The Hagees, Hard Christian Right & Bad Boy Republicans are taking my party straight to hell. Then there's the spending.

This stinks.

Another Republican congressman, this time from New York, screws up with drugs and alcohol and gets picked up for a DUI. We'll probably find he has another wife and family somewhere.

In the meantime, the Republican Party pays for the privilege of counting the "Christian" vote again with the stupid Hagee and other questionable endorsements.

And the fiscal conservatives are rightly screaming about spending.

First of all, no one's ever heard of John Hagee and secondly, who cares? Hagee and now another Christian unknown has become the news of the day on Drudge and MSNBC and CNN that McCain supposedly is in a deep, right wing conspiracy with, something that could bring him problems. This is another exhausting example of how the lazy media tries tit for tat to ameliorate the devastating Jeremiah Wright connection to Barack Obama. The reports' object of course is to show how narrow minded the Republican Party is and we're all idiots.

Of course, the doctrine of these extreme right wing Christians plays right into the numbskull media's hands. If you have a minute, I'll try to explain it from a mainline Protestant's/Republican's point of view who comes from a Abolitionist Quaker, Methodist, Presbyterian, Disciple of Christ Church founders/builders/elders background. Maybe then my Roman Catholic and Jewish friends can understand why Republicans like me go crazy when things like Hagee happen to my party.

It depends on what the meaning of "it" is.
Hagee's extreme interpretation of the Book of Revelation and his equation of the Roman Catholic Church is with a certain frightening character in one of the chapters; however, he is in accordance with other born again Christians when it comes to "it." That is where the problem comes from when it comes to the rest of the human race and the Christian Right.

It. That one cannot enter the kingdom of heaven unless he goes through Christ.

Or as the folks on the panel last evening on MSNBC's Chris Matthews talking about it were doing so knowing full well what everyone really knows and don't want to flat say: the issue does point out a tendency toward this basic tenet in evangelical doctrine. It's a tough nut to crack. And evangelicals can't get around it.

It. Salvation through Christ. Period. The rest of the world are lost. No one wants to say it.

There are probably as many as a thousand groups with as many different beliefs. Hagee's tirade (using John's famous apocalyptic dreamscape scriptures in the Book of Revelation which he wrote while imprisoned on the Island of Patmos) describing Catholics is not representative of any one particular denomination in presentation. This view is not held in the body of mainstream evangelical thought from what I could see when I was belonged to an evangelical church for about six or so very, very long years. (I didn't pass the physical to go any further than a Sunday School teacher in their male hierarchy, not surprising to most readers.)

No, evangelicals, regardless of what they call themselves are equal opportunity believers that Christ told them that everyone who doesn't become saved through Him is lost, not just Roman Catholics. But most evangelicals regard Jews as their new best friends and don't talk about RCs above a whisper and certainly don't announce their ultimate damnation in Hagee's style. They talk around it in classes and in sermons but they don't spread it around. They tsk tsk about it privately. Evangelicals take the Great Commission very seriously, as they should, and go for the non churched, the unbeliever. They seem to be at the top of their list.

It.

Why'd I care? I just wanted to sing
I came from a strong, majorly strong Protestant background so I felt pretty secure in my salvation. I just couldn't accept IT. My ancestors were founders and builders of churches, so it was a sad thing for me to realize when in Southern California, in the back country I couldn't find my own comfortable denomination...where there are the fewest mainline churches, where there are mostly and nearly all nondenominational, community "Christ-centered"or "New Testament" ones, code for evangelical, code for no women allowed in leadership, code for sit down and shut up if your hair is longer than two inches.

Sometimes some of the churches were started up by lawyers, or businessmen or a couple who declared themselves visions. You never knew. It always was an interesting job to find a church home in California where most people stopped going to church once they came here, it felt like. One even had a box of Kleenex on the altar. I thought it was an interesting touch. There were two boxes come to think of it.

Well, I didn't have time anyway to get too involved in a church. I was single, had work and kids. I just wanted to sing in the choir. I closed my ears to the sermons and classes and knew better anyway. I didn't let it bother me until one day a man took me aside and said, "You know, Catholics don't stand a chance to get to Heaven."

Dang. I thought. There goes another perfectly good Sunday and another perfectly balanced Soprano section. They were going to miss me.

How can otherwise normal people turn into weird crazies on one day a week I'll never know. Of course, what I've discovered over the years that most people can't face is that they're being lied to. Lied to by a bunch of punks who have free money coming in the likes of which they've never seen in their lives! Wahoo! Wamu! Keep those lies goin and dollars keep comin in for the new building fund, namely the parson's 4000 square foot "parson-age."

Like my daddy says, "Follow the money, Sister. That's where the trouble always starts." Hard to swallow, but he was right. People do terrible things for money. They always have and always will. And it's taught me not to take God for granted and what I was doing was not for Him but for me and my own ego.

Hey, Newbies. There are other ways!
By the way, the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholics, the ones who have been around for two-thousand years or so and have somehow managed to spread the word of our Lord and believe the much same way, although evangelicals won't admit it--except that Protestants have women involved in leading, yes actual Head Ministers (EEEEEK!) and running churches just like we're actual people too.

RCs, believe it or don't, also have women running entire institutions and the men in them. Why do you think they call them Mothers Superior?

Ever met a woman Rabbi? They got them.

Evangelicals, bless their perfect hearts, refuse to acknowledge that Presbyterians, the Lutherans, the Christians, the Methodists, the Disciples of Christ and the rest of us have alter calls...they absolutely refuse. Every Sunday. It is part of the worship. Why? Most of them have never been in our churches. They say we're dead churches. Why? "They just don't feel it." Or they've heard something.

Also, they don't like it that some of our brotherhoods, like the Presbys believe that faith without works is dead. I'm not a Calvinist and I don't believe in predestination and that my salvation depends on it, but such ideas do get the Lord's jobs done. What's it to them? America's been built on such Calvinistic thought. They ought to get it straight. Either they believe in this Puritan, interest-bearing work ethic and live by it or they forgive all debts owed them and toss the whole theme out to live out their evangelical life style.

Seriously.

Besides, some mature Christians consider evangelical doctrine as Easy Christianity. Six Flags over Jesus, one of my best friends calls one the mega churches. Nothing hard...just show up, come as you are.

Do any of you people own suits and ties? Pantyhose? Heels? Just kidding.

Regardless of how these few people "feel," compared with the millions of martyrs over the centuries who have given for our Lord, our orphanages, schools and universities have been in operation for many years, maybe a bit longer than their stucco churches, their new ministries of mom's day out. Some have felt the need to love the Lord enough to work.

Yes, you cynical ones will point out the minuscule comparative numbers of abused children as if they're the norm. Go ahead. In that case, let's just stop all operations and let them all starve...a meretricious end to my article. I can't let that happen.

If indeed it hadn't been for those faithful "works" of the monks across the west during the dark ages, the knowledge of all of western civilization would have been lost. It ain't perfect, but it's the best we've got right now. Which is what I love to tell newcomers who've got all these grand ideas for how to better serve mankind...and there's nothing new under the sun, something else I learned from Mom and Dad.

There are the angry and cruel crusades that won back Jerusalem from the Muslims who took it in the first place. But then, we forget that part of the RCs, those dead Christians who gave everything. I wonder. Do you think they all went straight to Hell? Those who weren't born again the evangelical way? All those martyrs? Dead and gone for nothing. This would be an indictment for sure by a bunch of surfer dudes calling out centuries of serious Christian thought. Amazing if Paul Tillich isn't rolling in his grave. Guess some of us might never know.

I guess God just didn't think about the rest of creation until the likes of Billy Graham and Pat Robertson bumbled along. Two southern American white men who are so important that God waited to grant salvation to mankind until those two--southern--men could interpret the Word. Oh yes, and the late Jerry Falwell. What were these dead churches teaching before these young men came along?

Isn't it interesting? They're all, well, southern?

Evangelicals don't like the confession thing. I don't see a thing wrong with it myself. They think once you're saved, that's it. Well, I believe saved by grace is what's is happening, probably the best deal in town considering what's available. But confessing sure helps me to clean up once in a while.

Dang those purty education directors, anyway
However, I'm not about to get into a spitting match about saved by grace with an adulterous preacher. It's just real difficult for people to believe he doesn't have to work that one off. But he didn't. That's the good news. Other than losing his career and his family, he will not lose his salvation. Even a pastor on whom so many souls depend can screw up so badly and he is still forgiven if he asks sincerely for it.

Forgive? Christ forgives seven times seven times seven times... It wouldn't been so shocking had the pastor's wife not had arthritis. Life and people can be cruel, can they not? Confessing sometimes is the only alternative a person has. That's all there is left. Everyone knows. See what I mean about cleaning up? I hear the Ph.D pastor now sells encyclopedias, a hell on earth for learned man, and the beautiful choir director, also a Ph.D who had teen-aged children who witnessed this public disgrace is somewhere, probably not teaching too many high falutin places now maybe. Who knows?

Maybe enough time has gone by that they've paid their dues for hurting so many parisioners and family members. I've forgiven them, although it changed my view of everything evangelical and I'll never go back to an evangelical church as long as I live, nor will I trust another evangelical church again. Four experiences is enough.

Proposition
As as I said, Christ's forgiveness and salvation has always been an attraction, a proposition, and once accepted the best deal in town, as one can clearly see in this instance. I'm not being flippant, by the way. It is indeed the best deal in the universe. I've always said so.

We "others" too have just celebrated Pentecost Sunday. At least that's what I heard. We too are born again. But we don't roll on the floor. We don't raise our hands in the air. Neither did Martin Luther as far as I know, to whom you should send a thank you note. We don't all shout out Hallelujah. What do you care? Why do you take it so personally if we do not? It says more about you than about us. We don't run up to people and demand to know if they're saved. It's a matter of style, you know. We do it our way. Maybe this is my way. That's why we have denominations.

So enough of that. We've established we don't agree on style. What do you expect? We're WASPs and we like it that way. We're not going to change for you.

Okay. I give up. So...where did you put my party? I've looked everywhere for it.
We're sorry if that bothers you Hagees out there. We're real sorry if that doesn't fit the template of the southern male (there I go again, one would think I hated men--I don't, you know--I adore them) dominated church that somehow took over the right wing of our party back then in response to a bunch of California and New York hippies.

We put up with those very odd ideas of yours then. We hoped you'd grow past the regional dullness of your politics. You haven't. In fact your fear factor has spawned more ignorance. We weren't thinking. We should've known. That was a Nixon deal.

But now it's beginning to make a real difference in what's happening in our country. We may lose this election because of how your intolerance has finally affected everyone else who do not believe as you do. It has to stop.

And. We haven't started on your obscene treatment of gay people.

I wouldn't be so hard on the Christian Right if they weren't so hard on everyone else. I really hate coming down on everyone so much lately, but things are way off kilter this year.

Apples and figs
Although the media's preoccupation with comparing Hagee and McCain with the Wright-Obama connection is downright laughable for lots of reasons not the least is John McCain is not an evangelical, they'll use it. He's he's a mainstream Protestant like me. With Cyndi's money, he's probably Episcopal, a Catholic who flunked his Latin.

Secondly, he didn't sit through 20 year's worth of "GD the Roman Catholics" from Hagee like Obama did "GD America" with Wright.

Thirdly, Wright married, baptized and did the family pastoral thing for the Obamas. Hagee sent a CD to the McCain campaign and offered to lend a hand. The relationship started and probably stopped there. It's really a stupid argument...kinda of like the 100 year war thing. But here we are. Again, we don't get the benefit of the doubt from a media waiting to pounce. That's what happens when people say they're perfect in the first place like these folks do.

Enough already.

Now the media is telling people the Republican Party is being pushed around by folks who say they don't "hate" Roman Catholics but say they're going to a bad, bad place if they don't get born again their way. Moreover, those people are disrespectful of the RC religion because it really isn't a religion at all? I don't want people thinking that of the Republican party.

They're going to have a good summer because of the Kennedy events. Get ready for an emotional one. I know how media people play on events.

And now I'm thinking...
We got an old guy running for president who's looking at a southern governor for a running mate. How depressing. I don't know where to go or what to do. I feel like I'm in a time warp and it's the year 19__, fill in the blank.

Speaking of the Trinity, we'd better start praying for a miracle in this election. We've got a terrible perception problem with independents and they are our target voters this time. We have to have them to win.

Most of them don't care about IT or Hagee or me or emotions. They do care about congresspeople getting DUIs on the public's dime. The closest thing they want to get to an afterlife is for everyone to leave them the hell alone and for their elected officials to do their jobs.

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.

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.

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.