http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/11/america/prexy.php

All I can say is, “JESUS CHRIST.” Invoking God to defend a war. How…papal.

…he also won a Grammy, beating out Alan Alda, Maya Angelou, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. Good weekend for Big Barak.

Respectfully submitted by your humble author.

• That’s OK, I Wasn’t Using My Civil Liberties Anyway
• Let’s Fix Democracy in this Country First
• If You Want a Nation Ruled By Religion, Move to Iran
• If You Can Read This, You’re Not Our President
• Of Course It Hurts: You’re Getting Screwed by an Elephant
• America: One Nation, Under Surveillance
• Whose God Do You Kill For?
• No, Seriously, Why Did We Invade Iraq?
• We’re Making Enemies Faster Than We Can Kill Them
• Republicans Don’t Care About White People, Either
• Where Are We Going? And Why Are We In This Handbasket?
• The Republican Party: Our Bridge to the 11th Century
• 2000: Embarrassed. 2004: Horrified. 2008: Terrified.

…but possibly a huge problem down the road a bit for Hillary.

Senators Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton share a common liability. In Obama’s case, it’s having to run a race against Bill and Hillary. In Hillary’s, it’s having to put up with Big Bill not staying on message, and making such grimace-causing comments as these, made in Blackwood, NJ, today:

With a nod to his own economic record while he was president, moving the country into surplus territory with good job and wage growth, the former president said: “We can bring America back. We have done it before and she will do it again.”

We? She? Oh, ouch.

“More than half the world is mad at us,” Clinton observed. “We have to send a different message to the world and she is uniquely qualified to do it

“And the message goes like this,” he continued, and not without some irony:

“We’re back.”

Wait–”we,” the United States, or “we,” The Clintons ™?

Jesus, Bill–you were a damn fine president; even the right-wingers will give you that the domestic product kicked ass and took names when you were in office. But you need to back the hell off. If Hillary’s handlers had any brains, they would have locked Bill in a basement somewhere and brought him out two or three times in the primaries at strategic moments, then, during the national convention, brought him out to speak. That would have been spectacular.

Instead, he’s coming off like a that mouse creature thing on Jabba the Hut’s shoulder, ruining his legacy and what respect he had garnered in the 90s, and becoming a Democratic Dick Cheney attack dog. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

And here’s one final clue, Bill.

While I’ve always held that the entire Monica Lewinsky “thing” was an engineered scandal, and that your private life was your own, you might consider NOT doing the finger-wagging thing. The last time you did that, you were lying out your ass. Granted, about a completely non-political and utterly unrelated topic that the press, nor Ken Starr, nor the Congress had any business asking you about in the first place, but lying all the same. You were a great president, but you have no right to chastise, methinks.

In late August of ‘07, I moved to a new position out there in the World o’ Work ™. As many of the denizens at my new job will soon be making their appearances within these hallowed cyberhalls, I thought it might be useful to have a brief thumbnail sketch of them to guide you along, Constant Reader. To-wit, then, those with whom I spend many waking hours. (NB: this will encompass three separate posts)

Babbage: Our senior Unix admin. Babs is one of the few individuals with whom I’ve ever worked that knows the significance of the IBM 701. This can either be described as reassuring or frightening as hell, depending on one’s point of view. Besides being a top-notch Unix guy, he’s also a bit of a philosopher-king; in addition to having 30 years under his belt as a geek, he’s taken classes at the University of Heidelburg. In German. Key attribute: Sangfroid.

Sarge: Develops and maintains all server and security monitoring services for the company. In his prior life (geek for the Air Force) he handled sensitive communication for various departments, so he’s already well-versed in such machinations, although he’s oftimes hamstrung by the goofy lack of hierarchy our company has. (it’s flat as a pre-Magellanic worldview) Takes no shit from no body, and therefore occasionally finds himself gently at odds with his more mossbacked or less accomplished colleagues. To date, no blood has been shed. Key attribute: Whoop-ass.

Lore: PHP developer. Named not, as might assume for the Lore of Star Trek fame, but rather after the talented Lore Sjöberg of Brunching Shuttlecocks and Bad Gods fame. Not because he’s in any way like him, but because he looks like him. Lore is tremendously skilled, but has no safety valve. If he were a locomotive, he would go from “standing immovable on the siding” to “hurtling down the track at 240 mph with no deadman’s brake” almost instantaneously. Good man to know, especially in a crisis situation, but don’t…stand…in…front…of…him. Key attribute: Attaque à outrance.

Roebling: Our resident software engineer. He serves in the necessary “prophet on the rock,” preaching the gospel of good software design to those who have yet to accept the Good News into their hearts. In many cases, the ultimate doom of some of our more crack-brained hastily thrown together crisis management hacks work has been correctly ascertained by Roebling as being destined to fall apart under its own weight. Basically stated, from a good-design point of view, he’s almost always right. Conversely, however, we don’t have anything better to replace any of the crappy software yet, either. Can’t stop the business, don’t you know. Key attribute: Loathing.

Doodlebug: Big D is our boss. He’s been in technology for about has long as I have, but much more of his time has been spent as a manager and executive than have I. Smart guy, basically a good guy, but as they said in the Victorian era, a deep old file. Quotable quotes: “It is what it is.” (Used to close a topic.) “Take it offline” (shut the fuck up and fix it) and while not quotable, his cherubic, unsettling, and vaguely Pope-like grin. Dress him in red with a little hat, and he’s Richelieu. Key attribute: Management by fractal mathematics.

As long-time members of Satirica will note, one of my areas of political interest as a social liberal and fiscal conservative is attempting to discover what happened to the Republican party between the Eisenhower/Goldwater/Nixon years through Reagan and the Falwell-influenced resurgence of religious fundamentalism that has eclipsed true conservatism.

In my reading this week, I found this interesting quote by Barry Goldwater. For those of you too young to remember, the intellectual fuel which powered the Republican party through the 50s, 60s, and 70s can be traced to Goldwater’s ideas. Rejector of the New Deal, Major General in the Air Force Reserves, he was often referred to in the press as “Mr. Conservative.” While his influence after the late 60s began to wane, he was the arch-conservative in the Senate all the way through 1987.

Here’s Goldwater in 1981:

“I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that, if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in A, B, C, or D. Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of ‘conservatism’”

And again, from the same Senate speech:

“The religious factions will go on imposing their will on others, unless the decent people connected to them recognize that religion has no place in public policy. They must learn to make their views known without trying to make their views the only alternatives. . . We have succeeded for 205 years in keeping the affairs of state separate from the uncompromising idealism of religious groups and we mustn’t stop now…To retreat from that separation would violate the principles of conservatism and the values upon which the framers built this democratic republic.”

And this final fillip, from a Goldwater press conference in early 1980:

“I think every good Christian should line up to kick Jerry Falwell in the ass.”

All this, from “Mr. Conservative.”

Republicans of the universe, especially those who are in favor of the new, tight relationship between the religious right and the Republican party: What happened? I could have easily voted for a Goldwater in the last election–if anyone in ANY party even remotely like him was running. (Of course, a fiery, unapologetic liberal spirit like Hubert Humphrey would get my attention, too; it simply seems that all political figures these days are lukewarm, and therefore I spew them from my mouth.)

Is this new fundamentalist-Republican alliance a marriage of convenience, or are their groups who really wish to break down the customary separation of church and state? (We’re halfway there already, with Bush’s ‘faith based initiatives.’)

I ask without rancor, but as a passenger on a train about whose destination I have grave, grave concerns.

Pete
1998?-October 5, 2007

Friend and pet. He will be missed. Really, really, lots.

Two today.

What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.
Bertrand Russell

Science is evidence in search of a solution.  Creationism is a solution in search of evidence.
Anonymous

A friend of mine recently remarked, looking at the Democratic field of candidate aspirants, that it would be nice to have a candidate who stood firm on the issues of the day, drawing on their own personal belief system rather than always running off to conduct polls before taking a stand, a la Obama and Clinton.

Aye, and there’s the rub.

I don’t believe ANYONE, regardless of party affiliation, who runs for elected office today, whether in the US or abroad, can possibly ever win if they create their election platform from their personal views on the issues, as unfortunate a situation as that may be.

It’s honest, it’s ethical, it’s moral, it’s correct–and it’s unelectable!

Y’see, today’s politics–and to a great extent, all politics, ever–is just like class elections in high school. It’s a popularity contest, and always has been, save for George Washington’s election. The hoi polloi likes it this way. No thinking required.

And no matter how much John Q. Public personally likes or admires any candidate, or even, upon examination, should he find that a majority of their planks conform to his own ideas, there is bound to be one serious issue on which each candidate and John disagree. If it’s a big enough plank (abortion? Iraq? Church and State? etc., etc.) then it will matter not one whit how fine a mayor, senator, or president they’ll make; based on Mr. Public’s one pet issue, he’ll find someone else who may be a much worse choice overall, but with whom he is in agreement on his pet issue.

Thus, we end up with elected officials who compete for votes based on how honeyed their words are. Fuck truth!  We can’t HANDLE the truth!  (Well, actually, we can, but, as with our dear friend Bartleby, “we would prefer not to.”)

To complete the popularity contest analogy: The above example, my friends, is a microcosm of only those who actually care about the issues–call it 15% of the voting electorate, generously. The vast majority of the voting public, as best illustrated by the idiotic and feckless Mr. Lamar Alexander in a recent interview regarding Fred Thompson’s candidacy, for instance–are more concerned with how “presidential” a candidate looks on TV. Or how craggy their face appears, how photogenic they are or the size of their boobs, and so it goes.

Truth be told, as a nation, we are a superficial bunch of moronic ninnies, and we get just what we deserve–superficial and moronic public servants.

It’s easy to say Al Gore would have been a “better” president (I happen to think our cat Stirling would have been a better choice, but I digress) but without the 2000 election, the latent statesman in Gore never would have made an appearance. (don’t believe me, have a look at his record on issues pre-2000 and post-2000; he’s MUCH more of a true leader now). Even folks who are dyed-in-the-wool conservatives at least respect Al Gore now, which is a story unto itself.

Looking at the current crop of Democrats, I see no current candidates that I truly endorse. I like Barak Obama, but more because he’s a literate man of African-American descent who stands a chance than for any other reason. Hillary, as polarizing as she may be, has bigger ‘nads than Bush OR her husband, but as an acquaintance of mine so aptly illustrated recently by declaiming how much he “hated Hillary Clinton!”, the media and religious-right conservatives are so in the habit of disbelieving anything she says that I doubt she would be effective. (note: most people that say they “hate Hillary” cannot offer one solid reason WHY they hate her, which should make us all triple-wary of the media. Generally when I hate someone, I at least am capable of offering an immediate, concrete reason!)

In short, we’re probably screwed again, and will get some lukewarm dungball–and who will care or even notice if s/he is a liberal, moderate, conservative, or religious nutbag–who parrots what his/her advisors put in the 2 page brief.

Hurray for us. America rocks.