Joe Biden proves once again why he got fewer votes running for president than Palin got running for Governor of a state with a smaller population than the Santa Monica freeway on weekdays. He's a political moron. Why not just WRITE the GOPs fundraising letters for them while your at it, Joe?
Information, (almost all of it useless and driven by personality, not facts or intellect.) is so relentless in our culture that there ought to be a cultural Time Out space in America. If you are a "celebrity" taking part in the bread and circuses distraction gestalt as our nation begins its final decent into second rate status, you should be forced to take periodic time outs. During celebrity timeout you must live in Amish Country or El Centro, CA (your pick) for 1 year. No communication. No forcing yourself on to radio, TV, or youtube, no tweeting, facebook, or sex tapes that are "stolen", no inane career moves to grab a headline, no inflammatory remarks, no faux outrage.
Silence.
Also, certain topics are talked about so often and so shallowly that talking about them has become an avoidance method. Like the alcoholic who mistakes going to meetings for working a program...As long as we're yammering on about something we're making progress....right?
Wrong.
So my first nominees for a GO AWAY FOR ONE YEAR enforced 1 year timeout are:
The Race "Conversation". We ought to ban it outright for 1 year. I know...I know...free speech etc...it just a game, relax...A chunk of hucksters in this country are absolutely addicted to bringing up race. They are junkies and their drug of choice hurts us all. Let's ban referencing it at all for one year, forcing ourselves to frame social and news narratives through different lenses like say "class" or "personal responsibility". Try is right now. Think about the Crowley/Gates incident in terms of class, not race. What's it about then? Who is the hero(ine) if the entire story, from beginning to end, is reported through the lens of personal and civic responsibility? It won't change everything - but a year with no talk of race would move mountains. Brett Favre - Gaaaaaaaawd almighty, retire already. Why do so many of the greats insist on playing until we are forced to watch them breakdown in front of us?
The free credit report.com slackers - Does anyone question why these manboys have crappy credit? The money intended to pay back student loans was spent on enough pot and munchies to sustain entire months watching Internet porn and Adult Swim. Duh. The only reason their bad credit surprises them in those commercials is because everything surprises them...the sunrise surprises them...people going to work in the morning is a real shocker!
Joe Biden. His "year away" may need to start at Betty Ford...everything about his gaffes a few months ago screamed "Happy hour starts at 3pm at Number One Observatory Circle!" His exile may have already begun quietly. He's been mostly off stage since the beer summit...at which he drank nonalcoholic Buckler...hmmmm....berry interestin....
Nancy Grace. Entities that live on the blood of others are usually called vampires.
Now you: Who or what needs to go away from 12 months? You can add your own answer to the poll below.
Whatever truth there may be in Biden's ongoing blabbering - it begs the question - is the man out of control? Is there a method to his brand of madness or is he just mad?
Cheney was often dispatched to make the harsher points. But one knew he was playing bad cop to W's good cop - and that in the end the Bush Administration backed what Cheney said. It's a little hard to believe that Biden in speaking for Obama when he says Russian leaders are "clinging to something in the past that is not sustainable. " Nothing about Obama's performance in foreign affairs so far indicates he wants this type of remark made about Russia by the second in command.
In Biden's case Obama (on the economy) and now Clinton have had to walk back Biden's mouth recently. Biden is one inanity away from Quayle-hood. In politics the appearance of dysfunction is often as bad as dysfunction.
Tasking Biden with actual work as V.P. may have been a mistake. In the grand tradition of many V.P.s he needs to fade into the background.
Biden made one admission and one horrifying remark. First the admission. On Sunday he said that the administration had "misread" the depth of the recession a few months back. How one is to take Biden's remark depends on one's desire to either laugh or cry. Obama corrected him by reminding everyone that he was not POTUS when the shit hit the fan. Claiming that his people has "incomplete information" on the economy. Hmmm. Then why - one might reasonably ask - did 700 billion in borrowed/printed dollars get put in the pipeline with "incomplete information"? I'd like some Obama spinner to spin that one.
Biden also said the U.S. would not stand in the way of Israel if it attacked Iran's nuclear capability. BHO had to correct this too.Obama steps in to correct Biden on Israel
3 "clarifications" in 2 days. Is Obama losing control of his people?
The fiery Aries/Obama Moon is totally fiery and hot and inflamed today. It joins energetic Mars and the milky Milky Way to align our hyper love for Obama with our sugary feelings of being in his presence. By midday, you may find you've left the kids with the nanny and - suddenly - you're driving to a community you've never seen before and are spontaneously organizing it! Don't let the fact that the residents say they are quite happy and don't need you around stop your important work. Get in their faces! Stir up feelings of victimization! Remember planting the seeds of entitlement and resentment now helps grow the leaders of the future.
Tonight: Mercury, Venus, Pluto and Uranus form a "K" "Y" in the House of Astro and glide into a four way. Relax and go with it. You may wake up a bit sore - but also oddly satisfied.
From the Obot-O-Scope Mail bag
Dear Astrid,
After President Obama finishes being President for Life do you think he'll have a second career in Hollywood?
Very Yours Truly, Scarlett Johansson
Dear Scarlett,
Funny you should ask. Many of those closest to Obama are already spreading their wings in Tinsletown. Joe Biden has sold 2 screenplays this month: The Taking of Valium 123 and a remake of Francis the Talking Mule based on his personal diary.
The Hollywood rumor mill is also a titter with news that Barney Frank will sing and twirl the baton on this summer's America's Got Talent. All ready slimmed down enough to fit into his favorite Wonder Woman costume - a gift from the J. Edgar Hoover estate - expect to see Frank strutting his stuff on the Left coast during the August Congressional recess.
As for now our Barack will stick to being fabulous in D.C. Hollywood will have to get by with the lesser talents of people like Meryl Streep, Robert Duvall, and James Earl Jones.
Update: Below I take what any logical person would read as a dig at Chris Hedges. I was not clear. I have read Hedges here and there and he spoke at my church once and I attended. What I have read and heard from him I found edifying and thought provoking.
Hedges is morally consistent, unlike so many others on the Left.
My interjection of "gee. ya think?" was in response to my annoyance with the entire Lefty chattering class using a cut and paste from Hedges as back up. It reads as a direct dig at Hedges which is unfair. And it was sloppy of me and I apologize for it.
For morning reading I suggest two pieces:
1. Uppity's cross post with Pundita on what a pandemic really is (we have them all the time.) and some sober thoughts about this Fall - is a must. Biden's impolitic yelp may have been scary - it also may have been informed. Biden is so easy to punk that one can't be expected to resist. But his verbal ejaculations are sometimes worth deconstructing. That "we'll need your help when we are in trouble next fall" remark still haunts.
2. Cannonfire features a piece by Chris Hedges who is now consistently articulating - from the Left - how tricky and dangerous the Obama phenomenon is - and that he is, in fact, a Trojan Horse. (As you know, I prefer Brando's verdict in Apocalypse Now:...an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks....He is a finely appointed errand boy and the grocery clerks work for Goldman Sachs but you get my much repeated point...)
What does gall me about Hedges' work now is that he is saying what we, the dukes and duchesses of minor blogland, have been saying for well over a year. It grates on my nerves and ego to have a bigger player come in very late in the game and announce things like:
Obama, who has become a global celebrity, was molded easily into a brand. He had almost no experience, other than two years in the Senate, lacked any moral core and could be painted as all things to all people.
Gee. Ya think?
I wish I had a penny for every time I screamed those sentiments from this blog over the past year. I'd have about 600 pennies....
I suppose one must suck it up and be glad Truthdig has posted some TRUTH. I imagine The Nation will get on the "Newsflash! Obama is a fraud!" bandwagon soon enough. Followed - after he slips below 50% - by that shell company the NYTimes and then, with the the startled look of a goldfish who can't remember it's seen the fishbowl castle 2000 times before, CNN will reveal that Obama is actually really not very good at Presidenting beyond the showing off parts - or a particularly honest man. (The corruption being revealed in the Chrysler/Hedge Fund attack is quite remarkable...you can take the thugs out of Chicago but you can't take the thuggery out of the thugs.)
What is dangerous about Obama has not changed in the last 15 months. That being that he is everywhere and nowhere, all things and nothing- making him the perfect front man for ongoing looting. This is what has occurred so far - and, I will bet right now, his health care proposal will - when and if it is actually read - will benefit certain insurance companies enormously.
Obama is the outsider the elites brought in to do the job. In this way he is the perfect and logical extension of Bush. Effective blowback against him will be apparent in the media in direct proportion to the degree he goes against the wishes of those who brought him to the party.
Biden on The Today Show Thursday: I would tell members of my family-and I have - I wouldn't go anywhere in confined places now," Biden said on NBC's "Today" show.. "It's not that it's going to Mexico. It's (that) you're in a confined aircraft. When one person sneezes, it goes all the way through the aircraft.
Later in the day W.H. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told this whopper about the above comment: I think what the vice president meant to say...if you feel sick, if you are exhibiting flu-like symptoms-coughing, sneezing, runny nose-that you should take precautions, that you should limit your travel..."
This is, of course, not at all what Biden said.
Now, I wonder if a McCain W.H. press secretary would have been forced into such a bald lie on the 101st day about anything his V.P. might have said.
On an adjacent point I must say I don't trust any of these people regarding swine flu. The Australian Government is now calling on citizens to stockpile food and water for an impending pandemic...while also saying "don't panic". Admittedly these two instructions are not mutually exclusive. However, the mixed signals are becoming distressing.
Notes on my secular God: Apparently, an amazing Othello in currently running just barely off Broadway.Remember JSOM's motto (which I just made up) : a Shakespeare scene a day keeps the stupidity away. The opposite of the Summer of love: Summer of Rage in Ye ole London Towney?
Music: Springsteen recorded Bring 'Em Home in 2006. Springsteen endorsed Obama in 2008. Obama will be sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan in 2009.
Oops. Guess the Boss f*^ked up. (Actually, I've been tired of Bruce for a while now. He's been repeating himself since the 90s. The Seager Sessions are wonderful, but broke no new ground.)
I am out tonight- but there is a spring in my step after today. There is so much to look forward to. How much fun is in store for the next 1,460 odd days??? Pull up a chair. Grab the popcorn - awaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay we goooooooo!
Celebrate President B.O's historical day of history making! NBC asked L.R. to do a poll asking YOU!! yes YOU!! to choose a mid season replacement series in honor of our 44th Prez's special thingy on Tuesday. All are Obama Orien-tated!
The Michelle Tyler Moore Show The heartwarming tale of a sweet, innocent, Chicago attorney thrust into the limelight of Washington D.C. when her husband is selected President. Along the way she must deal with her overbearing mother, played posthumously by Esther Rolle (utilizing clips from Good Times), and the ghost of Jackie Kennedy who is perpetually attempting to give Michelle a White House tour at the most inopportune moments! Harvey Fierstein lends his voice talents to create a remarkable ghost Jackie!
Tyler Perry's "Obama is Magic Hour" The Prez takes time out every Friday to host a variety hour on the South Lawn! Initial guests include: Snoop Dogg, Snoopy the dog, Jay-Z, Laz- E, Hazy, Crazy, Mr. T, Ice T, and Ice T's son, Green.
Barney Frank, Superstar! A musical dramedy about a misunderstood gay congressman. Barney, played by Angela Lansbury in male drag, dreams of a better life for himself, his pastry chef husband, played by Jack Black, and their schnauzer, Noodles (voiced by Harvey Fierstein). Together, they get through the ups and downs of modern D.C. living with love, laughter and song!
Blair House Witch Project Each Wednesday, just after happy hour, 5 contestants are locked into Blair House with Joe Biden. The power is cut, and each must attempt to find the one escape route before Biden talks so much they go insane.
Ayres Like Me Aging hippies travel around America in a V.W. van bringing laughter, love, Obama's message of hope, and the occasional letter bomb to bitter small towns. Sponsored by the Humboldt County Chamber of Commerce.
American Idle Badly run companies and slothful over fed brats compete for Federal bailouts.
Keith Olbermann, Private Dick. Got a beef? Hire Keith! Keith O delivers personal "Special Comments" to wayward spouses, rude drivers, and loud neighbors! In Episode 1 Keith burst in on an adulterous husband as he makes love to his mistress screaming, "You, sir, Are a liar!" Bug eyed hilarity ensues.
L.R. has it on good authority that a number of the most committed Obama activists are reporting near death experiences. The phenomenon, while not widespread, has occurred in Chicago, Berkeley, and around David Geffen's pool in Malibu. Remarkably, all report the same visions while technically - albeit momentarily - dead.
Unlike the usual tunnel ending with a white light, the activists all report entering a small room decorated with Che posters. Inside the room David Axelrod and William Ayres cackle deviously while mocking an angry looking man clinging to a gun and a bible. At some point all report Axelrod saying "Welcome, please partake of some kool-aid." After sipping, a hall with 5 doors appears. The "dead" Obots are then lead down the hall. "Now you must choose where you will spend eternity." Ayres interjects "Don't look at me you capitialist pig!"
Behind each door is a tiny windowless cell containing one person. All report the same five people.
Behind door number one a bug eyed Keith Olbermann is screaming "I am the king! I am the king! I AM THE KING!" at a knee buckling decibel and without pause.
Behind door number 2, is an even tinier cell with Chris Matthews. He is naked and rubbing his flabby thighs. He invites the Obot in saying "Touch them. They tingle. Feel the tingle. Please touch me, Obama supporter."
A still smaller cell is behind the third door. In it Rev. Phleger is mock crying and saying to the Obot "Oh you entitled whitey you must atone by listening to me preach forever. Forever! Wah Wah Wah."
Inside the minuscule cellbehind the fourth door Randi Rhodes is hunched over microphone booming "Come in, you fucking whore.You are a whore!!! Ha Ha!"
Finally in the smallest windowless cell of all: Joe Biden just being himself.
Once all rooms have been visited Axelrod says simply "Choose your eternal life." In all cases the Obots begin to cry and yell out "I am sorry. So sorry. I was blind but now I see", running back down the hall.
After coming to, the Obots all report being changed people. All make a commitment to living rationally, to questioning all politicians no matter how much they like them. All come to terms with reality, committing to live in it. All promise to never call a women a cunt again. And all become kool aid teetotalers.
