Little Katie Couric is now Kate, thank you. Even Prince Obama calls her that.

Katie Couric deserves a big girl name after the way she grilled The Prince on his flip flopping over the success of the surge and his absolute inability to say he is wrong, a character flaw that is becoming more unattractive by the hour, by the way. The more the Americans see this intractability the more people say...eh, I'm not sure about a guy who can't say he's wrong.

His "elegance" I've heard mentioned--usually by other men--completely escapes me. In fact, as he bounds down the airliner steps, fists up, he looks like a Muhammad Ali fixing for a good donnybrook with the next man, woman or child who stands in his way. No, that's not elegance. The man is dancing to get out of the way.

I'm bothered that he will not put his arms at his side and walk like a gentleman. That's elegance. The bounce pisses me off.

The kid's been dancing all his life. He's a born salesman, as was his father and grandadday who could "sell the legs off a couch." That's what bouncers do: sell legs off of couches.

Meanwhile, Katie decided she wants her job. She already turned a few heads a couple of days ago when she mentioned she thought there was much more sexism than racism going on in our society; and then I thought she might be talking about the Democratic primaries.

It will be interesting to see if she'll follow through on her hard nosed questioning of Obama, especially as her ratings rise. That is, if her CBS management lets her.

She's probably an angry Clinton supporter. Maybe she could be the WH press secretary.

Go get him, Katie...er, Kate!

The only problem? Think about it.

Funny how life works. God sure does have a great sense of humor, doesn't she?

*smirk*

Thanks for the read.

"Obama can kiss my ass" says President Clinton whose heart is really in the USA with Hillary

He must have convinced himself oh, why not--I'm off to Europe! After all, Ben Franklin spent years there. So did Adams. Obviously, Jefferson, the namesake. Heck, I may not come back till the elections. I'll even swear a little and speak my mind.

Indeed, Hillary must have thrown rose petals on the brick of her Chattaqua breezeway as she paraded Bill out to his waiting limo headed to NY.

For there he is these days, across the pond in Europe attending chic birthday parties for his pal, Nelson Mandela, sunning himself with his friends along the coast of Italy or on Fantasy Island enjoying soy gelatina. Maybe he's sipping a low-fat latte on the bow of the yacht of one of those zillionaire best friends of his. It must be heaven cruising the blue Med this time of year, just loverly, tres bon, cool as a moose and life as a former president, this former president is fast lane plus plus plus plus.

Even for this carefree, hedonistic ex-President, however, I'll just bet...

Life isn't all beer and skittles
Not when you've been through as much as the Clintons, self-induced as some of it was.

The recent damning Vanity Fair article, Chris Matthews and his preoccupation with making Hillary a laughing stock, then trying to make up by giving her my Thathchership Award and MSNBC in general, CNN and Bill O'Reilly notwithstanding, in addition to the gossip columns, I too can't help but wonder about the institutional side of things. In addition to their political aspirations and motivations I often wonder about their humanity, their daughter and their lives. They are interesting forces of nature. Besides, I'm a snoop.

Do they have separate but equal lives? They must. Of course, she works! I am amazed at the woman's energy.

Are they married in the biblical sense? A lot of people are but aren't if you know what I mean.

Do they love each other? I think they must. Even the cynic in me says so. There are aspects of our partners that regardless of their habits we still adore if we've hung long enough to get over the bad parts! I love that!

Bill Clinton and his honor
Meanwhile, if I were Bill Clinton, I would be so outraged at the way my wife was treated, I'd probably bring the power of all I had (which is a lot) down on those who betrayed me-first-and then on the kid. But then, I'm a Leo, just like Bill Clinton. If there's one thing we Leos hate it's betrayal.

By the way, so is Barack. A Leo, I mean.

This isn't over; not a by a long shot. Watch the Old Lion. As he plays and lolls in the shade and looks longingly at the lionesses, he's thinking about how to fix this for his own pride at home. He's mad and his paw hurts, judging from what he said about calling Barack and supporting him.

Political theater at its best!

Thanks for the read.

Obama's 3/5ths of a man? Is that what the Florida and Michigan Primary voter count turned into?

What an embarrassing development for a bunch called The Democratic Party at a time when they're about to either nominate a woman named Hillary Clinton or a black man named Barack Obama.

Thanks for the read.

Media punishes Hillary for RFK gaffe; shows clear bias for Obama

They're punishing Mrs. Clinton for her factual and tactless remark about RFK which has brought the politically incorrect topics to about eight now, hasn't it, in the Democratic presidential campaign?

1. Barack Obama's background.
2. Jeremiah Wright.
3. Bill Ayres.
4. Surrender comments in Iraq he considers off limits.
5. Michelle Obama's officially not to dissed.
6. Barack Obama's grandmother.
7. The bitter and gun comments.
8. RFK assassination.

I'll keep a running tab of things we Americans cannot talk about in this land of the free, home of the brave.

For Pete's sake, and with due respect, let's move on.
Hillary's acknowledged it was tactless. What a bunch of dweebs. No wonder the immature media types can't function past their own navels.

I suggest this is why we do not enjoy meaningful and positive political discourse in this country. The playing upon people's emotions for political gain and money is the reason. This is a fairly new phenomenon in America. I say fairly new because the Hearsts and yellow journalists were always on the periphery.

Alas. The Fourth Estate has been bought. It's now just a matter of who is the highest bidder and if his politics happens to be on the side of freedom. There are just a few players, you know. Anyway, pray to God whoever wins this communications war is on the side of your freedom because that is the only thing that stands between us and tyranny.

So, now that's Hillary's screwed up with the RFK--in the old days, that wouldn't have got out of the newsroom until after her administration--she's in their crosshairs. I'm just amazed at the hysteria this morning at the mere mention of a name and an act that occurred how many years ago in a historic context? Forty. Forty years ago!

Not gods--not even demis
Amazing that the children of the people who were most affected by the Kennedy assassination could hang on to the Kennedy mythology so long. I told ya it would be wall-to-wall, somehow, one way or the other, didn't I, when the Ted Kennedy news hit last week?

I just don't want to go through this whole lie again with my country about the sacrifice and godliness of the Kennedys. Please. No more needles in my dilated irises at midday.

I've been aware of the Kennedys and their aura since I heard about them when I was a kid in 1958 while I was watching the Democratic Convention. I saw Jack Kennedy and Mrs. Kennedy and thought she was nifty and wished I looked like her. I dressed like her. That was about it. As far as the rest of them. Eh.

This is who the Kennedys are. They're people who wear really nice clothes and have lots and lots of money that their families made for them so they could wear those nice clothes, go to cool schools and look great so you could act like an idiot and go ooh and ah over them. After so much oohing and ahhing, they knew they would become powerful and great in the eyes of men.

Here's who they really are. Just like every other family who choose to do what they do and there are many in this country: They are politicians who signed up to be public servants...not gods. Just people. Not gods. No different than a guy who gives his life on the front lines of a war in Iraq. Not gods. Yes, he did give his life. But so did that guy in Iraq, remember? No different than a man who serves in a prisoner of war camp for 5 or so years and gets his bones broken. Not gods. They know what happens when they become public servants, that they may get killed because they're not gods.

I hate to seem provincial, but it also bothers me that none of the Kennedys have ever worked an honest day in their lives. They never had to. Philosophically, theoretically, practically, really. Even in the back of their minds, if they eschewed every penny, and took an oath of poverty, they knew they could get it back at any time because money was always, always there. In that sense, it is the closest thing to God that the Kennedys get.

That may mean nothing to a lot of you. But to me, it means a whole bunch. Not everything, but a lot. Unless a person knows what it means to work for a living and to care for other people, I can't imagine he can know what life's really about. I didn't get it till I had such an experience of the total responsibility of feeding my family by myself--alone. It's a view that would take a long, slow argument to talk me out of considering the pain I suffered in finally understanding and finding a decent role of breadwinner. It changed my world view.

Yes, Robert Kennedy was a brave warrior and we grieve for the loss of him (I cried like a baby at both assassinations) and the many other brave warriors who have given their lives for America on Iwo Jima, Omaha Beach.

I just can't help but think. Isn't singling RFK out somehow wrong and using his memory to inflate Mr. Obama's importance in this campaign hypocritical? What about the process?

I'm also wondering if it is also erroneous to tiptoe around a historical issue and if Senator Kennedy would approve of such pussyfooting considering that peppery nature of his!

Sorry to bring everyone back down to earth.

Get ready, kids, this is probably going to be a maudlin, Kennedy summer--kind of like the one I had in 1968. I'm not looking forward to it. In fact, a condo on Coronado is looking sweeter every day. It's something to work harder for. I'll have to with the new taxes I'll have to pay.

(sigh)

Thanks for the read.

Love or hate her. Hillary is the woman I've been talking about.

I've forgiven her for being a horrible person while she was in the White House.

I've forgiven her for being a leftist and acting like one.

I've forgiven her for being stupid and acting like it.

Why? After disliking her so much, especially since she was so hypocritical in her feminist stance, how could I possibly feel this way?

How was she to know that one bad husband will ruin your life every damned time? And to think. I've had how many husb...never mind.

Look how she's recovered! Not that she could ever be president, you understand, but I do want her to have the nomination anyway. She's one tough broad and I admire her.

I used to think someone like her wouldn't do what I did to raise my kids with $300 a month child support and being underemployed as a secretary. Or deign to clean someone's else toilets when I needed money so badly that I worked at my boss's offices as a janitor at night...I'd ask myself, would she ever do something like that?

Well. I think I have my answer. She got down and dirty in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, Texas, Kentucky. Think it's glamorous? It's not. It's hard work and hard as cleaning toilets. At least once the toilet's clean, you're done for a while.

After some of what people have said about her, myself included, I would have been in the middle of the floor in a puddle by now. I don't know how a person can take so much ridicule. She could handle Ahmadinejad nicely if she had the right Thatchership behind her.

It's my opinion that once people get into the stratospherics of power there are choices presented to them which gives them do overs. Because they are no longer living for themselves and their lives have much more meaning, their decisions become more important, they must work for a greater good, they get do overs, Mulligans, I guess. It's like God says to them, "Okay, I gave you this brain, this experience, this humiliation, these gifts and these escapes, now make use of all of them."

She may be at that point. Nixon didn't use them. Kennedy sort of did, except he put the American people at risk every time he made himself vulnerable to blackmail. Reagan certainly did by learning from his own failures. FDR did. Clinton was too flawed, evidently to learn while in office. Maybe he has. Bush Elder never had the imagination to be in trouble. Bush Younger is inscrutable. Eisenhower may have had the demon of leadership so early that he never gave the obligation a second thought. McCain is of that ilk. A natural leader.

I'm giving credit where credit is due. She is a worthy adversary as opposed to the alternative and I'm proud of her for getting back up and fighting like when the old boys, especially the ones who were promised her from Bill for the presidency, when they turned on her for Barack...

She'd make a hell of an MOR Republican, if only we could tone down that leftie tendency she has.

Oh, relax you men. I think you've had your chance. It seems to me your way hasn't worked very well from a PR and image POV. And considering that's what wins elections...but, keep talking to each other into 2012. It's okay. You were in good company.

Meanwhile, Andrea's predictions become a little more understandable these days, do they not?

Ah, ye of little faith. When will you learn to trust me?

My Thatchership of the Year Award
BTW, I've investigated returning to the Federation of Republican Women. I'll report to you if they have stopped being the old boys' girls. More later. It's time to urge women in our party to take on some national offices.

I got a mailer from Mary Bono Mack. Remember her? She was Sonny Bono's widow. I like her a lot. You have to admire a woman like this. Not every blond waitress marries people like OJ and ends up dead.

She took over Sonny's seat. She's kept a good Republican agenda, has a good head on her shoulders. She has a great instinct for what's right, she's maintained her reputation, done the right thing in tough California-style issues. She sure married well (Connie Mack). She's now been in congress since 1989. I'd like to see her move up now that she's getting older.

Other Republican women such as Ann Northrup in Kentucky deserves national attention. If she can get out from under Mitch McConnell and Jim Bunning.

I urge every women who is interested in moderate politics to become involved in Republican issues. That's where it's at. We're not into ripping up established abortion law at the moment although most of us are pro life, nor are we into condoning partial birth abortion which is a terrible, terrible thing and should not be allowed.

Maybe I'll start a group.

To be clear, Hillary Clinton voted against the BAN on partial birth abortion. Just to set the record straight. I will never vote for her as long as she support the ban on partial birth abortion.

Meanwhile, the Democrats have a HUUUUGGE problem tonight. After all, we all remember when Ike said he was within reach of victory in Europe.

Thanks for the read.

Barack over reacts to Bush appeasement sentence in Israel speech.

Senator Obama: you've done exactly what your opponents thought you would do. You've over reacted and turned inside out over a statement that should have been left alone. Why? Because you're an amateur who belongs in the White House in Haiti.

Are you saying you don't agree with the president?

Are you saying you agree with the president?

What is your problem with the statement exactly?

Why are you so upset?

Did President Bush call you a name?

While we're on this subject of qualifications, since you're showing your lack of them, did you ever attend an international relations course?

My husband wants to know if you've ever watched a TV Western.

Were you ever taught in a practical way how to handle these set ups? This was a set up, you know, Barack. You bit, big time.

Why are you trying to frame this as your foreign policy? Aren't you and your people more organized than this? Didn't you want to roll out something a little more comprehensive?

You're going to fail because suddenly you've got Israel as your fulcrum. Wow! How'd that happen?! You didn't want that, did you? Now you've got a problem. Now what? How had you planned to defend Israel from Iran, those folks you plan to talk to, those who consider them corpses, dogs, pigs, human excrement?

That's the trash talk you choose to ignore; in addition you consciously choose to ignore that our soldiers are being killed by them with their insurgents and munitions. That doesn't seem to bother you at all, does it? That reeks that you would be so open about that. You can consider meeting with these people and talk, while our soldiers get killed by their rockets.

Talk. Talk. Talk. Talk your brains out, kid. As Senator Clinton mentioned, "I think he gave a speech once."

Why, Senator Obama, the Iranian regime you're so anxious to have a cigarette with and appease -- I don't know what else to call it--what are you going to use to appease them with other than the State of Israel--may even pull a latter day Khomeini and Iranian student kinda move and keep you there your entire presidency! Better watch it.

Stranger things have happened. Just ask Ahmadinejad. He was one of the captors at the Tehran Embassy, after all when they kept our people for, what, 400 plus days while Jimmy Carter stewed? Good Christian that he is, the great man predictably let all those folks sit.

Moreover, you'd best choose a hawkish Veep. I advise you to take along some good reading--may I recommend treatises on state crafting and war and peace keeping?

But enough of this fun and back to reality, this simply looks as if you've reached for this event to demonstrate that your new best friend is really Israel (covering your old statements) by distracting what you said about talking directly to Iran and now attacking the president.

It is an opportunistic attempt to show people how strong you are. You have failed because you have shown yourself to be weaker and reactive. You should have waited.

You and yours are immature, ego driven and disorganized.

You started this discussion by stating that you would have direct, unconditional talks with Ahmadinejad immediately.The number one problem is we don't negotiate from weakness. If you're going to president, I can't imagine you don't know that and acknowledge the reality of power and keeping power. Who's telling you otherwise? George McGovern? What losers are advising you? Even the bosses in Chicago know that.

The other problem is that you are using false facts to back you up. You seem impatient, not willing to do the work and research. Lazy. More likely, you and your friends are unwilling to listen to truth if you don't like the sounds of it.

The third problem is you're clueless about diplomacy and how things work in the bad world or you're lying to your supporters and you're just a damned politician like the rest of em. The south side of Chicago is different that the Middle East. You're not a statesman.

That shows you are provincial, not ready for prime time.

By the way, we are in multilateral talks with North Korea for one reason only. We refused to talk directly with NK directly six years ago. Okay? Madeline Albright and Kim Jong Il danced on a stage in the 90s while the North Koreans happily thumbed their noses and built their nuke capabilities anyway during "talks." It indeed set in motion the North Korean nuclear program ten to fifteen years sooner than it should've been. It was a monumental failure in judgment on William Clinton's part.

You Obamas need to get this right before you use it. That's why the NKs are at the table. Until the other nations pulled the NKs to the table, did the US agree to participate. Got it? Your supporters and surrogates are out there flapping their cheeks about all kinds of foreign policy stands about which they are stupid--and wrong and ignorant, which is worse. There also incorrect about other historical facts using Nixon's, Reagan's and Ike's names in vain, which is funny because all of these men were hawks and anti leftists of the first degree. They'd have Obama in parody by now.

Anyway, Barack, you don't just pick up a book and learn this stuff by reading it...you live it, you learn it, you hear it and you watch it. For years and years. Then you listen to people who have done just that and have participated successfully in the process.

Then there's that darned arrogance of yours again.

We negotiate from strength in the United States as a matter of policy and to suddenly stop because of some freak of nature election which somehow allows fate to drop an attractive, ambitious, angry but deeply pitted Chicago revolutionary and his ungrateful, equally angry wife and thugs into the seat of world power in the White House would probably change our national landscape so dramatically that none of us will ever be the same.

"And this is why, my darling child, God and Democrats invented Super Delegates." And free will.

Thanks for the read.

Clarified Change we can believe in just arrived at 11:17 am PDT from the horses's mouth: Obama will meet with anyone and demand that all the things he demands must be met and we will then go from there.

Bush's appeasement laydown is Manna from heaven for Hillary and McCain

After all if Senator Clinton wants her inexperienced opponent to sit nice and tall in one gigantic pooh pooh he made back when repeated over and over again his insistence about meeting face to face with the murderous leader of Iran, he from the state who sponsors terrorism who is providing the ordnance that is killing our people in Iraq, she couldn't have asked for a better frame to surround the simp's picture.

The president's comments came today in a speech at Israel's 60th Anniversary which included a small piece about a US Senator who wished he had had the chance to talk with Hitler before he invaded Poland. So, the left went nuts because they were offended. As predicted, they over reacted instead of agreeing with the president that they also stand by Israel.

One has to wonder though if Dubya and Hillary had a nice talk one night, maybe over a cigar and bourbon--him a Coke, in which they decided they'd just put this kid through his paces when the chance came. Maybe Dubya owed Hillary a favor. Since they seem to be on the outside these days, they knew they'd have nothing to lose and a lot to gain. I bet they even let Mack in on it because Mack was quick on the uptake with his "What is Obama going to talk to Iran about?" when explaining this is the same head of state who called a fellow state a stinking corspe. That pretty much says it.

And we're all having an awful lot of fun tonight watching the Obama camp look like fools in response to the president saying something about some senator in the 1930s. I'll bet there are a lot of cranky old Dems tonight angry that they're in this position in the first place--mad at Obama for being so stupid...and angrier that somebody sold them a bill of goods early on about who this Obama was before the Wright fiasco came out. What a mess.

Why even Pad My Resume with Degrees I Never Earned Biden couldn't contain his expletives as he exploded with his usual BS answer. No. Seriously. His response was a learned "b---s---!"

It's makes my little Republican heart sing.

The point is? Even Republicans would rather have Hillary as president. At least we know she won't get us all killed!

And for Barack's information, until January 20 the president is still the president and he will continue make speeches about foreign policy, if that's okay.

Thanks for the read.

Moving on: Cult of Hillary and Obama to Reality

You gotta face the facts, guys! It's time for substantive discussions of national security issues...not the vagaries and fantasies and ideas of some who grew up feeling good because they read graphic novels and saw Stephen Spielberg movies in which people just like them grew up saying things just like they said in exactly the same angst ridden, easy times that nature probably hasn't seen since the Garden of Eden.

Not real people.

Some of them got the idea that they could turn on a machine and simply earn money that way. The funny thing is they can.

But not real people.

Some of these kids got the idea that they could bounce a basketball or learn to run a football, play a certain card game a certain way, write something well, and make oodles of money. And sure enough, as it turns out some of them actually can. There are all kinds of examples of kids who are making huge amounts of money.

The kinds of money that most of our fathers and grandfathers would be embarrassed to even look at--no, let me rephrase that. I'm embarrassed for my dad to have to seen that, considering that my dad, who worked his way through college as a four-letter varsity man, got two science degrees, taught school and then had to paint barns and work in steel mills in the summers to feed his family, and then have little boys and girls lecture Republicans like him on life?

I don't think so.

Still. It's hard to argue with their success. It's also hard to take their shrugs, their arrogance, their knowledge. Their nods. As they clear their throats, swallow their laughs. It's part of being nice to your elders.

So. With all the smarts they have.

As a mother I must ask simply why don't they speak honestly about their own security? Why do they ignore it? Why is it no one talks about it? It seems so obvious to me? What is that about? Why does national security not seem to be a priority in this campaign? There is no mention.

When it is mentioned, it is downplayed as a "legal" issue, maybe? What if they're wrong? What if their kids' schools are the targets?

Above all things in their lives their children are their trophies. One would think they'd watch over them more carefully. Maybe it's that fairyland mentality that keeps them from thinking grown up thoughts. It's easy to do. I know. They have no experience. It's a natural reaction to want tranquility and peace and to think 9/11 was a one-time deal.

Yeah, right, and my cool friend and associate, Darth Vader came into my room last night and told me to teleport you with Yada and Nonoo after you've blasted into hyperspace with...

Jeez. I just don't know how to convince them of reality. Until then I'll just sound sill...or until someone comes along they can relate to...I'll just sound like a fear monger.

And for all of you over the age of 50: a graphic novel is a comic book.

Thanks for the read.

Obama to hard working whites: It's because I'm black, isn't it?

First
Although officially the Obama camp has not used race as an official reason for his dramatic recent losses most of his unofficial people, especially black supporters are saying otherwise. As the national numbers accumulate, it is evident that Mr. Obama has a problem with electability. However, his supporters will misinterpret the results. They will jump to the conclusion that these are mostly racist votes and events will develop from there.

They would be wrong to jump that shark
No, Barack. It's not because you're black. It's because you and Michelle come off as insufferably rude and arrogant and people don't seem to like either of you. Maybe if they liked one of you...but both of you? What's up with that?

People don't like your staff or your surrogates either. They remind them of people who live in San Francisco and drink coffee with funny things in it. They don't like people who come into their towns and ask where the closest Starbucks is and then crack on them about not having one and then huff off in a rented car that costs more than they make in a year. It hurts their sense of self worth. They don't like how it makes them feel about their towns and where they live.

And naturally, it is that arrogance, by definition that keeps all of you from acknowledging this and so you reinforce each other's behavior.

Darn that vicious circle. It happens in all YOUNG political circles. That is one of the reasons we can't let you run the country.

Evita Mode
I watched coverage last evening as Hillary Clinton moved from playing the hungry lioness in jungle green to regal Evita in yummy watermelon when she happily and gracefully accepted what she fought so hard for--the prize of West Virginia in a place that looked like a union hall--a people's place where you get a coffee with cream and sugar--Equal if they got it.

Call it what you want, Barack. Old politics, whatever. She stooped down, did it and she did it well. She didn't curl up her nose, Barack. Obviously, she is happy to have West Virginia's people behind her today and she'll never forget them.

Bill didn't. And they didn't forget Bill.

They can't handle the truth
Barack Obama's surrogates sat at the desks of their interviewers steaming, pointing out that these people and their votes didn't count for much--Obama would make up for it in other "more important" states--(good start) that people just don't understand the new math, new maps, on and on.

One of the younger ones on CNN (Tanya Someone who supports Obama and the woman who represents Huffington's Blog) even laughed out loud at Lannie Davis when he mentioned the George McGovern debacle the Democrats had experienced in the 70s. Patting him on the head?

Neither of those young women were around at the time. I was, of course. But then, I was at the Spanish Inquisition. The Huffington editor was younger than my oldest work suit and Tanya was inconceivable. Ed Schulz, someone nobody's ever, ever heard of until two months ago when CNN ran a want ad, let out a chortle or two. Lannie did what everyone does with twits--gave up.

Caught up in the moment and the zeal gets them crazy. That's why the Democrats invented Super Delegates: because of people like them. Democrats treat people like children, remember.

Maybe they need to try tough love next time.

Just the facts
Let's get the facts straight. Out of the 41% difference, approximately one of every five of those votes was considered an outright racist, anti-black vote. That leaves a huge number of people who might have voted for Mr. Obama had he been a nice guy or if Hillary hadn't been around. Swing.

Kentucky, a Dem state, will be another blowout for Hillary. She'll not take it for granted out of respect for the people of Kentucky. But I betcha Obama won't even try, just like he didn't in the other swing states. That tells you what he really thinks of people. Psychologically that translates, especially post West Virginia.

Mrs. Clinton may not think very much of people either deep down, but she's learned how to do it right and show up anyway. If you're president, you gotta do it right and show up anyway.

Mrs. Clinton's speech last night to the Super Delegates was an astounding presentation of leadership. If the Super Delegates fail to acknowledge the reality of her continuing success as well as her outstanding abilities that far outweigh any individual on the world stage in the Democratic Party, then one can only conclude the Democratic Party has become a permanent party of fools.

It's the personality, Stupid
Put up person of color people truly relate to and we'd see a stampede of white working class folks to the polls to vote for him/her--but don't go pulling the race card on people. Hard working Americans of all colors don't like that.

Obama talks about post race, but his problem is he's gone posted onto the moon. Most American's aren't sophisticates. We relate to guys like Bill Cosby, Dennis Haysbert, Colin Powell not hoity toity guys with wives who'd like to tear ours heads off and talk down to us.

While we're at it, there are a few other things he or she probably should have: a portfolio of longer than three years in public service; a background that denotes participation in mainstream America and a true demonstration of high regard for America and her institutions. That's not too much to ask.

We've got on both sides of the political fence hundreds, maybe a couple of thousand of young men and women who are capable of becoming president. Why would the Democrats choose this poseur? I'll be glad when we solve that mystery.

Too bad. Once again, because of style and wanting to sell us something that's not there, the Democrats blew it.

Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Indiana, Texas
As Senator Clinton clicked these states off last night in her speech, the goose flesh on my arms stood straight up and I realized this woman is headed not just for the nomination but probably for the White House if we Republicans don't get started on our own message.

Thanks for the read.

Mission accomplished, Barack? Hill sniffs blood in WV.

They all know that something is about to happen. Super Delegates still sit on their hands

Feinstein knows something's up. Understanding the stakes, the Senator had coffee with the Hillster to determine if there's an October surprise, which she prays to God there is come May or June because she knows darn well Obama hasn't got a prayer in November and she doesn't want to do this the hard way.

God knows Dianne would rather be home with her puppies up listening to Chris Matthews get all happy and excited about patriotic liberals like JFK and guys like that. How she hates this dissension. All she wants to do sit down and be still for a while. These people. Where is Hillary, anyway?

The drumbeat against Obama's inevitability will begin soon. Small things. Everyone will run for cover then when the surprise hits, everyone will say, "Gee, who knew?"

I love politics. They're so real.

Why should Hillary Clinton drop out?
But the rank and file Dems who support Obama, the ones who don't know any better and aren't in the loop want Hillary to quit. There are still five or six states left and two others that won't be counted! If I were a Florida or Michigan Democrat I believe I'd find a way to sue.

Isn't this just typical of Democrats? They want her to leave the fight before it's even over. Sound familiar? Put their donkey logo next to the word "surrender" in the dictionary. Eee aww.

Like if they don't get their man in right now, they'll miss their chance. Why don't they let this race play out?

What has driven this (ahem) elephant-in-the-room mentality? I've watched most networks, including the public ones and they all seem to shy away from race and whisper it as if it's a dirty word...until just lately. It's really neurotic. For such open and liberal minded folks, they sure are reticent and shy, especially the usual suspects at MSNBC. CNN has been right out there, however. Fox is stepping up a bit, little by little.

The R word
If Obama is the person he claims to be this is an ideal time to talk openly about race--not after he's in the White House, after he's said for nearly two years he's never even given reparations and special empowerment to blacks a thought, or he never saw Reverend Wright in his life and Bill Ayres is a Chicago Bulls basketball player, isn't he, and then pull some big switcheroo with a Democratic controlled congress? Quick and dirty, but it would take care of a lot of the problems the Democrats think they have.

Bring up the truth about America and slavery again. That's what your new politics should be about. Why do just half truths? Let's get into the whole, dirty business. How can we get past something if we don't talk about it? Don't they tell us we have to recognize our problems to fix them?

Well, I don't see a whole lot of white guys running around patting black guys on the back saying, "God, I'm just real sorry what my kin did to you back 150 years ago..." or "...that Jim Crow thing sucked...what can I do as a white man to help you through it?"

Nor do I see black guys responding to the white guy by saying "Man. You know, you white folks sure were wrong, but sh+t happens. Hey, Man. I forgive ya."

That's the race talk we could be having, I suppose, backed up with lots of money.

The real R word? Reality.
Obama cannot win the national election. He is unelectable. Why? Because no one knows who he is. It's not like he's Condi Rice, Vernon Jordan, Colin Powell. What America will find out by November is he's a two-bit, Richard M. Daley Chicago Machine-spawned hack run by a bunch of hard ass pols. Once we do get to know this "organizer' (I've never known anything good that comes out of the word "organizer"), we'll see how far left this guy really is.

America is not a socialist country--we don't swing left; we swing center. Everyone is kidding everyone else because of the race issue. Perhaps it's the Bradley Effect compounded with other issues that we're not familiar with yet. This is all new.

Of course, it needn't to have been this way if we all just acted like Americans instead of hypenated people.

That was last week
Today is election day in West Virginia. The Obama people have had their week in the hard working white communities of the coal producing hoots and hollers of the state that gave us Senator Robert Byrd, the ex-KKK member, the so called "Conscience of the Senate."

A reported response to phone polling was "Hang the darkey from the closest tree," when asked what the caller thought of Senator Obama. Numerous such answers were said to trouble the out-of-town professionals who were part of the Obama campaign, according to a NY Times article this morning (find it on Drudge).

I feel compelled to add, however, that these hard working white West Virginian Democrats have shown tremendous social growth when a Hokey can now bring himself to refer to his African-American neighbor in the more politically correct form of "darkey."

This election is the result of a long, long laboratory experiment gone bad.
I've said and have written that the Democrats are reaping what they've sown for the past forty or fifty years in their insistence upon grouping and regrouping and subdividing of human beings in every aspect of life. Now they have one faction against a faction, sub against sub, who can no longer even communicate with basic human language: words that are simple and used in context like white, black, hard working. It's seems awfully hard to me.

Democrats. Look at yourselves. You can't even talk to each other without fear of offending one another. That's not real. And that's what you've always said you wanted. Your kids must be confused.

Thanks for the read.

Hillary: Watch her roar!

My lion metaphor may take her all the way to the nomination.

Hillary's hair's been recently tipped into a subtle blond mane. In Indy tonight, she's wearing clothes that suggests she's on the hunt: a jungle green pant suit, a scarf wrapped around her neck to look like a lioness's ruff. Green and gold, black and brown. A little red. Those are her power colors these days. Her coloring fits the role.

Meanwhile, Bill even used my exhortation to "watch her roar" as he continues to stump to get the old girl what he promised her so many years ago.

Thanks for the read.

Tina Fey made the point: "Bitch is the new black, People!"

A L E R T

Dear Republican Men who art in charge, we're going to lose to Hillary Clinton if you don't figure this age thing (John's) out and find a running mate who can trump her. That is, if she gets the nomination. She's very appealing to older women voters. Most of my readers know I believe she will probably be the nominee.

In response to either her or Senator Obama's possible nomination, let me make a suggestion for the running mate spot with Senator McCain: It sure would be a nice touch if you could talk a woman named Condi or a man named Colin into stepping up.

No southern white men this time. Zero, none. Nada. Zilch. No men. Stop already with the white men. Enough. Don't you get it yet?

And it's not personal, just practical. There is an entire nation of people of color who feel they have no other choice than some neosocialist Democrat who claims to want to represent them as their savior. He uses his poorness mentality--special interests (while is supported by those), his boom box, outdoor voice, talks down to everyone and throws a bunch of hokum at people about how the man is killing them and keeping them down rather than explaining what the true America is all about. Such talk sickens me because it is untrue and silly.

For instance, at a rally, signs in the crowd and on the front of his dais from which he spouts his down-uptalk that reads "Reclaiming America" insult me and should everyone else who is American. "Reclaiming?" From who? Who took America?

Can I not walk down the street freely? Where are the armed guards that prevent me from doing so? Am I not still free to get a job? Is it not possible for me to set up my own business? I don't understand. Do my children not have the freedom to attend private schools? Can I attend the church of my choice and pray in public? Reclaim America from what? What the heck is he talking about? Reclaim America?

See what I mean about hokum? That phrase means about as much as his "Change we can believe in." That doesn't mean anything.

Back to me beating up on my party: You Republican guys and I have been through this drill many, many times before. The most recent fray we had, of course was in 2000 with the McCain Bush thing. And before that when the Senate Election Committee decided not to send serious money to California to fight for our Senate seats out here. You just gave up!

As a result I've been unrepresented as a Republican and it's ticked me off ever since and nationally we don't have California, now, do we? What Republican men missed was that Latinos are natural Republicans. You just missed it completely. As usual. Your tin ear got got you tossed out on it again before you even got a chance.

So, because you didn't know your electorate, as you obviously don't quite know urban blacks now, you just let her go, cut her loose like a old beat up piece of bait off a fishing boat. That's when the Boxer-Feinstein duo got entrenched. Since both Senators are from the bay area of North California I feel doubly misrepresented. Thanks a lot for that, by the way.

I'll admit some of what Republicans have to fight is a media hell bent on destroying our best intentions toward the communities in which we're trying to make a difference. I've been on both sides so I know that it works both ways. Much of what we get is quite deserved.

This self-righteous behavior of the GOP has to stop, especially since some of our more indiscreet members who can't seem to handle themselves in public have shown. In other words, boys, come off it. The last few years have been a disaster for us because of your scandals (I didn't see any Republican women in sexcapades) and the old boys BS. It has to stop.

Moreover, I don't care to hear about how the press would have treat a Democrat in the same situation. It doesn't matter to me anymore. Save that argument for a cocktail party. Okay? Don't use it again in a interview. Please. It's insulting to every woman in the audience. And it really doesn't matter. It's been established that the media is slanted left. To say it again is boring.

There's another public spectacle that needs to be talked about which is asking one's wife to stand beside her husband as Spitzer and Craig, Vetter (?) did during their news conferences. If you allow that again as peers, I'll just give up on civilized behavior. That was outrageous public behavior and as gentlemen and peers it warranted public comment by all of you. I felt terrible for those women. As their husbands colleagues you owed them some respect by standing up to those men and that behavior. Anything goes? I don't think it should in Congress.

As I've said, Mr. Republican Men, we've had this discussion many, many times. Maybe this time you'll listen to me for a change about how to get elected and stay elected.

But then I'm just a dumb woman who represents millions and millions and millions of women who have the ability to reason and--ahem--vote.

(eyebrow arched, smiling, waiting for an answer, but knowing the answer will be some white governor of a southern state--how much you wanna bet--some things never change)

Thanks for the read anyway.

Hillary runs away with O'Reilly and the fork runs away with the spoon

I sat all morning visualizing these two who--without their aides knowing--made arrangements to meet later in the evening to watch The O'Reilly Factor.

There they linger in their stolen moment, a quiet rendezvous over drinks in the booth in the corner in the back in the dark. He sips a Coke (he doesn't drink alcohol--a good thing) and she slams a double Tanq on the rocks with three olives--a great thing. Good taste, Hill.

They gaze into one another's eyes. He's smitten; she is too. She adores tall, lanky men called Bill. He likes that brain of hers especially since Pennsylvania. (That's why she needs the Tanq.) Who knew? After all her years of O'Reilly/Fox avoidance Hillary and those big publishing types like Murdoch must get each other now. Good. It's about time. There's hope for lower taxes yet.

If it weren't for all those children and the two spouses , not to mention the morals ...maybe in a different time and place these two may have been today's clean alternative Bill and Hillary.

When I finally snapped out of it I sat down to write this post and finally with that imagery in mind the long awaited Hillary-O'Reilly interview began.

Senator Clinton, NOW you've found your voice!
What have we here. Finally a substantive discussion that every mainstream news outlet can eat their hearts out over. She's one tough woman. Tough. Tough. Why. I'd love to talk to her. She reminds me of someone very close to me.

My non plussed husband demands, "Well, hell, Andrea. Why doncha' just vote for her!?"

"I would," I casually answered, "if she'd get on the Republican ticket with McCain as Veep and keep moving center. In fact, I started liking her when she started talking dirty about Iran last weekend."

(smirk)

My husband left the room in a huff. Poor dear. He hates these election years.

Congratulations, Mrs. Clinton. You've broken through to women like me: we who thought you thought we were beneath you.

Keep this up and maybe some of the rest of us who are trying to be ourselves can break through to the other side too and be honest about what we really think without a bunch of people pushing us this way and that to say this and that to make everyone on earth happy but ourselves. (Some of us do that, whether we admit it or not, you know.)

You obviously were enjoying being yourself today, Senator Clinton, and it was refreshing. I may not vote for you (the tax and abortion thing) but I sure have seen a side of you that is admirable and extremely likable. In another place and time we probably would have been friends.

Ironically, it may be women like me--older white women--who could put you in the White House. Women like me who never had an scintilla of power in our lives. Hmmm. I'm getting a headache from all the...well, headiness.

This Bill brings out the best in you.

Thanks for the read.

Obama and Wright: why should America waste precious emotional energy on the latest civil rights flim flam men?

These two are not doing our nation any good. Some in the black community who trusted Senator Obama may not think too much of him this evening when they wrestle with his excuse-ridden, day late dollar short "explanation" for not responding to the Rev's traveling tent show over the weekend. Wright must have a Pope Benedict Complex.

Others might be shrugging their shoulders and some are thinking the media's out to get the black man and puffing up and getting angry. Who knows? We've never been this close before. That's why I was so insistent we did this "first black person for president" thing right. See what happens when you have phonies?

I wish the Obama/Wright language would not include things like "It's personal--Rev. Wright did this to me" in so many words and "Reverend Wright did this to my campaign." Sounds like a black man grudge. I don't think it plays well with the rest of the country and turns off voters to the point that they don't want the experience to happen again soon.

He's not ready for the job
I think Obama is a phony.

From the beginning I've thought he's been groomed by a bunch of behind-the-scenes people who thought he'd be the one no matter what. Some of the older, more impatient and blacker members of this bunch insisted that regardless of his problems he be sent to the front of the line despite promises made to Hillary and Bill during their first presidency. I knew he was inauthentic (not in their eyes). I've been writing about it for weeks.

Here's why I think people should not believe Obama
If Obama has not heard about Reverend Wright's sermons after having served 20 years in that congregation, then two things are going on:

1. He is not an active member of that congregation, active meaning attending the church more than two times a week in a service function, not including worship and choir. Anyone who has served in any church can tell you that if the pastor had said the U.S. Government started AIDS in his sermon, it would get talked about over Wednesday's potluck supper. It's just ridiculous to be asked to believe that he didn't know about this. Absolutely ridiculous.

2. He heard the sermons. How could he not? Barack is making a terrible mistake again in not admitting his first mistake then showing he still has lousy judgment and doesn't want people to know it.

I had lousy judgment and made lousy calls when I was a young person; I didn't want people to know it, but they do anyway. Thus, I'll never be anything more than a blog writer. Those is the breaks. Lots of better people than I and Barack Obama (he's not the Messiah, folks) have made major life changing life choices that have ruined their chances at becoming something special.

But then, if my entire life goal were to be president of the US, as we hear Obama's was since age twenty or so (some say five) things would have been vastly differently for me. I definitely would have been more careful. You can't hang around people who think the government kills its own people by flying airplanes into skyscrapers in its big cities.

Obama had seven long and calculating years to pull away from Reverend Wright and Trinity United Church of Christ when he heard of the infamous sermon about the chickens coming home to roost post 9/11.

Senator Obama, you're the real flim flam man here!
I take it back. Reverend Wright is just doing what he always does: preaching the Word of Jesus Christ as seen through the UCC doctrine, one the Senator and his wife signed onto twenty years ago.

Not only has he denied his church and his preacher, but he's denied his own faith. Let's hope his public denials finally end here. I hate waiting for the fourth crow of the cock like this. This is becoming too painful for everyone. I wouldn't want to be Barack Obama for anything in the world right now. Not because of the election, but for his insides and how he feels about himself. Why do you think Wright's being so hard on him? He teaching this kid a lesson.

BTW, Mrs. Clinton rented the movie, "Hoosiers" earlier this evening to relax for her interview with Bill O'Reilly on Wednesday. I have a hunch they'll get along quite well.

Thanks for the read.

Chris Matthews and his Sunday morning pals

(I feel guilty. I should be in church.)

Joe Klein, the brilliant writer with Time Magazine; Cynthia Tucker, editorial page editor of The Atlanta Journal Constitution; and Patrick Healy of The NY Times. They were all there. It was a Libs compadre moment. I was probably one of among ten or so to watch it. Here's a summary what they had to say.

"That Clinton woman is taking the presidency away from the black man and she is really a bad person to do it."

Those darn Dems. They just kill me. Like there's something wrong with talking about her opposition's electability.

What's on next?

All politics all morning
Okay. I know NBC's slant. Let's get another take. What do these Dems really want? And most importantly to this Republican, can they get it?

Of course, what I think they really want is nothing more than a total and complete change in our nation's psychology and approach to American life and politics. In other words politics--what we civilized people use to keep from killing each other--is bad and we need to change how we practice them.

I've been listening more than usual to a bunch of rich 40-year olds during this election season. They're the ones who seem to have the Democratic party by the you-know-whats these days--the ones who claim they can and must do politics their way lest the entire world fall into an abyss because of policies of this barbarian, George W. Bush and his predecessors, all of whom are bad inherently.

The "New School" people--the real radicals, the big money--are convinced (as is every generation) if they can just grab hold of the reins of power this time they can somehow use their own inimitable wisdom and superior intelligence and accompanying technology which those who have gone before them did not somehow possess because they, themselves are so very special this time. This time is different. This time. We all say that, by the way. This time.

Let's look at ABC.

Local Yokels
I tuned in just in time to watch a local city councilman, Democrat Richard Alarcon as he was insisting upon a surtax on the 270,000 millionaires in Los Angeles who live in homes over 5000 square feet. "They'll never miss it." That's the kind of change they believed in.

Next up came one of the Latino super delegates for the Dems, about 35 or 40, who announced he regards the use of "negative ads" as one of his guidelines for choosing the nominee. No, seriously. This is a man who is participating in grown-up American politics, no doubt his first time. His other criterion was "electability." I thought it was noteworthy that this imbecile listed it as second on his list and mentioned Mrs. Clinton as having "...stuck her toe into the negative ad category." He read that somewhere and decided to use it--the "toe" part.

I resisted the urge to commit Hari Kari out of frustration that people could actually be so idiotic, that critical thinking abilities could have not been fully developed in this individual, then I realized he was instructed in Los Angeles schools. I've thought of taking up a hobby which doesn't involve handling sharp things.

Next popped up another one of the Dem super delegates who is Nancy Pelosi's forty-year old or so daughter, a rather sandpapery person who evidently was rubbed the wrong way again when asked if her mother and Mrs. Clinton were still friends. Her response, "What a silly question," to a seasoned journalist took her appearance from important to twit in just four little words. Shrugging off a legit question may have seemed kewl to her Marin County buds, but it is simply impatient and stupid to non-California voters. Even Hillary Clinton learned that such a tin ear can get you tossed out on it if you're not careful, almost too late.

During these commercials, I have to include in my Sunday morning's assessment the opinions of the usual suspects, bad pennies and some retreads whom I heard over the week. They must keep turning up because we're living longer, we had no draft and we had great medical care and medicine in the last generation. These overgrown, professional students always wanted revolution and I guess they've settled for their organic one. Slow, ain't it, Dudes? Well, when you're comfortable in places like Santa Monica, the oppressor ain't so bad, especially when you make the kind of money most of them pull down. Shaking things up has been very good to them.

What's on CBS? Good. More Dems.

Between their ears
Rebels are boring as hell because they all look alike, act alike and sound alike. I decided to switch the channel just in time for a new guest on another local LA political Sunday program that no one watches.

Did you know that there are black people and women among the Dems who want to forge some sort of a union? That's a good thing, I guess; however, they're almost beside themselves because they see the Barack-Hillary thing as a competition. I just didn't know there was that big of a schism. Who knew?

That's what Lizabeth Gant-Britton, Ph.D from UCLA said. Dr. Gant-Britton, a beautiful, about 45-year old tiny, blond, light skinned African-American who co-authored a few books about fascinating black women, one of whom was Frederick Douglas's wife, was most candid about her fears that the Dems will blow this whole thing. It was apparent that she had a real investment in this election as she patiently explained this historic opportunity for women and blacks. It seems as if the parties don't trust one other. I'm not sure what Dr. Gant-Britton will do because she's black, white, a woman and has two names. She's really in a bind.

Redux: Moyers and Wright on PBS
I had to watch that again. And again. I had other choices as Rev. Wright had been speaking nonstop to many groups the whole weekend. Who could miss him or Senator Obama?

It was Rev. Wright's appearances that reminded me about something else that's happening in this election. Suddenly, it's okay to be a Christian--if you're a Democrat--and the right kind of Christian, preferably black.

I don't recall ever seeing so many campaign speeches made in so many churches, namely Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton of the Democratic Party who have campaigned in church after church after church. Democrats keep a straight face and dare to talk any Christian about separation of church and state in our courts and in our schools? Their hypocrisy as they speak of state business behind pulpits is in direct conflict with the rest of what they say on Monday and is the biggest civic joke of the century which no one seems to get but me. Or I've missed the discussion.

Get me my epee, quick.

What's a dreary relativist to do?
There was very little subtlety as the Sunday am Dems spoke openly, resigned and wistfully of the immediacy of what's ahead because of what they've perceived as their party's odd locus--black man and white woman, religious folks and secular progressives, rich moguls and poor streets folk. How could god, if there is one, grace our beloved party with this embarrassment of riches? We want it both ways. We don't want to take a stand, to make a choice.

In the Democrats' world which values non competition, non judgment and complete separation of church and state, ideals they've grown up with their entire lives which is demonstrated by their own vague gray scale of life, their internal ambiguity and personal angst must be killing them as they are presented with these huge contrasts in real life. Watch how they choose. It will be dirty, desperate and ungodly as hell. Let me add here there ain't nothin democratic about any of it.

I hope there's enough Xanax to go around should things not work out--especially in Obama's favor. God knows I'm going to need it just to get through the fall out.

Or maybe I'll just go to church next Sunday and let those other nine viewers watch Matthews.

Thanks for the read.

Bill Clinton: The Old Lion puts Dems on notice

Former President Clinton was off his game back there for a while. It happens to in-between folks, as he calls himself, especially those who have had quad bypass surgeries. But that doesn't mean people go completely dumb or become someone else. Maybe he just wasn't motivated what with being on the sideline and all. Things were looking grim.

Today in PA though he seems re-energized. He's out there as the ex-President of the United States, Bill Clinton, who is out to get his wife what he promised her--a shot at the presidency.

Show me the votes
Watch the super delegates begin to lean toward Clinton after Hillary's Pennsylvania win. I think it will be a big win. Regardless, she won't quit. Things will go south for Obama and he won't last past May, June at the latest.

What Bill Clinton is doing right now is what I've been hoping for. Clinton, the powerful lion, yawning and cleaning his refined paws, has waited for the young and stupid, clumsy, falling-apart and inexperienced cub with too big feet, surrounded by a pride of minor lions to make his fatal mistake. Sure enough, Obama has come close. Oh so close. The next time he'll be mortally injurted when he slips again say, this time into something like a Russian bear's den. The Old Lion has seen plenty of lairs and dens, drank vodka with the head bear himself. He's laughing at Barack now. So am I, frankly.

Now that Bill can show that Obama's not ready for prime time, the Party's scared as hell. Not willing to give up the Party for anyone, the old pols like Kennedy, Dodd, all the Eastern libs, are going to swing back to Hillary, but not too obviously too fast. They don't want to be called racists, after all. Remember, this is about what looks right.

Then, they're going to get rid of Howard Dean, that idiot.

Meanwhile, the first black president, Bill Clinton is owed much more than just a pat on the back by that turncoat bunch of black bosses and self appointed reverends without churches. I predict even many of those chips will fall toward Hill long before the convention in Denver where it gets hotter than Hades that time of year. Hot and high.

By golly, I have to agree with the president on this one. Just who do these ingrates think they are? Why, by just moving his office to Harlem Bill managed to single handedly up their local economy by some $471 million. Bill and Hillary Clinton aren't about to forget what the national black community owes them and they shouldn't. Not by a long shot. Why, it's just good manners, if nothing else, to pay back what someone owes you.

The Obama people should have listened when Bill told them Obama wasn't ready. Even Gerry and Hillary gave Obama an out. He could have been veep and a contender for president. Now? Probably not. Not of America. He and Michelle have pissed off too many white people, but you've already heard about that from me in a tongue-in-cheek way in other posts.

It's such a cruel hoax. On that very basic issue, the amateurs running his campaign have made a stink over the fact that people want to know more about the man who will be running the world.

Psst. Kids. That's not a sleazy attack. As usual, newbies take things way too personally, another sign of their arrogance and inability to handle power. That is the precise reason I think Obama's over and now no one wants to face it and/or doesn't know how to handle it. With so much emotional investment, how are they going to report this?

I should feel sorry for Obama but I don't. I think his lack of sincerity and his hostile treatment of his grandmother was so out of line that I would rather ignore him. The black community was duped by this guy and that is something I can't forgive.

Another Lion in Winter
What's stunning is to watch the raw professional political power of Bill Clinton. His appearance on the campaign trail today was a big lay down for Hillary's win in Pennsylvania tomorrow. He's showing up now for himself and for the honor of his wife. Hard as it is for many to believe there is profound human dignity, love and grace in this dance.

It's the dignity of trying to regain and retain his dignity, I suppose; it supports the idea that hope (there's that word again) really does spring forth eternally. Such theater or displays have accompanied our world's politics for millennia. It's fascinating to witness these forces of nature who are willing to become the actors and dancers in our prosaic lives. The good ones and bad ones--I have to wonder what goes on in their psyches and hearts as they become the fulfillers of our destiny.

In the meantime, the rest of us are privy to a deeply personal moment for Bill and Hillary Clinton, like them or detest them. He has stepped up to rescue her honor after showing shocking neglect and dereliction to his loyal lioness mate. Historically, there is much more to this period in than a spoiled young woman from a forgettable place in California in a blue dress and beret. Neither you nor I will be around to editorialize on the margins.

Watch this story as it unfolds. It is perfect and heartbreakingly beautiful if you love politics as much as I do. Or drama or Shakespeare or...

Thanks for the read.

Prince Barack of Indonesia and Hawaii speaks of Small Town, PA

Senator Barack Obama made these statements at a fundraiser in San Francisco when describing those pesky xenophobes in Pennsylvania.

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Town and towns between miles!
I was eighteen when I saw what was to me a phenomenon as I drove in the western part of that beautiful state. In other states, like eastern Kansas for instance where I grew up, a person could ride for fifteen, heck, probably even thirty miles before you got to another town. For a place to have a berg after every turn or hill in the road was just too strange. Pennsylvania, with its old towns and different sounding people and many cultures was a lovely new experience for me.

Though I didn't realize it then, I had Pennsylvania DNA all over me. Darn near all my American family began there many years ago. As I went through some genealogical research later in my life, I discovered many names of other families in census records who also had parents born in Pennsylvania. Lots and lots of them.

If individuals desired to get to Ohio and Indiana they had only a few "civilized" choices in 1812, such as they were: one had to go through Pennsylvania and many Indians to get to four or five traces (roads) if you lived in the Southern Atlantic area of the colonies, you could take the routes up through the Cumberland Gap out of North Carolina and across the Ohio River into Kentucky. Neither choice was exactly a super highway with a Motel 6 keepin' the light on for ya. The way through to the Northwest Territory from the Atlantic Coast was PA. There warn't no toher choice. If ya git ma drift.

Back to those cultural and elitist misspeaks from Obama, my American family's story is not very special or very unusual...by a long shot. I suppose that is why I'm so put off by this latest "missed" analysis by Obama.

There actually are American groups (black and white) who have kin who lived in PA for a century or so before they were able to come West. That, or they made it big and stayed; and others immigrated into PA for the reason of moving on. Amazing as it is, Pennsylvania has somehow handled it. These are data Senator Obama should know before he spews sociological opinions about the place, comparing them to the midwest.

It's a big old place and yes, somehow the state has survived, with guns and religion, from all the stress that strange and different looking people and cultures and immigrants have brought over and over and over again. It embarrasses me to see a presidential candidate make such a gigantic error in knowledge about a major force in our American history. It's astounding to me.

It would behoove Mr. Obama to pick up a few Pennsylvania history books plus 49 or so others, and actually read them. I have a few here in my own library, if he'd like to borrow them. Or he could ask his younger researchers to do it, if they could disconnect themselves from a rap song long enough.

The Keystone State
Back to my trip my first exposure to the bucolic part of beautiful PA was when I met and fell in love with my Aunt Jane's and Uncle William's beautiful four-story stone home built in the 1700s outside of Centerville. I had vowed to myself that I was to be married in that house someday. I'll never forget that lovely place and the feeling of "being at home." It sat on a working farm, above a lea with small lake, a spring house as I recall and among rolling hills. Washington, Pennsylvania, the home of a pretty fierce labor guy isn't far away.

And in the lowest depths of that same lovely home are hidden the secrets of the most compassionate, remarkable courage of some Pennsylvanians who carried out the Godly tasks of righting a few of the wrongs in our nation: a stop on the famed Underground Railroad--doubtlessly fortified with guns and religion. I don't even know their names. I think their clinging to guns and religions might have been a good thing.

It's on the other side of Pennsylvania that my Quaker grandfather was born on the Delaware River in 1670 in Chester, now Philadelphia, the birthplace of our Constitution. The Society of Friends members were abolitionists, and some even died for those unpopular beliefs. I guess that would be the "religion" Obama refers to so flippantly as part in his little offhanded remarks he made to elicit money from his supporters while they drank bad wine (and didn't know it).

I have to mention, if only to demonstrate the breadth of Pennsylvania's people and culture in their small towns, the Irish Protestants in my family who came to this country after losing their own ancestral homes to the British. They probably didn't have guns to cling to so they escaped with their lives and came to America to get away from the British.

They settled in the Parsippany area where many of my kin still live. One, my great grandfather many generations ago, lost a leg at the Battle of Yorktown. I can't imagine people like them being caught up in the bitterness this Mr. Obama speaks about. They've been through these downturns quite frequently in the past few hundred years.

I'm pretty sure sons and daughters of the Revolutionary war don't get bitter. They just go on with their lives and figure out other ways to get through. Cling to guns? I don't know about that. Maybe on a cold morning and if the deer haven't shown up yet.

Cling to religion? Yes, for sure. Admittedly, faith does mean quite a bit to families there or they probably would've quickly converted to keep the ole Irish barn.

There are millions of Americans like me whose roots are in Pennsylvania and like me, are spread across this country, a fact that is not lost on Mrs. Clinton. Nor on Senator McCain.

Guns and religion
Someone needs to tell Senator Obama that the steel industry's closings and rearranging of the state's economy probably has little to do with whether Pennsylvanians continue hang a gun over their doorways or go to church. When deer and other wild game become extinct and when God really is dead, we'll talk.

These new Democrats clamor they want someone who's been around, who's been somewhere. Well, Barack's been somewhere. He's grew up on an island that is predominantly Muslim for four years with his Mom and then went to be a Dude when he was ten in private schools in surfin' Hawaii on Waikiki. That's being somewhere. Then he was airlifted into Chicago to learn how to be black. That's being somewhere.

But he hasn't been to the places I've mentioned evidently for any quality time or anywhere else that does not have a vast ocean around it. In other words put this man on a Greyhound with a ticket across America and he's lost. He looks at a group and sees a labor union or a voting block or calls Reverend Wright or one of the over-the-hill NAACP pals in his fave fives in Atlanta and yells for help.

Back at the center of the universe in San Francisco
I could see him in my mind's eye as he's holding a nice Cuban cigar in one hand, highball in the other (he's learned from the con artists in Atlanta to expect good bourbon straight from a Waterford glass to get respect from the white man), speaking to a ring of sycophants; explaining these Pennsylvanian "natives," that he and Michelle actually lived among some quite like them in a place called Chicago, observed their mating habits, gathered and kept their "scat."

Mr. Obama's friends and he don't realize that others are listening while they ridicule the real people who have built this country, the very ones who have made them extremely rich.

"Damned xenophobes. Guess we'll just have to eliminate their guns and religion when we get our power. Good grief, what's next? Rain dancing? How charming. I'll have to tell my wife when she returns from freeing the Tibetans."

They (princes) talk like that, you know--the kind we Americans ran away from centuries ago.

Of course, what Mr. Obama hasn't got the experience or brains to know yet is this: big money goes away as fast as it seems to come in when you have these kinds of slips. I don't think he has another one in him. I heard Mrs. Clinton just gave the go ahead on that order of pastel pantsuits from the biggest department store in Pittsburgh.

Thanks for the read.

McCain-Obama Ticket

I had an MLK-style dream, America.

There they were: Ebony, Ivory posed with Chief Justice Roberts--or was that Thurgood Marshall--behind the great dais at the swearing in at the inauguration.

Michelle insisted upon holding the Bible for John McCain--not a good start, but a start. I remember feeling impressed at Michelle's raw power for as she grasped tightly that Bible with one hand, she was very casually holding Cindy McCain in a half-Nelson with her free arm. Admittedly this is not a dignified change, but it is change nonetheless.

I didn't see Barack. But I know he was there somewhere. Wait, on second thought, that might have been Barack in Michelle's deadly hold, not the new First Lady as I had first thought. By now she had switched to a amazingly tougher grip which utilized her jaw muscles. That way she could discipline her children with just a look and make sure the car got washed. Don't ask me how this wonderwoman does it. Oprah's wondered that too.

Wait a minute. Neither Mrs. McCain nor Barack wear pantsuits and I distinctly remember a gold pantsuit! Could that be Mrs. Clinton in the grip of the new Second Lady?

Well, you can't believe what happened next. I'll just take you along with me on this ultra American democratic magic carpet ride.

An orange-blond floozy-looking kind of woman in a blue dress with a half empty quart of Jim Beam dangling from her plastic alligator carryall that had horseshoes on it and a hoary eyed, red nosed Bill Clinton with long flying hair looking ironically like John Brown tore down the stairs waving a long pointy finger in the air.

As he rushed past the seated dignitaries, including ancients like Bob Dole, George McGoven, all the Bushes, all the Kennedys, even Billy Graham and Jeremiah Wright he ranted "I did not have sex with that woman, Monica Lewinsky." I remember thinking in my dream that I wished I had a camera. It was almost ethereal. But then it was a dream.

When he and the floozy in blue reached the podium, Bill removed his cashmere jacket and handed it to the bewildered, fluttery floozy (she thought it was vicuna), rolled up his sleeves and acted as if he was about to do something he'd regret. Again.

He leaned back, aimed, then took a swipe at Michelle, missed. Then he swung at Thurgood Marshall--or was is John Roberts--missed. Michelle dropped Hillary, never one to pass up a good fight with someone her own size, and took her best Queensberry stance. Make my day, she seemed to say.

Why fight when you can run, Bill grabbed Hillary by her gold Cruilla collar, then took the floozy over his shoulder and carried them both up the stairs into oblivion. I do remember Mrs. Clinton yelling and screaming expletives and something like,"This was supposed to be my day, Bill, you idiot. Let me go! You want a see my blue dress? Who the hell are you? I'll show you a blue dress, Bill, you SOB! "

I love my dreams. Sometimes my dreams are the best entertainment I'll have all week.

This is what we're talkin' about!
It's so crazy it might just work. The McCain Obama ticket, I mean. I think Obama could grow into the job if he could be shown how real life works by a President McCain. He's not stupid, after all, and every man eventually reaches that point of no return no matter what his political affiliation.

Now if we could just pull him off that silly leftist agenda of his (or his supporters'). And that pesky preacher of his (or his supporters')...then there's that wife of his. You don't think they'd have Raul Castro or Hugo Chavez stay over in the Lincoln bedroom...or Jane Fonda!

Now, that's a nightmare.

Then I reread my own March 30Th entry about how Obama disgraced and betrayed his own grandmother to make his pals like him and I got over the "dream."

Nevermind.

(sigh)

Thanks for the read anyway.

Bill Clinton: public service has been very very good to me

Now the smartest people in the world are damned near the richest! Since 2006 the Clintons have amassed a huge fortune of $109 million. That's a lot of bucks for simply showing up or signing off on a few book proofs.

The night of one of the first debates I asked my husband, an ex-golden handcuffs man of fifteen years in major league publishing exactly what, in his professional opinion, would drive Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edward or anyone else to keep up this grueling campaign for president.

He never missed a lick.

"Every person on that stage knows they're each worth more than any one of them would've been otherwise. That's what this is all about for these people. Money."

My husband now rests his case. You notice I said he is an ex-newspaper man.

Thanks for the read.

Barack and Michelle get my Bronx cheer for propaganda video to the little people

http://my.barackobama.com/page/invite/yestheycan

Doesn't this insult anyone besides me? I am tired of civil rights sacrifices being thrown back in my face. Maybe I'll tell why some day; maybe I won't. I don't think I should have to.

Dumb is as dumb does: our public schools on display
If only the kids in Michelle's video could actually read, and uh...maybe spell, and uh, you know, like, uh write. I'm joking, as usual. Perhaps they can, but the chances are good they cannot.

But. Why are they in such distress? What is their problem exactly? They certainly don't look very hungry or frighteningly destitute. Who are they fighting and why? What oppressive government are they warring against? BTW, I didn't have a cool arts school to attend when I was in high school. Wow. Wish I had. Maybe my envy, God forbid, is the root of my frustration.

However, I still don't understand. What is it that we have done in this terrible, third world country of ours that requires that they suddenly give this blind and mournful allegiance to a socialist called Barack Obama, a little man who appears out of the Pacific Islands like a Bird of Paradise, who promises what? What does he promise that they do not already have access to? I do not get it. I guess I'm tired of "getting" it, after getting it for so long and for so many billions of dollars.

Back to the video, I expected these children to genuflect at any moment, which is typical of Democrats young and old (except the wrinkly, wizened pols who realized their salvation was lost years ago and now only cross themselves at cocktail hour every day, saving a little aged Kentucky bourbon to dob behind their ears). Their servile, deferential, sweet workers mentality is sickeningly ripe for exploitation. Michelle Obama should get the Leni Riefenstahl Award for best BS in a campaign.

The last line on this stupid pile of progaganda sounded like girl saying, "...and just think, I could possibly be a ambassador or something like that too."

What imbecilic teachers she must have had for not one of them to have told her that America has had many people of color in our diplomatic corps, and the top diplomat is not only a real, live African-American from Mississsippi, but a woman. Put that in your Uncle Tom pipe and smoke it. Condi Rice, regardless of what people think of her politics, is at least, authentic. Inconvenient, but authentic.

It's all show biz for the folks who want power. Style and show biz.

"This will get them," one remarks.

"You're right. The hope in their faces says it all," says another.

"Send it out under my name. I think it's safe to come back." Michelle instructs. She's feelin' it, especially since she's got the Heinz money with her.

Where are my aspirin?

Thanks for the read.