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See How They Run

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I am a mouse with social anxiety disorder, for which I take Xanax. I come out from under the Nittany Turkey’s family room sofa to watch TV when he’s not looking, and the only thing that’s been on that TV of late has been the Democratic National Convention. I’ll share my opinions with you.

First of all, at the beginning of the evening there was a truly unique and moving moment in U.S. history in which the first African-American (a real one, in this case) was nominated by acclamation by his party, a party with some serious racist schisms in its past. (Well, it’s true. That’s why MLK Sr. and MLK Jr. were Republicans.) I remember a similar moment in 1984 when Geraldine Ferraro became the first woman nominated for the office of Vice President. We’re making progress, albeit slowly. Unfortunately, this is the wrong guy for the job, but I digress. Back to the happenings of the evening.

There were quite a few speakers I didn’t bother watching, among them the pompous and forgettable John Kerry. ????? ??????? ?????? ????? This Mouse would rather see an alley cat with hunger pangs than that haughty schmuck. He had his moment, he failed, and now let’s be done with him, already. He should be accorded the same polite dismissal that was given to Jimmy Carter. Why do the Democrats feel compelled to feature losers like Kerry? You’d think they would have better ideas about which side their bread was buttered on.

The feature event of the evening, of course, was former president William Jefferson Clinton’s address. Now there is a guy who can speak! ????? ??? ??????? ?????? Say what you will about his character or whatever the hell you airheads always resort to when you can’t think of anything better to nail him with, he could sell ice to Eskimos. He can mock sincerity better than anyone. And lie? That guy can lie so well he can convince himself what he’s saying is true. He came out to the tune of “Don’t Stop Thinking about Tomorrow”, which was his campaign theme song in 1992 and 1996. This time, it wasn’t sung by Fleetwood Mac, the original band that recorded the song. It sounded like it was sung by those backup singers on American Idol. You know, like the Supremes without Diana. Whatever.

Moving right along, Clinton covered the usual pedestrian Democrat subjects, but covered them convincingly and moved his audience. Starting with a five minute standing ovation, he finally hushed the crowd and spoke for a full 20 minutes, double the time allotted to him.

The topic of the night was to have been national security, and Clinton was tasked with conforming to the theme. He ignored those instructions and delivered a typical Slick Willie campaign speech. It was more about his accomplishments than about Obama’s, though. Why? Obama has not accomplished anything. Furthermore, when a Clinton speaks, it is always about the Clintons. However, Clinton was effective in calling for party unity instead of PUMA (Party Unity, My Ass!), a final whine by the dissed Hillary faction. He praised Hillary and promised her 18 million votes to Obama. Whether those votes will actually be delivered is anyone’s guess.

Of course, there was a significant amount of McCain bashing, with the usual distortions and exaggerations about the dire straits the Republican administration has brought us. Interestingly, Clinton mentioned that the Republicans had the White House and the Congress in 2001, which was the start of all this badness, but he didn’t mention that the Democrat controlled Congress elected in 2006 has done next to nothing at all. ????? ????? ?????? (Still, I think the combination of a Democrat controlled congress and a Democrat in the White House can only mean that oppressive socialism is right around the corner.) He implicated McCain in all of Bush’s failures, and the failures of congress. It all went over very well with the bunch on the floor.

In all, Clinton’s speech was a rebel rouser, if you’ll excuse the expression, and it is sure to give Obama a bounce in the polls. It might even bring in some of the 18 million Hillary votes. His endorsement, however, doesn’t mean a thing. He only wants to set the stage for another Hillary run at the White House. Nevertheless, his speech will surely work to Obama’s benefit, and it will probably help the Clintons pay their campaign debts, if you know what I mean. That’s this Mouse’s opinion.

Funny thing. I watch these conventions and see the euphoria they create, which distorts people’s ideas about what’s right, what’s wrong, and who is going to win all this stuff. I saw it with the really ridiculous Kerry euphoria in 2004. How could anyone really get excited about Kerry-Edwards? Yet people were all ga-ga after the convention. Problem is, only those of the appropriate mindset who actually watch the convention proceedings feel that way. The voters, quite appropriately, tend to want to reel in many of these euphoric wacko expectations when November rolls around.

Next up on the podium was Joseph Biden, who did his duty to the ticket. Again, as anyone who has observed the senator from Delaware over the years would have expected, Biden was a blow-hard. A lot of the speech was concerned with his experience and accomplishments. Why? Because Obama has no track record and Biden likes to talk about himself. Where Biden was “useful” was in the traditional vice presidential nominee role as attack dog. Only thing is, Biden was not convincing in his excoriation of John McCain, particularly because he contradicted his own heartfelt words about McCain by suddenly questioning McCain’s character. I think the Dems are really worried and have amped up the rhetoric from merely berating the current administration’s policies and predicting more of the same with McCain. Now, they have begun to attack McCain’s judgment. I suppose it is a smokescreen when their own candidate has no track record and no qualifications. However, I am convinced that Biden was being a good attack dog and personally knows better about McCain. He certainly chose not to mention that he and Obama were both wrong, while McCain was right about the surge in Iraq. Of course not. He knows better. So, Biden did not pull off the job of explaining how an Obama-Biden ticket will enhance national security, which, after all, was the theme of the evening.

Biden’s other job was to convince the electorate that the Obama-Biden ticket will have the experience and knowledge to run foreign policy for this country. I think that Biden brought this off for those who chose to listen. However, rarely does a vice president run anything, foreign policy included. So, Biden talking about all his Senate Foreign Relations Committee experiences didn’t move me.

At the end of Biden’s speech, his wife, Jill, came up on stage and told him she had a surprise for him. Of course, the surprise was Obama walking out on stage to great adulation by the lemmings on the floor. Children and grandchildren flooded the podium, and Obama spoke.

Before I get to his well rehearsed speech, it is interesting to note that the two men who stood at center stage, the Democratic ticket for 2008, consist of two senators Barack Obama and Joe Biden, with the the #1 and #3 most liberal voting records in 2007, respectively. By contrast, Hillary Clinton ranked #16 that same year. (Teddy Kennedy, ranked #2, appeared on Monday night.)

Obama’s brief speech gave a clue that the Dems were suddenly concerned about public perception of the planned spectacle at Invesco Field, which, careful to sanitize any reference to corporate America, he referred to as Mile High Stadium, its former generic name. He sounded defensive in explaining that the reason he decide to throw the big to-do at Invesco was because he essentially wanted all the people who ever worked toward his election to be able to participate. The people. My people.

In what? In a self-directed coronation? The Greek columns, the elevated rising stage, and the general hype suggest it. Has any presidential candidate since John Kennedy felt the need for such a massive production? It seems to this Mouse like overkill, like Obama has something to prove. His defense of the venue and the grandiosity only amplifies this feeling in my furry little rodent brain. If Obama wants to be the candidate of the people, he should skip the rock star appearances. They make him look like alternatively like he’s either a megalomaniac or he’s insecure in his current position, which is way the hell over his head, and he’s trying too hard. Is that what we want from a President of the United States?

Let’s face it: if you don’t have the goods, you have to make a good show of it. An end run. Throw up a great smoke screen and the lemmings will march with you right over the damn cliff.

So, tomorrow, we have the spectacle. It won’t feature Charlton Heston, because he’s a Republican. (A little levity there.) This Mouse will be back with a recap of Thursday’s, um, festivities, if my Internet connectivity ever returns. We’ll also have something to say when John McCain announces his choice of vice president.

Love Fest: Day 2

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Another day of watching rousing speeches on big TV from under the Nittany Turkey’s sofa inspires me to share my observations about the Democratic National Convention. Who am I? Why, I’m the Mouse Who Ate Xanax and I have political opinions. (As you all know by now, opinions are like assholes. We all have them, and they all stink—even furry little rodent asses.)

First of all, I found it interesting that the keynote speech, delivered by former Virginia governor Mark Warner, was moved out of prime time, a lateral arabesque similar to to the first night’s downplaying of the Carter Family. Over the course of the evening the reason for the time shift emerged. Apparently, Warner had been told to bash McCain, which he declined to do. Accordingly, he was deemed not worthy of prime time. It is unclear whether Warner’s speech was finalized before he was booted to the inferior time slot. Well, nothing is final until it is finished, and Warner could have changed the speech, but he didn’t. Good for him for sticking to his guns; bad for the Dems for marginalizing one of the party’s rising stars, one who could help give them a foothold in the crucial state of Virginia.

This little posturing and in-fighting crapola is typical of Democrat politicos. Beneath their easily seen through altruistic populist veneer lies a cutthroat desire to grab and hold control at the cost of alienating others of their kind. All the lip service paid to unification of the party in the past has been belied by the rifts within. Will this year be any different?

It might not matter. There was no love lost between John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, yet they were able to run a successful campaign together (or separately, as it turned out).

Cherubic Governor Brian Schweitzer of Montana, originally third-billed speaker, took over the prime time, pre-Hillary speaking slot, firing up the audience with the prescribed dose of anti-McCain rhetoric. Apparently, that was the view of the party the Dems want to maintain. Schweitzer did the job quite well. He is important to the Dems because Montana is a typically Republican state.

The evening’s pièce de résistance, of course, was the speech of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. ???????? The question on everybody’s mind, including this furry little rodent brain, was whether she could surmount the animosity and rivalry of the primary campaign and actually endorse Barack Obama for president. I think she accomplished that objective, but the speech was more about Hillary’s accomplishments than Obama’s. In fact, she never mentioned Obama’s. She gave a standard party line speech, touching on all the standard liberal hot button areas, saying how great it will be to take back America, bla bla bla, like only the Democrats can, for the sake of the workers, the minorities, the homosexuals, and, of course, the chilllllldren. She said she’ll feel the glow of the accomplishment when Obama signs a bill giving “affordable health care” to all Americans. Her thinly transparent purpose was to rally her supporters to vote for Obama—which was obviously what the party wanted. That she could attempt to accomplish her objective without lionizing Obama or playing up his qualification for the job was interesting, to say the least.

Frankly, as an honest mouse, I must say that this was the best speech I’d ever seen Hillary deliver. Will it do the job, “galvanizing” the much bandied about 18 million voters in Hillary’s camp? I don’t think so, at least not completely. A lot of Hillary supporters are pissed off that Hillary was subjected to the twin insults of being beaten by Obama and then passed over for the Vice President spot.

This speech tonight—this fine oration—might just serve to convince many Hillary supporters that the wrong candidate is representing the party. ?????? ??? She didn’t say anything new and she didn’t say anything about Obama. However, what she said, she said well. She had the audience; they were hers. Not all women are flaming, liberal, automatic Democrat voters. Some will think twice and some will cross party lines. Many Hillary supporters will harken back to her words from the primary campaign. This speech tonight didn’t capture many of those who are sitting on the fence, that’s for sure.

That brings us to tomorrow night, a night on which we’ll have the roll call vote and the potential for disruption by the Hillary supporters. That should be interesting. Even more interesting is the scheduled speech by former president Bill Clinton.

What will Clinton talk about? Whatever he wants. Originally, tomorrow night was supposed to have been national security night. The Democrats wanted Clinton to fit his speech into that subject area. He balked, saying he would speak about whatever he wanted to speak about. The convention organizers quickly caved, telling Clinton he could do it his way. Whatever that is should be interesting. We can only guess that it will be about the Clintons, because when the Clintons are involved it’s always about the Clintons!

The other featured speaker tomorrow night is Joe Biden, who will deliver his acceptance speech for the vice presidential nomination. This Mouse expects a typical, blow-hard Biden speech, with little interesting content.

On Thursday, the anointed one, Obama himself, will finally show up and deliver a speech at Invesco Field instead of from the podium at the convention. casino arab That way, the self-appointed savior can preach to more people—his people—than he could otherwise. It should be like one of those Billy Graham revivals in Yankee Stadium, albeit with appropriate shills in highly visible audience locations and on the central stage. I can hear it now: “Today… I’m the luckiest man on the face of the Earth…” Apologies to the late Lou Gehrig. Sorry. Anyhow, there will be a stage replete with ionic columns to make it look like the White House, and there will be fireworks. Oh, boy! Mouse joy! What an overblown spectacle it will be! Would Jimmy Carter approve? No one cares. This Mouse doesn’t, that’s for sure, being very happy to watch Democrats self-destruct, time after time.

I’m having great fun watching this thing while I drop little mouse turds under the sofa. Well, tomorrow night it will be diarrhea night in honor of Joe Biden’s verbal variety. Or maybe I should just smoke a cigar in symbolic appreciation of some of Slick Willie’s best Oval Office accomplishments. See you later!

What Happened to the Girl?

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I was sitting at my favorite discount pharmacy waiting for the folks behind the glass to dispense my prescription. A couple of young guys were ahead of me. The TV in the waiting area was tuned to a news channel, and Republican presidential candidate John McCain was on the screen talking about something or other.

Young Guy #1: Is that one of the president guys?
Young Guy #2: Yeah.

YG1: What’s his name?
YG2: That’s McCain.

YG1: How many are left?
YG2: Just two: Obama and McCain.

YG1: [sly grin] Wasn’t there a girl? Which one is the girl?
YG2: That was Hillary. She’s out of it now.

YG1: Yeah, I thought so, ’cause nobody would vote for a girl. That was pretty funny. So, who’s left?
YG2: Obama and McCain.

YG1: Yeah, ’cause who’d vote for a girl!

Well, feminists, have at it! I think we can safely conclude that Young Guy #1 is clearly a moron; however, he did have a point that I believe is valid. Back before it was all decided, I was cheering for Hillary to win the nomination because I doubted that she was electable for the very reason that our presumptively public school educated moron proposed.

Some of you will say that I’m being unfairly harsh toward Young Guy #1. After all, knowledge about and involvement in politics is optional and not for everybody. Thinking that makes you a moron, too! These abstract figures you can take or leave pretty much decide our individual and national destiny. So, yeah, just view elections as vanity contests at best or too much trouble to bother with at worst and see where that leads us.

*     *     *     *     *

Anyhow, back to the point. Is voting for a promise of “change” for change’s sake any less moronic than saying “nobody would vote for a girl?” Perhaps the young moron even had more brain cells working than those purportedly well educated voters who are now being led down a primrose path strewn with petals of perfidiously proffered passage. Some of them didn’t even need to hear the “change” mantra, for they were already hard-wired by fellow Kool Aid drinking, tinfoil hat wearing drones into an unthinking position of voting only for Democrats without even weighing the merits of the available candidates. The same is true for hard-core Republicans who only know how to pull the big lever that says “Republican” and for whom campaign events are opportunities to spend time reinforcing their prejudices with other, like minded monomaniacs. This polarization has to end. We really look stupid.

OK, so the country is going through a period of malaise. The economy is suffering a cyclic downturn; oil prices are high due to Chinese consumption and other factors; we have yet another unpopular war; and, with a less than charismatic leader in George W. Bush, it is easy to blame everything on him and his party, just as we did with Gerry Ford in the aftermath of Watergate, Vietnam, and a severe recession in the 1970s.

Jimmy Carter was the bright, shining, youthful figure who vowed that if he were elected it wouldn’t be business as usual in Washington. He was right. It was worse. Our short-term, feel-good mentality and his naivete cost us a fortune. If he wasn’t the worst president of the 20th Century, he was second only to Warren G. Harding. He gave away one of the most important strategic assets of the western hemisphere, the Panama Canal. He insisted that Soviet contractors build the new embassy in Moscow, because it would save money. That embassy was never used for its intended purpose, because during its construction the KGB planted more bugs than you’d find in the entire Okefenokee Swamp in Jimmy’s home state. Jimmy trusted Communists and felt little need for spies. Accordingly, he dismantled the CIA, cutting loose a large number of career covert agents. He allowed the embassy to be placed under siege in Tehran. During his administration, we verged on runaway inflation, with the prime interest rate topping 21% while the economy stagnated. The Dow-Jones average, which had managed to climb to 1000 in January 1977 from its 1973 depths, started sinking once again. Many proclaimed the stock market dead. But Jimmy sure looked more glamorous and promising than Gerry Ford to those who voted for him—and that included some very intelligent people. Hell, Gerry pardoned Richard Nixon, which was unforgivable. So voting for Gerry must have been like voting for Nixon all over again. They were wrong. They were bamboozled by a promise of a new order in Washington, something that they had to know in their hearts was impossible.

Germany turned to Adolf Hitler in 1933 for similar, albeit more dire reasons. The national malaise resulting from the excesses of the Weimar republic, the apportioning of the fatherland by the Treaties of Versailles, and the extreme currency deflation laid the groundwork for the Beer Hall Putsch and Hitler’s mercurial rise to power.

Now, don’t get all up in arms here. I’m not comparing Obama to Hitler, or even to Jimmy Carter, for that matter. I’m merely saying that the conditions are ripe for voters to grasp at straws in the hope that the rhetoric actually will represent reality, and that reality will be a panacea for all our ills. When the pain grows, people tend to think irrationally. Think again. Has this sort of thing ever worked in the past? Has anyone ever been able to change how things work in Washington? What will the long-term consequences be this time if you vote straight out of your ass?

For those of you who say that McCain is just an extension of George W. Bush, you’re swallowing a line, too. Before you blow wind in my direction that I’m just a filthy, dirty, neocon, creationist, homophobic, Bush-loving, blindly GOP-voting pig, let me say that I am not happy with either candidate. I firmly believe that senators for the most part make lousy presidents. With few exceptions, they are career politicians who have little, if any, executive experience. We’re not electing a king or an emperor; we’re electing a chief executive. He runs the executive branch of the government. Give me someone who has successfully run something—preferably a large corporation or a state. But I digress. McCain is McCain. Bush is Bush. McCain, if elected, will inherit two houses of congress with Democrat majorities. That and the war in Iraq and Afghanistan are Bush’s legacies to his successor. The economy is cyclical, perturbed by fiscal policy and monetary policy as well as international trade. The direct influence of the president on the economy is debatable, but it is certainly much less than what campaign speeches would have you believe. Oil prices—neither presidential candidate will be able to do much to change.  So, why do we listen to the same empty promises—from both parties’ candidates—every four years and believe this mendacious rhetoric? I sure as hell cannot base my vote on who makes the best empty promises. Can you?

What I want from a president is a strong national defense and a successful foreign policy. What I want from congress is to keep government the hell out of my life and my pockets. I am sad to say that neither presidential candidate offers the complete package to me, and congress is out of control. Thus, I cannot throw my hands up in the air and just vote for change for change’s sake.

On the contrary, I feel that gridlock is essential to keep this congress from going hog wild spending my money. That’s sad, too, but that’s what checks and balances are all about. It will please you to know that I felt the same way when there was a Republican majority in congress. George W. Bush rubber stamped every damn spending bill, not wielding the veto pen for six damn years. His ramrodded Medicare Part D legislation was a ridiculously extravagant expansion of the welfare state. This, from a Republican? With a Republican congress, no less? Is this the LBJ Administration Redux?

Hell, both major parties are in the business of buying votes with redistributed wealth. I object. That’s my money they’re using to buy votes, and your vote for “change” is a vote to open the spending floodgates for congress. I won’t stand for that.

Furthermore, I am not convinced that Mr. Obama would not weaken this country’s defenses, but that’s another post for another time. On the other side of the coin, I do not believe that Mr. McCain has a firm grasp on the economy, but what can a president really do about the business cycle? Not much.

Hey, do you notice how inconsequential former hot-button issues like abortion become when people are feeling the tightening in their purse strings? Goes to show you where the national mindset is. Yep, that’s right. Firmly lodged in the personal wallet. When times are good, we can get all bent out of shape about stuff like abortion, but when we’re feeling the pain, it’s me first! Nobody seems to care which candidate goes which way on abortion this time around, just as long as they’re promising a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage. The almighty issue of abortion is finally relegated to the back seat it deserves. Hallelujah!

Shifting gears, I’ll move to another thing that is getting on my nerves. Let’s just bail out all the mindless idiots who leveraged their credit cards to the hilt and then thought they could do the same with houses, shall we? Those poor, poor people. Duped by the greedy bankers. They didn’t know any better. Yeah, so that’s why they make good voters. Whoever can make them feel better, placate them—with MY money—will get their votes. You can bet that both sides of the aisle will be feeling very generous with MY money. What a convenient issue to pop up just prior to a national election! Bastards!

I did it right. I have no mortgage. I have no car loans or leases. I have no debts. Yet now I have to pay dearly because some assholes thought they could buy champagne on a beer budget? I have no sympathy for them. No, instead I want someone to save my damn wallet for sure! Instead of trying to shore up this house of cards, we should let it tumble and rebuild our credit system on a firmer foundation. However, congress is not about to take any such painful steps. They’ll just continue to spend my money to the tune of enthusiastic cheerleading by our sitting president and the two wannabes. Crap!

So, I’m still up in the air about just whom I’ll vote for in November. Libertarian candidate Bob Barr is tempting. Alas, our two-party system is too firmly entrenched to expect the Libertarians to make any significant gains. Furthermore, this short-sighted, feel-good, gimme gimme gimme generation of voters has been conditioned to expect that government will take care of them from cradle to grave, which is decidedly antithetical to Libertarian philosophy—and mine. Can somebody help me out of this morass by giving me some reason to vote for McCain, other than that he would provide a strong national defense, or giving me some reason to vote for Obama, other than that he is a change from that which cannot be changed? How about not telling me why I should not vote for somebody, for a change?

Oh, and how about exhibiting a sign of intelligence by injecting a little humor into your political diatribe? I’m growing weary of the darkly impassioned, ornery, humorless bleating of the goats on either side of the fence. It’s not a black and white world (or should I say red and blue), and you people are being downright nasty to each other. How about not taking yourselves so seriously, for a change? We’re all in this together. All the liberals and conservatives I know are nice people, yet many of them put the blinkers on when in the presence of those of the other persuasion. The world is composed of shades of gray, and all this red/blue polarity is really destructive. Let’s get back to give and take. Neither McCain nor Obama is all bad and neither is all good. It’s just easier to look at it that way, so we’re ceding this election to the whims of lazy minds. Let’s not.

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