Herding Cats

I was at my church recently for a meeting and had a brief conversation with some people I respect and admire, but the topic of President Obama came up and one of my friends said that none of the people he knows who voted for Obama would vote for him again. I asked him why was it the health insurance issue? and he said, "Everything." Well, that's what President Obama is up against these days - an undefined "everything."

I'm guessing that if we had had time to get more specific, I could have countered with something. But "everything" is hard to counter. Personally, I think Obama has been doing the things he said he would do when he campaigned - lower taxes for 95% of taxpayers, end torture, illegal wiretapping, and close Guantanamo. He's getting us out of an disastrous and unnecessary war in Iraq and chasing Al Quaeda to the ends of the earth into Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen. I actually saw a Republican criticism that he was killing too many Al Quaeda members.......He also helped save huge sectors of American business and prevented the meltdown of our financial infrastructure and, I might add, the world's economy.......... Not bad for one year.

He's been relentlessly been criticized by a right wing media machine with everything from he's a Kenyan Muslim who hates America to he's now secretly ushering in Sharia law in the US. And why is it that the most outrageous lies stick to President Obama like mud on a farmer's boot, but the truth bounces off Sarah Palin's and John Boehner's and Mitch McConnell's shiny empty heads like spotlights off a disco ball? What's with that anyway? And the Republicans continue to block every step of the way and spread the Big Lie...... The President is still being bombarded with "Keep government out of my Medicare," for crying out loud. He's been called a socialist, a communist, a fascist, and an illegal alien..........and all the while he's been holding out an olive branch to the Republicans and making concession after concession (much to my dismay). And the Republicans won't take yes for an answer.

I suspect that most of the reasons that might have cited by my friend above would have turned out to not be factual at all........or at least been twisted so as to be unrecognizable from what actually happened.

I thought the President did a good job at the health care summit this last week, and although Republicans are claiming a big victory - I saw Karl Rove say on Fox News that the Republicans scored a victory because the did better than expected (high praise indeed). I thought President Obama had a better handle on actual "facts." One example of the rhetorical minefield out there is that Republicans voted against Medicare in the first place, criticized President Obama's plan to reduce fraud and abuse in the system, and then proposed eliminating Medicare altogether.....try to figure that one out. If that's not political ideological grandstanding , I don't know what is...... I hope people are smart enough to see through that political rhetoric. And even though the Republicans have used the "reconciliation" many times to pass their own agenda with a majority vote in the Senate, they are railing against the Democrats contemplating the same thing. How transparently hypocritical......

President Obama continues to be the adult in the room, the cat herder, and the President I voted for and am proud to continue to support. He's trying to do the things he said he would and was elected in a landslide.

So, there you go. My thoughts for today.

Regards, Bud C

LUSH PARANOIA LIES

'At any rate I'll never go THERE again!' said Alice as she picked her way through the wood. 'It's the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life!' Alice from her Adventures in Wonderland.


Time will tell whether Alice continues to attend the tea-parties, but the Republican establishment’s attempts to co-opt the tea-partiers, have turned off not a few of the originators of the movement.

The blogosphere is fairly critical of the event with the convention’s mingling of “grass roots” independents with the corporate multinational owners of Fox News and the Republican right wing base, its call for literacy testing for voters while many of their signs are misspelled, the attempted cobbling together of libertarians with those who would wire-tap everyone, the anti-tax crowd with the "keep government out of my Medicare" crowd. The anger of the folks seems real, but their aim is not true.

Fox News rolled out the red carpet for the favorite Daughter of the Revolution, Sarah Palin today. Her truth challenged, fact challenged approach to life has served her well; and so far she hasn’t been hurt a whit by her garlbed syntax, or her mental stumbling, or her willingness to repeat falsehoods over and over and over again until they appear to stick, or her secessionist husband who apparently was pretty involved in Alaska government, or her newly revealed tax problems in Alaska on their properties with unreported structures, or the assorted ethics issues that still chase her, or her hypocrisy in calling for Rahm Emanuel’s resignation for calling liberal Democrats “f****** retards” while at the same time exhibiting fawning acquiescence to Rush Limbaugh’s “retard” rant. There’s more, but I’ve got essays to grade.

And why is it that the most outrageous lies stick to President Obama like mud on a farmer's boot, but the truth bounces off Sarah Palin's shiny empty head like spotlights off a disco ball? What's with that anyway?

So this commingling of the Republican red-meat ultraconservative base with the Tea Party inchoate anger is what we’ve got out there at the moment. And for all you diviners of tea leaves out there, I did a quick “name anagram” search for Sarah Louise Palin and the winner was “LUSH PARANOIA LIES.”

Sip on that cup o’ tea for a while!