Gnooze - Hilary Backs Obama

Gnooze - Clinton Fights On

Whirled News - Senator Clinton Revamps Campaign Strategy

A determined Senator Hillary Clinton today refused to drop out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination and instead revamped her campaign strategy to focus on the upcoming West Virginia primary.

Appearing at a rally in Morgantown, West Virginia, the Senator announced, “This race is about something bigger than my ego. What’s bigger than that? It’s so big that I dare not speak Its name aloud, but y’all know what I mean.”

Sporting a new look, the Senator wore overalls and had two front teeth missing, and the newly energized candidate repeatedly poked her corncob pipe at the audience to emphasize her points.

“Ah’m a straight shooter,” she said. “My daddy taught me how to shoot straight when I was a little girl, and when ah’ve said in the past that ah’m for gun control, ah meant controlling yer aim. Ah represent the common folk. Mah opponent wants to make you pay more and more money for gasoline, but ah want to give you all a rebate this summer, and that’ll help you out no matter what the pointy-headed intellectuals in Washington say. And I say, let’s get the job done in Iraq, but let’s get the job done right.”

Later that day the Senator appeared at the University of Oregon, where another primary is scheduled later this month. Discarding her overalls and corncob pipe and appearing with new teeth, wearing a sensible business suit, and using a pointer, the Senator answered questions from the students and faculty.

Addressing the concerns of Oregonians about the deteriorating environment, the Senator noted that just the other day she had gone to Washington’s Zoo to look at the panders.

“We’ve got to do something to save them and everything else,” she said, “And I’m going to bring together the energy industry and common people to find a solution that balances economical and environmental concerns.”

Asked by a professor of Latin what her favorite book was, the Senator replied, “Pander’s Odes.”

And appealing for a more civil and calmer primary election, she decried “the panderonium that’s been taking place.”

Whirled News - President, Candidates Address Gasoline, Climate Crisis

A determined President Bush challenged Congress to deal with the soaring price of gasoline by insisting they approve drilling in Alaska and the construction of a string of new oil refineries across the country.

After a series of irrelevant questions, a Whirled News reporter asked the President whether these new initiatives weren’t in direct contradiction to his State of the Union speech in which he said that “America is addicted to oil.”

Several reporters stared in disbelief, and one was heard to mutter, “What kind of reporter does he think he is, asking questions like that?”

The President replied that his new proposals actually supported his warning that America was addicted to oil.

“We’ve got to make sure things get worse with our addiction first,” he said. “Only after our addicted nation touches the bottom will it seek the help it so desperately needs.”

In response to a follow-up question about how building new refineries would address the President’s environmental initiatives he proposed two weeks ago, reporters were heard asking each other, “What environmental initiatives? How are we supposed to remember what he said two weeks ago?”

The President, speaking over the confused murmurs, responded that the environmental initiatives he proposed were long-range proposals to be phased in decades from now when global warming becomes a serious problem, while the gasoline crisis was “as immediate and clear a present danger as another terrorist attack. The American people want their President to act boldly in times of crisis,” he insisted.

Meanwhile, Senators Hillary Clinton and John McCain pushed their proposals for a temporary roll-back of the federal tax on gasoline this summer to help make gas more affordable.

Reiterating his campaign theme of straight, honest talk, McCain insisted, “As a candidate for President of the United States, I can do no less to address global warming and our energy crises.”

Senator Clinton, in supporting the temporary tax rollback, pointed out that, “This proves that I can make the tough decisions. It’s not easy to keep pandering for votes while you’re insisting that America needs a change from politics as usual,” she said.

She pointed out that by supporting her proposal, her opponent Barack Obama could “prove he was on the side of working Americans.”

Obama campaign officials responded that the temporary tax roll-back was merely a cosmetic sop, would accomplish nothing in the long-run, and in fact merely helped fuel the deeper global climate and energy crises. Ms. Clinton responded by announcing that she was considering Monica Lewinsky as her running mate. “We both know how to whore in order to get close to power,” she said.

Whirled News - Bush Administration Reveals Bold New Climate Change Plan

The Bush administration announced its long awaited plans to address global warming. Signifying the importance of the new proposal, Vice President Cheney, the most powerful man in the United States government, announced the bold new plan.

“We’re going to bomb the bejeezus out of Iran, Afghanistan, and a few other places which I do not intend to divulge in order to keep the terrorists guessing,” the Vice President announced. “The combined force of the unprecedented explosions will move the Earth a few degrees out of its present orbit, just farther enough from the sun to cool our temperature by two degrees Fahrenheit.”

Insisting that the Bush administration had learned a lesson about post-war planning, Mr. Cheney announced that the United States would immediately begin drilling for oil in Alaska and building a string of refineries across the country.

“We’re going to need more heating oil when our planet moves further away from the sun and starts cooling,” he said, and we’ll be ready for it.”

Stressing that the new environmental plan entailed even longer-range planning than the new oil drilling, Mr. Cheney also announced a $10 trillion contract to Raytheon to develop the next generation of nuclear bombs to move the Earth again 30 years from now when the increase in fossil fuel burning may necessitate another orbital readjustment. As part of the plan, Halliburton has been awarded a $1 trillion contract to build and maintain Raytheon City in the Mojave Desert, which will house the massive project.

“The new city will require water,” Mr. Cheney pointed out, “And so former Haliburton subsidiary Brown, Kellogg and Root will be awarded an $80 billion contract to build a pipeline from the Great Lakes to the Mojave Desert.”

Referring to critics, who have warned that the project will result in the draining of the Great Lakes, as “environmental alarmists,” Mr. Cheney pointed out that with Lakes Mead and Powell projected to dry up by 2021, the emerging dry basins will provide excellent holding areas for the newly arriving Great Lakes waters, a clear indication, he said, that God favors the administration’s plan.

Bush Girl - My Lil' Bush

Whirled News - Outcry Against Negative Campaigning Grows

A new voice joined the criticism of ex-Obama aide Samantha Power for calling Senator Hillary Clinton a “monster."

“Calling Senator Clinton a monster is a deep personal insult to me,” said Ben Chapman, who donned a rubber suit to play the creature from the black lagoon in the 1954 horror movie of the same name.

“It propagates the false stereotype of monsters as creatures who will do anything to take over and win, when in fact most of us monsters were really just misunderstood and were trying to protect our own turf.”

Chapman did however concede one similarity between Senator Clinton and him. “I too had a devil of time squeezing into my outfit each day,” he said.

Obama also gained a vote of confidence from a former Clinton White House worker, who decried Senator Clinton’s, “Who will answer the phone at 3 AM?” ad. “When she was First Lady, Hillary had no idea what was going on in the White House at 3 AM,” said Monica Lewinsky.

Despite the apparent backlash against the Clinton barrage of negative campaigning, Obama campaign officials expressed concern.

“Some people might say that this ultimately makes him a more attractive candidate, but Obama’s really getting his ears pinned back,” said an aide to the Illinois Senator.

Obama officials promised that the Senator would begin responding more aggressively to the Clinton negative campaigning but acknowledged that fashioning a counterattack is difficult.

“They’ve borrowed a page from the George Bush playbook,” he pointed out. “His father did it and he’s been doing it too. You attack viciously, either directly or sneakily, and then the moment your opponent responds in kind, you cry foul and accuse him of playing dirty. We just have to help the American people realize that this is yet another example of what little real difference there is between Bush and Clinton campaigning—hey, I just did it!” he exclaimed.

In other news, President Bush once again denied that the economy is in recession.

“I’ve never lied to the American people about anything,” he asserted, “And I always accept responsibility for any mistakes I make. So let me say this again. We’re winning in Iraq and Afghanistan, our enemies are growing weaker, and our country is growing stronger, but our economy has hit a temporary slowdown. We’re still driving along this fine road, but we’ve hit a little mud patch is all. We just need to stay in the car and keep going, while anyone who tries to climb out and try something else is going to get splattered with mud. Tell your Congressmen to make my tax cuts for the rich permanent, or else this temporary slowdown will turn into something worse and it’ll be all Congress’s fault. And just think about those rebate checks you’ll be getting. Thanks to Congress falling quickly in line with my economic stimulus package, those checks will be arriving in time to still buy a full tank of gas and filter even more money of that new money we’ve just printed toward the upper 2 percent of our wealthiest citizens. After all, they’re the ones--not government—that’ll make this whole thing work.”

Whirled News - God Expresses Despair Over Presidential Primaries

A visibly exhausted God lapsed into a rare moment of despair today at His press conference following last night’s presidential primaries.

“With these latest results, it’s looking like this campaign is going to drag on forever,” He said, “And until everyone stops talking about all these other issues, no one’s going to do anything about global warming. Because of hundreds of extra tons of hydrocarbon emissions in the atmosphere, Atlas has retired with crippling bursitis, and I’ve had to take over for him. Honest to Me, I can’t hold off this global warming all by Myself much longer.”

Reporters tried to cheer Him up by pointing out that at least the Republican nominee was decided, but God saw little good news in that.

“That alter kaker McCain may not live until the November election,” He said, “and that will put everything right back to people talking about all these other things again.”

Informed of God’s comments, Republican presumptive nominee John McCain said, “While I would never disagree with anything God says, my friends, I would point out to Him that unless we uphold our honor in Iraq, stay the course and prevail, it’s irrelevant whether the entire world ecosystem collapses. Would you rather live in a world in which Al-Qaeda is on the loose? They thrive in hot weather and barren deserts.”

The Democratic nominees also respectfully disagreed with God.

“Oh, I’m sure God will save us and leave me time to focus on other issues that will garner me votes,” said Senator Hillary Clinton. “If I can do things like fit into my pants suits and transubstantiate my vote on Iraq, He can stop global warming.”

Senator Barack Obama’s office also issued a statement, expressing his concern for God.

“God’s statements today, lacking His usual grandiloquence, show how exhausted He is,” he said. “But let me assure every one of you that I intend to carry my own oration forward into the future until such time as He is able to extend His oratorical glory to all of us once again and unite us all in common mission. And even if the pace of global warming is now happening faster than most scientists predicted, change is what we’re all about, isn’t it? My fellow Americans, we must never change out of fear but we must never fear to change.”

Reflecting His growing despair, twice during His press conference, God tried to focus on good news but both times veered toward darkness again.

“At least last night’s results knocked Crazy Mike out of the race,” He said at one point. “But he may be back as a Vice Presidential candidate, and he’s one of those guys who thinks responsibility for everything rests on Me.”

Later in the conference, God momentarily expressed optimism about Ralph Nader entering the race.

“There’s the only guy who will stand up to corporate interests and meaningfully implement alternate energy,” He said. “But even if this Nader guy somehow gets elected and sets up windmills all across the country, a year later he’s likely to start knocking them down with his lance.”

Whirled News - Fox News Apologizes for Unintentional Obama-Clinton Slur

Fox News president Roger Ailes today apologized for a Fox News headline that said, “Obama-Clinton Discovered in Bed Together,” contending that while the story itself accurately related how the two contenders for the Democratic nomination were actually coordinating an attack to wrest control of the government from the Republicans and hand it over to the terrorists in November, the headline itself “may have been a bit misleading.”

“We in no way meant to evoke stereotypes of an oversexed black male lusting after a white woman,” he said. “Instead we merely meant to remind our viewers of the Clintons as a licentious couple who have no respect for the exclusiveness of sex within a marriage, of Hillary Clinton as a shrill woman who fights in an hysterical and vindictive manner, and of Barack Obama as a naïve black dupe who gets caught up in matters which he cannot understand and which are beyond his control.” Rejecting accusations of Fox News as racist for running the headline, Ailes said that his news organization was repeating basically the same story line as Richard Wright’s Native Son, a “widely read novel written by another Communist Negro man.”

“Fox News remains firmly committed to analyzing the major political stories of our time, going beneath al the blather about policies and programs to get at the truth of what’s really going on,” he said.

Gay Republican #4 - Attack of the Beavermuppets

Well, John McCain looks to be the inevitable Republican nominee, and I don’t really want to talk about it…. Much.

Here’s a strategic quandary; which is worse: A Democrat president who implements ruinous left-wing policy, or a Republican president who does pretty much the same and destroys his party in the process?

Clearly, both Hillary and Obama want to raise taxes. Yes, on “the rich”, but newsflash, dear reader: those are the worst taxes to raise. Howl all you want, but when you change tax rates on people earning about $50 grand a year, pretty much the only thing you change is the number of dollars they pay. When you change tax rates on people earning $250,000 per year, you’re fucking with people who actually make decisions based on the tax rates. “Should I invest?” “Should I start a small business?” “Should I expand my business?”
The phrase “the rich” is class-warfare code-speak for “the leaders who take the initiative and drive our economy.”

By and large, that’s why they’re rich; they earned it. If our economy is like a building, then screwing with tax rates on the non-rich is like kicking the bricks. Raising taxes on “the rich”, though, is like knocking the keystone out of the archway.
But John McCain opposed Bush’s tax cuts, and he’s indicated that he’d raise taxes on “the rich” again. (Maybe he’s said something different more recently; I can’t keep track.)

Where’s the difference?

Clearly, both Hillary and Obama would appoint left-wing federal judges, who prefer to create case law on the fly rather than adhere to the limitations imposed on the US Government by that dusty old relic, the US Constitution. But John McCain just last week called Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito “too conservative.”

Does anybody believe that McCain, in his shameless self-prostitution to fawning media coverage, wouldn’t appoint a “moderate”?

Last time a “moderate” Republican president appointed a “moderate” SCOTUS Justice, we got Souter….

Where’s the difference?

I don’t even want to think about what McCain would do to “solve the healthcare crisis.” Clearly, both Hillary and Obama would like to implement a single-payer system, which, as anybody who’s worked on the financial side of health care (as I have) can tell you (as I am), will plainly and directly lead to fewer health care providers and less availability of care. Which in turn leads to nationalization of the providers, which ultimately results in the decay of the entire system as well as dire financial straits for the payer (the US Government), to whom all the bills are sent. Now, while I haven’t yet heard him introduce a plan for socialized medicine, is there any real doubt that John McCain’s simple-minded, short-sighted pragmatism would compel him to sign into law whatever hair-brained, entitlement-creating legislation the Democrat congress sent him?
Where’s the difference?

About the only solid distinguishing factor between McCain and either of the Beavermuppets he might face in the general election is McCain’s commitment to successful ongoing prosecution of the war against terror. But if the nation is decaying from the inside out, then the goings-on in the terror-friendly world overseas are the least of our concern.

But I don’t really want to talk about it.

I finally broke down and bought “The Departed” soundtrack today, and I can’t get past track 1, the Roger Waters / Van Morrison / The Band remake of “Comfortably Numb.”

Which reminds me: Roger Waters is going to be at Coachella this year! And with any luck, I’ll be backstage.

Don’t be jealous.

In other news, Valentine’s Day is Thursday, and I truly wish you and yours a happy, romantic, and pleasurably copulatory day. Whether “yours” is animal, vegetable, or mineral.
At present, mine happens to be “mineral”; this year I am single for the sacred holiday yet again. I’m not completely sure how this always happens, but I think it relates to my tendency to find love in the hot days of summer, and then pitch it to the curb when the relationship starts to show stress cracks as the winter holiday season approaches.

Don’t cry for me, Argentina.
All things considered, it’s just another gift that I don’t have to buy. Which is good news, since I have the worst memory for dates. Even the ones that Hallmark all but calls you to remind you about.

I would go to the Abbey and get hammered with the rest of the sad fags who consider a February 14th hookup “a date for Valentine’s Day”, but I gave up drinking for 60 days as part of my New Year’s resolution, so that’s out.

I would go to Lucha VaVoom with the downtown crew… but I gave up drinking for 60 days as part of my New Year’s resolution, so that’s out. (If you’ve ever been to Lucha, you know that inebriation is not optional.)

I would open a bottle of Stags Leap Cabernet and relax at home while watching Elizabethtown, but…

You get the idea.

I’ll probably spend it like most other Thursday evenings since December 31st: getting home, doing gym laundry, checking my mypartner.com inbox, wondering why the men on mypartner.com aren’t hotter, browsing through profiles of shirtless men on myspace, wondering why the men on myspace are all such sluts, reassuring myself that the answer lies in a maddeningly frustrating tradeoff, brushing my teeth, washing my face, and going to bed around 10h00.


Thank God Monday is President’s Day.
I’ll have time in my busy schedule to write a better article next week.

The Gay Republican #3 - Romney's Poll

Like a good American, I voted this Super Duper Tuesday. And like a good Republican, I voted early, by absentee ballot. The forty-one cents that it cost in first class postage was a cheap price to pay not to have to stand in line at a polling place, thinking “This is southern California; I bet I’m the only human in this room with enough brains to assemble a political thought other than ‘Fuck Bush.’”

This article won’t be posted for your consumption, dear reader, until (probably) Thursday, so its contents will hold sway over precisely nobody’s voting decision. But a news graphic in today’s Daily News provided some consolation; it announced that in Los Angeles County there are about 1.9 million registered Democrat voters and about 1.0 million Republicans. Consider as well the fact that the California Republican Party holds a closed primary, meaning that only registered Republicans can vote for the Republican nominee. Add to those two facts a third: the likely audience for this narrative’s venue is young, tattooed, and doesn’t have a 401(k). I think you’ll agree that even if this article had been published on Saturday, its effectiveness as a conservative electoral influence would still roughly equate to the effectiveness of a banner ad for Jim Cramer’s Mad Money on TheHungerSite.com!

(Aside: TheHungerSite.com is a gleaming illustration of the vapidity of liberalism. You go to the site, click a button, and it tells you that you just donated “a cup of food” to feed the hungry.
Really? My mouse click did that? Obviously not, but it makes the clicker feel as though his sheer “caring” made a difference. So you make your non-sacrifice, and you receive a belly full of happy feelings in return. Maybe tomorrow you’ll buy a TerraPass for your car; if you’re simple-minded enough to believe that your mouse-click fed a starving Ethiopian, then you’ll probably also swallow the idea that you can assuage your car-driving eco-guilt for a year by paying somebody on the other side of the planet $60 to reduce his carbon emissions accordingly.)

Rather than dance around it, I’ll just come out with it: I like Mitt Romney….

I have throughout the race. He’s a handsome, intelligent, well-spoken former Governor, who enjoyed fabulous success governing a state where his traditional Mormon roots put him at odds with a very liberal population. He implemented a universal health care system in Massachusetts that precludes (further) government bloat. (It works like car insurance: If you live in Mass, then you must carry health insurance. And if your employer doesn’t provide it and you can’t afford it, then the state will assist in paying for it.) Also, Romney has a track record of enviable business acumen, which would be well put to use helping our nation excel in a global economy.
And as if that’s not enough, he has five HOT sons. Have you seen those boys? Ben, Craig, Josh, Matt, and Tagg.

Gleaming, clean, pure-bred, Latter-Day fetish objects; the whole lot. If you figure that about 10% of the population is gay, then the odds of at least one of those boys being light in the loafers is about 41%. (If you’re scratching your head about where that number came from, stop reading this article immediately and go donate a cup of food at The Hunger Site.)

If Craig Romney ends up being the Mary of the group, I call “dibs!”

Anyway, Mitt Romney is the only viable conservative left in the race, so he’s my guy. I was leaning toward Fred Thompson for a bit, but he’s gone. I think that a Romney-Giuliani ticket would blow away either Hillary or Obama (or both) so that’s what I’m hoping for. At press time (figuratively speaking) the California polls have not closed yet, but Mitt Romney seems to be leading.

Other states however, as I see them on CNN.com right now, aren’t looking so good for Mitt.

The American press (with the glaring exception of right-wing talk radio) is audibly salivating over the possibility of Senator Lockjaw McCain being the Republican nominee. And by the look of things, their odds are improving by the day. My question is this:

What’s his appeal? To the Republican Party base, I mean. What does he offer us?

The Hanoi Hilton thing? Is that it? Enduring enemy torture might earn you a medal of honor, but it’s not the criteria we use to select our leaders.

I get the sense from what little TV news I see that there’s a common sentiment among voters that it’s John McCain’s “turn”. The nomination contest in 2000 was a close one (not really - he withdrew in March of 2000 - but people seem to remember it that way) and it was an ugly one and McCain has paid his dues and now it’s 2008 and it’s McCain’s turn.
This, to me, is the wildest imaginable perversion of electoral fundamentals.

Elections aren’t about the “rights” of the candidates! Elections are about the “rights” of the electorate. John McCain’s “my turn!” claim on the 2008 Republican nomination is about as valid as my claim on Craig Romney’s nipples.

My real problem with McCain though is simply the inverse of my affinity for Mitt Romney. McCain isn’t a conservative. His modus operandi is all pragmatism and no principle. If it’s politically expedient to oppose tax cuts or propose campaign contribution limits or nominate liberal judges, he’ll do it. And the press loves him for it, granting him fawning interviews and referring to him as a “maverick”, which only reinforces his bad behavior. The next time Katie Couric or Christiane Amanpour offer to lionize him for kneeing his Republican base squarely in the groin, he’ll do it again.

Strangely (or perhaps not) the reason McCain seems to be doing so well in the Republican primaries is that non-Republicans are voting for him. McCain has yet to win a majority, or even a plurality, of the conservative base Republican vote in any primary so far, with the shady exception of Florida. Romney gets those votes. McCain gets his support from independents and Democrats who ask for Republican ballots at the polls (see: South Carolina). This is a twist that makes me wonder why any of the state parties – Republican or Democrat – would allow non-members to help pick their nominees. Some think that it’s a clever idea, that sacrificing party self-determination will result in a more moderate candidate who will therefore be more “electable.” I, however, beg to differ. And I offer a counter-intuitive observation: Electability does not win elections.

Exhibit A: John Kerry.

Ronald Reagan defined conservatism as a three-legged stool; the three legs being fiscal policy, foreign policy, and social policy. Mitt Romney may have gone through his evolutions, but he seems to sit solidly on all three legs of the conservative stool. John McCain, on the other hand, seems to occupy all, any, or none, from day to day, depending on his mood (or perhaps his pollsters).

Conservatives – even moderate ones – had better wise up and start seeing through John McCain’s folksy “straight talk” myth, or else we’re all going to wind up having our conservative stool pushed in.

And not in a good way!

Whirled News Tonight - Illinois Presidential Primary Yields Surprises

February 5, 2008 (CHICAGO) —Results from the Illinois presidential primary have surprised pollsters and political pundits alike. On the Republican side, a runaway upset victory for Generalissimo Francisco Franco left observers scrambling for explanations. “It looks as if the majority of Republican voters have had enough of all this talk about change and have decided to cast their votes for the only candidate who promised no change at all,” said one observer. “In passing over John McCain and Mitt Romney, voters have clearly signaled that they want to stay with a candidate who combines the sentience of Ronald Reagan and the policies of George W. Bush.”

In the days leading up the election, the Generalissimo outflanked his opponents on two key issues. Hammering home his views on immigration by pointing out that the Spanish Civil War insurgency was largely composed of illegal immigrants, the Generalissimo thundered, “Never again must we let the democracy our party overthrew fall back into the hands of counterrevolutionaries who do not even speak our language.” The Generalissimo also took the steam out of his opponents’ proposals to jumpstart the troubled economy. “Our economy is muy bueno,” insisted the Generalissimo, who adapted a phrase recalling the heyday of the United States economy. “What is good for General Franco is good for the country,” he said.

Leading Republican contenders promptly accused Franco of dirty campaigning. “In the days before the election, thousands of Illinois voters received a mailing referring to me as the Mormon Jabber-wacko Liar,” complained Romney. John McCain also complained about a mass anonymous mailing pointing out that he would be the oldest elected President in the history of the country. “Generalissimo Franco himself ran his country quite competently while in a coma on his deathbed for almost a year,” said McCain, “and I intend to do the same.”

The Illinois Democrat primary also yielded a surprise. With 98 percent of the votes tallied, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were in an exact tie, not just in percentages but in raw numbers. “Apparently voters could not make up their minds whether to vote for the candidate of grand pronouncements and half-way measures or the candidate of bland pronouncements and half-way measures,” said an observer.

The Gay Republican #2 - Washington Goes Wild

I got an email this weekend from my friend Sue. Yes, that’s her name.

It was a forwarded email; a “résumé” for George W. Bush… comprised of his ostensible embarrassments, offenses, and failures - personal as well as professional; some real, some fictional. Reeked like it was composed by some moveon.org axe wound who spends his evenings writing “Draft Al Gore!” blog comments on the Daily Kos from his parents’ basement.

I replied to Sue simply, “What made you think that I’d enjoy this?”

I’m well aware that I hold unpopular opinions within my demographic, given my identity and my location. Irreconcilable (and unignorable) political differences have played at least a partial role in the demise of three serious relationships. (I just can’t imagine one day raising little ankle-biters with a husband who would want them to mature into shit-eating Socialists.) But while the constant “dull roar of blue-state,” Los Angeles, has yet to persuade me to genuflect at the alters of socialized medicine and anthropogenic climate change guilt, it has reinforced the message of the Golden Rule.

I have a personal policy against needling people. I love an honest and feisty argument, but I think twice before spewing unprovoked personal antagonism. I didn’t always have this policy, and I’m not perfect about following it, but I’m pretty damn good. It’s a karmic thing, I suppose; I didn’t call my lefty friends to say “neener neener” after the 2004 election, and I expected the same from them in 2006.

My conversation with you though, dear reader, is not a personal one, so I’ll spew whatever vitriol in this space I please.

This week I have some!

Like any respectable citizen, I watched the State of the Union address on Monday night.
Bush did pretty well, I thought, stumbling over only a handful of words here and there, and proposing only minimal new discretionary spending.

The interesting part of the Address, however, as with any stage show (such as the Oscars), was the people-watching.

I noticed Barack Obama seated next to Ted Kennedy. They strike the eye as terribly odd bedfellows, but I imagine that Barack would be feeling pretty chummy with Teddy right about now, having just picked up his endorsement for President this week. Another small victory for Obama’s campaign of “hope”. (“Hope” for what exactly, I’m still not sure, but it’s easier to stretch a vacuous speech into an hour if the theme is “hope” rather than “Quaaludes”.)

It’s a perilous endorsement, of course, and I’m not even referring to the fact that it pokes the Clinton machine squarely in the eye. No, above and beyond that bridge burned, Ted Kennedy’s brave hop into Obama’s “Hope” camp will likely draw him the ire of the vast and dangerous “anti-Hope” crowd. God bless your political courage, you pudgy grey drunk. For your next act of maverick defiance, you and your friend from Illinois might try introducing a Senate Resolution endorsing Pounds, Miles, and Gallons; thereby pissing off the well-heeled and influential Metric System lobby.

Another word on Ted: When Bush proposed fortifying the No Child Left Behind act, Senator Kennedy simply sat and maintained his inebriated scowl. Does the phony bastard think we have no memory? He co-wrote NCLB! How can you not applaud it when the President is complimenting its results??

On the topic of the ladies, Condoleezza Rice looked fabulous as always. Hillary Clinton I don’t have much to say about, except that that number she was wearing looked to be the same shade of red as Laura Bush’s lipstick.

The real story of the State of the Union, of course, doesn’t break until Good Morning America the following day, so that the President’s message can be diluted with pundit spin. I don’t watch GMA (or Today or The Early Show or American Morning), but no doubt it was laced with snippets from Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius’s Democrat response. Which actually started off somewhat inspirational (if stilted) but rapidly decomposed into lame entreaties for Bush to drop his mean-spirited, right-wing agenda, and reach across the aisle to help the Democrats implement their well-intentioned (read: half-baked) plans.

This brings me to my central frustration with Washington. It’s not that there’s too much fighting. It’s not that there’s too much special interest money. It’s not even that Kool-Aid drinkers like Dennis Kucinich don’t have to pass a sanity screening before serving in office.
It’s that the people in Washington act as though they’re putting on a stage production for an audience comprised exclusively of nitwits. Seriously, dear Reader, don’t you get sick of all the puppet shows and window dressing?

The nauseatingly overused stock phrases, like “my opponent was for blahblahblah before he was against it”. Wow. Original. The endless anecdotal parade of victims to tug at your heartstrings, like the Eskimo Girl a few weeks back who broke down into tears before Congress because Global Warming (she claimed) had melted some Alaskan snow. Please. The flat-falling, decidedly unclever turns of phrase that they use to try to appeal to the baser forms of human cognition. I heard one fat suit comment to Bush after his Address, in reference to his tax rebate plan, “How can you give a rebate to folks who didn’t throw in any bait in the first place?” So goddamn lame. The fact that I agree completely with his sentiment doesn’t diminish my desire to crush his nuts with a pair of pliers.

The press, I might add, makes this lamentable state of affairs even worse; packing their news reports with “dispassionate” pedantic analysis of this political bilge. And then presenting it as though they and their viewers alone can see above the fray, and ergo can busy themselves with the higher pursuit of wondering how the D.C. circus show might be swaying the opinions of the great unwashed. I can just hear it on “Face the Nation”: “For analysis, we turn now to our South Carolina political correspondent, Wilford Brimley. Will, how do you think Mike Huckabee’s threat that terrorists ‘will see the gates of hell’ might play with Evangelicals?”

!The posturing, the pontification; it’s all so sickeningly formulaic. It’s like
watching “Small Wonder” or “Step by Step”, but without the wholesomeness r the humor. The next politician to call for “a return to civility in Washington” deserves to get capped. Somebody throw a fucking punch

Whirled News - Current Events Quiz

1. This person lured a country known for its alliances with harsh dictators and for its opposition to genuine democratic movements in its own and in other countries into spending billions of dollars on fighting a war it should never have fought and on other defense-related issues. He is considered responsible for the county’s eventual economic collapse and is hailed as a hero by millions of people around the world.
1. Ronald Reagan
2. Osama bin Laden
3. Both a & b are correct
4. Neither a nor b are correct

2. As part of the economic stimulus plan proposed by the Bush administration and Congress, a provision stipulates that when the Dow Jones hits 0, it will automatically reset to 12,000.
1. True
2. False

3. A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations finds that in the two years following 9/11, Bush administration officials made 934 false claims about Iraq.
1. True
2. False

4. Barack Hussein Obama’s big ears are actually homing devices that will help his fellow Muslim terrorists zero in on Washington, DC after he is elected President.
1. True
2. False

5. Justice Antonin Scalia, in opposing a condemned man’s claim that lethal injections constitute cruel and unusual punishment, said, “There is nothing in the Constitution that forbids inflicting pain.”
1. True
2. False

6. Justice Antonin Scalia, in an opinion joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, held that torture was not torture with suspects in the war on terror because fanatics are incapable of feeling pain.
1. True
2. False

ANSWERS:

1. C is correct. If you answered d, thinking that the real answer was George Bush, you missed the phrase “hailed as a hero by millions of people around the world
   
   
2. False. This is the one useless idea NOT in the economic stimulus plan.
   
   
3. False. The study finds they made 935 false claims. If you answered False because you believed it was Rudy Giuliani who made 935 false claims about his own role in protecting New York City after 9/11, you receive half a point credit for choosing the right answer for the wrong reason.
   
   
4. False. If you answered True because you heard it on Fox News, subtract an additional point from your total for being so shameless that you admit to watching Fox News.
   
   
5. True. Amazing, isn’t it? Before he was publicly humiliated and forced to resign, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez was reportedly working on a legal brief explaining the difference between pain and cruel and unusual punishment.
   
   
6. False. If you answered True, you probably have this confused with the widespread idea during World War II that Japanese soldiers weren’t afraid to die.