Sedition; It’s Not Just For Leftists Anymore

There are things which deserve punishment. There aren’t a whole lot of people who disagree with draconian measures for Genocide and Child Molestation, as an example.

Then there is sedition. Sedition is not a partisan issue; it strikes at the core of patriotism. Sedition lances the heart of rational debate and diminishes even the most valid concerns of the perpetrator’s partisanship.

A couple of days ago, somebody felt that sedition was so brilliant that it should be shared on a Facebook page. Liberal or Conservative, Democrat or Republican, suggesting the violent demise of the President of the United States is wrong. It is an awful act of betrayal against the mechanisms of representative democracy.

When a small component of progressivism spoke about usurping the Bush administration through violence, they were wrong. Likewise, a larger movement of reactionaries is equally wrong in their calls for brutal reaction to whatever policies being debated in Congress.

The hard line of the right wing is best admonished with its own words from earlier this decade. “You lost. Get over it.”

Losing stinks, but this time there is no question over the credibility, or size, of the loss. Barack Obama is the President of the United States. The majorities of the House and the Senate are, at least technically, in Democratic hands. This is not a fluke or squeaker. The Republican Party was handed its posterior in the last two election cycles.

Instead of looking inward, and trying to discover why Republicans and Conservatives were soundly rejected, the tactic has been to coarsen the debate without offering solutions. As of now, affiliation with the Republican Party hovers under a quarter of all voters.

Conservatives really did not need the illusion that harm coming to the President would be something that they could approve of. This is an idea that offends the overwhelming majority of Americans.

A violently-inclined, bigoted component of Conservative discourse is now the face of the Republican Party. This group was courted by Nixon, and rejects the moderation of James Jeffords, Lincoln Chafee, and Arlen Spector. They similarly reject the libertarian postures of John McCain, a genuine Goldwater Conservative.

Vocal paleoconservatism is not serving the long-term interests of a viable Republican Party. When invoking secession and assassination, reasonable people of all political affiliations recognize these ideas for what they are: sedition.

The violent overthrow of a duly elected government is not something to be bandied about lightly. After suggesting assassination, such as the Facebook survey; secession, such as Governor Rick Perry (R-TX); or (more ominously) a military coup d’etat, alluded to by Perry, advocated by Rush Limbaugh (see link), one hopes that the President will finally say enough.

Justified disagreement with a President is not an adequate animus to bring charges. However, there is a very real need to clarify what is free speech and that which may be construed as sedition under United States Law.

There are three components under the 1940 Smith Act, the relevant US law regarding sedition. Short form-advocating or planning the overthrow of the United States Government is illegal, as is participating in an organization which does the same.

Translation-a majority of the right-wing opinion apparatus, particularly Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, Fox News, and Premiere Networks have been complicit in empowering groups who wish to overthrow a duly elected President and Congress.

Nothing is very likely to happen unless someone finally gets hurt or killed. Perhaps the opportunity exists for the Secret Service to begin investigating the most visible supporters of inappropriate activity. Rush Limbaugh should have a nice long conversation in front of a judge for sedition. It might be a good opportunity to define where the boundaries lie.

No one who loves the United States Constitution can be enthusiastic about putting ideas on trial in a general sense. Nor can anyone who loves that same Constitution be enthusiastic about those who would attempt to destroy the institutions which it has so eloquently provided for 222 years.

The daily assaults we now witness are not merely upon Barack Obama. They are directed against the presidency itself. President Obama has not committed a crime, but a small plurality feels that it is their right to thwart the will of a majority of American voters through deceit and violence if they deem it necessary.

Arrest Limbaugh. Enjoin him from broadcasting. The American people deserve a clear and distinct definition of what sedition is, because it certainly is not patriotic.

UPDATE:  Think Progress reports that Newsmax has withdrawn an opinion piece where one of their commentators advocates a military coup d'etat against President Obama.  It appears that not everyone reading Newsmax is opposed to the United States.

One still questions how many of those who believe them are.

A Modest Press Conference

“Good afternoon.

“After several weeks of quiet negotiation, Congress, the South Carolina Legislature and I have come to terms on legislation which will formally separate the State of South Carolina from the United States of America.

“The separation will become official at midnight on October first. The state of South Carolina will henceforth be recognized as The Libertarian Republic of South Carolina.

“I have spoken with ad-hoc President Sanford about the steps which will be necessary to make South Carolina’s transition to an independent nation as smooth and transparent as possible.

“The United States of America will continue a partnership with South Carolina in certain defensive capacities, much like we share with many of our allies throughout the world. Similarly, South Carolina will continue to use the United States Dollar as a de facto currency until their new banking system, and currency, the Thurmond, become operational.

“Ad-hoc President Sanford and I have established a program where those residing in other states who wish to relocate to South Carolina will be able to participate in an exchange with South Carolinians who prefer to remain loyal to the United States of America.

“Homeowners and renters in both jurisdictions will be paired with people of similar means to exchange their domiciles in a one-to-one swap. Significant populations in Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, and Texas have expressed their support for plans for South Carolina’s independence and willingness to support the new nation.

“It is the ambition of this administration to assist those wishing to cooperate in South Carolina’s business-centered, privately administered, low tax experiment.

“No doubt exists in my mind that the Government of South Carolina will continue the tradition of Human and Civil Rights established while one of the United States. However, some minority citizens have stated their apprehension about the future of those standards.

“In order to assuage some of those fears, we have taken these extraordinary steps to guarantee that those not comfortable with South Carolina’s experiment will be able to remain under the jurisdiction of the United States.

“Likewise, the most sensitive defensive technologies currently located in South Carolina will be relocated with other Federal assets to other states. Most of the structure will be consolidated within the states of North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.

“South Carolina’s financial system will cease its association with the FDIC, FSLIC, and SEC on January 1, 2010. Accountholders in South Carolina will be expected to have accounts in South Carolina-based institutions by that time.

“Current participants in Social Security, Medicare, and the Veterans Administration systems will be transferred as appropriate to analogous private systems in South Carolina.

“Several members of our corporate community have already exhibited enthusiasm for the prospect of the new South Carolinian nation. While we are saddened to see some of our old friends opt for the new country instead of the United States, we remain bullish on the prospects for opportunities in this great nation.

“To South Carolina, we wish you Godspeed. Although a separation may be painful for us, we thank you for your contribution to the United States, and hope for your continued success as a neighbor and an ally. I will now open the floor for questions. Helen?”

“Helen Thomas, Hearst News Service. Mr. President, was this decision based upon Representative Wilson’s outburst during your address to Congress on September ninth?”

“Not at all. Let me say that after hearing some of our friends speak about some of their concerns about the role of the Federal government during our debates over health care, I was moved by their passion and sincerity.

“I spoke with then-Governor Sanford about developing a mechanism where those who disagreed with our vision of the public sector’s role would have a place to realize their vision of limited government and privately-based solutions. South Carolina was the best possible location- geographically and demographically- to provide such an option for those who felt dissatisfied with the United States under my administration.

“To my conservative friends who felt as if we were not living up to their expectations, they asked for ‘their’ country back. There is now a country which may hew closer to their values. I would call that a positive outcome for both sides of the discussion.”

NO SKIDMARKS! Wandering Gentile Briefs.

CBS’ Guiding Light was extinguished last week after several eternities on the air.

In the case of soap operas, the bad frequently outweighs the good. A toddler on Friday becomes Monday’s relevant troubled teen. Twins, both evil and benevolent, materialize. The ever popular amnesia storylines explain characters which are resurrected. When in need of a ratings boost, have a wedding.


If searching for the ultimate benthic art, the American Soap Opera is as close to the definition as it gets. After a short time, the devices necessary to propel a daytime serial over decades become pathetic.


One soap had a lead character kidnapped by a gorilla. Another lead character has been married so many times that she now has more last names than a Manhattan telephone directory.


This does not require a mere willing suspension of disbelief. This requires beating disbelief down, handcuffing disbelief, and locking disbelief in the trunk of a Datsun Honeybee.


This skill set translates quite well to Glenn Beck’s audience.


Spanish-language soaps a/k/a telenovelas, much like pregnancy, go away after nine months, and occasionally produce something good like Salma Hayek.





Assemblyman Ivan Marte, ex-chairman of the Rhode Island Republican Hispanic Assembly, has announced that he is leaving the Republican Party.


Attempts to identify another member of the Rhode Island Republican Hispanic Assembly have not been successful.





Michael Moore tells Larry King that Capitalism failed.


Capitalism did not fail.


The mechanisms designed to restrain the consolidation of wealth in the hands of a minute proportion of the population were dismantled or abandoned. This concentration of wealth led to a de facto planned economy which was not responsive to the wants and needs of the market.


A profit-based system for discretionary purchases, with adequate regulation, is still the best guarantor of innovation and grower of employment. Planned economies are the clearest indicators of a lack of effective competition, inflating costs for a consumer base which dwindles.


Democratic allies who did not embrace the same kind of reckless deregulation are now climbing out of a worldwide recession/depression.


When the United States allowed companies to consolidate, just like the Soviets before, the market was filled with noncompetitive quasi-monopolies offering inferior product at inflated prices.


Economic systems do not fail. Utopians seeking an ideological purity force failure upon economic systems.


Laissez-faire ideological purity nearly killed capitalism.


Structured, well-regulated capitalism with extensive competition works just fine.





President Barack Obama has requested that New York Governor David Paterson not stand for re-election in 2010.


Paterson, a 1982 graduate of the Governor William J. Lepetomane School of Political Competence at the State University of New York in Plattsburgh, has suggested that he will stay in the race.





Young America’s Foundation spokesman Jason Mattera supported his Conservative beliefs by suggesting that “…our women are hot,” and cited columnist Michelle Malkin as an example.


If Malkin, 38, is the best they can do, Conservatives are in serious trouble.


While more attractive than the typical Conservative female spokesperson, Mrs. Malkin is not exactly the first person one thinks of when the word “hot” comes to mind.


Avowed Liberal women who would come to mind when thinking “hot” include: Scarlett Johansen, Charlize Theron, Beyonce Knowles, Halle Berry, Rosario Dawson, Eva Longoria, and Jessica Alba.


The total hotness of all Conservative women would leave copious space in Jessica Alba’s navel.


Mmmmmmm. Jessica Alba’s navel…


(TIP OF THE WANDERING GENTILE TOUPEE TO THINK PROGRESS.)

Post Speech Analysis

Barack Obama came off the bench and delivered something meaningful in the clutch. If anything is to be taken from the President’s Wednesday address to Congress, the key fact is that his performance was solid.

It would be convenient for Obama’s critics to decry him as ineffectual or incompetent. It would also be the only argument left, and totally subjective.

Obama came to the podium on top of his game. There was not time to act with deference toward his opponents, or balm the wounded sentiments of his party’s base. The President took his rhetoric to the audience he needed: the political center.

As suggested here on Tuesday, President Obama went into the language which has served him well. He spoke in the vernacular of moderates and conservatives, connecting his ideas to values which had been staked by Conservatives as their sole province.

President Obama was not an ideological Liberal when he spoke. His progressive friends- and they are many- may decry the President’s lack of traditional Liberal expressions. He sounded more like Rush Limbaugh in the tone of his discourse than the wild-eyed Liberal that Limbaugh portrays Obama to be.

That is a high complement. Limbaugh is not a very nice person, but he knows how to connect with an audience.

The speech masterfully connected the issue with themes of Patriotism, Family, Thrift, and Opportunity. The President called statements from his opposition as mendacious when he felt it to be necessary. Gracious acknowledgement was offered to his opponents in the rare instances when he felt they offered something of value to the debate.

From Obama’s end, there was only one minor misstep. His reference to the late Senator Kennedy’s role, and Senator Kennedy’s work across the aisle was justifiable. However, it went about 45 seconds too long.

No one is unaware of the gratitude Barack Obama owes to Ted Kennedy. But that part of the speech was a thudding minor chord in a program which was heavy with Obama’s joyous early hits.

It was like watching a Beatles reunion ditch I Wanna Hold Your Hand for a Yoko Ono song. One understands the outreach to Democrats, but not the method employed.

The Republican opposition was not as fortunate in their display as President Obama.

Representative Joe Wilson (R-SC) managed to start the clock on his 15 minutes of fame by interrupting the President and stating, “you lie.” This will not end well for Representative Wilson. On lists of things which will end a political career, interrupting a speaking President is just behind making a homemade adult featurette with a commode plunger, a wild animal, and Jane Fonda holding the wild animal.

It was not appropriate when Cindy Sheehan tried it on George W. Bush. Sticking an “R” after one’s name does not make it any better.

Just when Republicans didn’t think things could get much worse, Representative Charles Boustany (R-LA) gave the response to the President. It wasn’t just bad; it was the Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.

Representative Boustany used his teleprompter ineptly. His script appeared to have been written a year ago by a talk radio host who would be rated fourth in a two station market. One is not entirely certain that he did not mispronounce his own name.

However, there was one silver lining to Representative Boustany’s response to President Obama.

It was the funniest thing seen on CBS since WKRP in Cincinnati went off the air 27 years ago.

REPORT CARD:

President Barack Obama: A-. It was a momentum changer for sure and at least tied the game.

Republican Response: F. Republicans came off like a bunch of crybabies who are not only petty and small, but also weak for their size.

Health care just became a sprint to the finish, a discipline where President Obama excels.

Twilight

A couple of Twilight fans live in the Wandering Gentile household. Twilight has moved in like a particularly destitute and unimaginative relative. What joy.


For the eight or so people who are unaware of Twilight, it is the first novel in a series of vampire-themed romance novels aimed at 13-year-old girls of all ages and genders. Author Stephanie Meyer’s prose does not inspire like Hemingway or humanize like Steinbeck.



The plot developments are awkward. One waits, probably not in vain, for the inevitable appearance of an evil twin, a fatal illness, and weddings at prescribed intervals. At least Dark Shadows, a vampire-themed soap opera from the 1960s, was funny.



But for as much as can be said for what the books get wrong, Stephanie Meyer has gotten something very right. A number of females are bringing books into the house because they love Edward and Bella. Nothing that instills a love of reading can be a bad thing.



Eventually the audience may overlap into better storytellers. But for now, at least the storytellers have a path to people who might have chosen another hour with Randy Jackson calling some evil-haired singer “Dawg.”



As a spoiler-free gift to those who are not fans of Twilight, your Wandering Gentile offers a bit of realism for a few scenes from the book and the movie.



FORKS, WASHINGTON??? What better way to avoid questions about diversity than to set a book in a place that has 110 black people and 13 Latinos? There are more diverse Klan rallies in Georgia. A really cool black vampire, not just the token dude with the dreads in back, could be off the chain.



Maybe somebody could go to Seattle and bring back a Jimi Hendrix-like rockin’ undead. Being that Jimi was from Seattle, that would be pretty cool.



THAT F’COCKTA TRUCK! That’s right, a 1960s pickup is obviously the first choice of vehicle a law-enforcement officer wants his novice-driver teenage daughter tooling around in.



Her mother doesn’t say squat about a vehicle with a great big engine, tiny brakes, sloppy steering and NO SEAT BELTS! Let’s not forget about the physics of a vehicle with a lightly loaded rear end and the perpetual rain in western Washington State.



Don’t forget the reaction of every kid who got a seat belt citation from her dad, either.



If Kurt Cobain, from nearby Aberdeen, had owned this POS, he wouldn’t have lived long enough for the shotgun.



EDWARD! What is he, 108 years old? Why is he still in high school? After a while, wouldn’t he get bored and go looking for cougars or something?



For that matter, wouldn’t somebody at the State Board of Education in Olympia get a bit curious about a 108-year-old high school student? Three words come to mind…MASSIVE IDENTITY FRAUD!



If I’m 108, but I have the body (and presumably the libido) of a 17-year-old, the last thing I want to do is hang out at a high school in flippin’ Podunk!



I want to hang out where there are a lot more hotties. And I could be very inconspicuous in New York or Los Angeles.



Then there’s the whole issue where Edward punches out a minivan which is about to turn Bella into a tortilla.



One imagines a couple of hillbillies.



“Hey, Dwayne! I bet he can’t stop a Camaro!”



Stephen King still has my vote in the Vampire campaign. Shape Change you can believe in!

A Conservative Case For Health Care

Liberals are panicked and Conservatives are boogying on the grave of Health Care reform. Both sides are a bit premature. This is a clutch situation, but the game is still a bit early, and Democrats have not brought out their best players.



This is not as precarious as the situation as the Red Sox found themselves in during the 2004 ALCS against the despised Yankees. President Obama finds himself in a must-win situation nonetheless.



The challenge for President Obama will involve defusing very loud Conservatives who feel that their future well-being will rely upon the status quo. And now Obama is taking flack from Liberals who do not feel that the reforms being offered go far enough.



The Conservatives will not be an easy nut to crack. Obama is dealing with a group which has invested twenty years of trust in an opinion mechanism which is rabidly opposed to his party and the principles which got him elected. Conservatives are loud, frightened, and led by individuals who trust Limbaugh, Hannity and Beck.



There is only one way around this. Bill Clinton knows how. Obama has to lead with his right until the Conservatives walk into his left- hard.



The key to the speech will be adopting a vernacular identical to the right. The idea will be to make his proposals, including a public option, in terms of Faith, Patriotism, and Individual Opportunity. Clinton could have made this happen, and failed in 1993. Barack Obama has made his career on avoiding Bill Clinton’s larger mistakes.



What Obama will have to avoid is any suggestion of partisanship against free enterprise. No doubt exists that the President is a relatively moderate Democrat, but he is now faced with the challenge of reconquering the ten to fifteen percent of the middle who have wavered since his election. This can be achieved through the use of a Conservative lexicon.



Faith is the easiest term to renew. A quote from the Gospel of Matthew would serve nicely to open, preferably something from the Beatitudes or the Parable of the Good Samaritan, if not both.



The idea is not to preach to the saved, but put the religious opposition on notice that the teachings of Jesus Christ are not to be trifled with. There is very little in Christ’s lesson that speaks to raising the lot of the affluent. And it is very hard to envision where Christ would have been in favor of letting decent people die because they aren’t rich enough.



Patriotism is much tougher, but must be faced early in the speech. The core principle is that Americans have found a way to come together and realize public solutions to a common need. From the first public fire brigades to a common defense, this has been an overriding precept since 1776.



This is the first, best sound bite: “A healthy America is a strong America.”



Patriotism is where the existing Medicare and VA systems come into play. It is appropriate to ask why all citizens of the United States should not have the same quality of care offered to seniors and veterans. This is where Obama can offer some red meat to Liberals, in terms friendly to Conservatives.



“Health care is a privilege which no citizen of the United States should be denied based upon his ability to pay,” might be a good way to start.



“For too long, people have profiteered by abusing a system designed to help those in an hour of need. We are not a people who delight in kicking others when they are down. We never have been, nor will we ever be.”



As President Obama moves into the area of individual opportunity, he would be well served by making the case for entrepreneurship. No one knows how many new businesses have not opened because an entrepreneur has not been able to secure health coverage for his family.



We know from the example of other developed countries which are already growing economically. America has always done well when Americans have had the room to take reasonable risks and use a deep well of ideas. Removing a difficult obstacle to developing business is good for the economy.



And, oh yes, President Obama should remind Congress how much health care we get while paying half again as much as any other industrialized country.



That might get a lot of people to reconsider the value of public medicine.

I Got Your Compromise...RIGHT HERE!

Just a word for those who feel that President Obama is about to tank on Health Care reform: chill.

Things look pretty rough right now. Obama is catching grief from Town Hall screamers and the louder voices in the Republican Party. His Democrats are running about in spectacular disarray. Much of the press is assured that any bill that comes out of Congress is not going to make anyone happy.

We have seen this movie before. Barack Obama has played this role so frequently that there is no drama. He did not become President by gambling. Obama became President because he is a very astute tactician.

Last year, when Obama was caught in a rasslin’ Cage Match with Hillary Clinton, there was the distinct belief that he might lose. What happened? He won, and got Mrs. Clinton to throw down the deal-breaking arguments when they were not in a position to harm him.

The Palin nomination for Vice President was supposed to be a game-changer which was going to invigorate the Conservative base of the Republican Party. Briefly, in early September, John McCain pulled ahead in the polls.

The economy tanking did not hurt Obama’s campaign at all, but Mrs. Palin was already on radar. She had already popped up on Limbaugh. His campaign had a scouting organization which would put the Dallas Cowboys to shame. A plan was in place.

And now Republicans would have us believe that Barack Obama and his organization have caught a massive case of lazy compounded with a latent onset of stupid?

More likely is that Obama has taken a big gulp of rompin’ stompin’ pick ‘-em-up-by-the-ears LBJ. He will not share Lyndon Johnson’s rough-hewn Texas populism, but the deals will come straight out of the Johnson playbook. A few are already in place, and have been since the early summer.

The quiet is designed to bring the unhinged on the right out. The unhinged are rather untelegenic. There is a distinctly scripted quality to their rhetoric. And, oh yeah, they also happen to be as obnoxious as hell.

Nothing sold Civil Rights to a majority of the Senate in 1965 like the loudmouths in Mississippi and Bull Connor’s dogs, either. Images of violence, whether real or implied, do not portend well for the side upon which they are found. By the time the President speaks to Congress on 9 September, death panels will not abide in the memories of most Americans,

Every hateful image will come to haunt Republicans like the spirit of Nixon’s Southern Strategy. There will be nothing left of the party of Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan but a few decrepit southerners who may have lived slightly better when blacks, Latinos, and women “knew their place.”

Obama’s first tack will be a nice little conversation with Senator Baucus (D-MT) to bring him back to Faith. There are several things he can do to make Mr. Baucus’ life quite uncomfortable. Obama can drop them on Kent Conrad in next-door North Dakota, too. This moves a bill to the floor with a public option in place.

Once President Obama is done with the reluctant committee, he can sic Rahm Emanuel on the Blue Dogs. If Mr. Emanuel is allowed latitude to persuade, one has little doubt that his fellows from the Blue Dog caucus will leave less than convinced…or uninjured. Emanuel is a relatively conservative Democrat, but he is also compelled by his service at the pleasure of the President.

Meanwhile, an excess of vitriol within the Republican Party will cause their remaining popularity to implode. It is possible that one or both of the distinguished ladies from Maine may cross the aisle to join the Democrats. There are a few more Republicans in the House who live in competitive districts and could find political advantage in alliance with the President.

The final result will be a reform bill which will contain a tiered public-private system which likely resembles the French model. Passage will come under the budget reconciliation process, with 54-58 votes in favor. And President Obama’s antagonists in the Legislative Branch will have a great deal of explaining to do no matter what.

This might be fun.

UPDATE: As your Wandering Gentile was writing, CNN broke news that President Obama and Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) were in talks to develop a compromise bill. This bill would include a trigger for the Public Option if private insurers fail to reach certain cost-cutting and coverage goals by a predetermined date.

Face saved.

Talking About Health Care

It was a bit refreshing. The caller was not a mechanized sales pitch for an Auto Warranty or a bill collector. That, in and of itself, justified attention. A Gentle Reader was expressing concerns about health care reform. One hopes to have been persuasive in favor of a public option and President Obama’s goals. Some of the information being offered is, at best spurious, anecdotal, and inaccurate.

That is a nice way of stating that some of the rhetoric is best referred to with an eight-letter term synonymous with bovine waste. The caller was polite, and our conversation was decorous.

One was a bit dismissive of some of the caller’s sources. The broadcasters cited included several well-known conservative presenters. One of the presenters comes from a background of objective journalism. The vast majority has minimal educational attainment, and is best characterized as entertainment only.

Entertainers are well within their rights of free speech on any side of a debate. While educational attainment is no guarantor of competence or talent, the skills obtained in post-secondary education are often better predictors of reasonable debate, What has been notable from the right has been a dependence upon volume and questionable partisan sources lacking empirical integrity.

The political left has been little better. There may be method in the left’s madness. While the right has been making much of vocal displays to legislators, the left has been remarkably non-committal toward such demonstrations. By focusing upon quantitative and independent means of refuting dubious information, the Obama administration has managed to seize the mantle of reason and judgment.

This is the part where your Wandering Gentile becomes a bit sarcastic, because the spurious, anecdotal, and inaccurate are not part of the pizza he ordered.

Claim: America’s health care system is the best in the world.

Polite Response: While we remain among the foremost researchers in the world, there are some inadequacies which remain to be rectified.

Wandering Gentile Sarcastic Response: Maybe more people would be able to get the attention they need if there weren’t half a dozen drug companies sponsoring right-wing bloviators with commercials for jumped-up talleywhacker pills. Who do you think is paying Rush Limbaugh US$40,000,000 a year? It damn sure ain’t the people listening to NPR!

Claim: Health care will be rationed.


Polite Response: A plan with a strong public option will allow more people to get better care, at a lower cost.

WGSR: What, precisely do you call a bureaucrat at a for-profit insurer deciding which procedures will be covered? And who, exactly can you appeal to if and/or when coverage is denied? Does anybody think Sean Hannity is going to stand up for individuals outside his immediate circle whose insurer has declined a necessary procedure?

Claim: Evil Death Panels will euthanize the elderly and the infirm.

Polite Response: End of life counseling will be made available but not mandatory.

WGSR: Thank God Conservatives like the Second Amendment! That way when someone can’t get coverage for a chronic health condition that ruins their quality of life, they can buy a really good gun which will end their misery. It might be messy, but they won’t have to clean up.


Claim: A public option will be a terrible burden to taxpayers.

Polite Response: Legislators and the White House have been cooperating to find a revenue-neutral solution which will give every American access to health care.

WGSR: You have to be kidding me!!! Fifteen years ago, these same insurance companies promised us that they would cut costs and improve services. Now we have three times as many uninsured with costs which have wildly outpaced inflation. What the hell? On top of that, parquet floor treatments at my local hospital were tax-deductible as a business expense. Here’s a good idea! Try treating a few more patients instead of the (profanity) floors!

Claim: Socialist Health Care like Canada will mean a decline in service and increased costs.

Polite Response: If you’re happy with your private insurer, you can keep them.

WGSR: Let me see, I’m supposed to reject the system which costs half of our system, gets better results, has a spectacular approval rate, and has proven to reliably serve the entire population of Canada. In trade, I get private bureaucrats telling me that my insurance will cost more than I earn in a month, with huge co-pays, and the possibility that my claim will be rejected. Just one question-do you think I was born on Planet Stupid?


Claim: You won’t like nationalized health care, if it happens at all.

Polite Response: As with any new mechanism, some fine tuning may be necessary, but we can rise to the challenge.

WGSR: Maybe. But there is a better chance that I will be around to complain than if we continue down the track we’re on.

A Brief Obituary or Two

Walter Cronkite (1916-2009)

One promises to eschew the odious term “avuncular.” Cronkite, at times referred to as “Uncle Walter,” earned his familiarity from a generation at the helm of the CBS Evening News. The whole uncle thing has been blown way out of proportion. Most people don’t have uncles like Walter Cronkite, but wish that they did. Most uncles are not genteel and erudite, and that is something that they would like to forget.

Mr. Cronkite was a product of another time. His impartial rendering of the day’s events in clear, concise language earned him recognition as the “Most Trusted” man in America. If Cronkite deigned to render an opinion, it was clearly acknowledged as such, with objective support for the conclusion. Cronkite’s detachment was so ubiquitous and notable, that only two occasions are noted for him going outside the boundary over a career that spanned seven decades.

What may not be remembered by most people under 40 will be Cronkite’s unassailable integrity or his spectacular confidence. Unconsumed by ego, he enjoyed a reputation as a fair broker before such argot became commonplace. On occasion, he was noted for playing upon his image with self-deprecating good humor. No modern journalist can achieve that.

Ultimately, Walter Cronkite was the best kind of teacher. He accepted and lived up to the challenge that his role was to bring others in debate up to his level.

Walter Cronkite has gone on assignment for eternity. No one is likely to fill the big chair behind his desk in the foreseeable future.

Sadly, that’s the way it is.

John Hughes (1950-2009)

We move from Walter Cronkite’s empirical truth to another approach which is no less valid. John Hughes was an entertainer whose films chronicled the maturation of a generation. For those born in the mid to late sixties, we saw ourselves for the first time in his films.

Our generation had no moment as a touchstone. There was no Beatles on Ed Sullivan or moon landing, merely the Chicago suburb of Shermer, Illinois. These were young people who spoke our language and became a common experience.

While some of the films may now appear dated in music and fashion, the underlying integrity continues to make them relevant. When we see John Bender’s Dionysian rebel from The Breakfast Club or the Authoritarian Ed Rooney from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, their conflicts and characters are still as recognizable as they would be when the films were released.

On an August morning in Manhattan, the trenchant and timeless observations from John Hughes came to an end. In the theme song from The Breakfast Club, we are implored, “…don’t you…forget about me.” The mirror has been covered, and those of us who recall the eighties in their glorious bouffant excess sit Shiva, but we will not forget the artist who knew our face before we realized we had one.

The West Wing: President Valverde.

(With Apologies to Aaron Sorkin.)

Scene I: President Quantavius Valverde is in the Oval Office with his Chief of Staff, Ira Rath, having his morning briefing.

PRESIDENT VALVERDE: What kind of messed up stuff has landed on my desk this morning?

IRA RATH: Well, Lobs Doo from Cable Network News is questioning your citizenship.

PV: When did Jersey City leave the union? What are we doing about him?

IR: Knowing Mr. Doo's history with angioplasty and diabetes, we sent him a lovely cheesecake and signed it Rusty Gobler.

PV: (Smiles) There is nothing like the loving fraternity of conservative pundits.

IR: More seriously, Huang Seuk Gu of Upper Hangulia is willing to talk about releasing the female journalists.

PV: The pudgy little paranoid must be out of food again. What does he want?

IR: Legitimacy. Height. An ego stroke, a bigger peenie, he's a needy little freak.

PV: Duly noted, but he's a needy little freak who has a couple of our citizens in prison.

IR: We could send Norton Charles.

PV: The karate guy with the bad toupee from Rider:GBI?

IR: Filming wrapped in Atlanta last week.

PV: It would be appealing if not for the inevitable international incident.

IR: Inevitable?

PV: General Secretary Huang is obsessed with American entertainment and martial arts. Huang and Norton Charles would either hit it off owing to a mutual love of isolationism or they decide to have a physical confrontation and Huang has him shot.

IR: The propaganda value would be high...

PV: But not for us. Next? No more B-movie actors from films about rescuing Americans from Communists. Oh wait...that was humor. Now I get it.

IR: Yessir. Huang has met with former President Earl Miller.

PV: I appreciate Earl's support. I really do. But he's also 85 years old, may be suffering from undiagnosed dementia, and he hasn't crossed paths with a dictator he couldn't love in the last 15 years.

IR: Huang's father.

PV: He does us more good being quiet on his legume farm in Vermont.

IR: What about Vice President Gilbert Blood?

PV: What's he going to do, bore Huang to death? He was the number two man in he most successful administration of the last forty years, and still managed to lose to a borderline retard from Stillwater, Oklahoma.

IR: Well, there was the whole House of Representatives thing...

PV: Humor, I am not always good with. Constitutional law is my specialty. If it had been the Supreme Court, then I would be annoyed. And ever since Blood got that Academy Award, he has been absolutely insufferable.

IR: What about Secretary of State Burlington?

PV: 18 Months ago, Jennifer Burlington would have been my first choice for a mission to Upper Hangulia, preferably on a one-way ticket. Since joining my administration, she has been an effective Secretary of State. If things went badly, I would lose my best diplomat and then have to justify why she was talking to a country we don't officially talk to.

IR: You know, Bob Burlington is available.

PV: (Raises eyebrows, face becomes relieved, then happy.) If I am an American who had just spent the last few months incarcerated in Upper Hangulia, he would be among the first people on my list of who I would be happy to see. I would not question my safety.

IR: They are still females, sir...

PV: He'd no sooner boink them than he would boink his daughter. I would, however, worry about General Secretary Huang's female relatives.

IR: There is one more reason I would be glad to see him.

PV: What's that?

IR: President Burlington never crossed paths with a cheeseburger that he couldn't love. Have you ever seen Hangulian food?

PV: Point taken. I lived down the street from a Hangulian take-out place when I went to Morehouse. What's next on the agenda?

IR: Hose appropriations has its last meeting before the August recess at ten.

PV: Ira, what time does your happy pill wear off?

IR: At about 10:15, Mr. President.

PV: (Smiling) Be there.

Birthright? You Don't Need No Stinking Birthright!

The societal subculture of individuals who insist that President Obama was not born in the United States has gone off the deep end. These people would be quite amusing if they were not serious. The "Birthers" now appear to be running down an arterial thoroughfare wearing nothing but very small minds protected by a set of My Favorite Martian rabbit ears.

Where have you gone Mojo Nixon? (Ans.: Satellite Radio, natch.)

The whole Birther movement is a blessing for pretty much anyone not questioning Obama's birth. there are plenty of good reasons why. The primary reason is that Birthers lose credibility every time their lips move, even when reading. Many overlap with some or all of the most bizarre myths and urban legends of the last ten years.

10: Republicans are the party of smaller government and lower taxes. What do OSHA, the EPA, AMTRAK, and the national 55mph speed limit have in common? All were signed into law by Conservative Republican Richard Nixon. What do the last balanced budget and the return of speed limits to state control have in common? All were signed into law by Liberal Democrat Bill Clinton. Don't even get me started on the expansions of government wrought between George W. Bush and a Republican congress: there aren't enough bytes.

9. Canadian Single Payer health care doesn't work. This is true...in BUFFALO. Aside from a few anecdotes on talk radio from people with suspiciously non-Canadian accents, the majority (54%) characterize their health care as "excellent." Over 33% of the population would consider their health care "good." That leaves less than 13 % to say "fair" or "poor." In the United States there are 16% with "No Opinion" because they don't have any health care.

8. Elvis is alive. This one is the most plausible, but he's now laid off as a result of the Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas going into foreclosure. The last reported sighting was in the dumpster behind a taqueria west of the 15, last Thursday.

7. Right-wing talk hosts speak for their audiences. This is partially true. The audiences they speak for are the advertisers hawking questonable investments, inferior legal services, and talleywhacker pills. The people listening are only paying Limbaugh's 40 million a year second hand.

6. Rasslin' is real. If one considers fitness and choreography, that is real. One certainly would be disinclined to a dark-alley rendezvous with an irate John Cena. But Rasslin' is ballet's poor cousin, living in manufactured housing. It's where gym denizens with poor acting skills can earn a living. Gym denizens who are tolerable actors often move on to become unpopular governors. (Jesse Ventura, Arnold Schwarzenegger.)

5. Republicans have their priorities straight. A suburban Atlanta county has found a million dollars in its budget to prosecute 287(g), the law Joe Arpaio uses to harass latinos in Phoenix. This is while facing a budget shortfall which has pulled 100 front-line public safety personnel off the streets, stressed the county schools to the breaking point, and closed parks and libraries, One hopes that the county commission will be on the unemployment line at the next election, along with the Sheriff.

4. The moon landings were fake. One would think that after 40 years somebody could come up with the contractors and location for the elaborate soundstage necessary, were this credible. One appreciates the challenge of strapping three men to a giant bottle rocket guided by less brain power than a '96 Plymouth Voyager. However, the moon is a pretty big target. Stop messing with astronauts and we won't send Hillary Clinton to get you in a black helicopter.

3. Deregulation is a tool for prosperity. This is true if one is either Goldman, Sachs, Merrill or Lynch. If one owns a home in Vegas, LA, Phoenix or Florida, even if one played by the rules, behaved responsibly, and only bought what was affordable, then they just got the short end of the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of mankind. Much more of this and the queue for the Ambassador Bridge will start in Findlay, Ohio.

2. American Families should be more like the Waltons and less like the Simpsons. Let's see, where would I rather live, an all-white, depression community in Appalachia, or the prosperous Clinton-era Springfield, USA??? D'OH!

1. America was a better place in the fifties. Not really, it was just different. Paranoid drunk Joe McCarthy made a mockery of the constitution. Some communities were denied the full leverage of their franchise. It was great if one was a white conservative protestant, but there wasn't room for some of the more demonstrative iterations of protestantism seen today, either.

Oh, but the music! Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Fats Domino...all denied accomodation in hotels and restaurants nationwide. Apparently they did not have the long form birth certificate to prove to the owner's satisfaction that they indeed were born in the United States.

Losing The Health Care Argument

One suspects that President Obama's handling of the Health Care issue is not indicative of his lovemaking ability. If it were, he would be facing a divorce hectored by Rush Limbaugh on top of the daunting issues already sitting on his desk.

President Obama built his brand with an outreach to the political center. He has done a poor job of that lately. We have detailed the President's passed ball on green energy. That one went all the way to the backstop in a different stadium. Mr. Obama's agenda is getting savaged by a milquetoast presentation and what appears to be a fundamental lack of desire to reconnect with the people most responsible for his election.

For all of this criticism, one recognizes that the administration has done an admirable job of expressing itself responsibly and treating the debate (a bit too) thoughtfully. Regrettably, the Republican opposition has been very successful demagoguing the Rove-Atwater ankle-biting, testicle-punching, sand-throwing propaganda tactics. The President is not going to realize a reversal of current trends until he becomes angry, yanks his opposition up by the hair, and slams them into a turnbuckle at full force.

As stated in the discussion about Cap and Trade, empowering the liberal wing of the Democratic party with the details of presentation has proved to be a poor use of Obama's political capital. Obama's jury is in the center, and the entire presentation has been committed to people who drive Swedish cars and listen to NPR on their way to Whole Foods. That can be defined as converting the converted. Less fortunate for the administration are the Camrys and Accords catching right-wing screeds on the way to Kroger.

The President's first objective must be to narrow the term "socialist." For nearly anyone with a dictionary in the house, it would not be hard. The Clear Channel-Fox News axis is particularly fond of the term. In an instant, Roger Ailes' propaganda machine is able to hitch an idea coming from the Obama White House to unattractive little cars tooling between grimy concrete apartment blocks.

The pitfall for the right is that of any panacea which becomes abused. The effectiveness dwindles to nothing. A speech that puts some pavement between Health Care Reform which includes PRIVATE providers and Socialism is necessary. Should Mr. Obama defang the opposition's number-one favorite go-to word, there exists no equivalent, effective backup. Conservatives are only left with asinine portmanteaux.

President Obama is more than capable of delivering an optimistic message which takes the mischaracterization of socialism off the table for good. What can be achieved simultaneously is the contextualization of the current federal participation in health care. At the moment the United States and Canada spend the same amount per capita on the governmental level for health care. The Canadians have a functional, relatively transparent system of universal medicine, which approximately 90% of Canadians describe as good or excellent. (See enclosed link from CTV News in Toronto.)

We in the United States, on the other hand, are paying a sirloin price for stale chicken hot dogs.

The public-private duality of the Obama plan must be clarified on the President's terms. A private option, and the ability to move between public and private plans serves as a check on the growth of government. It also serves as a release for pressures to undo a public system by political means. A key motivator of many who preferred President Obama to Secretary of State Clinton in the primaries was his endorsement of a Universal solution which included Private insurers.

A single-payer public health care system in a diverse population of 300 million is unworkable due to its political vulnerabilities. The quasi-private system that exists is unworkable because it fails to cover one in six people, and thusly leaves the nation in a system of de facto rationing. This disproportionately affects less affluent and minority Americans by denying access to medicine, particularly those with chronic conditions which are factors of poverty.

The administration's preferred health care system requires a comparison of total cost to society as compared to the status quo. The best idea would be to have the estimates drawn by several partisan think tanks so as to provide a range of values which would not be impeachable by partisanship. Every group would be instructed to use the same criteria and methodology.

Similarly, the status quo offers the opportunity for some well-justified populism. While incessant populism quickly becomes tiresome, a short burst against a worthy opponent gives Obama's credibility a shot of painfully absent vitality. He could have given the What? Now they can't compete? discussion a bit more time, and saved himself the drama he finds himself in now. A seasoning of mild populism leverages appeals to small businesses and working class families.

Once equipped with independent, empirical data, the case in the president's favor hews closely to his usual style of cool reason. When armed with the tools of logic, President Obama is nonpareil in his ability to offer a clear, informed engagement as to how the average person will benefit from Health Care Reform. Taking the mantle from congressional master debaters and vitiriolic radio polemecists plays to Obama's greatest strength, analytical rhetoric that focuses upon the justification for a plan without the caprice of gratuitous emotion.

President Obama is well aware of Stephen Colbert's lesson: Reality has a well-known liberal bias.

Cap and Death or Cake and Trade.

Cap And Trade needs to go away soon. Compared with some of the huge failures that the Republicans have had lately, this one would not even be a blip on the radar. To be succinct, the President is losing support by playing to the Democrat base on this one.

While there are a few positive elements of the bill, it is a stinkeroo of biblical proportion. President Obama cannot afford to lose this much of the middle on an issue and hope to maintain the principal of his political capital. He very well knows it.

This was a test of how far to the left that the administration could move on an issue. The answer is that he couldn't go very far on it at all. A very large component of the American electorate is disinclined to invest much faith in the idea of Global Warming. Pitching the bill in terms of the bicoastal left hasn't helped matters much.

Obama didn't invest a lot of his personal popularity in this issue. He knows it would be foolish. There is a better way to achieve the same result and improve his popularity.

Let "Cap and Trade" die. The only people who would miss the term were going to vote for Obama anyway. Give Cap and Trade the Goldfish Funeral it deserves, let it sink to the bottom of the Potomac Tidal Basin, and never allow it to resurface like Jason Voorhees in a Friday the 13th movie.

This strategy is Bill Clinton Classic. Obama should lead with his left and lay the Republicans out with his right. A sympathetic Blue Dog Democrat could be enlisted to introduce a more center-friendly bill which includes a few concepts from the Conservative lexicon.

A terriffic acronym is always a good start. Let's call this one "Defense Energy Autonomy Legislation (DEAL). Cap and Trade evokes images of Eddie Izzard's "Cake or Death" routine, without that whole annoying "cake" meme. (A tip of the Wandering Gentile Toupee to absent friend Ms. Banana from "American Fool" for the introduction to Mr. Izzard. Ms. Banana is sorely missed.) The idea is that even if one questions the validity of DEAL, the person most likely to be questioning is going to have a very difficult time opposing "Defense" or "Energy Autonomy."

Defense and Energy Autonomy serve as cupcakes to Blue Dogs and Republicans. The Interstate system began with the ostensible purpose of serving military interests, not polyester-clad RV drivers. Not even Ike could spend that kind of money without resolving a significant defensive issue.

Energy independence and the technologies to achieve it would be a huge jumpstart for American leadership. As far as our defensive needs go, we would be well served by taking away the leverage that energy has given a legion of despots in multiple world hotspots. War is difficult to wage when unable to buy the tools.

We begin with the massive "Hannah Montana" birthday cake, offering tax credits based upon the deployment of American-sourced green energy technologies. It culminates with maximum credit to individuals and businesses which become net producers of green energy. This becomes revenue-positive by starting a brand new industry. Someone has to design, manufacture, install, transport, and maintain green energy solutions. These people will buy homes, automobiles, durable goods and so on.

With large scale production, the accessibility of individualy-based solutions would be increased dramatically. Does anyone remember US$350 pocket calculators? As Americans take the lead, our industry begins to export to other markets. While some countries may not be enthusiastic about American leadership, the United States is still seen as an honest broker. No petrodespot can touch our integrity.

Don't even think that the Russians or the Chinese want to be vulnerable to the caprices of regimes sympathetic to the Uyghurs or the Chechens. They are not Tibet and Georgia.

At some point, likely within ten years or so, the United States could have a surplus of energy. It could be used to refine sewage and seawater to provide irrigation for non-edible grain or sugarcane on land which is not currently arable. This could serve as an abundant substitute for petroleum motor fuel.

The defense component could also be leveraged to provide eligibility for health care through the existing VA mechanism to any participant in the program. It might not be fancy, but it certainly beats no health care. The sum total of a bill like this would not only demonstrate American leadership and exceptionalism, a lot of very unpleasant people would be abased.

Anything that takes Ahmadinedjad and Rush Limbaugh out in one shot is definitely worthy of consideration.

Powerful Periodical Purloins Pauper's Post?

Did The New York Times do something inappropriate to your Wandering Gentile? (Please see enclosed link)

There is a word, it starts with the letter "p"...gosh darn it! It's on the tip of my tongue. I mean, the post "Clowns Are No Laughing Matter" had been out on the Internet for three days labelled with the words "Clowns" and "Al Franken," when a similar article appeared in the Times under Victor S. Navasky's byline.

Nahhh, it's only a coincidence. I mean, it's not like a writer who needed an idea could go to Google, plug in "Al Franken" and "Clown" and get a whole bunch of links. Hell, I even found a couple of posts with the same title as Navasky's Op-Ed piece.

But there is the issue of that "p" word...it just isn't coming out...but I can remember the name of the Times reporter associated with the term.

Oh yeah, they would probably recall Jayson Blair, too.

Clowns Are No Laughing Matter

The Jester takes his seat in the United States Senate. A slim plurality of voters chose Al Franken over Norm Coleman to represent them. They did not choose a Businessman. They did not choose a Professional like a Doctor or a Lawyer.

Minnesotans elected a Clown. Mazel Tov, it is a decision which may prove very wise.

A clown does not have the luxury of pretense or hypocrisy. To be successful in the science of humor, the clown is obligated to have integrity, His or her nature is to phrase truth in terms which deflate the disingenuous. Pompous pretexts become ephemeral in the light of motives served. Hidden agendas are laid bare as weak policy.

The skill set of a clown does not normally translate well to politics. Barry Levinson and Robin Williams argued this point in Man of the Year. The honesty required of the clown, the jester would impede the process of compromise needed to govern in the name of the people.

This is not entirely accurate. The atmosphere of fear and ambivalence has engendered an environment of legal, but not ethical leadership. There is nothing acceptable about the family values lawmaker who cheats on a spouse. There is nothing honorable about the legislator denying basic civil liberties to the same people with whom he would tryst, anonymously and gleefully. The defender of decency oftentimes grants special favors to patrons who would destroy the livelihood and security of constituents who do not question the defender's motivations.

The clown is unacceptable to the hypocrite. This is because the clown gains his strength from authenticity. It gives him the latitude to be wrong and the flexibility to make himself right. The clown can disclose and find forgiveness while no such tolerance will be countenanced for the hypocrite.

Laughter is harder to earn than a vote. It resides in the province of surrender more total than that which authoritarians demand, yet laughter can only exist in an environment of liberty and trust. There were/are no great jesters surrounding Hitler, Stalin, Mao, or Osama. Ideologues are serious people with many important, grown-up things to accomplish early in the morning. There is not time nor acceptance of levity.

As a nation, Americans are charmed by leaders with wit. John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan were effective communicators through humor. Obama has shown glimpses of a dry, acerbic and lively sense of humor. As of yet, he approaches this with trepidation. Obama could afford to be more daring. His opponents will find fault regardless, but the candor necessary to face serious issues armed with a smile will reaffirm the wavering and convert quite a few disbelievers.

That is a challenge when carrying the weight of several levels of history. The native intellect which might be prone to a barbed comment is tempered by the knowledge of the potential repercussions on sympathetic people. Taking into account of history's import, Mr. Obama will need time to find a comfort zone which will allow him to leverage his wit. Eventually, a lively intellect will be enhanced by the flexibility and integrity of humor.

Senator Franken does not carry the same set of Samsonites from 1964. He is going where no one has ever been, satirist to senator, mocking the news to making the news. In a Washington of frauds and phonies, hypocrites and liars, the Junior Senator from Minnesota is in a position to clear the mine fields where the President cannot tread.

Obama: The American people need a public option for health care.

Franken: The American people cannot afford to leave their health care in the hands of private insurers. These are people who learned their business pracitices from the same great minds that taught AIG that derivatives were perfectly acceptable because they were legal. Private insurers function under the model that what is legal and what is right are the same thing.

Obama: Cap and Trade will incentivize the development of green energy technologies which will benefit the average citizen.

Franken: Oh, my goodness! Do you really think moving the means of energy production closer to the consumption end might actually lower costs and stimulate the economy? Why, that model has only worked in the passenger transportation and information industries! Energy would be much different!!!

Parodists, satirists, jesters, clowns: why would anyone prefer them to frauds, phonies, hypocrites and liars?

And Then There Were None

Effective 23 July, bloggers won't have Sarah Palin to kick around anymore. The people of several states are resplendently verdant with envy, owing to the fact that their governors will not be leaving as well. Mrs. Palin's resignation came as a benign surprise on Friday afternoon. She has been on campaign for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination since four seconds after John McCain named her as the Vice-presidential nominee last summer.


This is very good news for Democrats. The Barracuda has been a perpetual gift to liberals. Instead of the holiday weekend news cycle being dominated by health care and cap-and-trade debates, the Democrats had the public implosion of another GOP figure, and the commensurate rumors, speculation and innuendo. No, innuendo is not a term to be inappropriately bandied with a South American mistress.


Democrats have played this smart. When one's opposition has arrayed itself into a circular firing squad, the most appropriate move is to sit back and hold the video camera.


In Mrs Palin's case, no one who watched the July 3 speech could be blamed for asking if this were actually a great bit of satire committed by Tina Fey. Palin was ranting and only marginally coherent, indicating either a need for meds or that they had not been taken.


Her statements were either factually misleading, crediting Lincoln for the Alaska purchase which happened two years after he died, or out of left field. Then she was surprised when someone way, wayyy out of the progressive mainstream got a wild hair and included Trig in a particularly offensive bit of internet tomfoolery.

The progressive mainstream tends to be a little bit sensitive to those who have been marginalized by those who would be bullies. The bullies would be much more concentrated on the right than the left, and defined as authoritarian. Right wing bullies can dish it out but they can't take it.

Governor Palin and Governor Palin only is accountable for her words and actions. Her opponents in the press and the Internet did not select her party affiliation, her positions on the issues, or her camera presence. There is a big difference between plain-spoken and inarticulate, and Governor Palin crossed that line about ten months ago.

Thousands of bloggers, columnists and commentators would be pressed to invent a character who provides a better well of material in their own imaginations. The right has provided a figure who combines paranoia and the least palatable bits of partisan rhetoric into one spunky, gaffe-prone but telegenic figure. One could call her the offspring of Dan Quayle and Michelle Malkin, although it would be physiologically impossible.

The least bad result (for Republicans) of Palin's resignation is also the least likely. In other words, Palin's resignation is as it appears on face value. Mrs. Palin is unable to fulfill her obligations as defined under the Alaska state constitution. She resigned to allow her state government to move forward on issues without gratuitous scrutiny of appropriate decisions made within her duties as Governor. Mrs. Palin will abjure from politics to spend more time with her family.

And that time will be spent on a palm-fringed island on the Aleutian archipelago. One asks: Does smoke up the behind affect the human body in the same way as smoke through the lungs?

Almost as unlikely is the chance of a major office-killing scandal. By office-killing, one refers to federal indictments or video evidence including any or all of the following: a live girl, a dead boy, or a marital aid and a moose. If any of this existed, it would have been on Youtube by now, so progressives can wipe that hope off the board, although we are better off with Palin still in the picture.

Governor Palin is ducking out of the mundane details of operating a state with a population which could be lost in any of a dozen metropolitan areas. She will likely choose a career of face time as a professional public speaker. Palin will spend her nights facing groups with names like "The Christian Nationalist Patriot's Liberty Heritage Front," for three years. She will portray herself as the embodiment of true conservatism; defender of the average guy; slasher of taxes; destroyer of big government; hounded away from her sworn duties by elitists who wish to silence the voices of her audience.

This is a fantasy-for Democrats. Mrs. Palin's oratory will improve, because it can't get any worse. She can't use a teleprompter, because it would require her knowing how to read. She has 18 months to become fully immersed in believing her own hyperbole.

Palin is an attention junkie. She isn't competent enough to know the difference between the score offered to "Not Obama," and that which is hers.

If Republicans are fortunate, Palin overdoses on attention before the nomination. Democrats already know about attention-junkie candidates (Gore, Hillary Clinton) who can't handle their fix.

Monty Python's Meaning Of Death

Neda Agha Soltan. That is the only name worthy of repetition. She was the only figure over the last few days who merits immortality in print or pixels. No other individual living the early part of their afterlife in Live Team Coverage carries the same need to be memorialized.

Miss Soltan was murdered in the streets of Teheran by thugs solicited by authoritarian theocrats masquerading as leaders. Indeed it is reasonable to question the tenuous link between faith and totalitarian bastardry in Iran. Faith is a gift from the Almighty; it cannot be coerced.

The dictatorial cadre in Iran has used faith as a pretext for some of the most odious prohibitions upon personal liberty, culminating with a sham election. Everything was made up and the points did not matter. Miss Soltan died yearning for the basic human right of conscience, disillusioned by the realization that her voice had been denied, unable to exercise ant latitude in the decisionmaking that will affect the lives and well-being of her contemporaries. Thieves and murderers moved quickly to associate thher reasonable wishes with a cabal of the unfamiliar.

On the other side of the world, a politician took advantage of a similarly convenient approach to faith. Years ago he was among those who attempted to thwart the will of a nation's choice for president, based upon his judgement of the fitness of that president's moral character. In the case of Iran and the politician's jurisdiction alike, holy literalism has served to cloak poor stewardship of the electorate's interests.

It is the politician's great good fortune that his overt hypocrisies will be judged by educated adults with computers and free speech. One only wishes that Miss Soltan had enjoyed the same freedom. Only the politician's ambitions have died. Barring some divinely just irony, he will awaken tomorrow, free, affluent, and able to choose a new path. His constituents should be so fortunate.

Truly dystopian were the deaths of the two entertainers. One was a former sex symbol attached to the most famous nipple in the history of humankind. Her health had been poor for some time. The other was a lost song-and-dance man-child who had long since spent his own fortune, and continued spending the fortunes of others.

These events, although tagedies for the humanities, were not the same tragedy to humanity that was Miss Soltan's death. They had earned celebration and recognition for their talents. They were more than liberally compensated.

The sex symbol made efforts to use her talent to reveal the suffering of women at the hands of neanderthal brutes who must reconcile their differences through violence. That is laudable.

The Man-child spent twenty years under a cloud of accusations of pedophilia. A performing career which had once concentrated upon raising the lot of famine sufferers became a self-parody of odd, self-destructive behavior. One hopes hat he is reunited with his right mind in the afterlife.

Indeed, one hopes that he was truly innocent of the unforgivable things he was accused of, not just beyond a reasonable doubt.

Neda Agha Soltan, however, was innocent. She died at he hands of a child made subhuman by brainwashing and the hope of escaping poverty. Her death was the product of those who believe and teach that basic human rights are only to be conferred upon those with whom they agree.

The other names were heard a lot. Neda Agha Soltan's name deserves mourning in words, thought, and prayer.

The Liberal Media Myth

As the news spread of the heinous and brutal attack on the Holocaust museum in Washington, onehopes that the Gentle Reader was deeply and sincerely offended. Simply stated, free speech mutated from the rantings of far-right cretins to a cancerous blight on libertarian discourse.

Deep condolences to the family of Stephen T. Johns are inadequate. The nation owes his family a proactive measure as means of beginning a memorial to a man who gave his life protecting a repository of evidence of what happens when extremism replaces sanity. Rounding up extremists and prosecuting them is compellingly attractive, but we are in the position of having to be the Good Guys.

Whatever we do, referring to the collective as those of good will and love for our system of constitutional jurisprudence, it must be informed by an unabiding adherence to the rule of law and the rights of the accused. No matter how distasteful we may find extremism, rounding 'em up and locking 'em down is just terribly George W. Bush-league. A better solution exists.

Repeal the 1996 Telecommunications Act. Get rid of it and salt the land from whence it came so that nothing ever grows there again. This law is an odious act of corporate welfare which has served to stifle dissenting opinion and deprive valid viewpoints of a platform for expression. The 1996 Telecommunications Act has provided fertile ground for breeding far right extremism of the kind which killed Officer Johns and devastated his family.

One station per band per market was the rule until a preliminary deregulatory law allowed companies to begin acquiring multiple stations in the same city. Free-to-air broadcast licenses being a finite commodity, limits were placed upon any entity consolidating large numbers of licenses. Prior to 1996, stations such as WIRY in Plattsburgh, New York, who focused upon the community they served were the rule.

WIRY is now the exception, as many broadcasters move to a business model of satellite-delivered programming. Author Stephen King refers to the most prolific type of music broadcaster as "Robo-oldies." While one is not inclined to focus upon the disgraceful state of oldies radio in America, the same model applies for news and opinion broadcasting: Robo-Republican.

The Robo-Republican nodel works thusly: acquire a potent signal in a medium to large market. Dismiss the news-gathering and local on-air talent. Replace the local talent with Fox News, Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin, Savage and Noory. Preemptively purchase any signal where a competitor may be established with the profits. Develop friendly professional relationships with entrenched local personalities like Neal Boortz and Mark Davis. Continue until able to throw loss-leader advertising rates against any program which appears to challenge satellite-delivered content. Eventually establish a monopoly upon audience.

Now is where things would most appropriately move in an anti-trust direction. The most egregious of all Robo-Republican megabroadcasters is Clear Channel. Clear Channel also owns Premiere Networks, which owns or distributes most of the content mentioned. While one does not suggest that Clear Channel directly specifies content, 900 signals, a lack of high-profile progressive voices, and the occasional leveraging of a Clear Channel board member (J.C. Watts) as a guest on Premiere Networks programming do indicate a definite agenda and conflict of interest.

The conflict is most easily ascertained when combined with the ability to direct dissent over to inferior signals or reformat entirely. It also helps to be able to elect an inferior rival, such as Air America, which sounded like it was produced on a dorm-room laptop.

The most compelling case for reregulation and anti-trust investigation of megabroadcasters does not lie in conservative rhetoric. As long as megabroadcasters are in a position to obstruct opposing viewpoints, a violent fringe of radical conservatives takes comfort in increasingly angry rubric. This rubric is couched in the idiom of inevitable subservience to a monolithic authority which would violently suppress all dissent. Listeners are encouraged to become active with the tacit subtext that conservative voices will only survive through the implicit threat of sustained violent rebellion.

Therefore, many sincere, decent conservatives been absorbed into the hateful thing that they themselves most fear. Right-wing broadcasters have tiptoed up to the line of inciting the overthrow of the United States Government. That one is pretty much a no-no in the Constitution. They put it right up there in the front. Aggression against a body which has committed no crime or has made no threat and justifying said aggression with fear is not the American way. It is the Nazi way. We are obligated by our constitution to be better than that.

It is time to take the microphone away from those whose acrimony and paranoia would deprive an innocent Stephen T. Johns of his right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

When Only The Worst Will Do

Attorney General Eric Holder has reversed a ruling made late in the Bush Administration that defendants in deportation cases may not appeal based upon inadequate counsel. Apparently, former Attorney General Mukasey was under the illusion that the US government was not required to follow the constitution here any more than in Guantanamo Bay.

Whatever, we here at the Wandering Gentile applaud the fact that the Obama administration feels that due process may suffer when an attorney graduated from Ray-Ray's House of Tacos and Accredited Law School of Mabelvale, AR, instead of, say, Harvard or Yale.

It is now important for defendants in deportation cases to find incompetent attorneys. As a service to undocumented persons who are innocent until proven guilty, your Wandering Gentile is offering advice on picking a bad attorney.

1. His office is a single-wide mobile home encircled by a chain-link fence.

2. His image car is a Kia Sephia.

3. His legal books are all paperback. Some of them were written by Dean Koontz. The shelf is made from cinder blocks and planks.

4. During consultation, he participates in an animated conversation with his "baby mama," because the child support check bounced.

5. The same animated conversation ends when his Trac Fone runs out of minutes, and his service abruptly cuts off.

6. Confronted by the word "tort," he asks for extra whipped cream on his.

7. His laptop is the approximate size of a Chevette. It operates on a Windows system that uses a Roman numeral like "I.I/VIII."

8. He asks for a change of venue because he has an outstanding warrant.

9. A plastic bag from Dollar Tree serves as his briefcase.

10. He shows up for court with a gold tooth, oversize aviator shades, and a "13" sweatshirt from an urban haberdasher.

11. He brings a QT chili dog to court because he missed breakfast.

12. His opening statements include an imitation of a Dodge Dart on a cold morning.

13. He refers to the judge as "you old pickle-smoker," instead of "your honor."

14. He returns from lunch wearing a Long John Silver's paper pirate hat, and most of a hush puppy.

15. During his closing statement, he moons the bailiff while consulting his "legal briefs."

Maybe there was a reason he had to advertise on daytime television...

THE HUNDREDTH POST! (How to blog like the Wandering Gentile.)

Today, in honor of our hundredth post, your Wandering Gentile is going to share a DVD-type special feature, explaining how a post becomes a Wandering Gentile post...yay!

Always have a subject in mind. Sometimes your original first paragraph is crap, so expect an alternate plan. This happened today.

At roughly one-tenth of an administration, we have a better picture of where the Obama Administration is going. The President's objectives on the economy, the environment , health care and justice are now coming into focus. He had a task to clear out the Augean Stables before getting to work on his agenda.

Readers like lists. They also like realism. Sarcasm doesn't hurt much, either.

THE ECONOMY.

If one were to consider the economy in terms of a tractor-trailer, this country's was going across the George Washington Bridge toward New York with two flat tires on Election Day. By the time President Obama got to the White House, it was stuck on northbound Jerome Avenue in the Bronx under the El, with eighteen flats, and somebody had boosted the stereo out of the dash for good measure.

For readers unfamiliar with operating a large commercial vehicle, this scenario is as bad as it gets before destroying your rig or accumulating a body count. Commercial drivers will require a crowbar to get the seat from a puckered sphincter.

The Republican answer, keep moving forward and then turn right is not an appropriate solution. Obama's tack of turning left at the first McDonald's is the only solution which will save the vehicle. In a spectacularly suboptimal situation, this takes the fixed overhead obstacle out of the equation.

Turn right once arriving at the faster track of I-87. Obama's rolling, and he's made the turn, but plenty of obstacles await before he gets to the Major Deegan Expressway.

THE ENVIRONMENT.

Compared to the Economy, Obama is out in the back end of North Dakota on this one. Unless he is in imminent danger of freezing to death (He's not), Obama has a long, boring slog in front of him in which nearly everyone wishes him well in the objective of getting to a much greener place with a tree. Obama would do well to hope that the tree is near a Burger King, because nobody wants to be in North Dakota with him.

North Dakota's state tree (envied by South Dakota because they don't have a tree, yet) is in West Fargo, a couple of blocks from the truck stop. There is also a Burger King.

HEALTH CARE REFORM.

Ready or not, it's coming. Nobody in America trusts health insurers as much as they trust Congress, and they don't trust Congress at all. (Hyperbole is always fun. Ask Dave Barry.) In Congress' case the tiebreaker is the fact that it is at least theoretically possible to vote a congressman out of office. When was the last time a health insurance customer had a vote on the direction of the insurer? (Not guaranteed even if holding preferred stock.)

Health insurers are right when they state that they cannot compete. Competition does not exist when a business model is built around a captive market and the fundamental inability of a customer to challenge the providers service without litigation. A publicly subsidized option-not corporate welfare for insurers to serve the entire public, not just the ones they like-is urgently and desperately needed.

We already have de facto rationing in the form of pre-existing condition codicils. Government is already on the hook for half of all health care spending already, shelling out more per capita than the universally covered citizens of the rest of the industrialized world. Freedom of choice should include the ability to fire an inferior or inept health payment provider.

This is the possibility that Obama's plan from the campaign-and ironically the French- make available to non-millionaires. You know, the ability to make a rational decision.

I forgot. We're Americans. We're not supposed to be able to do Rational. (Quips like this are good for annoying conservatives, particularly when mentioning the French.)

JUSTICE SONIA SOTOMAYOR.

Get used to saying it. Republicans don't have anything. It isn't even going to be close. Too bad she's not a Red Sox fan.

IMMIGRATION REFORM.

(If I need to rant, this subject is good because I can make fun of Lou Dobbs and Tom Tancredo. And those two are made for being mocked and harassed, when not taking on the entire G.O.P.)

What do you call a bus going off a cliff with the entire Senate Republican caucus aboard? The waste of a big damn bus, sorry about Collins and Snowe.

Immigration reform is the big bus which will go off a cliff with the Republican party's future aboard. In states which have large numbers of socially-conservative, entrepreneurial latino voters they will wind up with the approximate lifespan of a triple-meat, triple-cheese plain-and-dry Whataburger left in the care of your Wandering Gentile.

Republicans cannot afford to trade Miami, South Texas, and Arizona for a significantly smaller number of Anglo-Saxon bigots in states without enough electoral votes to beat Walter Mondale's '84 performance against Reagan. Immigration reform is a winner for the USA and Mexico.

The US economy wins, gaining ten million people with a pent up demand for homes, automobiles, and durable goods gaining the clout to buy them. We could also anticipate a trillion-dollar shot in the arm for tax revenues over the next ten years. It doesn't hurt that the undocumented population is disproportionately entrepreneurial and disposed to risk taking.

If combined with a workable guest worker program and some mechanism enabling labor to organize without being forced to take anti-labor propaganda before making their decision, ethical businesses would prosper. Border security would improve, owing to the resources not allocated to pursuing people forced into illicit crossings by an overreaching prohibition.

Tom Tancredo and Lou Dobbs would go broke though, because their support of that same overreaching prohibition is what enriches Mexican organized crime, their true masters. The Kluxers and Neo-Nazis would have to fold up their tents and go back to Idaho.

(Bad quip goes here!!!)

Who da pimp, now?

The First Post!

This is the first Wandering Gentile post from the summer of 2003, discovered in the bowels of my Yahoo account. It is brought to the Gentle Reader in celebration of our hundredth post. We apologize for the pretentious use of Canadianized English, but hell, it seemed like a good idea at the time. The same excuse goes for the first G.W. Bush administration, spicy food, and any automobile built in the 1970s. Glad you're here, and thanks for spending time with The Wandering Gentile. Gil. Such a week, such a week. The face of evil was found on the face of a 31-year-old trucker from Schenectady, and it is a perfect irony. A black man was trafficking slaves. They were a commodity he was being paid to ship, just as his ancestors were on the ships out of Africa. They were a commodity to be sold for their labour in the streets of scores of municipalities across this great nation. It is with a heavy heart that one observes the complete lack of understanding this grave situation engendered. The trucker had cargo he was being paid for. The condition of the cargo did not matter to him. He did not consider the value of dead slaves on the open market:none. The black trucker's ancestors were valued more than the cargo he let die. Such is the course of human bondage in the twenty first century. Aliens without documents, education or legal recourse are better than slaves. They are expendable. When one dies or is deported, another five are queued for his place on the farm or in the chicken processing plant. These are menial jobs that most natives of the United States are not willing to take. This is not a defence of undocumented immigration...both of the enabling principals;i.e. the immigrants and the employers are equally guilty, but this is not exactly true. An undocumented alien does not have the education to understand that the United States disproportionately punishes a hungry neighbour for daring to seek scraps of our affluence in the rubbish bin. Yet there is no equivalent compulsion that would sanction someone who willingly seeks the hungry so that he may give them only scraps. Those who employ...and they do so knowingly...the undocumented face nonexistent scrutiny. Criminalising poverty does not repair the problem. The procedural crime must be less than the crime that engenders the procedural issue. People with education know better. The employers...at the highest level...must be accountable. The issues at more than one famous poultry processor are examplar. Large contributions to the previous administration appeared, and few charges have been filed. More contributions followed to the subsequent administration. Both political parties are equally culpable. But a deported undocumented employee has no voice, and more often than not, no paycheck. Anyone who believes that no one knew that there were deliberate mechanisms to recruit and employ undocumented workers in the poultry industry has never been to places like Gainesville, Georgia, or Chincoteague, Virginia, or any other place with a large poultry processing plant. As recently as fifteen or twenty years ago, the poultry industry was employing U.S. citizens. Once it was discovered that undocumented aliens do not speak out to the Labor Department or OSHA, the Americans went out on a rail. The eighteen who died on that truck in south Texas last week may not have been seeking employment in a poultry processor, but the conditions that make undocumented employees attractive to poultry processors empower the exploitative in many industries. Eighteen lives were worth US$2500 to a black trucker from Schenectady. Slaves are now rented instead of owned. Where are the Democrats from the civil rights community and the Teddy Roosevelt wing of the Republican party? The civil rights community will defend the black man and there will be Republicans who seek less scrutiny of business practices in spite of TR's abhorrence of injustice. It is a disgusting headstone for eighteen hungry people who died last week, and not worthy of the people of this Nation.