jewish people who were beaten up on a New York subway by white punks after someone wished riders, “Merry Christmas” and one of them replied with a cheery “Happy Hannukah.” They were rescued by a Muslim.

It’s a great seasonal story that will probably be turned into a perennial made-for-TV movie -- once the Jewish writers end their strike.

But it couldn’t have happened without help from Bill O’Reilly and his two-year campaign to convince Americans, against all evidence, that there is a move by “secular liberals” to ban Christmas greetings.

Was this attack the result of the bibulous, bilious blowhard’s hate jihads? Or were the attackers stupid all by themselves? Could be the latter. One of them said, “Happy Hanukkah, that's when the Jews killed Jesus." What kind of religious training did this Christian get? Everyone knows the Jews killed Jesus on Good Friday.

A Response to "Anonymous"

There is a response to my previous posting about Mitt Romney's speech on religion in public life that requires a reply. It is too long to be read easily as a "comment," and since I have this space, I will reply here to "Anonymous," an acquaintance whose rhetorical style identifies himself to me: a sparring partner for a long time, and a once-and-perhaps-future friend.

As always, when you challenge a point and make it personal, I feel I ought to be scrupulously evidentiary in my reply in order that one of us, at least, learns something.

So I spent an hour or so researching the subject and found that there is no more debatable point in the history of the Founding than whether George Washington was a Christian, let alone religious. To ascribe to Heaven (and notice what you quote does not even mention “God” or “Christ”) the winning of the Revolution and his call to service is quite natural, just as is moaning “Oh, God” during certain moments of intimacy. That is, it is casual, figurative -- and expected.

His earliest prominent biographer established Washington’s deep faith by use of incidents that were later proved never to have happened. This would be Parson Weems, and to believe him about religion would suggest you also believe that George Washington chopped down a cherry tree and threw a silver dollar across the Rappahannock.

There is much evidence, however, that Washington in his presidential years and beyond often skipped church, was never seen to take Communion when he did go, and attended many different denominations’ services probably because he was a politician at heart. He basically tagged along with his Communicant wife. He also is credited with being the first lay American leader to recognize religious freedom for Jews, and presumably other nonbelievers. Many of his advisers were Unitarians, Jews and Deists.

If you wish to begin a battle of quotes, lay on!

Every man "ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience." - George Washington

"I believe in one God, Creator of the universe.... That the most acceptable service we can render Him is doing good to His other children.... As to Jesus ... I have ... some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble." - Benjamin Franklin

"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind." - Thomas Paine

"Question with boldness even the existence of a god." - Thomas Jefferson

"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution." - James Madison

"Where do we find a precept in the Bible for Creeds, Confessions, Doctrines and Oaths, and whole carloads of other trumpery that we find religion encumbered with in these days?" - John Adams

"As the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries." - Treaty of Tripoli, 1797 signed by President John Adams.)

Had you bothered to link to my original citation about the academic study of references to “God” in the public addresses of presidents, you would never have written the abject incorrect assertion that it is not modern. There is other research on the same point – the use of the modern presidency not as a bully pulpit but as a real pulpit.

Ronald Reagan was the first president to end every single public pronouncement with “God Bless America,” but could you ever find him in church? Do you even know which church he was affiliated with? Did he have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ? If so was it before or after he impregnated his second wife before their marriage or before he finally began paying child support for the children living with his first wife?

Speaking of Reagan, I commend to you the column cited in the comment preceding yours written by Peggy Noonan, the Author of Reagan’s presidency.

Cloaking one’s self in religion is not only a modern thing but a Republican thing, because it invokes that party’s support of everything that no one can argue with – motherhood (but only within marriage), God (but only a Christian one) and the flag (while trampling on the very liberties George Washington said the Author had inscribed in America’s soul.)

I am not questioning religion here; I am making the point that history, law and my own experiences show that while religion may help people live better lives and may inform anyone – even a president – as to what is right, religion has no place in school, political campaigns or the functions of government. None – as the Constitution explicitly forbids in Article VI and Amendment I. And the reasons are self-evident. Religion divides and not unites.

Finally, Mitt Romney is a man whose father disqualified himself from the presidency by claiming he was “brainwashed” by generals into supporting the War in Vietnam. His son ought to be disqualified from the presidency for being brainwashed by generals of the Christian Right. He made that lovely sounding speech in order to say he stands for *something* -- his religion – because he has flip-flopped on all the major questions important to Republicans. He was taking a ”religious test as a qualification for … office,” and while the oral presentation was perfect, he failed on the substance.

Gott Mit(t) Uns

As a schoolboy in Maryland, I was justly proud to learn of my state’s history of religious toleration embodied in the Toleration Acts enacted in the colony in 1649. Then I learned that the Act prescribed freedom of religions for everyone – but only if they were Christian.

Which brings us to Mitt Romney, who I admit gave one of the better political speeches of a generation today in service to his Mormonism, his belief in Jesus and his desire to become president and banish to perdition the would-be “Christian candidate” Mike Huckabee. Still, in totality the speech sounded more like a whine – and an alarm for what may become of this country if we keep electing pastors instead of presidents.

Romney is quite impressive, with the hair, the chin, the voice and the sanctimony to become president. But his speech fundamentally (pun intended) denies history and law.

That “our Creator” gave us liberty is a humble rhetorical gesture, but recall He is cited as the author of freedom in the Declaration of Independence and not in the Constitution, which is, of course, the supreme law of the land and a document that specifically says, “…no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

The Founding Fathers were believers, but mostly deist, Unitarian or Episcopalian, not given to public demonstrations of piety.

And what to make of the absurd assertion Romney makes that "Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom?” Nice trope, but come on, Mitt! There is liberty in France and Italy, for sure, and they are among the most Catholic of countries. Except very few French or Italians bother to practice their religion. Take Israel, a state directly found upon religion. Israelis are free, and most are not pious nor even particularly observant, and the most devout Jews – Hasidim – do not even support the existence of Israel.

For Romney to talk of other religions as “the evangelicals,” “the Lutherans,” “the Jews” or “the Muslims” is to marginalize them as another “group” instead of celebrating them as individuals. By calling them “the” whatevers is exactly what leads to the kind of prejudice Romney claims to be the victim of.

There are other oddities in his speech, not the least of which is his constant reference to “some” or “others” – the unnamed straw men who would demand he renounce his faith or dare to believe God has nothing to do with political freedom or who want to banish God from public life. “They” exist, sadly, only in his imagination.

Romney's entire thesis linking God with liberty is undone by his own words: "No people in the history of the world have sacrificed as much for liberty. The lives of hundreds of thousands of America's sons and daughters were laid down during the last century to preserve freedom.”

That is, from the Revolution through World War II, liberty was neither discovered nor given to us as the result of anything other than fighting for it, bleeding for it and dying for it in warfare against other people who prayed to the same God, or same prophet.

And what to make of this bizarre imagery: “As I travel across the country and see our towns and cities, I'm always moved by the many houses of worship with their steeples, all pointing to heaven, reminding us of the source of life's blessings.”

Now, I know Republicans are not particularly friendly to science, but if Romney is moved by rooftop architecture “pointing to heaven,” I suggest he renew acquaintanceships with Messrs. Copernicus, Galileo and Newton to remind himself that there is no other place a spire can point. (I would not even ask what he thinks of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.)

The fact of the matter is that Romney and his chief tormentor, Huckabee, are playing a popular political game of cloaking themselves in the robes of the Almighty, which is quite modern, really, starting with Ronald Reagan, the least church-going of any recent president.

Professor David Domke at the University of Washington studies presidential rhetoric and finds that:

“On average, presidents from Franklin Roosevelt --the beginning of the modern presidency -- to Carter mentioned God in less than half of their major addresses. In contrast, Reagan, Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush (through year six) all did so in more than 90 percent of theirs. Further, the total number of references to God in the average presidential speech since 1981 was an astounding 120 percent higher than the average speech from 1933-1980. References to broader religious terms, such as faith, pray, sacred, worship, and crusade increased by 60 percent.”

Invoking God has given us the most intolerant, meanest political landscape of our history – not to mention an unnecessary war and the torture of nonbelievers. No matter what you believe in, what you don’t believe in or how you believe, remember that John F. Kennedy – the first candidate required to explain his faith, told us: "Here on Earth, God's work must truly be our own."

People Named Sonny

I can think of Sonny Bono, Sonny Tufts and Sonny Corleone off hand, and none of them inspire much confidence.

Which brings me to Sonny Perdue, the governor of Georgia, who today held a state-sponsored prayer vigil at the state capitol to pray for rain. Georgians, apparently, are running out of water long after they ran out of common sense and began elected nincompoops to statewide office over a century ago.

Apart from the fact that using state property to hold a religious service is unconstitutional and an affront to Georgians who pay taxes but don’t pay allegiance to Sonnyboy’s version of religion, it is bad faith.

It doesn’t take a Georgian to figure this out:

If there is a God, he/she knows there is a drought in Georgia and he/she did it on purpose. Sonnyboy has the same mentality of recently deposed Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco, who when faced with the prospect of a killer hurricane aiming at her state, went on TV to urge her constituents to pray that the hurricane turn its course. What? To another state, maybe. But apparently people in Alabama and Florida prayed better than she did.

When Sonnyboy Perdue prayed for God to make it rain in Georgia, did it occur to him that rain in one place means no rain somewhere else?

Perdue, the "Deliverance" banjoboy in a suit, must believe in the maxim that it rains on the just and the unjust alike. But only the just get wet because the unjust have stolen the umbrellas.

Anyway, if there is a just God, there would be no Georgia at all, and only partly Sonny.

Signing Up A-God

For those of you who don't follow sports, be advised that God and his son (no, not George and Hank Steinbrenner) have forsaken the Colorado Rockies, just a few million years after creating them.

As mentioned in this space recently, the Rockies baseball team looks for Christian players and believes God was behind their recent successes. However, the Rockies were swept aside in the World Series by the Boston Red Sox, who were led last night by two cancer survivors. Maybe the Rockies ought to sign God to bat cleanup. He will be less expensive than A-Rod.

Rockies of Ages

This year’s baseball feel-good story should be the Colorado Rockies – a bad-to-middling team throughout most of its 15-year existence playing out of the limelight of the Eastern media. They can’t be ignored now, having reached the World Series following an unprecedented late-season run of 21 victories in 22 games.

They will play for the “world championship” against either the hated Boston Red Sox or a Cleveland team with the unfortunate moniker of Indians and a logo even worse. I really want to root for the Rockies, but I can’t.

I don’t care that they play in a stadium named after Adolph Coors or that Colorado is home of the most dangerous organization in America, “Focus on the Family.” My objection is that the organization's CEO, general manager and field manager have put together a team based not on tactics like the sacrifice bunt but on the sacrifice of Jesus
This team, exposed by USA .
Today last year as a fount of evangelism, does not permit adult magazines in the clubhouse, music with obscene words or players who do not live up to certain moral standards. (Notwithstanding the CEO’s conviction of driving while impaired in 2003 when the Rockies finished 26 games out of first place and just before he happened to find Jesus.) Group prayer is strongly encouraged, and it may have worked in that the team that prays together triple-plays together.

I’ve got no problem with what athletes or anyone else believe, even when they act in the public sphere, so long as government is not involved in promoting religion and I am not required or pressured to go along. It’s just that usually the other team also believes in God, and, most probably, Jesus, and I really think both of Them have other things on Their minds. Like wondering why there are no African-American players on Their favorite team.

I do have a problem, as a sports fan, with athletes and teams attributing their success to a higher power. Last year, when they were just starting to be good, General Manager Dan O’Dowd said, “You look at some of the moves we made and didn't make. You look at some of the games we're winning. Those aren't just a coincidence. God has definitely had a hand in this." Team CEO Charlie Montfort said, “I believe God sends signs, and we're seeing those." I would prefer to believe he merely meant that He is using binoculars from the bleachers to relay the opposing catcher’s signs to the Rockies batters. But that isn’t the truth.

The Truth is that superior athletes work hard, play together and get a little luck. But isn’t luck just a manifestation of a higher power at work? You could believe that, but statistics tell another story.

Baseball is the perfect game because it is built on numbers and long, very long, term trends in which today’s hit that falls just inside the foul line is tomorrow’s homerun ball brought back into the park by the wind for an easy out. The umpire whose blown call put the Rockies into the playoffs will someday make a call that screws them. A daily boxscore is as perfect as a corporate balance sheet; every pitch has a result and when you add them up, the positives for each team that night equal the negatives for the other team. Everything in baseball evens out. Talent rises to the top, and incompetence falls to the bottom.

To me, baseball is a religion with its own rituals, beliefs and icons, and the God who controls things is the God who gave us balance. And the one who sent Rebecca to the well with a pitcher.

D.C. Droppings – V

Political Soundings

After a week of watching TV news more than is healthy, I have come to a number of tentative conclusions about the 2008 presidential race, and I agree with whoever said on one of the Sunday morning talk shows that people are, indeed, paying attention this early. Popularity polls don’t mean anything yet, but the cut of various candidates’ jibs is coming into view.

So, first, I have to ask what’s the big deal about Mitt Romney being Mormon? Sure, it’s a strange religion, a cult even, that subscribes to bizarre beliefs in the eyes of most other Christians. Anyone who knows me knows how I feel about religion and public expressions of it, but we already have a president who believes in imposing his cultish beliefs on civil law more than any Mormon president ever would.

Second, I have decided I cannot and will not support Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Not that I would vote for any Republican against her, mind you. It isn’t so much about policy differences, nor about her propensity to play every angle to remain politically viable, nor about her being a woman nor about her being from New York.

I can’t stand the woman’s voice. And that, is exactly what I think most people subconsciously use as a guide for whom to vote. Whom do you want to have to listen to for the next four or eight years? I believe it is essentially why people chose Bush over Kerry and why Bush came so close to defeating Gore. He sounds normal.

I am going to have a problem with John Edwards for much the same reason, though he seems capable of modulating his southern accent and a penchant for talking down to us. Joe Biden appeals to me, both politically and vocally, but he does talk so much he winds up distracted from the main task by having to apologize. Chris Dodd is an old-world, Kennedy-style, Homeric stentor.

Whom does that leave? Barack Obama and Bill Richardson. Everyone is talking about Obama, and I think I like him enough to support or even work for his election. His voice is so good that when I was listening to TV from another room, I went back to see who this marvelously erudite, easy-going, (yes, “articulate”) voice belonged to. It was Obama. Richardson also speaks common sense in a down-to-earth style as your neighbor might.

Who are the most qualified candidates, in terms of experience, judgment, leadership and charisma? Biden and Richardson. Either would make a terrific president but chances are not good for people from states with eight electoral votes combined.

On the Republican side, Rudy Giuliani will be soon dismissed as a common scold with an accent that has never gone far in national politics. Romney speaks easily and well and is the best-looking candidate by far. But watch for a guy you have never heard of – Mike Huckabee, another former governor from Hope, Arkansas. He is a dangerous right-wing evangelical, but he sounds good.

I guess it’s a good thing I wasn’t around to endorse candidates in the 1860 election, because I am sure I would have gone with the guy with the better debating style and better voice – Stephen Douglas.

George Orwell Bush

For as long as I have been alive, whenever it snows in Washington, the federal government announces whether offices will be closed, whether there will be a two-hour delay or whether employees may come in late without having to use their leave. The latter category was known widely as “a liberal leave policy.” This administration, as do dictatorships around the world, has changed the language. Today, with snow and ice on the ground, there is no longer a “liberal leave policy.”

It is “an unscheduled leave policy.”

God and Oscar

Another difference between class and trash? At the Academy Awards, that blivet Jennifer Hudson first thanked God for her winning a golden calf … I mean, Oscar. “Look what God can do. I didn't think I was going to win.” Poor, little Abigail Breslin, Adriana Barraza, Rinko Kikuchi and Cate Blanchett. They must have pissed off God somehow.

On the other hand, Forest Whitaker, who also thanked God, noted that He looks over everyone, the losers in his category and presumably all else. Whitaker also noted he will take the honor to the end of his life and beyond. I feel sorry for Peter O’Toole, who seems to have had his last chance to get an Oscar in this life. He must wonder who will rid him of those troublesome Academy voters.

Indianapolis Cults

I don’t care if Peyton Manning deserved to win “the big one.” I don’t care that my Chicago Bears lost the Super Bowl because someone inexplicably gave Rex Grossman a jockstrap and a helmet. I don’t care that Indianapolis finally made it all the way.

I don’t care at all about the Super Bowl because the outcome was pre-ordained. It had nothing to do with a superior Indianapolis defense, outstanding coaching and the Bears inability to control the ball. It all had to do with God.

How do I know this? I know this because the owner of the Colts, Jim Irsay, said so after the game while receiving the trophy. I was listening on the car radio after watching the game at a friend’s house, so I wasn’t able to take notes.

But Mr. Irsay said it was all due to God. God willed his team to win. Must be like God willed his father to sneak the Colts out of Baltimore in 1984 in the dead of a nighttime snowstorm hoping no one would notice his perfidy. Must be like God willed the NFL to allow the Irsay gang to appropriate the Baltimore Colts’ name, logo and record books.


It must also have been God who condemned the Chicago Bears to lose, despite their having worked like hell since last July to get to the ultimate game. Too bad, Chicago. God hates you. Didn’t the Colts work like hell, too? Oh, no says winning coach Tony Dungy. “We did it the Lord’s way.”

Since God got involved and determined that the Colts would win, I wonder if he also set the betting line, determined which companies would get more sales from their expensive ads and has plans for Kevin Federline.

Former Senator and poet Eugene McCarthy once said that running for president is like being a football coach. “You have be smart enough to do it but dumb enough to want to.”
The single-mindedness and narrow-mindedness of most coaches render them incapable of functioning in the rest of society, but if they give credit to God in mindless ways, then they become gods themselves.

The reality is that the coaches and the players know damn well how lucky they are when they win the big game. But they aren’t allowed to say so; glory goes not to their skill and hard work, but to God.

Isn’t it really glorious that God got to spend His day of rest playing his version of a video game and laughing at his human creations who thought the Super Bowl was actually competitive? After all, He had a tough week, what with creating tornadoes in Florida, mass murder bombings in a Baghdad market and floods in Indonesia.