Lemon Pledge

"Across America, the people see a government in Washington that isn't listening, doesn't get it and doesn't care."

John Boehner
Introducing the GOP's "Pledge" to America

Yesterday's "contract" is today's "pledge". It's the same old bullshit with a different dessert topping. By now these ridiculous Republican photo-ops have become as predictable as they are unintentionally comical. There they were in their shirtsleeves - ties strategically removed, the women wearing casual slacks - all in a pathetic attempt to come off like real hard-workin' folks. They even staged the event in a Hardware store! They must really think that the American people are awfully stupid to fall for something as obvious as this. The very fact that so many people did swallow this nonsense without so much as a chaser proves that perhaps these politicians are onto something.

And of course, just like their silly "Contract with America" sixteen years ago, the voters will more-than-likely hand the congressional majority back to these corrupt dingbats on Election Day. And when the 112th Congress is sworn in this January, their so-called "pledge" (just like the contract of yore) will be rendered merely as dust in the wind.

The "pledge" to America is loaded with scads of nifty things that are sure to thrill the half-witted Tea Party types out there: doing away with even more of the government; the continuation of the Bush tax cuts; "rightsizing" the federal work force by means of a freeze on hiring; more outsourcing - all sorts of neat stuff! In spite of the fact that the federal workforce is now smaller than it was in 1967 (when we had one-hundred million fewer people living in the United States) it's still not small enough for these jackasses.

The fact that nearly every economist of note has stated that their policies with regard to taxation will cost this country several trillion dollars over the next four years was conveniently ignored. The simple and nasty truth of the matter is that under their plan - their "pledge" - the tax burden will fall on the shoulders of the middle class. And that class of people who already have more money than they know what to do with? They'll be sittin' pretty, baby!

"And again, I say unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God."

Jesus of Nazareth
from the Gospel according to Matthew, 9:24

Gee, I really hate to do this. I know how uncomfortable it makes these nitwits to have the teachings of the Prince of Peace thrown in their faces. Were Jesus Christ to return to the earth today, it's a pretty safe bet that He would be more-than-a-little confused at the hypocrisy of the party that claims to hold his teachings in such high regard. I often wonder if any of them have even read the New Testament much less comprehend it. Their stated policies are a mockery to the messiah they pretend to revere.

"And now abideth, faith, hope, charity, these three, but the greatest of those is charity."

Jesus of Nazareth (Same guy!)
1 Corinthians, 13:13

"There's gonna be a lot of dues, Jim!"

Lenny Bruce

The weirdest (and funniest) aspect of their nutty "pledge" is their proposal that every law passed in the next session of congress should have a provision that proves that the law-in-question is not "unconstitutional." It's bad enough that these people are within months of taking back the legislative branch of our government. Apparently they're planning to hijack the judicial branch as well.

An insightful writer named Susan Milligan pointed out something I hadn't even thought of: If they are that intent of interpreting the Constitution - word for word - as it was put forth by the founders of this nation over two-hundred and twenty years ago, that implies that we're going to have to do away with the Air Force. As she points out, "The Constitution only provides for the creation of an Army and Navy." Also, when that document was ratified in 1789 slavery was legal in many states. More-than-a-few of it's creators were slave owners. Does this sad historical reality justify a debate over the constitutionality of slavery in 2010?

I know what you're thinking and I agree wholeheartedly: It doesn't get any stupider than this. It just doesn't.

The Republican "pledge" to America is just another right wing scam, loaded with lots of bells and whistles and pretty colored lights. Their only constituency is the plutocracy they've been acting as water-carriers for since the administration of Ulysses S Grant almost a century-and-a-half ago. Their only goal is to continue the charade for at least another two years come January. Are the American people going to be naive enough to go down this self-destructive road yet again? Barring a national intellectual earthquake the answer is, sadly, yes.

I hate to sound like a mouthpiece for the Democrats. As I've said many times before, I gave up my registration in that gutless party almost thirteen-years-ago and never - not for a fleeting moment - have I regretted it. With very few exceptions they are, in their present incarnation at least, utterly void of real political courage and insight. They are an insult to the memory of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Jack Kennedy. But I also know this: They're a damned sight better than the alternative - and that's pretty sad.

Tom Degan
Goshen NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

AFTERTHOUGHT:

This is totally - shamefully - off topic, but I feel bad ending this piece on such a down note. Here is a link to view the greatest, funniest television commercial ever produced. It stars the late Ann Miller and was written and directed by the great Stan Freberg. Make way for the Great American Soup:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jU2pl7bqKg

It's a scream!

SUGGESTED READING:

The Republican party's "Pledge" to America

That's pretty funny, too.

For more recent postings on this site, please go here:

"The Rant" by Tom Degan

Hideous, commie propaganda. Enjoy!

The Base's Hissy Fit

Americans are undergoing another case of the mass amnesia for which they're justifiably famous. I suppose "amnesia" it too kind a term. So distracted are they by their technological toys and reality TV shows, they can't be bothered to pay attention to the things that matter. That aloof and unknowable segment of the American electorate that describe themselves as "moderate" are telling pollster after amused pollster that they are unhappy with the way the Democrats have responded to the economic catastrophe that was visited upon this country two years ago. Their solution? Putting the people who are responsible for that catastrophe back in power. I'm not making this up.

Then there is the core of the Democratic vote, the so-called "base". Like the half-witted six-year-old who didn't receive the toy he wanted for Christmas, they're in the process of having a blue-faced tantrum. Because they didn't get all of that nice hope and change stuff that Barack Obama promised them two years ago, they're just going to stay home and sulk on Election Day.

Now, let's all just take a deep breath, shall we?

I am in a unique position. I now make my name by writing about the train-wreck that American politics has become in the last thirty years. As a consequence, the lower my country sinks into the depths of societal dysfunction, the higher my stock rises. If you are a frustrated Democratic voter whose plan is to neglect your civic responsibilities on Tuesday, November 2, I have but one message for you: Don't do it for me.

I get the feeling (call it a silly hunch on my part) that the American people don't fully appreciate the implications behind the prospect of the GOP taking back the House and the Senate in January. I know what you're thinking and I agree. The Democrats are beyond worthless. Let's face some serious facts here: Any party with a pathetic and befuddled old Andy Gump like Harry Reid as their leader is going to have - "issues" shall we say? But the thing that has to be remembered about our elected Democratic representatives in Washington is the fact that - for the most part - their hearts are in the right place. The same cannot be said for the Republicans. They long ago ceased being a political party. They are now an organized criminal enterprise. If that sounds to you like the extreme ramblings of an embittered Lefty, that's fine. But I am convinced that within a decade, 20/20 historical hindsight will prove me correct. Call me in ten years and we'll compare notes.

How many times do I have to say this? They are no longer the party of Abraham Lincoln. They haven't been for nearly a century - 1912 to be exact. That was the year that Theodore Roosevelt arrived at the Republican Convention in Chicago expecting to be nominated as the candidate to face Woodrow Wilson in the general election in the fall. It wasn't a pipe dream on TR's part. After all, he had easily defeated the incumbent president William Howard Taft in the primaries. He had every reason to believe that he would be the GOP's standard bearer that year. Unfortunately, the people who controlled that party had other ideas. They knew damned well that Teddy's progressive policies were a direct threat to the stranglehold that the plutocracy had on the American economy. The nomination went to Taft. That was the end. The progressive wing of the grand old party died right then and there. Twenty years later when Roosevelt's distant cousin Franklin picked up the tarnished progressive banner, he would do so as a Democrat.

I've always wondered what old Ted would think of his party were he to rise from the dead. It doesn't take much insight to conclude that he would be furious that the "malefactors of great wealth" are now calling the shots. I am not implying that he would register today as a Democrat. Knowing as much about TR as I do (and I know a lot) my guess is that he would form a third party, like he did in 1912 when he formed the Progressive or - as it was popularly known - the "Bull Moose" party. It's a fairly safe call that he would be disgusted with the entire American political system.

The question needs to be asked of the voters: Why are you people hellbent on putting these assholes back in power? What the hell is wrong with you? Why can't you understand that you're about to commit economic suicide? Can't you see that the failures of Barack Obama are mostly (although not exclusively) the result of Republican obstructionism? As when Clinton was president, their primary goal is to see to it that he (READ: you and I) fail - utterly and completely. If these people are allowed to take power again, it means one thing: We're screwed. Just look at their history. What part of that don't you get? HELLO???

And to the base: What good will staying home on Election Day do? Is it your intent that the economy be sent even further into the hole just so you can make a stupid and worthless point? What possible sense does that make? I know! I know! Barack Obama has not turned out to be the liberal firebrand that we were all praying for when he was elected two years ago. The guy has been positively tepid in too many areas to count. I guess it was foolish - and maybe even racist - to assume that because he is black he would be a reliable progressive.

But we should not dismiss him as a total failure! He has quite a few accomplishments under his belt that he (and you) can look on with pride. By staying home on Election Day you are virtually guaranteeing that the extreme right wing will seize the moment in January, and that nothing will be accomplished to your benefit between then and 2013. They are already saying out in the open that they plan on doing to him what they did to Bill Clinton: They plan on persecuting him by opening up endless investigations and issuing countless subpoenas. As they did twelve years ago, they will paralyze the executive branch of our government. I don't think we can afford to go through that again, can we? By staying home on Election Day you are also assuring that Obama will be a one-term president. Is that what you want? Think about it.

Take John Boehner - please. Do you really want this reactionary little nincompoop serving as speaker of the house next year, setting the agenda? He is now trying to get us to swallow the idea that they are going to do things differently next time around. Are we going to be stupid enough to take him at his word? His party is now holding the legislative process hostage because they insist on continuing tax breaks for a class of people who already have more money than they know what to do with. Do you think for a minute that their position on that issue is going to change once they reclaim power? If you do, I have a stove made out of balsa wood that I'd just love to sell you. Any takers?

Ask yourself the following question:

"Do I really want a disgusting piece of shit like Mitch McConnell serving as senate majority leader?"

I don't claim to have all the answers, but I do know this: Apathy ain't the way to go. Trust me on this one, kids. Stop pouting and get moving. There is too much at stake. If you refuse to participate in the democratic process this year - of all years - you'll deserve everything that happens to you.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

Here is a link to ACTUALLY hear the ACTUAL voice of the ACTUAL Theodore Roosevelt during the long ago campaign of 1912. They sure don't make Republicans like that anymore. Come to think about it, they don't make Democrats like that anymore either:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hv-VNTtUYZo

We sure could use him now.

Attack of the Dingbats

Lately I have been suffering from a severe case of writer's block. And an unusual case it is. It's not that I am at a loss what to write about - au contraire! My problem is the fact that there's just so much material out there I literally don't know where to begin. Don'cha just hate when that happens? I sure do.

The disintegration of the United States of America is a dreadful, horrible thing to contemplate - but it sure is a lot of fun to watch. It really is! So much comedy. C-SPAN long ago replaced Comedy Central as the funniest place on the tube. I laugh at the morning papers and television news almost as much as I used to laugh at Lenny Bruce, Charlie Chaplin and the Marx Brothers. Hooray for Captain Spaulding.
DEJA VU

A year ago - almost to the day - the right wing scream machine was having a positive hissy fit over the fact that Barack Obama was scheduled to deliver a traditional presidential address to America's school children. So what the hell was the big deal? This was a ritual that had been performed by every president going all-the-way back to Herbert Hoover! As I wrote on this site on September 7, 2009:

"So just sit back and relax, folks. Barack Obama is only performing a routine presidential duty that has been performed by presidents for generations. There is nothing to be afraid of. He is not trying to turn your babies into mini Marxists. This isn't the Trotsky for Toddlers program. The president of the United States merely wants to have a heart-to-heart talk with the children of America about the importance of a good education....Chill out!"

Indeed, when the day was over there was not a single report of any kid feeling compelled to sing the Internationale. None of them were chanting, "Workers of the world unite!" I honestly believed at the time that the controversy had subsided and that would be the end of it. What was I thinking? When the president repeated this harmless little ritual yesterday morning, the right wing had their annual national freak out. Go figure.
WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH NEWT?

Newt Gingrich wants to be president of the United States. Could it happen? Of course it can. You refuse to believe it? Three words:

GEORGE WALKER BUSH.Lately old Newt has been sounding even more twisted than usual - and with damned good reason. You see, in order to appeal to "the base" of the Republican party, a candidate needs to say a lot of really idiotic things - and Newt is delivering the goods. In recent days he has been making really weird statements about the president and his "Kenyan" philosophies. What does it all mean? Who the hell knows. I suspect he'll be saying more and more stupid things as the months transpire. That is the only way to get the GOP nod these days. In order for him to have any hope of getting nominated in 2012, it is essential that he moves even further to the right of Sarah Palin. He's got an uphill battle, for sure. That's pretty far right.

JAMMIN' WITH THE BECKSTER

Glenn Beck: The louse that roared. Does the FCC have any rules about incitement to violence? If they don't they really should. That's exactly what Beck was doing the other day on his nationally syndicated radio program when he made the claim that America can expect violence in the very-near future from American Liberals - and that the president of the United States will be the instigator!

Damn! You're onto us, Glenn. On December 24, 2010 - Christmas Eve to be precise - we Progressives are planning a violent, nationwide, revolutionary uprising. And we have you in our sites, Glenn. We're gonna git'cha...

[Cue the jingle bells]

'Twas the night before Christmas and all 'round the place
Them Liberals was planin' to attack us with mace
The children were nestled, all snug in their beds
While visions of Rand Paul stomped on their heads

And Mama with her Demerol, and I with my booze
Had just settled down for a long winter's snooze
When out on the rooftop there rose such a ruckus
I sprang from my bead to see
"WHAT THE FUCK IS GOIN' ON UP THERE???"

A whole gang of Liberals, all armed to the teeth
Were doing rude things to our poor Christmas wreath
They spoke not a word but were vile, and we shook
As they ripped up our copy of Ms. Palin's book

They poured gas on the kiddies and set them aflame
And to our pet gerbil they did just the same
And I heard them exclaim as they drove out of sitey
"Happy Kringle to all - AND GO SCREW YOURSELF, WHITEY!"

Beware, Glenn. There's gonna be hell to pay, Buster. We're gonna kill your sons and force your daughters to marry communist Negroes. This is going to get ugly, Glenn. Really, really ugly. You can run but you can't hide, pardner. The trillion dollar shit hammer is about to hit the fan - and it's got your name on it. Oh yeah. You will bow to Islam. Be afraid, Glenn. Be very afraid. We will bury you. But seriously, folks....

TEA PARTYING

Well now! The Tea Party had one heck of a night, didn't they? No doubt about it, the rascals ran away with the show. I am of two minds about this:

On the one hand, I think it's just grand that so many of them will be on the ballot in November. They're only going to drag the "party of Lincoln" even further into the gutter. Don't deceive yourselves into believing that they will be on the peripherals of the Republican party. These assholes are now running the show. When the RNC embraced these people last year it was the political equivalent of french kissing a rattle snake. This can only mean glad tidings for the Democrats.

On the other hand, the idea of Tea Partiers getting the nomination in such "enlightened" states as New York and Delaware is an ominous thing to be sure. I have to believe (hope) that this revolution of knuckleheads is going to backfire on the grand old party in the end; that Election Day will prove to be the biggest upset since Harry Truman defeated Thomas Dewey in 1948. If the people who are responsible for most of our economic woes are put back in charge in January, it will prove only one thing: the jaw dropping stupidity of the American people. There will be no other explanation for it. None.

For a political junkie such as I, these are heady times in which to live. Just when you think things couldn't possibly get any stranger, these halfwits cheerfully prove you wrong. Yesterday, all across America, comparatively moderate Republicans were given the boot. That party has been overtaken by an extremism too warped to adequately describe. The crazies have taken over the crazy house. The pimps are no longer running the whore house. The whores are now calling the shots. The wag is now tailing the dog. It's all too weird - and wonderful.
"Don't ever underestimate the power of we the people."

-Christine O'Donnell
Tea Party winner in the Delaware senate primary

Nice quote! I have one that's even better than that:

"No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people."

-H.L. Mencken

That's more like it.
Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

SUGGESTED READING:
The Three Roosevelts
by James MacGregor Burns and Susan DunnA real page-turning study of the political and personal evolutions of Theodore, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.

Rewriting History

"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice....Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."

Barry Goldwater
Acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention
San Fransisco, summer 1964

What a difference forty-six years makes, huh? Back in 1964 Goldwater's campaign slogan was, "In your heart you know he's right". The Democrats has a snappy comeback for that one: "In your guts you know he's nuts." During that long ago campaign against Lyndon Johnson, he had actually proposed the idea of introducing low-level nuclear weapons into the Vietnam conflict. He had even identified himself as a staunch opponent of LBJ's proposed civil rights bill. So extreme did Goldwater appear to most Americans all those decades ago, the very thought of him serving so-much-as-a-single-day as commander-in-chief was enough to give every thinking person the dry heaves.

To quote the Monkees: "That was then, this is now."

Truth be told, Goldwater - when compared to his present day, ideological heirs - is starting to look pretty good in hindsight. 1964 was the year that the kooks and fools began to take hold of the "party of Lincoln". He had to take a lot of positions during that campaign that he privately abhorred - his militant stance against equal rights for African Americans being one of them. As his post-campaign career would prove, he turned out to be a fairly decent senator in a lot of respects. He would end his life as a strong proponent of equal rights for gay people and Native Americans. Were Barry Goldwater to run as a Republican in 2010, he couldn't get nominated as Toilet Cleaner for Yuma County Arizona.

As conservative as old Barry undoubtedly was, at the end of his life he was disgusted and alarmed at the direction his party appeared to be headed. At the time of his death on May 29, 1998, he was collaborating with John Dean on a book that decried the state of the modern-day GOP. Dean eventually completed the book a few years ago. It was called, "Conservatives Without Conscience". Maybe it's a blessing that Goldwater did not live to see Sarah Palin.

One of the newest (and most amusing) GOP talking points is that - way back when - it was the Democrats who were the enemies of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and that it never would have been passed without the Republicans. This is partially true. It was the southern Democrats who were rabidly opposed to basic human rights for people of color that is guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. But what is undeniable is the fact that the right wing spin doctors have been engaging recently in a cynical bit of revisionist history. Let me begin my explanation by posing two basic questions:

QUESTION NUMBER ONE: "Were" the Republicans at least partially responsible for the success of LBJ's Civil Rights Act in 1964?

ANSWER: Absolutely they were

QUESTION NUMBER TWO: "Are" the Republicans entitled to take credit for that fact in 2010?

ANSWER: Absolutely not.

You see, a half-century ago the Republican party was virtually nonexistent south of the Mason Dixon line. Oh, sure, there were a few people in that region of the country who identified themselves as Republicans, but the majority of them were black - and not allowed to vote! In the former Confederacy, white people were almost exclusively registered with the Democratic party. Why, you ask? Because none of these jackasses could bring themselves to register with the party of Republican Abraham Lincoln, "that nigger-lovin' bastard that freed the slaves." Let's face it, a grudge is a grudge - even a century after the fact. That all changed in the mid-nineteen-sixties.

When President Johnson signed into being the Civil rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, it marked the end of the "solid south" for the Democratic party. At the time, Johnson told his two aides Jack Valenti and Bill Moyers, "We've lost the south for a generation." It turned out to be an optimistic prediction.

THE SOUTHERN STRATEGY

In 1968, the Nixon campaign, sensing the outrage and resentment of nearly all white southern Democrats, devised a strategy to win over the hearts and minds of the nitwits who controlled that party in Dixie. Exploiting the riots that had occurred in cities all across America in the aftermath of the murder of Martin Luther King, Tricky Dick ran a campaign that emphasized, "Law and Order". He didn't actually come out and say, "I'm going to protect you good people from those nasty, filthy Negroes!" He didn't have to. All the Trickster needed to do was rely on code words. It worked. When he was reelected in 1972, the descendants of the old confederacy had already fled - like frightened rats - to the Republican party, which, by the way, was no longer the party of Abraham Lincoln, but the party of Richard Milhaus Nixon.

Southern trees bear a strange fruit

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees

-Billie Holiday

Now they are trying to get us to swallow the fantasy that the mass exodus of Dixiecrats to the GOP forty years ago had absolutely nothing to do with race. It was all about economics, they tell us. Bullshit. It had everything to do with race. I was born very early in the morning, but it wasn't this morning.

What happened, quite simply, was a fusion of the economic plutocrats in the Republican north, with the racial bigots in the Democratic south. Had it not been for Nixon's southern strategy in 1968, that coalition would never have come into existence. Had it not been for the south's reaction to the civil rights movement, this country never would have elected a feeble-minded old reactionary like Ronald Reagan thirty years ago this November. Indeed, Reagan would launch his campaign from the town of Philadelphia, Mississippi, an unremarkable tiny stain on the map whose only claim to fame prior to 1980 was the brutal murder there of three civil rights workers in the summer of 1964....

....and shame on us if we ever forget their names:

Andrew Goodman
aged twenty

James Cheney
aged twenty-one

Michael Schwerner
aged twenty-four

In 1980 Ronald Reagan had a message for the sons and daughters of Dixie who still flew the Confederate flag on their front lawns (and probably still do): "Jim Crow's gonna be given the red carpet treatment in my White House". And for the most part, that was the case. The slow-but-steady gains that black people in America had seen since that afternoon in December of 1955 - when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus to a white man, thus launching the civil rights revolution - began to falter when Reagan entered the White House in January of 1981. In Dixieland he took his stand....

The very idea of the modern-day Republican party staking a claim in the successes of the civil rights movement of the fifties and sixties is (and I'm being charitable here) disingenuous at best. (Come to think about it, I'm not feeling all that charitable this morning): It's a goddammed lie. (Much better).

So let's all take a deep breath, shall we? These silly Republicans (in their present incarnation anyway) are about as much responsible for the gains of the civil rights era as I am for the invention of Cheese Doodles. Get a grip.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

SUGGESTED READING:

Conservatives Without Conscience
by John Dean

Goldwater
by Barry Goldwater and Jack Casserly

SUGGESTED LISTENING:

Strange Fruit
by Billie Holiday

For more recent postings on this site, please go to the link below:

"The Rant" by Tom Degan

Progressive political commentary and satire from an amused American.

Let's Hear It For George!

"It sure makes things easier when you reject your own campaign rhetoric about how the surge — the Petraeus plan — shouldn't happen and wouldn't work....And it makes it easier to talk about fulfilling a campaign promise to wind down our operations in Iraq when the previous administration signs the security agreement with Iraq to end our overall presence there."

Mitch McConnell
Quoted in POLITICO

Seriously; is there a bigger asshole in the senate than Mitch McConnell? If someone can come up with a more worthy candidate for the title than poor, pathetic old Mitch, please let me know. So, he wants Obama to give credit to George W. Bush for the surge of troops into Iraq in the waning days of that disgusting administration? This is just too funny for words. Bush commits the worst military blunder in American history by invading the sovereign nation of Iraq by way of falsified evidence; nearly forty-five-hundred American servicemen and women are killed - not to mention as many as a million Iraqi men, women and little children - and now we're all expected to be grateful to the half-witted little bastard. I couldn't make this stuff up in fiction.

This reminds me of the neighborhood bully who gets busted trashing the local convenience store after closing time. As part of his sentence he is ordered by a judge to clean up the mess he has made of the place. One could hardly blame the store's owner for being "grateful" to the thug for the nice job he's done putting everything back in order. But the current scenario is a bit different. Iraq is not "back in order". "Major combat operations" are not over. Far from it. The war in Iraq is not over - any more than the war in Viet Nam was over in 1973. It actually ended two years later.

The sad fact of the matter is that, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, the is not the end of our problems in Iraq; nor is it the beginning of the end. Maybe - if we're damned lucky - this just might be the end of the beginning, but that is wishful thinking on my part.

The Republicans are attempting to rewrite history. There is now a conscious effort being made on their part to recast George W. Bush as a great president. Can you believe that? That is what's behind for this recent "George as supreme warrior" spin that is coming out of the RNC. That is why they are trying desperately to portray the catastrophic "Operation Iraqi Freedom" as a great success. Georgie Boy's latest image makeover also is connected to their efforts to keep the Bush tax cuts for the obscenely wealthy in place. Will their latest propaganda blitz be successful? Yeah, it probably will. Given the gut-wrenching stupidity of the American people it's almost a foregone conclusion.

Does that sound a bit harsh? Consider the following: Every recent poll shows that the overwhelming majority of the electorate do not want to go back to the self-destructive economic policies of the Bush era. And yet those same polls show that the most of the voters every intention of voting for the very same party responsible for those atrocious policies. I rest my case.

Some are now predicting that the Democrats will lose forty-seven seats in the House this Election Day. When that happens the Republicans will have the power of the subpoena. Do you have any idea what that means? I'll refresh your memory: After years and years of digging through Bill Clinton's trash, the only thing they were able to puke up was the fact that he lied about having an affair with a half-witted intern. That was all they needed to bring his presidency to a standstill. They are already talking about crippling this administration through endless investigations. Fasten your seat belts, boys and girls. This ought to get interesting. If the American people are foolish enough to go back down this road, they'll deserve everything that happens to them.

In recent days the Democrats' TV ads are beginning to show an aggressiveness they have not demonstrated in my lifetime. Good for them, Unfortunately it may prove to be too little too late.

So let's hear it for Dubya, for he's a jolly good fellow! Don'cha miss him, folks? We may not be able to get him back, but we can easily bring back the policies he represented. I am confident that a whole hell of a lot of you will vote Republican on Election Day next! Why? Because you're good, decent, patriotic Americans!

I need a drink.

Tom Degan
tomdegan@frontiernet.net

SUGGESTED VIEWING:

UNCOVERED: The War in Iraq
A film by Robert Greenwald

SUGGESTED READING:

Remembering America
by Richard Goodwin