Monday July 24th, 2006

Gamble on the GoP; They Do
The Republican nominee for a Connecticut senate seat, Alan Schlesinger, has been asked by the republican governor and the head of the Connecticut GoP to drop out of the race. Why? Because someone asked him if he ever had a problem paying off gambling debts. When he said he didn't think so, they reminded him of an incident 15 years ago, when two casinos sued him for debts totaling $28,000. Then he said he remembered it-- and said he hadn’t recalled it at first because, well, that's not really such a big sum of money. Perspective: some people would dream of making 14 bucks an hour, which is 28k per year. Many state schools will give your kid a bachelor's degree if they get good grades and pay tuition over 4 years, totaling 28 thousand dollars. Schlesinger says he didn't do anything wrong, or illegal. Well, listen cowboy, a clean record does not qualify one for office. Knowing what people need in leader, that's one minor qualification. Obviously, this guy so out of it, electing him would be a travesty. However, with this kind of bad press, I'd be surprised if he won in November.

Just in Case you Didn't Know: Lebanon Vs. Israel
World War Three takes another step towards actualizing itself as the US, led by el presidente Jorge La Bush, sends precision missiles to Israel. Israel, you may recall, is that little country in the Middle East where two soldiers were kidnapped by someone in Lebanon, maybe Palestinians, maybe Hezbollah agents. So Israel threw some bombs at them, and the got bombs thrown back, and more bombs thataway, and more bombs the other way, not unlike those cartoon where Tom and Jerry whip out larger and larger guns on one another. Bush expedited (think UPS next day Air) delivery of the missiles around the same time Iran and Syria started talking about what the should do to help poor lil' Lebanon.

Not being glib when I say "lil'" Lebanon is about four-fifths the size of Connecticut. But maybe, just maybe, it won't switch from the Jets and the Sharks to all of Genoa just yet: Syria has said they may offer to take in evacuees from Beirut without visas. That's good news. We'll have to see-- the big player will be, of course, the defense contractors. Be very scared if we declare war on a country for any reason, and we don't send in contractors-- the ghost of Enola Gay may fly again.

Thanks, Blowhards, for Accidentally Leading Me to Truth
You may recall I read Michael Savage's book, and that in it he said it's okay to be suspicious of Muslims, since not one of them got up to disavow the people responsible for 9/11. Then he said that some did, but they were not significant people, and what they said was not enough. Below, you'll read my thoughts on Sean Hannity's book, where he points out that Reagan's treatment of Gaddafi shows you what an amazing president ol' Ron was. That led me to wikipedia, of course, where I read up on Gaddafi-- a terrorist in his day, some will tell you, but certainly a significant Muslim leader, and one who got up and disavowed the people responsible for 9/11. I'm not saying that makes the guy a saint. I'm just saying, it's another reason to reexamine prejudices and find a glimmer of hope in all this chaos.

Bush Talks to the NAACP
One radio pundit wanted point out that this was the first he's spoken to them as president, and no president since Harding has not talked to the NAACP. Depending on who you listen to, the prez was or was not well received. Allegedly, the white house mixed the applause and the boos and jeers around to make it sound like they liked him. Others who were there say he was boo'ed and jeered. He spoke on the important and very related topics of addiction, incarceration, and the debate over the inheritance tax. That's right. The president wanted the NACCP to think about why black do drugs, go to jail, and leave their billions to their kids. You had better be very very scared, Alicia Silverstone, because of they ever do a sequel to Clueless, ol' George just may steal the role from you.

Deliver us from Evil:
Defeating, Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism
I finally, thank God, finished Sean Hannity's soft-core lecture on nomenclature. I say finally because it was a very tedious read. Most of it read like an introduction. And not one of those introductions that sets the scene or provides some kind of context. This was a junior-high introduction, where he waxed philosophical about the nature of bad people, and told us what he was going tell us about them. Here is a guy who hosts a TV show and a Radio show, and maybe he's good for an hour of content, at most, and he somehow managed to stretch it out to 300 pages.

The name dropping was unabashed. Like all pundits left and right, he evoked Hitler. After stating unequivocally that we must support the best president ever, George W., he reminded us that Hitler rose to power thanks to an unquestioned loyalty to the state. Along with talking about how great Reagan was for fighting the bad guys, he reminds us that in retrospect Hitler looks evil, but at the time, he charmed heads of state. Are you seeing a pattern here?

For Hannity, the most disgusting word in our language is "appeasement." Carter's appeasement of middle east terrorists led to the fall of the Shah and the rise of the Ayatollah. Clinton's appeasement of Saddam led to the attacks on 9/11 and the present crisis in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's their fault. Reagan/Bush kicked ass against the Soviets, you see. W. is kicking ass against the Muslim fanatics. That's what Hannity says. Of course, he fails to point out that if Carter screwed things up, Reagan/Bush had 12 years to fix it. He fails to point out that, if Clinton was soft on foreign policy, W is soft on domestic policy. Hannity champions Americans for Americans, but doesn't seem to care that while Bush got tough on terror, he did so at the cost of the budget surplus created by Clinton, and the lowest unemployment rate in half a century created by Clinton. He fails to point out that so far, the only way Bush has created jobs is by getting soldiers killed so new ones can take their places.

Hannity, like Savage and Coulter, is nothing but anti-liberal. That's conservative by default, not by choice. To all of then, liberalism is a race, it's something that defines you through and through, and it is morally repugnant. They don’t seem to want to talk about what we should do, except in vague, patriotic, emotional terms. The wave their flags, and rant about what we should NOT do. It is a real waste of time. To equate liberalism to terrorisms is not just a stupid thing to say, it is a hateful thing to say. Last I checked, liberals fight for freedoms, which is the quintessential American ideal. Try again, Hannity. Or don't. Both will sound the same.