Finally, MSNBC's grown ups take over: lose Olbermann

This is a win.

I got a huge response from my editorial of August 1, 2008 about MSNBC's terrible coverage. The increase was 500% in a period of one hour. I wonder sometimes if someone at the network read what I said and took it to heart: they're idolizing not analyzing.

Regardless, our collective criticism across the board made a difference.

Now that Tom Brokaw and some other veterans have stepped up to stand for their profession, the higher-ups are listening. The heads of the networks are evidently too scared, too entrenched (read my article) or not really news people--just entertainment executives.

Thanks for the read.

McCain's rope-a-dope pick of Governor Palin

John McCain picked a nobody--someone like us--to walk beside him to the White House.

Predictably the mean pundits are out in force to destroy Governor Palin and in so doing probably alienate the very people they are trying to win over, the undecided voters in the swing states.

Let's see how long Obama's surrogates will tug on these ropes.

Roping the dope
Did you know she only has a minor undergraduate degree from a small college in Idaho?

It's odd that the twit who made this ridiculous statement failed to mention Governor Palin's degree is in Journalism and she's a graduate of the University of Idaho.

Even before she's out of the gate the left media has attempted to turn her into a insignificant individual--kind of like the rest of us, who obviously doesn't know anything about anything, minimalizing the people who are also part of this country. The media can't even relate to a journalism degree, which seems odd considering their core profession.

Oh, and by the way, state universities provide educations for the "rest of us." This elitism is soooo tedious. and it's only a matter of time before people get a belly full of it.

Roping the dope
Did you know she was just a mayor of a small town in ahem Alaska? How could that be anything special; why would we elect someone whose resume is so thin?

Well, the facts are she's run a company, run a home, run a small (icky) town government, then threw out some bad guys in her own party as she rose the the Governor's office. Let's see, compared to Barack Obama's 143 days in the senate and his never having had to at least meet a payroll, it's quite amazing the Dems would even bring it up.

Obama's never so much as run a lemonade stand. He's seems like he's a mama's boy who has been taken care of his whole life by women like his grandmother, his mother, when she was around, Oprah, Michelle, women: the people he and his campaign have insulted for the last two years.

Obama is just another fatherless boy who's seeking to ameliorate his inadequacy about his own masculinity. Like Bill Clinton. Like so many dysfunctional men in the Democratic (and Republican) party who evidently are frightened by a woman like Sarah Palin.

Hey, Dems, in fact, do bring it on; let's discuss the actual accomplishments of the two candidates. Of course, Obama's lack of experience is fine for the presidency, but Governor Palin's, which consists of practical application and executive experience isn't enough for the vice presidency.

Roping the dope
She's appointed herself as the poster girl for the Right to Life. She is nothing more than a shill for the murderers of the extreme right who hate women.

Interesting that people would go after her in such a wantonly vindictive manner, as if her dedication to her family of five, including her Down's Syndrome child can somehow be construed someone's shill. That takes a lot of years and experience, if that's true. I suggest women who are so fearful of Governor Palin take a look at themselves and stop throwing the word "murderer" around. That can get a Pro Life person in trouble every time.

People watch this and see how crazy the Left is. It will backfire in swing states because it's insulting to a woman who is head and shoulders above those in dignity and in personal action. and is a powerful testament to her. The Left had better be careful as they try to demonize this good woman.

Roping the dope
She has no foreign policy knowledge; how can she be expected to step into the job without that?

Well, she does manage a state that is bordered by two countries. But that's probably not the foreign policy experience they're griping about.

My hunch is Governor Palin will take the podium and go toe to toe with Biden. At least she didn't lie about her "thin" resume and serially plagiarize large and copious "papers."

Biden, of course, will try to hurt her personally. That's just the kind of man he is.

Roping the dope
The Republicans chose her because they're pandering to the woman vote.

No kidding. I like being pandered to for a change!

Roping the dope
She has some baggage, I hear...something about corruption in her own administration...getting her brother in law fired?

The event has been vetted and vetted and vetted. I'm not worried about it, and I think the corruption within Alaska's politics are what people will talk about. Mavericks have enemies, especially big fat senators who build bridges.

Roping the dope
Well, then she's just another woman who doesn't deserve the job. She's like Hillary who thought she could skip up the ramp to the Oval Office by being the president's wife. She's just like most of those women who kick in young guys' balls and act like their mother. Yeah, just another woman getting a break who doesn't deserve it. How many middle aged women who have given their lives to a corporation have heard those very words from the Young Turks who push them aside.

It seems to me that the skipping the Dems are talking about also included some nifty side stepping from a little boy who wants to be president and won't wait till he's ready. The argument still plays. There is no comparison between the two situations and two candidates. Apples and oranges.

Roping the dope
She's a member of the NRA which is a front for (fill in the blank) ______ and Americans hate guns...

Except for the Americans who hunt with them and are proud to own them, who live in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Colorado and Alaska. They're also very concerned and cling to those guns and Bibles when progressive Dems come around, and still happily cling to the Second Amendment, just in case.

And finally, the best rope a dope yet
McCain's too old to be president...look at how the two of them look like Father and Daughter.

This is what I expected. Either sixty is the new forty, or it isn't. People can't have it both ways in their personal lives by trying to look hopelessly young and attractive and then personally insult the candidate who is older by calling him bumbling. Andrea Mitchell with her new mouth, the MSNBC preoccupation with youth, and their empty whining to each other, listening to a sportscaster, Keith Olbermann as if he has anything important to say. That's bumbling and incoherent.

Gosh, there are a lot of dopes out there who can't leave these ropes alone!

Senator McCain has picked a vice presidential candidate who's an awful lot like who we are or want to be. Governor Palin's story appeals to our sense of American character, grit, courage and know how. Senator McCain is appealing to Americans' better nature by selecting her. He must have a lot of faith in her.

She really is kind of like us--only better.

I'm guessing the old jet jockey saw a sortie that was risky but worth every ordnance he had on board. As it turned out, he fired and hit the target dead on. Let's see how far this choice goes in flushing out and exposing the facts from the rhetoric that stands for what Obama offers: that is, nothing, just words.

Good move, Senator McCain. You've roped these dopes into telling the truth about themselves and about their ideas. They can't hide anymore.

Thanks for the read.

Quit minimizing Obama's Elitist label, MSNBC. Then? You might get it.

For those of you who truly believe you're doing a bang up job there at what you do, don't read any farther. It'll just make you mad and I'd like to have you back some time.

Here's the problem as I see it
You're idolizing not analyzing. You're drowning in the wake of Obamania to the point that it is painful to watch you grasp for a life ring of reality. You're instead trying to grab onto something unreal.

Someone has to slap you out of it. Guess I'll give it a try.

Maybe you should think about your roles as journalists, not act like sycophants.

Think of your roles as public servants because as journalists that is what you are.

Think of your roles as truth tellers no matter where the truth leads you. Whether it is to the painful end or to the glorious heights, it is none of your concern because you are journalists, not results oriented individuals. It is by choice you have become journalists regardless of what it says on your business card, for most of you, anyway.

It is not in your best interest to decide how you feel about how anyone sees John McCain or Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton or andrea hall from your point of view.

It is only in the best of interest of this democracy that you take the full observatory and objective (interesting words) from their point of view and then tell this democracy's people about it.

That is not happening and it's killing us. You are telling us from your point of view everything that is occurring in the world.

Why are you doing this?
Why are you consciously avoiding that which you know in your hearts is at the center of The Fourth Estate?

Have some of you been taken up by the emotion, by a repressed anger, by a sense of powerlessness that will soon be unfurled and thus ameliorated? Have you lost all of your center?

Is it about money and the industry's golden handcuffs? Do some of you have more dang money than you've ever seen in your life and you just don't want it to stop? Or your spouses won't let you? You're compromised?

Are some of you scared of what your friends will think if you don't tow the company line? Or are some of you just too damned lazy to do the work?

Or are some of you in over your head because your really don't know what the hell you're talking about. I'm seeing lots of historical error and data screw ups. Sorry, guys. I'm too old to miss them. (By the way, I've seen you old guys let them go by the wayside uncorrected. Stop that. You owe the country the correction. Journalism is also about instruction.)

Maybe some of you "pros" need to dive under and come up alongside and tread water awhile. Catch your breath. You've been riding in that wake a long, long time now, and it gets pretty bouncy especially when Obama tacks; some of you are turning blue.

Some of you have forgotten your roots. And you feel kinda guilty every time you cash that huge paycheck because you come from people who are not college educated most likely. I say that because statistics tell me you do. You're from blue collar families, you're very self conscious about that. You act guilty about having money.

Some of you don't handle that well. You make fools of yourselves over it, in fact and it's time you got over it. You overcompensate or miss the point or do something to show that you aren't ready for prime time. So what!

You're just so star struck and in love. With yourselves, where you are, where you want to be someday. Most of that comes from not being used to being where you are. It's fun being rich and on TV, getting face time and it's probably pretty easy to get used to it. Gosh, a person could become, well, an elitist, especially if she/he married well and moved in the right circles or had the right job.

Most of that comes from not remembering who you are.

What do I want?
Real analysis. Not your hopes and dreams. Leave those with your pals at the bar after hours. Use your youth, brains and energy to get into the scene to hear what the candidates are really saying and the people are really saying then report it without your hopes and dreams.

Here's the type of question you could be asking yourselves instead of what you can do to get people to understand how to like Obama better:

Why Berlin?
What was the pull? Was it the past? Who's past? Obama's or America's? Don't glorify him based on the melodrama of someone's idology?

I'm still pressing for that answer. Without a psychological profile in addition to a complete personal investigation of the man's past we can guess why Obama would choose such an odd venue. I don't get it. What is the attachment? There's so much news to cover with Obama.

There are overtired, retired and tired working men and women who vote right here in America. There's another story.

What's going on with this huge shift in African-American demographics vis a vie post race politics? That's a huge story you at MSNBC are actually afraid to discuss, it seems, openly. Dismissing Jesse Jackson's remarks so quickly was a mistake, especially when you had children talking about it.

Better pay attention. It's a long way and time until November. Seriously.

Hardball?

Why don't you analyze not idolize?

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.

Tim Russert is my kinda guy. I loved him and I'll miss him.

He died on Father's Day weekend, the exact same time thirty years ago as my own dad's passing...Father's Day was never the same again.

Oh. Gee...I just realized that.

Nevermind. I'll write something more about my feelings about Tim tomorrow or the next day maybe.

I'll just mention Tim didn't have the same personality as my dad, but he did enjoy the same spirit. I can't write any more without crying. What a lovely man Tim was. A sweet, lovely man.

Later.

Thanks for the read.

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.