The Senile Old Bobblehead
To say that this has been one hell of an interesting week would be an understatement. Witnessing the depths to which the right wing will sink to win the upcoming election are, all at once, amusing, disturbing, funny, tragic - and mind-numbingly ridiculous. They obviously won't be able to appeal to the finest instincts in the soul the average American voter; they can't make their case based upon the logic of their arguments (What logic?) They're going to have to go into the gutter - It's their only hope! The only way they will be able to win the White House on Election Day will be by scaring the wits out of the people. All they have to do is keep emphasizing the imagined ramifications of electing the first African American in history - A DAMNED NEE-GROW, FER CHRISSAKES! - as president of the United States of America. Well, Ah do declare! Oh, Mammy, pass me mah smellin' salts!
Their task is not going to be as tough as you think it might be. The fact that Barack Obama is neck and neck with John McCain doesn't speak well with respect to the overall character of the American people. What other explanation can it be other than Senator Obama's race? McCain is a doddering old fool! Half of the time he doesn't even seem to know where the hell he is. Just yesterday, when asked by a reporter how many houses he owned, McCain told him that he would have to check with his staff (The official guess-timate is anywhere from seven to eleven) - and this is the guy who incredibly is trying to portray Barack Obama as an elitist, for the love of Mike!
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Don't let the pundits fool you. The national trepidation toward Senator Obama has not a thing to do with his perceived lack of "experience". He has just as much - if not more - experience than some of the greatest presidents in America history (Washington, Lincoln, both Roosevelts, Wilson and Eisenhower come readily to mind). It has nothing to do with his "youth". This is where a remedial knowledge of American history comes in quite handy. Barack Obama turned forty-seven years old on August 4. Should he take the oath of office on January 20, he will be older than four previous presidents on the days they were inaugurated (Ulysses S Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, Jack Kennedy and Bill Clinton). In his first four years in office, he will be the same age (and a bit older) than James K. Polk, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce and James Garfield were at various stages during their first terms. So let us air out the smoke screen and deal with reality as honestly and as bluntly as is possible:
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The only reason Barack Obama is not destroying John McCain in the polls because he is a black man. Case closed.
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Consider this: Not since 1864, when the Democrats nominated the inept and reactionary civil war general George McClellan to run against President Lincoln has a major political party put forth a dud like Senator McCain to serve as their standard bearer. Not since the Dems gave the nod to JFK almost half a century ago has there been a candidate as extraordinary as Senator Obama. And yet, today anyway, some polls actually have McCain in the lead.
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Question: What's wrong with this picture?
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As of this writing, America's world-wide reputation is lower than it has ever been in its history. What we have here is the opportunity of a lifetime to right some extremely nasty wrongs. Just think about it for a minute. How are we going to look if we reject a thoughtful, articulate, intelligent and vigorous young man of ideas like Barack Obama over a man (on the verge of dementia in case you haven't noticed) who has said - more times than can even be counted - that he has every intention of continuing the disastrous, reckless military and economic policies of George W. Bush? Policies that have crippled the infrastructure of a country that used to be a perfectly lovely place in which to live! And now it seems that we are more than happy to continue down this same, self destructive path. If that happens, we're gonna look like country packed to the rafters with assholes and masochists, don'cha think???
.
And then there's the fact of McCain's reputation for being....I'll put this as delicately as possible....a man of combustible temperament. In an article that was published earlier this week on military.com, Phillip Butler wrote a devastating piece on the Senator from Arizona. Unlike the so-called "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" propaganda campaign against John Kerry in 2004, Butler actually served with John McCain. Not only did the two of them graduate from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1958, they were both prisoners of war together at the infamous Hanoi Hilton from 1967 until 1973. After debunking many of the lies about McCain's service - most of which are being perpetuated by McCain himself (the myth that he was tortured for the entire time he was held as a POW, for instance) - Butler wrote the following:
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"I can verify that John has an infamous reputation for being a hot head. He has a quick and explosive temper that many have experienced first hand. Folks, quite honestly that is not the finger I want next to that red button....In short, I think Senator John Sidney McCain, III is a good man, but not someone I will vote for in the upcoming election to be our President of the United States."
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Phillip Butler's opinion is not one to be taken lightly. It is safe to assume that he knows even more about the inner workings of John McCain's psyche than Cindy, having spent all those years incarcerated with him in a North Vietnamese prison. John McCain's explosive temper, his penchant for hurling obscenities and threats of physical violence at his colleagues in the senate is legendary. This is not the kind of guy you want walking the slender tightrope of international diplomacy. Trust me.
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Some of the pundits are saying that it is Senator Obama's lack of military experience that concerns them. How could this possibly be so? Franklin D. Roosevelt had no military experience. Nor did Woodrow Wilson, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams or Ronald Reagan. True, Reagan wore the uniform of his country during World War II, but he spent the duration of that conflict making Army training films on the Hal Roach lot in Hollywood. That is where Laurel and Hardy and Little Rascals worked. Just try and picture that scene in your mind: Stan and Ollie, Ronnie and Buckwheat - fighting, side by side, for the American Way. Someone pass me my hanky.
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While it is a fact that Abraham Lincoln did volunteer for the Black Hawk War in 1832, he spent most of his brief enlistment, as he later jokingly reflected, "battling mosquitoes". Yes, the man who saved America from disintegration as Commander of the Union Army during the Civil War, never saw a single day of combat. He was our greatest president. Any arguments? Thank you.
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The lessons of history teach us that military experience is not a prerequisite to being an able and effective chief-executive. Indeed, the examples of Wilson and FDR, two Democrats who presided over the two great wars of the twentieth century, are borne out by that fact.
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Senator Obama lacks military experience, they tell us? He's in pretty good company. And since when is having been in combat essential for the presidential resume? With the exception of George Washington, and a few others, most of the Founding Fathers were non-veterans. Of the forty-two men who served as president between 1789 and 2008, eighteen of them never served in the military. Of the ones that did, less than half of them ever saw combat. Please note: that list would include the man who went AWOL from the Alabama National Guard in 1972, the current president, George Walker Bush - or, as I like to call him: G.I. Joke.
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What we desperately need at this point in time is a leader who has not been brainwashed by decades of Washington's mentality - I'm referring to the town, not the president. (Which reminds me, knowing the personal character of President Washington, can you even imagine what his reaction would be were he to come back and see the current, deplorable state of the city which bears his name? I shutter to think!) Maybe the time has come for a president who tends to think "outside of the box"; a new kind of leader with new ideas. To whom would you ascribe the personification of that description: John McCain or Barack Obama? You see my point, don't you? I just knew you would! I really did!
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The only reason Barack Obama is not destroying John McCain in the polls because he is a black man. Case closed.
.
Consider this: Not since 1864, when the Democrats nominated the inept and reactionary civil war general George McClellan to run against President Lincoln has a major political party put forth a dud like Senator McCain to serve as their standard bearer. Not since the Dems gave the nod to JFK almost half a century ago has there been a candidate as extraordinary as Senator Obama. And yet, today anyway, some polls actually have McCain in the lead.
.
Question: What's wrong with this picture?
.
As of this writing, America's world-wide reputation is lower than it has ever been in its history. What we have here is the opportunity of a lifetime to right some extremely nasty wrongs. Just think about it for a minute. How are we going to look if we reject a thoughtful, articulate, intelligent and vigorous young man of ideas like Barack Obama over a man (on the verge of dementia in case you haven't noticed) who has said - more times than can even be counted - that he has every intention of continuing the disastrous, reckless military and economic policies of George W. Bush? Policies that have crippled the infrastructure of a country that used to be a perfectly lovely place in which to live! And now it seems that we are more than happy to continue down this same, self destructive path. If that happens, we're gonna look like country packed to the rafters with assholes and masochists, don'cha think???
.
And then there's the fact of McCain's reputation for being....I'll put this as delicately as possible....a man of combustible temperament. In an article that was published earlier this week on military.com, Phillip Butler wrote a devastating piece on the Senator from Arizona. Unlike the so-called "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" propaganda campaign against John Kerry in 2004, Butler actually served with John McCain. Not only did the two of them graduate from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1958, they were both prisoners of war together at the infamous Hanoi Hilton from 1967 until 1973. After debunking many of the lies about McCain's service - most of which are being perpetuated by McCain himself (the myth that he was tortured for the entire time he was held as a POW, for instance) - Butler wrote the following:
.
"I can verify that John has an infamous reputation for being a hot head. He has a quick and explosive temper that many have experienced first hand. Folks, quite honestly that is not the finger I want next to that red button....In short, I think Senator John Sidney McCain, III is a good man, but not someone I will vote for in the upcoming election to be our President of the United States."
.
Phillip Butler's opinion is not one to be taken lightly. It is safe to assume that he knows even more about the inner workings of John McCain's psyche than Cindy, having spent all those years incarcerated with him in a North Vietnamese prison. John McCain's explosive temper, his penchant for hurling obscenities and threats of physical violence at his colleagues in the senate is legendary. This is not the kind of guy you want walking the slender tightrope of international diplomacy. Trust me.
.
Some of the pundits are saying that it is Senator Obama's lack of military experience that concerns them. How could this possibly be so? Franklin D. Roosevelt had no military experience. Nor did Woodrow Wilson, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams or Ronald Reagan. True, Reagan wore the uniform of his country during World War II, but he spent the duration of that conflict making Army training films on the Hal Roach lot in Hollywood. That is where Laurel and Hardy and Little Rascals worked. Just try and picture that scene in your mind: Stan and Ollie, Ronnie and Buckwheat - fighting, side by side, for the American Way. Someone pass me my hanky.
.
While it is a fact that Abraham Lincoln did volunteer for the Black Hawk War in 1832, he spent most of his brief enlistment, as he later jokingly reflected, "battling mosquitoes". Yes, the man who saved America from disintegration as Commander of the Union Army during the Civil War, never saw a single day of combat. He was our greatest president. Any arguments? Thank you.
.
The lessons of history teach us that military experience is not a prerequisite to being an able and effective chief-executive. Indeed, the examples of Wilson and FDR, two Democrats who presided over the two great wars of the twentieth century, are borne out by that fact.
.
Senator Obama lacks military experience, they tell us? He's in pretty good company. And since when is having been in combat essential for the presidential resume? With the exception of George Washington, and a few others, most of the Founding Fathers were non-veterans. Of the forty-two men who served as president between 1789 and 2008, eighteen of them never served in the military. Of the ones that did, less than half of them ever saw combat. Please note: that list would include the man who went AWOL from the Alabama National Guard in 1972, the current president, George Walker Bush - or, as I like to call him: G.I. Joke.
.
What we desperately need at this point in time is a leader who has not been brainwashed by decades of Washington's mentality - I'm referring to the town, not the president. (Which reminds me, knowing the personal character of President Washington, can you even imagine what his reaction would be were he to come back and see the current, deplorable state of the city which bears his name? I shutter to think!) Maybe the time has come for a president who tends to think "outside of the box"; a new kind of leader with new ideas. To whom would you ascribe the personification of that description: John McCain or Barack Obama? You see my point, don't you? I just knew you would! I really did!
`
Honestly, this election should be the biggest, electoral no-brainer in three quarters of a century! One of sad things about this day and age is that, for every hour that ticks by, there are fewer and fewer people left who remember the Great Depression. People who were mere infants when the stock market crashed in October of 1929 are dying off at an overwhelming rate. That is the reason the New Deal lasted as long as it did. In 1981, the year Reagan took office and began the systematic destruction of the legacy of FDR, there were still a few people alive who were grown adults in 1929 and remembered how hard life was back then. The generations of Americans born after the end of the second world war didn't bother to learn the history of their once-great nation. Had they done so, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in today. It is as simple and as stupid as that
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As in that time, the American economy had been looted and ransacked for decades by its plutocracy. In the election of 1932, the American voter had the good sense to change course. I'm not too sure about the voter of 2008. If current trends continue, Weeda Peeple will only compound the hideous mistake of sending George W. Bush to the White House twice by giving the disgusting little thug a third term under the misleading title, "The McCain Administration". Call it mindless speculation on my part, but me thinks that we've been down that road before and don't really want to go there again, do we? I didn't think so.
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Pray for peace.
`
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As in that time, the American economy had been looted and ransacked for decades by its plutocracy. In the election of 1932, the American voter had the good sense to change course. I'm not too sure about the voter of 2008. If current trends continue, Weeda Peeple will only compound the hideous mistake of sending George W. Bush to the White House twice by giving the disgusting little thug a third term under the misleading title, "The McCain Administration". Call it mindless speculation on my part, but me thinks that we've been down that road before and don't really want to go there again, do we? I didn't think so.
.
Pray for peace.
`
Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net
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SUGGESTED READING:
The Glorious Burden
by Stephan Lorant
.
AFTERTHOUGHT:
When you have a chance, take a look at Mike Weber's new blog, COMMONSENSE. As my Uncle Jerry Degan would say, "Not too shabby!" Here's a link:
.`
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net
.
SUGGESTED READING:
The Glorious Burden
by Stephan Lorant
.
AFTERTHOUGHT:
When you have a chance, take a look at Mike Weber's new blog, COMMONSENSE. As my Uncle Jerry Degan would say, "Not too shabby!" Here's a link:
.`
posted by Tom Degan @ 8:26 AM
9 comments
9 Comments:
Great Rant. I just happened upon your comment about Karl, "the jackal" Rove at opinionla and thought I'd check out your blog. I'd like to invite you to check out my blog at http://apoliticalcommentary.blogspot.com and give me some feed back. I am new and could use some advice. I've gotten hits but few comments.
Shut up you damn kike.
We are coming for you, and we will take this country back from people like you who have destroyed America.
Oh, my goodness! You're a perfect example of why I love the right wing so much - you people are just sooo irresistibly dumb! I'm sure gonna to miss you when you're gone!
Thank you so much for that comment. That really is a keeper, that's for "damned" sure!
Love and Peace,
Tom Degan
AKA: "Tommy the Kike"
Tom, I have to agree: The only reason Barack Obama isn't blistering the ass of John McCain is due to concealed, but also many times overt, racism in America.
The United States is a country full of racists and rednecks, obviously not mutually exclusive groups, who are following the dictates of the rightwing propaganda machine. The rightwing powerbrokers certainly know which levers to pull, and which bottoms to push. They play on the ignorance, and the unjustified fears, of the vast majority of Americans.
As you've made it quite clear in a recent reply you made on AlterNet recently, as long as they can keep the margin razor-thin, it's easy to implement an election-stealing scheme to put their man in the White House.
Best of luck, and peace to you and your family. Oh, and by the way, don't let the "expulsions" of the world get you down. These are the very people of whom I speak. They're moronic beyond belief, and have no qualms about playing with matches and loaded guns. Unfortunately, it's not always just to the detriment of themselves, but to society at-large. I suppose evolution sometimes works in unexplained and mysterious ways.
Expulsion,
Listen, Fuckstick, I might not agree with everything that Tom has to say, but when you talk about "Coming for somebody" why don't you come for me!
The best you can do is stick your mealy mouthed head up here and blow shit into the wind! HOW FUCKING DARE YOU!!!!
So! You're going to "take this country back from those who destroyed it" Well! That sounds like a worthy goal!
So tell me who you think that is? The Democratic President who actually PAID OFF THE DEBT THAT THE REPUBLICANS JUST TALKED ABOUT, or the brain-dead asshole that put it back to RECORD levels by handing idiots like you Card Blanche!
And what the fuck is this "Kike" bullshit! Having nothing else to debate with, you turn to racist/religious intolerant language to give yourself some relevance! Oh numb nuts! You do yourself a great cruelty! The very relevance you seek is undone by your own words!
Now go wash your Klan robes! And while they're drying you can masturbate with your photos of Hitler! This is for grown-ups! Take your juvenile drivel to somebody who actually gives a fuck!
And if you want to come for me, the address is:
Stoney Browning
64 Charlis Hill Way
Saluda, North Carolina
And when you "come for me", please write your name and address on a clean piece of paper, and wrap it in plastic wrap so your next of kin can be notified! I don't play games, and I don't take prisoners!
Sorry for the violent talk, Tom, but when these ass-wipes stick their heads up, it's best to swat them down QUICK!
He sure shows a lot of balls don't he? Popping up, selling wolf tickets with an unregistered screen name! Gimme a fucking break!
I spoke with my, er, sister (she must have been slingshotted away from the family political tree) last night. She adamantly refuses to vote for THAT OBAMA GUY because he is for partial birth abortion in the third trimester. Oh, yes, the wing-nut World Youth Day faction of the Catholic Church is doing is best to spread THE big lie that Obama is pro-abortion.
Is there anything more ignorant to proclaim anyone pro-death, unless it is someone who starts a war with a pre-emptive strike? She is a single issue voter, like so many of the ignorant masses; latch onto a topic in a particular region or for a particular target market and you can sell bullshit still warm from the bull.
I told her to read his website as well as McCain's and Ron Paul's, when she told me she was voting independent. Hopeless.
Pray for peace? What did the European Resistance to the world-view of Hitler pray for in 1936? We are the New Resistance and we have much more to pray for than peace.
Pray for peace and pray you will make it through the next 4 years under John McCain; I think that this one was over when Billary declared war on the man who "doesn't have the white vote."
As for the deification of Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, dumb--dumb--dumb. This is a woman who though NOTHING about demonizing OBAMA for his alleged misogyny towards her Hillary and yet, didn't stand up one bit for a man of color when her Hillary became racist white trailer-trash to earn the "working-class white vote."
SPARE THE SANCTIMONY.
When McCain invades Georgia, and remember, Regean said he was NOT going into Nicaragua, that little lie lead to the first criminals to goose-step through the Oval Office, Tubbs-Jones can look upon the mess she has wrought by NOT declaring, AND LOUDLY FROM EVERY SOAPBOX AFFORDED HER that with the primaries over, OBAMA WAS THE MAN TO PUT IN THE WHITE HOUSE; VOTE OBAMA.
No. She kept quiet in the public forum but still backed her girl, even if it meant killing the country.
Whatever her vantage point on election day, she will, as Alternet stated, "stand by her candidate," and no doubt those who hoped for a better tomorrow for America be left out in the cold.
Ya know, Tom, I suspect this election will be ugly and violent and there will be a temptation to escalate. I for one am a stick in your eye kind of guy when things get nasty on the other side.
But I've not seen the level of outright anger Bobby ran.
I have an Obama sicker on the back window of my SUV and have been shouted at, fingered and cut of while driving in the Albuquerque area where I live.
My wife, also with an Obama sticker on her SUV has been getting the same treatment.
Sorta makes you think that those angry people don't discriminate, at least as far as gender is concerned.
By the way, Tom, is "kike"a new word of Roman Catholic?
jano
Nice to see someone stand up and say the race card was played the minute a black man said, I am running for president. I think it speaks well of America that an upstart uppity black man could nock off the Clinton machine, and is even at this point in time. In the end I do not believe race will be much of a factor, most of the hard core racists would not have voted for Clinton either. The real problem for Obama is the save a baby and kill a Muslim crowd. I am still betting Obama will get 64% of popular vote. The feeling that there is something, bad wrong with America is pretty strong. There will be a lot of people who try and look at issues, the economy – My parents lived check to check and I live check to check, even in the good times I could not by Nike shoes for my kids. Terrorists – I have a better chance of getting killed by a drunk driver than a terrorist. Homos – I do not even know a homosexual. Abortions – no one in my family has them. The feeling that there is something wrong, is not only greater than the sum of the parts, it is gigantic. The world just does not add up. Hell, what do I have to lose, I will punch up Obama. “and the Holy Spirit entered into their hearts, that they would turn their land over to the beast”. I am betting the Holy Spirit is going back to work, then again I am just a mystic.
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