I. Why did Jindal begin with "Happy Mardi Gras" and end with "God bless Louisiana and the United States (emphasis added)? No one outside of New Orleans tonight is in a party mood, and shouldn't the country be mentioned first in a prayer for blessing? I wonder if there was a hint of the Old South's state first mentality there.
II. As angry as some of us Democrats may get at cheap shots directed at Barack Obama, he does not play along. Tonight he had a warm and touchy greeting for Sen. Richard Shelby (R. Alabama) who only a few days ago questioned whether or not the President was an American citizen and thus eligible for the office, and later a hug for Joe Lieberman, whose every appearance brings to my mind several unsavory nouns almost never to be used in American public life. Our President has little interest in revenge and punishment; another of his good lessons for us.
An adult and a gentleman, let us learn while we can.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
The Beginning
The Obama Presidency truly began tonight with his magnificent speech to Congress on the economic crisis. And we were once again shown that he is that rarest of beings in our present society--an adult who speaks to the American people in sentences and paragraphs, trusting that we can accept and understand serious thought. We have become a punkish and adolescent people and by his comportment and language President Obama shows us a way out and away from the trashed party room we've made of American life. I think he is several steps ahead of even his brightest cabinet members--Tim Geithner--and they are encouraged by that. (I have high hopes for Tim but he needs to study Obama.)
As for the Republican response, well, what can one say about Bobby Jindal tonight that won't be belabored by pundits and comedians for weeks to come? The screen said his "speech" was live so I must presume he had heard the President's address, but what he said bore no relation to the current crisis nor to the events of the evening. The Republican edition of Jimmy Carter has been born; if this is the best they can do we can only conclude that the vortex sucking that party down is still gaining suction .
As for the Republican response, well, what can one say about Bobby Jindal tonight that won't be belabored by pundits and comedians for weeks to come? The screen said his "speech" was live so I must presume he had heard the President's address, but what he said bore no relation to the current crisis nor to the events of the evening. The Republican edition of Jimmy Carter has been born; if this is the best they can do we can only conclude that the vortex sucking that party down is still gaining suction .
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Public Sins
1. Roland Burris knows better. He knows that when you swear to tell the truth, the whole and nothing but, it means you're going to tell it now, as opposed to revealing it bit by bit after you are safely sworn in as a U.S. Senator. He has to go. Illinois Senate appointment, take two.
2. Octo-Mom had a litter in California, having six kids at home already--two on state assistance--no husband, no job, but two parents whose small income and small home are inadequate to this menagerie. Somethings are terribly off the rails here: the mother, the fertility doctor, and the society that allows such a sociopath to commandeer science to her own fantastical ends. This is like an accident, we need to be wiser as a people or worse will occur in the future. Those eight little babies--what will become of them, how healthy can they be? There mother, in her zeal to produce babies, did not not consider what comes next--sane parenting.
2. Octo-Mom had a litter in California, having six kids at home already--two on state assistance--no husband, no job, but two parents whose small income and small home are inadequate to this menagerie. Somethings are terribly off the rails here: the mother, the fertility doctor, and the society that allows such a sociopath to commandeer science to her own fantastical ends. This is like an accident, we need to be wiser as a people or worse will occur in the future. Those eight little babies--what will become of them, how healthy can they be? There mother, in her zeal to produce babies, did not not consider what comes next--sane parenting.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Strange Pulse
What is the strange pulse that is bumping sane and competent people away from office in Washington over the past month? Caroline Kennedy, Tom Daschle, and now Judd Gregg all step back just as the door has opened. Daschle I get: you have to pay your taxes and it's just not credible that a guy with his years in the harness was innocently unaware of what he owed. For a humble Democrat from South Dakota he sure does like the big bucks. A free car and driver would be nice for all of us, Tom, who do you have to know?
We were leaving for the Philippines when the Caroline exit broke and I still haven't heard what the deal was with that other than a Letterman rant one day on cable in Dagupan that implied that she had been rail- roaded out. And Judd Gregg: he won $800,000 in a lottery a few years ago so maybe he feels entitled to barge in and out of other people's Administrations as he pleases. Judd, take a seat there next to Joaquin Phoenix and plot your next career move.
The other night, in Springfield, Illinois, honoring Lincoln on his 200th birthday anniversary, Barack Obama fantasized about Abe getting an offer to be Secretary of Commerce and how he might have responded. President Obama, the most sensitive and intelligent of men, was full of the majesty of Lincoln and the folly of Judd Gregg--a name that belongs to a rube in Oklahoma--but stayed with Lincoln and gave one of those lovely Obama speeches that makes you want to turn off the TV and read a book. I think President Obama has had enough of strange pulses and will stick to what he has learned in Springfield.
We were leaving for the Philippines when the Caroline exit broke and I still haven't heard what the deal was with that other than a Letterman rant one day on cable in Dagupan that implied that she had been rail- roaded out. And Judd Gregg: he won $800,000 in a lottery a few years ago so maybe he feels entitled to barge in and out of other people's Administrations as he pleases. Judd, take a seat there next to Joaquin Phoenix and plot your next career move.
The other night, in Springfield, Illinois, honoring Lincoln on his 200th birthday anniversary, Barack Obama fantasized about Abe getting an offer to be Secretary of Commerce and how he might have responded. President Obama, the most sensitive and intelligent of men, was full of the majesty of Lincoln and the folly of Judd Gregg--a name that belongs to a rube in Oklahoma--but stayed with Lincoln and gave one of those lovely Obama speeches that makes you want to turn off the TV and read a book. I think President Obama has had enough of strange pulses and will stick to what he has learned in Springfield.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Under Today's Radar
Our news services seem to be only cable of reporting one story at a time; right now it is the economic crisis, but a few events of recent days are as important.
1. The Pope, for some reason, felt obliged to pardon--lift the excommunication of--a certain man named Williamson who had been made a bishop by the late renegade Bishop Marcel Lefebvre who detested Vatican II and anything that happened in the Catholic Church after 1962.
Williamson is a virulent anti-Semite and Holocaust denier and the cringing Pope says now that he had no idea of that when he welcomed him back. There is a test of wills going on here and Benedict is not winning it. Benedict, you have brought the poison back to the heart of the Church, expunge it now--cut the SOB loose or resign and be mercifully forgotten.
2. The Taliban have just attacked Kabul with ease and killed many people. President Obama has said repeatedly that Afghanistan is the center of our focus on terrorists and that this war cannot be lost. He will make a major effort there this year.
3. General Jim Jones is the National Security Adviser in the Obama Administration, but who knows it? He is the silent and invisible man thus far, but he is too strong and talented for this to last: he and Obama are up to something--Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran. Something on the foreign policy front is brewing and will soon be served.
4. Obama's press conference this week showed once and for all that he is a serious man who thinks as he speaks and who speaks in sentences and paragraphs. Listening to him for an hour I realized how lazy I have become in paying attention to any words of government officials. For years we have heard tripe and were lulled into stupor. Now we have a President who respects ideas, language, and the people he speaks to. Time to sharpen our minds again, this new teacher knows what he's talking about.
1. The Pope, for some reason, felt obliged to pardon--lift the excommunication of--a certain man named Williamson who had been made a bishop by the late renegade Bishop Marcel Lefebvre who detested Vatican II and anything that happened in the Catholic Church after 1962.
Williamson is a virulent anti-Semite and Holocaust denier and the cringing Pope says now that he had no idea of that when he welcomed him back. There is a test of wills going on here and Benedict is not winning it. Benedict, you have brought the poison back to the heart of the Church, expunge it now--cut the SOB loose or resign and be mercifully forgotten.
2. The Taliban have just attacked Kabul with ease and killed many people. President Obama has said repeatedly that Afghanistan is the center of our focus on terrorists and that this war cannot be lost. He will make a major effort there this year.
3. General Jim Jones is the National Security Adviser in the Obama Administration, but who knows it? He is the silent and invisible man thus far, but he is too strong and talented for this to last: he and Obama are up to something--Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran. Something on the foreign policy front is brewing and will soon be served.
4. Obama's press conference this week showed once and for all that he is a serious man who thinks as he speaks and who speaks in sentences and paragraphs. Listening to him for an hour I realized how lazy I have become in paying attention to any words of government officials. For years we have heard tripe and were lulled into stupor. Now we have a President who respects ideas, language, and the people he speaks to. Time to sharpen our minds again, this new teacher knows what he's talking about.
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