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Let’s Party! Tea, anyone?

The TEA Party: Enough is Enough

I appreciate a good movement as much as the next guy. I love a grassroots swell and a freshly formed band wagon with enough room for even the most armchair of supports and fair weather of fans to hop aboard before the central transfer to the next “big thing.” Give me a bunch of halfcocked concepts and a catchy jingle and I’ll kick back and watch that rickety bucket run itself all the way in to oblivion, joining it’s trendy forefathers in the meme stream graveyard. Couple this with my overt and unabashed distaste for political circus performing and the attention grabbing, politically incorrect if not unapologetic sound bite machines in the Republican parties screaming “fire” in a meat locker, and you’ve got the makings for one of the greatest shows on Earth outside of a back alley snuff film peep show at 50 cents a minute. Unfortunately, the TEA Party, an epitome that gets me literally (No, I did not mean literally) harder than Georgia Pine, is still rolling on down the road despite itself, and again finds itself parked out on street corners and in front of government buildings screaming for…something, anything, if not everything and still nothing.

The Tea Party started in late 2009, but really burst on to the scene in 2010 with Tax Day protests outside anything resembling a government building, including one unfortunate misunderstanding that led 150 people to protest the unfair taxation in this country in front of a Denny’s in Topeka, KS. After some real movement in the pubic eye, and the appearance of the pseudo-homely, folksy tundra wisdom of one near vice president turned reality star, Sarah Palin, the party began to gain political ground. Whatever ground they have been able to grab in the political arenas has been helped as much as it’s been hampered by the very party itself and it’s elected officials and unfortunate choice in public mouthpieces.

It’s all in the campaigning they do as a “party.” If you go to the Tea Party Patriots website, one faction of the now fractured party, you find some of their ideals and what they stand for. Their slogan, or mantra, or whatever you might call it, is as follows:

“A community committed to standing together, shoulder to shoulder, to protect our country and the Constitution upon which we were founded!”

The exclamation point is theirs, not mine. So they are united, they are committed to the Constitution, and they are excited. Ok, maybe they aren’t Tebow excited, but they are pumped enough to outline their mission statement with an implied pounding of fists on desks invented for the purpose of this punchline.

What I have also gathered from my direct contact with these people, is that they are basically Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh fanboys and girls that would give Glenn Beck a blowjob behind the aforementioned Denny’s if given half a chance. They are fairly fundamentalist, Christian, founding father/log cabin Republican racists, homophobes, and fairly hateful of liberals. Compromise is not an option. If politics was war, these people would happily exercise their God-given right to refuse quarter to liberal soldiers in a second. They think the US is their home, and liberals can fuck off and die. So…I guess they are open to compromise and fresh ideas then? Shoulder to shoulder, I gather, is with like-minded, old white people who are afraid of everything that doesn’t attend their local Evangelical church potluck with casserole in hand every third Sunday after sermon.

Now, before you go thinking that this is just some unsubstantiated claim form some liberal in every derogatory sense of the word, I implore you to shut up and read. This is a library, and you need not be muttering to yourself like an idiot in the stacks. If you’re reading this in a Starbucks, though, then go ahead and laugh you pretentious Berkley trust fund baby because you’re not my demographic either. Grab your summer scarf and your Birkenstocks and walk around the Hashbury with an unearned sense of belonging.

This is some Kung Fu grip G.I. Joe action figure stuff. Facts are included. Fifty-nine percent of all Tea Partiers are male. Only twenty-three percent are under 45, while nearly thirty percent are over 65. Eighty-nine percent are white. Ninety-five percent are either Republican or Independent, while seventy-three percent describe themselves as conservative. Eighty-three percent are either Protestant or Catholic, but oddly (and not surprisingly enough) only thirty-eight percent attend weekly church services. Oh, and fifty-eight percent of them are armed. It’s a passing point, but I felt that with all that other white Christian BS, I needed to complete the cliché trifecta with a reference to being well armed…for protection. Riiiiiiggghhht, “protection.”

I often get a laugh from how non-Tea Party Republicans talk about this fractured faction of exceptionally right leaning Suzie and Stan Homemakers. It’s like they are talking about an alcoholic brother or a cousin that hasn’t been right after getting kicked by that mule two summers back. They’ve got some great ideas. They have a lot of passion, something we need more of in the Republican party today. They are fired up. They are just decent, hard-working Americans that think this country is on the wrong path. (side note: Why is it that I always feel like I’m being inherently insulted when this is said? These Republicans are decent and hard-working? What about me? Do I maybe think we need to be on a different path as a country? Well, I guess I don’t get any love because I’m liberal and am not inclined to put a Hitler mustache on a picture of Obama and fill in the white spaced with poorly spelled, vague statements about taxes and cap and trade. OK, got that out. Let’s continue.)

I always like to think of the Tea Party as a person. Whenever I can, I like to personify nouns and ideas. I’m able to better get a handle on a problem if it’s got a face. When I think of the Tea Party, I see a sweet old Grandmother. You know, the kind of woman who is beloved on the neighborhood block. She is at every social gathering, and is never in short supply of fresh lemonade and cookies. The kind of woman who every kid in the neighborhood calls Grandma. Her husband passed long ago, her kids all moved away. She has a cute, meandering story for every occasion from when she was a child. Nothing gets her down, and a smile is always just hook and loop away as she knits on her porch in the summer evenings. Then you talk to her after a couple of Manhattans and she lets slip the N-word with a venomous spit and a scowl when you bring up the Johnsons one street over and you realize she’s a racist old bat who reminds you suddenly more of the wench from Hansel and Gretel even though the unassuming smile is back and she’s knitting away as if nothing was amiss.

That's Sarah with an "h," ya hear?

You can package it any way you want, but hate is hate. It can be screaming on a city street holding a sign splashed with heinous references to the most evil men that our President apparently is just one missing razor away from resembling, or it can be hidden under a hand-made afghan in a rocking chair in a small, midwest town and it’s all the same. The Tea Party may have itself a Michelle Bachmann, a Sarah Palin, and some national recognition as a perfect opportunity in April to rail against the “obamination” this country has become, but it will never be anything but b-roll during televised debates on MSNBC and FOX. Same video, different adjectives.

I do have to give credit where credit is due, though. They are still around. They have people, followers, an out dated website (a political party “must have” in 2012), and a PR team that can spin anything in to a crisis and an all-out attack on the nation’s values and Constitution. I just don’t think that people of this angry and closed-minded position will ever understand that this is a diverse nation.

I know that from the inside of a local Tea Party community organization meeting it may look like a very united if not pasty, homogenized country, but unfortunately this is a place so damned diverse you need a genealogist with a Geiger counter to figure out what most of us are made of. I’ve met these people, tried to make sense of their signs, and I’ve looked in to their faces, and there is little there that I can understand.

I get it, some of the angst and frustration, I feel it for them and Republicans after all–Oh hell, for shitty Democrats, too–but the further division of this country and the resistance to possibility and development of new ideas since the good old days of the late 1700’s is a little obtuse and fearful for my liking. Thanks, but I’ll let necessity be my mother, and with change comes the necessity to adapt or die. That’s not me talking, that’s science. Then again, nearly ninety percent of you are religious…so that’s probably falling on ears deaf to anything that’s not from scripture. So, protest on my nostalgic homophobes and middle class anarchists. The Republican party might be a bit embarrassed of you in public since that mule kicked you and you aren’t acting right in front of people, but in private they love you, because your crazy Christian fear-votes count just as much as anyone’s that hasn’t lost a couple of marbles.

Frustrations of The Level-headed: Refugees of The Battlefield

Frustrations of The Level-headed: Refugees of The Battlefield

Oct 17

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or: Schizophrenic Feelings of Whether I Want to Travel on Your Highway

When I was growing up I was taught that yelling was rude. I was taught that name-calling was wrong and hurtful. There was the idea that sharing was caring, and that giving was better than receiving. I grew reciting “treat others as you want to be treated” and I was instilled with the idea that women are not to be disrespected. I think these are all lessons that we can agree on, and lessons you will or have taught your own progeny. It seems though, that these lessons are not worth their salt in the arena of public discourse. I have never seen a megaphone used for anything but venomous language and name-calling. Libel, slander, anger and hate-speech are the flavor of the month. Pull their hair, gouge eyes, and fight dirty; anything to get your point across. As times and tensions reach a boiling point I wonder whatever happened to calm conversation and open-minded discussion. What happened to respect and constructive criticism? As factions in the world dig in deeper and abandon the no-man’s-land of the middle, it seems we are getting further from progress, and are devolving in to some queer blend of Mad Max post-apocalyptic survival and Warrior-esque gang mentality. No one wants to come out and play anymore.

Through rose-colored glasses, beer goggles, or through the kindness of time’s distortion of fact, some would say that times used to be simpler. Maybe there was a time where things were simple; in the primordial ooze, as a single-celled organism. I am betting there was less tension. Once we crawled out of the oceans, things got as complicated as our evolving DNA structures. Since man could think we have been at odds. You would think that with enough time and a further developed frontal lobe for cognitive thought, we would have gotten to a point where the responsibilities of our place in the world would weigh on us to make the best decisions. But alas, we have not gotten to the point where the greater good is in our minds, but that we just want to be right, and that if we’re right in this camp, then they are all wrong in the other camps. A flawed construct if there ever was one.

Religion is in this vein, and I’ve written on it extensively. Really? You think you got it right, and everyone not following your path is damned? It seems a bit obtuse and even grandiose to think that you interpreted the message of the all-knowing exactly as he intended it. The ego on you knows no bounds, and that kind of pride and closed-mindedness must be a sin. Maybe, just maybe you aren’t right? Maybe you are on a good path, but is being “good” not enough, God cares about my diet? God cares about my impure thoughts, my cursing, my acceptance of His son? Really? Don’t you think he might not be the type to hold a grudge or get bogged down in the details? That is after all, where the Devil is? No matter, I’m sure your particular interpretation is exactly right as a Protestant, and those naive Lutherans are fucked. Jesus, get over yourself.

Besides religion is the political system, which is connected very closely to the social construct of today. Does everyone need to yell so much? Megaphones, protests, name-calling, Hitler references, occupations, “my way or the highway,” “love it or leave it,” and “you’re either with us or against us.” Is this the path to understanding one another? Closed minds and open mouths only makes for a cacophony of bad noise falling on deaf ears. Today we see factions broken off and dug in, ready with a salvo at any moment to smear and defame one another. Republicans, Democrats, Tea Party-ers, Libertarians, Independents, and now Occupiers. We have seen any one of these groups split in to it’s own group, just as religion has done over the last few thousand years. Each party thinks the other is poison for the America we can be. They think their exact way is the only way, and that we are doomed if we don’t change everything now. Seriously, we need to change everything, start over, and rebuild from the ground up. Not one of these parties wants small tweaks and concerted efforts, they want their agenda installed en complet without deviation. They’ve got the perfect plan to fix everything. That damned ego, again.

While most are arming themselves with facts, figures, clever signs, bull horns, organizing community action, smearing the “enemy,” and designing t-shirts as they raise funds for their cause, I can’t help but feel that Sun Tzu would look upon the current landscape and be proud that everyone read his book. He would fill with pride as political armies followed every rule of warfare he outlined so long ago. He we are, trying to make progress as a society, trying to rise to a grander place, and the tactics we are using are that of invading armies!? We want to take the next step, and we are trying to do so in combat boots and a military load out. There will be no progress with fists and a war-cry. When you treat someone as an enemy, they will play that role, and fight back.

In all of this hatred and obtuse thought processes, the real victim is society and refugees of the nation of the level-headed. Those poor people trekking across expanses of war-torn ground in rags with all they have to their name on their backs. Spires of smoke dot a barren landscape and the newest statistics and campaign slogans are exploding in the distance as mortar fire from great distances. Libelous shelling, slanderous espionage, trench warfare. Meanwhile, those that just want compromise and progress in any form walk a trail of tears just hoping not to be ambushed at any moment.

The tension has broken our spirits. Why can’t we come to a table and talk? Why must every victory be Pyrrhic, and every step forward be a stumble? Is every subject worth all-out war from the utterance of the first talking point? Can’t we just do something good? Why is funding schools a political pawn? Do we really need to hold a gun to the temple of grandma’s Social Security check and slowly back out of a conference room? Must it be all or nothing on a moot point like pot or gay rights? Are you crazy, or do you actually believe what you’re saying? I know, you’re just trying to whip up controversy and distract us from actually wanting action. Anger is a great distraction from inaction. Hold your position and never lose that hill, no matter how many suffer in the campaign. Speak robotically and never honestly. Hold to party lines because you need support, if you deviate from the group you will be picked apart by the wolves encircling your camp.

This hellscape is no place to raise a child, and no place to attempt a compromise. Your desire for an end to the bloodshed will be interpreted as weakness. Hold strong to the credo of your particular faction, anything less is flip-flopping, and mutiny. Only trust the man next to you if he agrees with you, but the moment you smell dissent then you bayonet his ass and throw him into the open grave with the rest of the “enemy combatants.” No group even has a white flag here. Surrender is not an option. You hold this hard-line to the death. Progress be damned, and the suffering of your countrymen, just don’t lose any ground. Stick to our guns, man our posts, and give no quarter. If we don’t try to take an enemy position, the we can never lose a battle, so we stay entrenched and whether the seasons.

This is ugly. This is the way it’s been done for so long, so we don’t know anything else. Politics is a battlefield today, not a summit or a meeting of the minds. Everyone has it wrong but you. Religion is the same. Blood is shed because faith galvanizes your soul to the point that the only option is to wipe out any other option. It’s no different in social discourse. People have died for an idea. I suppose an idea is a fine reason to die, but it does nothing but to further entrench the factions. As the rise of a possible new faction, Occupy, becomes a more real reality, there is a new army joining the fight. An army with no plan, no leadership, and no real exit strategy. Just another army ready to stay until everyone else has died. The Patchouli Party, maybe. It’s catchy. But as another group enters the fray, the only outcome is louder anger, and new ammunition in an ever evolving battle against progress. The only answer is for everyone to put aside their pretensions, put down their guns, and work together to clean up the mess and get somewhere, anywhere. A nation cannot withstand this kind of extended battle, and I know the level-headed refugees just want an end to the war. It has done nothing but wear raw the hope for anything but more of the same. Put down the bull horn and talk to each other, not at each other for once. We can’t take much more of this.

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Loitering Like a Patriot

Oct 14

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September 17th marked the beginning of the “Occupy:” movement. It finds its roots in the idea that we, the 99%, are fighting class warfare with the 1% and we are fed up with it. There is the idea that capitalism, democracy, and freedom, have been privatized and leveraged for personal gain both monetary and otherwise. Whether this is true or not has nothing to do with the actual cause. This is the kettle boiling over as the masses have had enough and simply want…something.

It started innocuously enough with about a thousand people responding to a Canadian-based site that called for the peaceful occupation of Wall St. to make their voices heard that they are tired of the corporate greed and the toxic environment that not only feeds the problem, but is at its core is profiting from it while so many others suffer. There isn’t time nor space for me to recount the events of the last three years, the wars we are fighting, the middle and lower class suffering that has occurred, or the overall tone of commentary about the poor and unfortunate rich that are being targeted in some weird version of class warfare. Suffice to say, people are tired and hungry for change, and they finally just want to stand shoulder to shoulder with their compatriots.

This kind of protesting is nothing new to me. I grew up in Oregon. The NW has been rife for protest and demonstration for decades. We had the WTO riots in Seattle. I know that people sit-in often, protest loudly, and are constantly chaining themselves together in the middle of an intersection for the purpose of one cause or another. The NW pioneered this kind of organization of the masses and we have been the ones to do it best to date. Occupy: Seattle…you knew it was only a matter of time.

All over the country we are seeing events planned out. This thing has gone viral, and ever since the protestors in NY attempted to bring traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge to a standstill, the front has been galvanized.

Charlotte, Seattle, Topeka, Detroit, Cairo, Tallahassee, and on. Occupiers are assembling in the places to let their voices be heard. But to what end? OccupyTogether.org even admits that this is a leaderless movement. A truly organic and grassroots uprising of the people saying enough is enough, but is it enough?

What are they saying in the streets?

“Banks are corrupt and corporate America has held us down for too long!” Really? Yeah, that’s not news. Big corporations are the only reason this industrialized country even exists. What, you think the railroads were built by little momand pop railroad building companies?

“Politicians are corrupt and pandering to big business as they make huge contributions to campaigns and are treated better than the people are!” No shit. Corrupt politicians who will say anything for a buck? Yeah, we can get them in bulk by the palate at Costco for fuck’s sake. Tell me something that isn’t as old as the story of humanity.

“We are sick and tired of the rich being coddled while the non-one-percenters get taxed and left with no help or recourse. It is time the rich started paying more and time that the government stopped bending over for them because they have all the money!” Keep fucking dreaming. Hell, companies are actually people now. We live in a world where “inc” has all the rights as “jr.” You think for one second that there is any going back from this? Not unless we go all post apocalyptic and start killing each other for oil, food, water, and power…wait a minute…

I have been watching the coverage, the videos, reading the articles, and I am still a little foggy on what the eventual Utopia is going to look like. What is the end goal? The end of large companies and world banks? Are we looking to tar and feather, draw and quarter, those responsible for this economic/democratic mess we find ourselves in? I doubt it, we just don’t have the horses for that.

With no clear end game and the looming eviction of the Occupy: Wall St.’ers at 7 am tomorrow, what is next? There is clearly no political party that will come out of this. The Tea Party was a well-funded conservative movement that gained a lot of traction and now has it’s hands inside the rusty gears of politics. Is “Occupy:” going to find itself a candidate? I think they did, but he hasn’t worked out so well for anyone up to this point.

The comparisons to the Tea Party movement are a little premature and a little grandiose. These are people loitering in parks and in public spaces. This is peaceable assembly, but for what cause? I’m not saying that the Tea party protestors had a clear message, but I could speculate that given enough rope and enough time with a microphone, any random occupier would eventually hang themselves in a tirade about the injustice and work there way to the idea of destroying it all and starting over again (well, maybe there is a little similarities in basic message). I don’t know if I can get there with you on that one, young blonde girl in dreadlocks, but this soccer mom in period authentic Revolutionary war outfit in the tri-corner hat is making a lot of sense. It’s all about the packaging.

What hurts the movement is that there isn’t another plan. If most protestors got their way then we’d throw every Wall St. broker in jail, close the big banks, and then rebuild democracy from the ground up. That’s the big difference between the Tea Party and Occupy:, the Tea Party had the sage words of forefathers and a Constitution to prostitute to their cause. The Occupy: movement is really gonna just be stuck with a manifesto and a couple parts of the Bill of Rights…with none of the forefather quotes to take out of context. Without some patriotic drum to beat, what it looks like is anarchy, dissent during hard times, and political mutiny (or at the very least an act of terrorism, maybe?).

It’s the protestors themselves that are hurting their own case. It’s like the crowds from Bonnaroo and Burning Man got lost on their way home and set up shop in any town they could find. Blocking the Brooklyn Bridge? Getting arrested? Shitting in the streets? Also, I have never seen so many backpacks at a protest in my life (no one take anyone wearing a backpack seriously). This is not going to play well to middle America. You just look like lazy and unemployed misanthropes. I’m not saying this is what you are, but that is how it is playing out.

I love the enthusiasm, but it’s misdirected. More than anything, if political involvement for real change is the end goal, then you blew your load too early. This will all be forgotten by January, but had this event taken place at this same time next year, than a voting base might have been able to be put in to action at the precipice of the election night. With Obama on the campaign trail and the GOP clamoring to create conservative sound bites, then you might have gotten more attention closer to the eleventh hour.

This doesn’t remind me of the Tea Party and it certainly doesn’t remind me of the uprising in Iran that got its start through the internet and social media. Though you’ve got hotlines, mailing addresses, and soon it’s own newpaper thanks to pledges at Kickstarter, this reminds me of the “Vote or Die” campaign…and we all know how well that turned out. Yeah, the t-shirt was cool, it was cool to repost links on Facebook, but it didn’t get the youth vote anywhere, and it didn’t stop Bush from getting elected. Once a movement is on MTV, it’s been dead for a week already.

I appreciate the effort, and I know you probably don’t have anywhere else to be anyway. Hang out, play bongos, chant, cheer, and march. It’s good for TV ratings and I’ll hashtag a post or two on Twitter, but don’t expect real change. It’s chaotic camaraderie at it’s best and it’s squatting and loitering all other times of the day. I support you, in theory. As does Soccer Mom Jane and Joe the Plumber, but Joe’s got a job and Jane’s got three kids to raise, so don’t expect their participation in anything but the Cliff Notes. They don’t have the time to camp out for a month in the name of a cause, and that is the major difference between the Tea Party and Occupy…priorities. Take a shower and put together a position, or get back to loitering outside Starbuck’s, hitch-hiking to Denver, and playing bongos for spare change outside a Virgin Records store. You know, the stuff you did before someone sent you an email to occupy something.

www.avaaz.org
www.occupytogether.org 
 #occupytogether
#OTW
www.facebook.com/occupytogether

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You Know I Hurt You ‘Cause I Love Ya, Right Baby?

Apr 28

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Red, White, and Blue Blooded

I was recently at my day job and a coworker jokingly told me, “write about love.” I scoffed, of course. Love? If you are a regular reader then you know that love is the furthest thing from my mind when I sit down to dole out my particular vintage of venom and vinegar (I suggest the 2010 which is particularly biting). Naturally I responded, “Love? I don’t write about love.” But I think it is time that I did, in fact, write about love. Don’t worry, I have not gone soft. It’s not ‘that’ kind of love. I want to write about my brand of patriotism. Patriotism, at its very core, is a deep and abiding love for one’s country and citizenship. I thank that coworker for highlighting the idea of love to me, in that it works very well with illustrating the points on patriotism I am about to cover. Though this may strike some of you in a dissonant fashion, I want you to be open to the ideas set forth here.

In March I wrote an article covering the congressional meetings about Islam in America. In this article I wrote the following:

“I can empathize with the struggle of those wanting nothing more than to be left alone. That is the most basic issue that terrorists have with America…In a matter of moments we would turn in to radicalized Christians killing in the name of God and Country to interrupt, and one day end, the dictatorial leadership to recapture our once great nation; soccer moms would be car bombing foreign military installations and detonating IED’s on Main Street with their Blackberry’s inside of a week.”

Out of a natural fear of ending up on a no-fly list getting a body scan and a tender cavity search from a now very close friend, Derek; not to mention a visit home looming on the horizon; I want to clarify my stance on my patriotism and the ideas behind what makes me a red, white, and blue blooded American.

Patriotism comes in many forms. The most ostentatious brand of patriotism is the one we see. Why? It is the easiest to identify and the most interesting to cover in the news. There is no subtlety in patroiotism in America. We love this country at a level 11 when everyone else’s knobs just go to 10. Isn’t it OK for me not to shove my love for this country down everyone’s throat? Do I have to advertise my patriotism to avoid being called a terrorist, or Islamic sympathizer? You know, someone else made people wear stars and stripes…the Nazis (sorry, couldn’t help myself). Who doesn’t want to see a secretary dressed in period authentic Minute Men garb at a Tea Party protest on Tax Day? It just makes for good TV, the spectacle of it all. There is no dignified patriotism in America. Overseas they relegate their violent fandom to Soccer, the same level of booze fueled madness we don’t even blink at expressing over fourth of July weekend. We’re getting ahead of ourselves though. Let’s first start with love. There are but three kinds of patriotism, as there are but three types of love: blind lust, symbiotic, and unconditional.

Blind lust is the warmest and fuzziest of them all. This kind of love smooths over every imperfection. This is the lust you feel at the beginning of a relationship. No matter what the quirk or problem may be, you find it cute, think the other person is just perfect, and can find no reason why you shouldn’t elope right then and there. This kind of patriotism is what you see when the American flag is squeegeed onto the back window of a Ford or read the “love it or leave it” sticker slapped proudly on the bumper of the same truck. This love is swirling in rainbow clouds around the heads of every person dawning the American flag dress shirt. This country is number one and they love this country so much that it quite literally hurts. With absolutely no quantifiable criteria, or any data to back up their claim, these blissfully ignorant America-lovers think this country is the greatest in the world and is God’s country. Never mind that our economy is in the toilet, our education system is a joke, and our foreign policy is a gracefully fumbling Charlie Chaplin at best. This is the best country and anyone who disagrees or argues is an enemy combatant or should just move to Canada.

Symbiotic love is the kind of love that comes from 50 years together. After a lifetime together, it’s the kind of bond your grandparents may have. It is not a burning passion anymore, but an identity created by literally bonding two people into one. There is no “I” and there is no “you,” simply “us.” This bond is much like the arch in architecture. It is a self-sustaining creation with no weak point that can sustain great loads that any other geometric structure would buckle under. One side of the arch is absolutely useless and will crumble without the other. This kind of patriotism is sustained in much the same way a loving and long-standing marriage would be held together. There is great trials and tribulations over many decades, but the ability to see it through and never quit one another is the bond that this kind of love creates. This is a patriotism you find in men who fought in WWII. There is a veneration and respect for this country that the young just sit in awe and admire. You throw away the bad, knowing that without this country you would be nothing, and that is what comforts you when you’re both shitting your pants and can’t remember each other’s name.

Then there is the unconditional. This is a stressful and nerve wracking love that can tug at the heart strings or drive you to the brink of insanity. This is the love a parent feels for their child. This is the underlying love that will exist no matter how badly, and how egregiously the child fucks up. You see it time and time again with parents crying and saying they love their son, that he is a “good boy,” even when he is on trial for a double murder. This is the love that is a hard candy shell around every other emotion; the M&M of emotional conditions. As a parent you may never agree with a child’s choices, lifestyle, or decision to pursue art school knowing full well they won’t be employable with a degree in post-modern fresco, but you support them anyway. You give your opinion, advice, lessons learned from your own mistakes, but your kid doesn’t listen, he thinks he knows best. Though you don’t like what he may do, he is your son, and you love him with every fiber in your being, hoping that the best will befall him despite his seeming attempts to see otherwise.

I fall in to the last category. I see far too many people fall in to the other two and it breaks my heart as a loving parent. Blind lust after this country does nothing to help this country grow. How can a person give advice when their judgment is clouded by their feelings? You can’t honestly think it is a healthy relationship if you can’t see the forrest through the trees? Your partner is silently crying out for help, advice, leadership, and all you can think is, “boy what a cute nose you have. Oh, your whole head is adorable. I LOVE YOU!” There is nothing constructive in symbiosis, either. In this new condition of existence there is no desire or will to change the other person. You have accepted them for who they are, and more importantly, who they are to you. Your relationship is bases on a mutual understanding of, “Hey, we’re not gonna find anyone better now, and we’ve been together so long, how would we even go about finding someone that fits us? Let’s just die knowing that at least we had someone through all these years and all these fights that could stand to go to bed mad with us.”

Is this any way to love? Well, I hope so, but not any one as a singular state of being. Each one must pass on to the next and even exist in tandem. I would hope that we all have blind lust at some point, but it must eventually turn in to an unconditional love one day. A love where you hope the best and may not always agree, but will always support. I hope that one day I move on to the symbiotic love. After all my years bickering, fighting, loving, and through the difficulties of being open enough to be hurt by your country, that one symbiotic day I can realize the beauty of accepting my country for who it is and for who it has made me after all these decades together.

I think far too often people mistake a healthy criticism of this country as a distaste for it. I will be the first to die for this country if my life can go to the greater good of it’s future. In my above statement I talk of empathizing with the terrorist plight. I also talk of soccer moms blowing up buildings with Blackberrys. I do get what they are fighting for in their own backwards way. I hate the actions we are taking that are prolonging this idealogical friction. In essence, I am watching my son continue in self-destructive behavior. I would die for my son though, and kill for him, too. Anyone ever wanted to hurt my son, no matter what a fuck up he is, they would have to go through me first, no matter how crazy that may sound.

I love this country, like a parent to a child. I am almost always at odds with the decisions this country makes, and am appalled at the hypocrisy and policy that our leaders put forth, both past and present. But I am still a proud parent. I don’t stop loving this country just because it makes some bad decisions. I don’t shun my progeny at the drop of a hat. This country is it’s own living, breathing entity, and it can do whatever it wants. At 18 this country declared it’s independence, moved out of the basement, and shacked up with a girl it has yet to bring home to meet the parents. Her name was Lady Liberty (who names their kid “Lady”?).

I for one, love my rights. This country has given me a set of abilities as a citizen to express myself in ways foreigners see as something of which they can only dream. I use my rights almost to the extent of abusing them; anyone who reads my work can attest to that. It’s because I love this country that I criticize and give my humble advice. This is indeed a country that is growing much as a teenager, and it is our responsibility to give our two cents, even if it hurts a little. It is out of a deep and unwavering love that I strongly disagree with it’s actions, because I want the best for my child. I do all of this for you, America. It’s because I love you, FOR all your faults and not just in spite of them, that I give my words of wisdom. It’s because I know you can be great, your potential is limitless, that I won’t give up on you. It’s because I love you more than life itself that I would lay my life on the line for you, if only to help you realize your pinnacle. No one can question my loyalty and my patriotism, I just refuse to let it blindly begin and end at a bumper sticker.

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Put Down the Sticks, The Bush Has Had Enough Already, Guys

Mar 7

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or: Everyone’s Waiting to See What Obama Does When Santorum Pulls a Newsom

or: No, you go first and then I’ll go first after you. Yeah, I’m totally going, but after you go first and then I go…like five months after you and you’ve already got your foot lodged in your esophagus, and are dead in the water before Iowa, then I’ll totally go

The rumblings are out there in the media. The blogosphere is abuzz with information of those seeking a bid. Everyone is speculating on the odds, the rankings, and who is either a contender or a pretender, as we go forward from here. No, I am not talking about the March Madness and Selection Sunday. I am talking about the possible nominees for the GOP bid for President in 2012. Yes, with a scant 21 months to go before election day, potential GOP nominees are beginning to dip their toes in to the icy waters to possibly, maybe, “forming an exploratory committee to,” make a run at the primaries next year. Though the list is pretty long now, and set to change dramatically as time goes on, there are a handful of interesting candidates; some with a shot, some without, and those that are just rife for skewering on a daily basis. With the field dancing around the issue, on one wanting to be the first cat out of the bag, this is the most fun time to speculate as to the merits of some of the GOP shoe-ins playing coy for the moment, looking to come in a little late when they see that no one else is going to be able to fuck this up as well as they can.

The list is a veritable who’s who, and who is that, of once and future kings. CBS has a list of eleven, but I hereby determine that said list is too long when you look at who will have the staying power to be on the ballot as a GOP candidate, or who can even garner the votes necessary to win the nomination outright. The obvious pretenders are folks like former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain; Haley Barbour, who is a self-proclaimed “fat redneck”; Mitch Daniels, who is fiscal enough for the base, burt his stance on social issues and the personality of wet cardboard is what will alienate him from nomination. There is also everyone’s favorite Tea Party Caucus founder, and resident right wing nut job Michelle Bachmann who is basically the poor man’s Sarah Palin, but she is our favorite for her complete inability to look directly in to a camera; her face goes all nazi-arc of the covenant if she does. Jon Huntsman might be the guy to give Obama a run in a general election seeing as he has worked with the administration and his pro-business/socially moderate views might play well overall, it’s a tough road to hoe if he wants to get the GOP go ahead as a Mormon and too liberal for the right’s taste. Gary Johnson and Ron Paul are kind of the same guy in the scope of voting. They would only take votes from one another, and ol’ Gary is a “whack job” Libertarian in the eyes of the GOP, he would have to run Independent if he had any shot at staying on a Presidential ballot to the tune of 8%.

The contenders are not the most likely to get the nomination by any stretch. I list all of these people as possible GOP nominees because of their past work, their appeal, their built-in base of supporters, and the fact that they are household names already, without having spent a dime for the election. They are: Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty, and Mitt Romney. These are the insidious six that have juked and shaken their way around the question of running in the past few weeks yet never said anything remotely like a no for the answer. I like a lot of these people, for a myriad and vast reaching number of reasons, but I find it odd that not one of them will take a stand against the President they seem to think is taking this country in a full gallop toward the End of Days. Each has a laundry list of issues and has just as long a list of qualities I might even want in a President, and all of them have a better than decent shot at getting the nomination, which is the most important first step in running and the topic of this commentary.

Let’s break ‘em down, shall we, in no particular order.

Mike Huckabee

The Huck! Join the HuckPack! Oh, the soft and gentle truncheon of the GOP arm of the government. This little guy has some years behind him and a failed GOP nomination run where he finished second to, of course, John Mccain. He was Arkansas governor from ‘96-’07 and did some interesting things there that I might venture left the state in good hands when he exited the position. Huck is a former pastor as well, which will resonate in the bible belt and beyond. He plays bass guitar in a “rock” band, Capitol Offense (what a good name) and has even headlined the House of Blues in New Orleans and opened for the likes of Willie Nelson.

Huck of course has Huckabee, a program on FOX News (you’ll be hearing that a bit) as well as a radio show and is promoting his recent book on a 43 city tour called A Simple Government. In and around his words on the book he is basically saying that this is his plan, this book is his blueprint with which he plans to move forward and campaign on. He has the media savvy, the chops, and the proven ability to make the GOP run, given there is no one better (also a theme here).

What does the Huck stand for? Well he is all about cutting spending, reducing costs, possibly breaking down public employee unions, and transferring a lot of the power back to the states in a nod back to Jefferson; he does like those Bush tax cuts though. He wants states to be allowed to experiment with self-governing and be able to keep the money from the people in their states, not deal with the minutia of federal mandates, and hold everyone accountable. His is not as vocal on social issues as he is on political issues. It is wise on his part to really avoid this kind of talk, to a point, being that the GOP is a bit in flux as the spectrum of left leaning conservatives widens.

The Huck is probably my favorite Conservative for the tone he keeps. Like Mister Rogers went to Washington, he has the most soothing way of spelling out some truly horrifying social and political views that would honestly keep me up at night sometimes. “Well hello there, neighbor. Today in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe let’s pretend that Curious X the Owl is proposing an end to the Bush Tax Cuts. Of course, King Friday XII has an issue with that since his personal wealth far exceeds the provision of homes over $250,000 in income. All the while our good friend Trolley has been taken off the tracks and replaced by an all-electric public transportation system bought with frivolous public works money that came from a big-government stimulus package which is not even doing what it is supposed to, and is crippling the lives of our yet unborn children. Can you all say TORT reform? Let’s see how the king is going to respond to liberal Curious X’s proposal…” Indeed.

He has the ability to defend himself and his statements while still being able to get his real message out; this will be crucial in a campaign. I can see he really does want to be able to honestly answer a question most of the time, but he plays the game well of giving the right answers, and this does make me a little suspect of him if we gave him the Presidency. Liberals are always more tolerant of a candidate telling the truth even if it might rub some people the wrong way; we respect brash honesty, just look at Barney Frank.

Mike is a nice guy, I’d like to meet him and have a sit over dinner. Speaking of diet, the man is a proponent of a healthier America, he also wrote a book about that, after being diagnosed with Type II Diabetes; he did an amazing job of equating obesity with a crisis of national security on Fox News Sunday, which was a very impressive misdirect on his part to get back to a hot button issue. He runs marathons, hunts, fishes, and has numerous awards from magazines like Time, Governing Magazine, and Outdoor Life. I know, they all give awards and they’ve all given one to him, cool, right? Mike has the conservative line to pull in the nomination, the safe bet for the party to not get embarrassed by comments by him, while he represents them well, but the safe bet might not be the right bet right now; you might need a pitbull…with lipstick.

 Sarah Palin

Where to begin? You know me, I write about this woman often and think her ridiculous on the level of something out of a horror b-movie; “oh c’mon, you can totally see the zipper on the back of the monster,” and that is why I like watching those flicks; they’re just unapologetically bad which makes them so good.

Let’s not kid ourselves, this woman has been campaigning for the GOP nomination and presidency ever since McCain conceded to Obama in 2008. Every single moment on Fox or any other network has been about “the American people” and “no-nonsense politics” and my favorite “heading down the wrong path,” like there are only trails in the forrest we’re not allowed to stray from; God forbid a country about 230 years old go bushwhacking to see if something interesting might work.

Palin has the GOP sex appeal vote by the balls. That is one folksy hockey mom everyone on both sides of the aisle would not mind tagging. Let’s not kid ourselves, she’s hot in that way your childhood buddy Timmy’s mom made you feel funny in your pants; she’s just appealing in a way you can’t articulate yet. That’s where the buck stops with me and most sane folks though. She has Bachmann beat on the front of Tea Party support yet she has managed to keep from tying herself to them synonymously. Palin has always found an outlet for her vague message and family values in the time since her campaign as VP and she is still on the tip of everyone’s tongue if you asked them.

She has a massive base to draw from, but it is enough though. The traditional conservative base shuns her a bit, but with fundraising on her own merit she will be fine getting the word out, not to mention her constant media presence in twitter and other jagoff wastes of time. She doesn’t pull any punches, despite the fact she has no idea how to box. This is a woman who couldn’t name a newspaper she reads, and of course was there as a 2/3 Governor to keep an eye on Russia and keep up foreign relations with them, by osmosis apparently. This is the same woman that somehow made the Tucson Massacre about her, and lashes out on Facebook like a 14-year-old with an acne problem, “those guys can be so mean to me. Stop picking on me!”

Yet she keeps coming back for the punishment; she’s clearly the woman with the broken finger in the doctor’s office. She has had a meteoric rise in the media with her appearances on Fox News, Oprah, her reality TV show, a best-selling book, and her ability to interpret everything that happens, even shootings, as a cheap jab at her. She is the most recognized household name in the GOP rolodex right now, bar none, but I would expect to see her on Ice Skating with the Stars before I would expect to see her on a Republican ticket for President.

Sarah Palin’s fan base, despite the fact they can’t even spell her name correctly at a Tea Party protest, is undying and loyal to a great fault. They follow her blindly no matter the flub, the ineptitude, and the harsh “woe is me” attitude. After graduating early from her Governorship of Alaska, some how being able to serve the American public more efficiently without legislative power (still don’t get that) she has kept up her down home, tundra farmhouse wisdom. She is the political answer to Dr. Phil. No matter what she says or how little sense it makes, her people seem to take it at face value without a second thought. “I always say, a bullfrog with one leg will be able to out run a coon dog with one good eye almost every Sunday.” Huh? “Just because the sink is full of dishes don’t mean the pots and pans belong in the bathtub.” What? “I think God’s will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that.” That one’s actually true.

Despite her seemingly endless appeal in the entertainment sector, Palin faces a tough battle trying to garner support for her presidency before she can expect to win a nomination in her own party. There is a lot of doubt, and negative impressions of her out there, and she might be partially to blame for that. Her words are rarely ever taken out of context or “misunderestimated.” She shoots off at the mouth almost as badly as G. W. Bush did with his inability to get words out correctly, or to speak eloquently. She has rousing support in the Tea Party movement, but I feel that the GOP is trying to keep that base at arm’s length a bit when it comes to their next run at the presidency. They have got to get a candidate out there that doesn’t mince words, a Time man of the year, and the rock that still totes on the tragedy of 9/11…a guy with a lisp…

Rudy Giuliani

I don’t really feel I need to run down his resume for you. Former Mayor of New York during the attacks of 9/11. This country loved that man, voted man of the year by Time Magazine. His face and his speech impediment stood as a beacon of a man that represented the city he loves so much, and embodies the tough and resilient spirit he feels that his city is built on. He is New York tough on crime, terrorism, and is fiscally conservative. He is the smiling face that the GOP might want to hang in the White House if they want to take it to Obama.

I don’t know though. Giuliani still beats the 9/11 drum pretty hard, and I am betting poles would show that no one really likes the beat anymore. Don’t get me wrong, it was a number one hit for like 312 weeks. If all else failed and you want to sell an idea or a new plan, just work that little jingle in to the mix, or attach some 9/11 inspired legislature on to a fraudulent bill, and BOOM, you have got yourself a working model for success. After the attacks it was like McCarthy searching out Reds in the US. We were turning over every stone, loading every bullet, and unwrapping every turban and taqiyah in search of the bastards. Giuliani was untouchable.

Though he still doesn’t pay for a hotdog in NYC, he ran an unorthodox campaign in 2008 and fell far short of a nomination. He has some extramarital issues in his past (who doesn’t), and some questionable association in his post-mayoral time. He was an early frontrunner in national poles, but he seemingly avoided campaigning in early voting states and smaller demographics, failing to see the importance of winning states to shore up the view of you as a candidate in the national picture; you have to some states to win others, it’s like a state seeing the other picking the winning team, well you naturally want to be on that team.

It is unclear if he will run, but if he is going to it might as well be now. This is an opportune time for a socially moderate and fiscally conservative Italian Republican to take out Obama’s knee caps with a one-two shot from these ball-peen hammer platforms where Obama is weakest (real stretch to make a mafia joke, but I stand by it). If he does campaign he is going to have to very carefully work around his time as mayor in NYC. He did a lot of good things for the city in alleviating crime and cleaning the joint up, improving living conditions, but he cannot use 9/11 like a comma. In his 2008 bid he peppered it in to almost any single subject and speech, no matter how far off base it took him. Like so inanimate monkey he just crashes the cymbals of 9/11 while Americans have moved on and are focused on the economy, growth, and items of infrastructure like schools and state and federal budgeting crises. If he sticks to his strengths and focuses on the issues of today, not wailing away on a dead horse of a decade ago, then he might have a shot; might wanna campaign in Iowa, too. 9/11

Newt Gingrich

Ah, the elder statesman. You know why they call him that? Cause he’s fucking old and he’s been doing this a long time. I will go in to his chances a bit more, but if you want to stop right now and move to the next I wouldn’t blame you, we will never elect a man named “Newt.” This is just a simple fact we all need to face, especially you, Gingrich.

He’s an old man, and has a laundry list of issues to contend with from his past. You can’t teach an old dog news tricks, but some of his old tricks might have actually come back in to style. He’s a divisive man, as Speaker of the house he went toe to toe with Clinton, and was the perceived, and actual, loser in government shutdowns he basically orchestrated. He might be enjoying some early pole numbers currently over the likes of Huckabee and they yet to be vetted Santorum, but he’s got to make up a lot of ground over his past; baggage which includes three wives and two affairs that led to wives two and three. He even served his second wife her divorce papers while she was in the hospital battling cancer.

He won’t be winning and contested for decorum and good timing, he might be able to win the hearts of a beleaguered nation. He can show a decisively conservative fiscal view and an experience in the ways of Washington, which might sit better with people after the experiment of a lack of experience we took with Obama which has been ho-hum at best. In the vacuum of joblessness and budget woes, he would be a clear leader for the nomination, but we don’t live in no stinkin’ vacuum.

Gingrich, along with Santorum, were suspended by Fox News where they are regular commentators, because of the rumors of possible runs for presidency in 2012. They are both making regular trips to Iowa, and Gingrich himself has publicly stated that he has assembled an “exploratory committee” to see if there is support out there for him. There might be support, and there probably is, but that is the Gingrich base that will short of write his name in on a ballot. His chances at gaining very much ground in a real race to the nomination is slim since the views of him are already set in stone, and it’s no easy task sanding that down and starting anew, not at 68. He would have to convince and fear monger this country in to thinking the Gingrich rope is the only thing we can grab to keep this country from floundering in to ruination; with his experience at Fox News, he might still have some juice in him after all.

Tim Pawlenty

Pawlenty might be the right man for the job, all things considered. He is evangelical so you know the right likes that. He has 18 years in Minnesota government, yet he’s only a verile 50 years old. He is tough on core American values (whatever those are) and a constitutional conservative. He has the winning looks of a John Edwards minus all that sticky mistress/baby stuff he got himself in to. By all accounts Pawlenty is a legit runner.

He really has been doing his homework. He is championing a fight against the spending, which he did pretty well in Minnesota, but mostly he is fighting the Obamacare bill. He is promising already to overturn that “mistake,” not to mention the “cap and Trade” reform and to bring America back to it’s roots. He is running a lot of lines about uniting conservatives under one flag. In his mind it doesn’t matter if you’re Tea Party conservative, Reagan conservative, or mainstream conservative, his ingenious platforming is that we (and by that I mean “they”) can come together to simply elect whoever the hell isn’t a democrat.

I like this kind of thinking from the opposition, because it instills in me a clear disconnect between voting for just any one and voting for the right one. I think it also echoes the feeling of the GOP at this early juncture, “who the hell do we have? Anybody? Bueller? Bueller?” The thing that might hurt Pawlenty just as it hurt Edwards or Kerry is the lack of star power. There is just very little about this guy to really get excited about. He has the charisma of a high school science teacher and the demeanor of a youth pastor, a crappy one. It is in question whether he has the zeal, the pep, and even the commanding voice, to pull off a untied front of conservatives like he talked about at the ND GOP. It takes a very charismatic and clever character to stir the cockles of a nation in to action, and we know the history of how often a nation jumps political ship mid-war, so getting Obama out is gonna take that x-factor the Pawlenty doesn’t have; he’s just too damn nice, in a republican way. (needed a qualifying statement there)

Mitt Romney

The playboy with a smile of gold and a skin tone of freshly roasted almonds. He’s got that salt and pepper Clooney thing going on and just “looks presidential.” This country would be comforted in his strong arms as we are held against his barrel-chest and told everything will be alright…and conservative-ish.

Romney is the GOP playboy. Though a stunning 63, he could be 45 in even the least flattering light. A former candidate for the nomination in 2008 he ran in to more than a few roadblocks, none that will be any less derailing this time around, and some new ones that will make it worse.

For a conservative party chanting for a return to traditional American values and morals, the call of Mormon is going to be a tough ticket to get punched on a ride to the GOP nomination. The party is all about the new face, rebranding, and getting the base back under one big umbrella of a fiscally conservative, God-fearing nation once again, like our racist anglo-european forefathers would have wanted. The idea of a Mormon still freaks people out; Big Love sends a powerful and confusing message even I stare quizzically at some times. Seriously, I’m like a dog staring at the answering machine when it hears your voice when you call home.

That hurdle was there before and it is an even bigger problem now, trying to depose a sitting President that hasn’t yet ushered in the End of Days the party was really hoping for. The second issue that will unequivocally destroy his chances at appealing to the conservative base in the RomneyCare plan he has instituted in Massachusetts. Yes, Obama praised Romney for his plan, telling other states to look to Massachusetts as a blueprint for locally run government healthcare. I think this was a wise move on Obama’s part. How better to ruin a possible opponent in the coming election than by highlighting his socialized medicine plan. How savvy to basically alienate a potential GOP nominee than to point out to his constituency that he’s doing a great job doing something you think is evil and the end of the world; like a black man forcing a Nazi to take a picture with him, “your friends are gonna love this, say cheeeese!”

Mitt Romney may have the looks and the breeding for the office, his father served to the Nixon presidency (at least it’s something) and his mother was also involved in politics. He went to BYU, Harvard, a year at Stanford, and is an accomplished businessman and politician. By all accounts his jib is the right cut to win…but not over Obama to be re-elected. This is the caveat. He might look the part, but his version of socialized medicine and his religion will make many uncomfortable, and incense everyone, in his party. Next to that, I don’t think Christians want a Mormon president representing our Christian values. It is a sad state of affairs, but with a party terrified of the Muslims, Gays, Liberals, Commies, etc. taking over, I think they will be more than happy to lump the Mormon take over in with the lot of them; sorry GOP Ken, better luck in the next one.

So what the hell have we learned? Well we can see that every candidate has their merits in the long run, but too many pitfalls pock-mark the landscape for them to possibly make the journey. We know some are too conservative while others aren’t conservative enough. If they aren’t lacking in charisma then they are of the wrong religion. They might be able to learn from past campaign mistakes, but they just might not look or sound the part of a president. They might be too crazy, or not crazy enough, or crazy about all the wrong things. A candidate might look good on paper with all the right credentials but just doesn’t wear the right suit; or maybe the candidate is just from Alaska.

What is important to note is that no one wants to be the first runner in Pamplona. Not one of them, despite years of hate speech, rhetoric, death panels, Obamacare, repealing DADT, stimulus packages, and one thing after another that has Glenn Beck in seizures on a nightly basis, not one of these people that was running their mouth since Obama started campaigning, wants to step up and go blow for blow with the sitting president. Each one is telling the other to jump while they don’t want to. Sarah Palin literally said that she would run if “there was no one else out there with the right ideas to fix this country.” Well if you’ve got the right ideas then step up to the plate or sign up for Celebrity Apprentice and shut the hell up.

Let’s look at the mold, what does this nominee need to look like and sound like? If we were able to create the perfect political kryptonite to an Obama re-election, what would it be?

We need a chiseled chin, broad shoulders and a man no older than 55. We need a Christian, Evangelical if you got one laying around, and a family man with two kids and loving wife who is only a little better than a “7″ in good light. He needs to have been married at least 15 years and have graduated from prestigious state-side universities. He needs a good voting record and at least ten years in both state and federal politics, yet with all this time in politics he can’t have any baggage that can’t be explained away in press release. He needs to have served in the military voluntarily. Salt and pepper hair with a winning smile. He needs to be eloquent but not too well-read for fear of making a large base of republicans feel stupid. We need a fiscally conservative, small government minded, business friendly, upper 1% pandering, man of the people who can quote both Reagan and Jefferson without sounding like a total tool; pro guns, pro life, and pro death penalty while anti-gay, anti-arab, and anti-accountability. He also needs to be against unions, but for teachers, while still cutting funding to schools and increasing the defense budget to “keep America safe.” Not to mention a long list of Hollywood friends and endorsements up the wazoo from every kind of business person and lobbyist in the nation. Finally he needs to be able to lie to the American people and tell them with a straight face “this is on a need-to-know basis, and you don’t need to know.”

Wow, I don’t even know if that person exists in politics today. Such a finely crafted machine designed to glad hand and kiss babies. The perfect rhetoric machine gun able to tow the conservative line while sounding progressive and inclusive to anyone willing to register republican, whether we like them or not. A non-stop fundraising machine, half stand-up comic, half philosopher of the forefathers. The kind of man that men want to be and women want to be with…Good luck with that! Haha. You haven’t a prayer of finding that creature out in the world today. Though Obama might be fucking up left and right, he is a sitting president on the upswing in the middle of a war, they don’t get deposed. It will take something of a vetting miracle to find the right horse to draw the wagon because I am no fair weather fan and I’m not jumping off the home team just because we’re down at the half. You can have your little parade of elder statesmen and reality TV stars, setting the debates up by the Hornberger system, but short of going all Weird Science and birthing the right candidate from a diabolical machine to “refudiate” the president and guide “Reagan’s country” back on the “doggone” right path, things are looking fuckin’ bleek. (that first one’s real…ah hell they all are. Thanks, Sarah!)

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