Buying Bad Ideas

There are a lot of expressions for bad ideas, like shooting one’s self in the foot. A bad idea is simply one that does not work. The problem is that from time to time, both as ourselves and as a people, we do not recognize a bad idea when we encounter it. The danger comes when for whatever reason -- ignorance, stubbornness or hubris – we stick with a bad idea to our detriment. Unfortunately, bad ideas tend to compound themselves. We have been suffering from that effect.

Consider the candidacy of the former governor of Alaska for Vice President. At the outset it is with some reluctance that I acknowledge a grudging gratitude to Sarah Palin. Until she appeared on television as if a human bridge to nowhere, nothing compelled me to engage in a political debate that I considered both cyclical and one-sided. The cyclical part was the fact that the country was due to change political leadership after an eight year Republican run, which is something that the country does. The one-sided part was the fact that the Democratic Party had emerged from a climactic contest between two compelling and competent Senate candidates, one of whom destined to become a historic first as President of the United States.

An oblivious Palin seemed to take herself seriously, saying stupid things and celebrating such stupidity. It offended me. I minded and began saying so. I minded that Palin did not speak any American language I would expect to hear from a competent executive. It was not alright, folksy or cute. But I underestimated the “moose-hunting rube,” as columnist Charles Krauthammer referred to her in the National Review.

Palin reminded me of one of the most vapid students in my high school graduating class who was the vice president of student body and vice president of at least a half-a-dozen high school clubs. The girl had a mid-double-digit IQ and passable looks. She would have been rather doltish except that she knew how to glom. She would stick to and campaign for the more popular students, thereby elevating her status in the high school social pool. She was a person who was never troubled by an original thought, just like Sarah Palin. The difference is that the high school girl understood the limitations that make bliss of ignorance. Palin did not.

Palin wowed conservatives like the Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol and Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson, who told the New York Observer that Palin was “a mix between Annie Oakley and Joan of Arc.” Soon after, Palin brought self-aggrandizement to a new level as she energized the baseness of the Republican base – people who use racial epithets in private when they explain that they just don’t like blacks. She appealed to people of limited educational backgrounds as she championed anti-intellectualism with a wink and a nod. She became a darling of Fox News, the moral equivalent of a grocery store tabloid for people who do not read and who feel threatened by people who do.

People at Republican rallies began to shell out big bucks to hear her cheerlead and Palin noticed.

The Republican Party’s self-inflicted loss in 2008 is due as much to its selection of Sarah Palin for Vice President as the country’s guts being full of the Bush Presidency. A 2008 New York Times editorial said of her choice for VP, “It was either an act of incredible cynicism or appallingly bad judgment.” It was a bad idea. But having proved to be such a draw, the crowd pleasing Palin glommed on to the burgeoning Tea Party – another bad idea – and became an influential force.

With Palin on the payroll, Fox News aggressively promoted negativity and hostility, specifically towards the newly elected president. The Tea Party appeared to resuscitate the out-of-power GOP in the mid-term elections. Republicans believed it was important to take control of congress’ lower chamber more so than Democrats and they did, kind of. Reciting an edited version of the US Constitution, the GOP majority of the 112^th Congress had no idea that it had been infected by such a polarizing group. Its anti-government/anti-tax/anti-Obama negativity proved to sell to an electorate suffering from a deep, GOP induced repression.

However, the new Speaker of the House soon discovered that he only controlled a majority of the new Republican plurality. The Tea Party faction held it hostage. Compromise was futile. Government shutdowns and default threats became normal operating procedures.

As a result this bad idea, Gallup reported in September, “Majorities of Democrats (65%) and Republicans (92%) are dissatisfied with the nation's governance.” At present, “Congressional job approval remains at 13% in November, identical to October and tying the all-time Gallup low on this measure. The 2011 average is on track to be the lowest annual rating of Congress in Gallup's history.” What an accomplishment that is.

We are being bullied by the rhetoric of Tea Party acolytes in the Republican Party into thinking that the United States is not a prosperous country, despite evidence to the contrary. We are being coerced into thinking that taxation is too high, even though it is at its lowest point in 60 years. We are being fed a line that our economic policy needs to be austere and rife with cuts. Such contentious conjectures are bad ideas.

There are better ones. For example, here is what President Lyndon Johnson said in his January 28, 1965 message to Congress.

"The task of economic policy is to create a prosperous America. The unfinished task of prosperous Americans is to build a Great Society. Our accomplishments have been many; these tasks remain unfinished:

- to achieve full employment without inflation;

- to restore external equilibrium and defend the dollar;

- to enhance the efficiency and flexibility of our private and public economies;

- to widen the benefits of prosperity;

- to improve the quality of American life."

Palin and her gibberish have been replaced by other people every bit as unqualified for high public office as she who similarly say stupid things. Negativity and attack ads directed at the incumbent president remains the top Republican theme. Fox News is a beneficiary of the advertising revenue but the country is not. I am not convinced that the electorate will buy into more such negativity as a winning proposition as it did in 2010. It isn’t a winner. In its celebrated ignorance, it asks us to buy some more of a bad idea.

Originally published as Buying Bad Ideas on Blogcritics.

The Republican Brand: An Empty Hat

The GOP became the removed-from-power party when Barack Obama won the 2008 election. The Republican Party ran a Senate veteran with a relatively novice politician to follow its flawed Presidential incumbency. They lost the election. The GOP squandered time for the necessity of rebuilding in favor of expedience. By the midterm elections it embraced a faction called the Tea Party. In so doing, the GOP became fractious, forgetting that it took six years for candidate Richard Nixon to successfully reinvent the Nixon brand: Nixon’s the One. Nixon had a plan. The Republican debates demonstrate no such plans from its cast of candidates and puts the brand in jeapordy.

To its credit the Republican National Committee replaced Michael Steele at its helm. However, the RNC retained the same elite hypocrisy as the John Boehner House speakership demonstrates. Being the party of business became the party owned by business. The recent debt ceiling crisis and deficit debate debacle that Speaker Boehner allowed makes matter worse. It difficult to argue that such GOP stewardship has been looking after the best interest of its stock holders, Republican and Independent voters. Some observers allege that the disparities in the Republican Party stem from ideological differences. However, those allegations are phony.

One might think that it must be hard to be both phony and shallow. Failure to distance the Republican brand from its Tea Party faction as well as from self-appointed spokespeople like Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin has corralled the GOP into a political pen. Bigots have come to roost. The Republican debates may have demonstrated reach and audience, but the star candidates lack substance. They are becoming highly paid political celebrities who are famous for being famous. Unfortunately, that is all there is to them. They don’t stand for anything; they stand against things, President Obama foremost among all. They don’t represent anyone other than themselves. A television audience is a poor substitute for a constituency.

The concept of “take the country back” deserves derision, not applause. It is an expression of rube rhetoric that may sound good but does not mean anything. Does it mean taking the country back to another time in history, like before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 -- an idea floated by Rand Paul? Does it mean taking the country away from a person or from a group? I ask because neither the President nor the Congress is a foreign occupier of our government. Even so, the Tea Party faction likes the “take back” slogan fragment because it is an identifier, like a verbal secret handshake.

Although they won’t admit it, the Tea Party folks are pissed off because they lost the most important election of our time in 2008. They have hated the loss now for three years. They will continue to hate it for another five years if the secret handshakers in Congress continue to make the O in GOP stand for obstruction.

There is a limit to just how much empty-hat policy the country will tolerate. Griping about everything the president does or doesn’t do is no substitute for policies on issues such as civil rights, ending the wars, and immigration reform. Karl Rove’s acolytes drove Hispanics and Blacks from the GOP to appeal to the white Christian right. That was their master plan, their conservative agenda. Gallup reports, “The Republican Party in 2011 remains demographically and ideologically similar to the way it looked in 2008. The only change is that “Republicans are now slightly less likely than they were in 2008 to be male and to be highly religious.”

The Tea Party rejuvenated the GOP sufficiently in the midterm elections to keep it out of any meaningful rehabilitation. Had it undergone rehab, the Republican Party would have admitted it is powerless over the greed that subsidizes it and that subsequently tarnished America’s reputation and finances. It would have made amends to everyone it hurt, like the American people. Seeking some forgiveness is no longer an option. Repudiation is in order, such as bringing criminal charges against Bush, Cheney and Rove -- indicting them with high crimes and misdemeanors.

Instead, the GOP has served up a meaningless series of television debates among candidates who are incompetent for the presidency. The debates offered lots of talking points but no policy, just empty-hat ritual and rube rhetoric. The debates showed that the party lacks the courage for the conciliation required to rebuild the Republican constituency. It will require those attributes for the Republican brand to become inclusionary, to end obstructionism and to become a smart, loyal opposition.

The “O” in GOP stands for “Old.” The elephant logo dates from 1874. It looks like something one would expect to find hanging on the wall at Applebee’s. I can venerate the GOP for what it once was in my father’s lifetime. “I like Ike” was then. Today, the GOP brand is like old-time religion -- significant to a former time, just not to this time. The once venerable Republican Party has become more about political celebrities, who vie for money by denigrating the incumbent president than it is about conservative policies articulated by credible candidates. Deep down inside, it is shallow.

Originally published as Republican Brand: An Empty Hat on Blogcritics.

A Tragic Update

After Sarah Palin posted the rifle scope cross hair target map on her Facebook page, she entered the frontier of sedition using Twitter. “Don’t Retreat, Instead – RELOAD!” The recent Tucson, AZ, shooting atrocity confirms Palin’s seditious speech. Palin deserves derision for such speech and for not pulling down her “Target map” until one of her targets was publically shot in the head.

Palin’s speech is protected under the 1st Amendment. The murderer’s right to bear arms is protected under 2nd Amendment. The terrorist himself did not reload and in retreat was apprehended. However he can count on the 5th Amendment’s guarantee of “due process of law” – ironic since he killed a judge.

After Palin’s followers are instructed on what to say (on Facebook and Twitter), they will assert that no connection to her seditious speech can be made other than for its tragic coincidence. They will say that she is in no way responsible for such a terrorist act as the Tucson public murders, especially since the gunman does not appear to be one of her “peace-seeking Muslims.”

In fact, the SarahPac went to work immediately to crank out its public relations mop job. It insisted, among other things, that the cross hairs on the target map came from the US Geological Survey.

Soon enough Ms. Palin herself will be fed lines to repeat to incriminate the liberal lame stream media, you watch. The public relations kids working for the media millionaires have been busy little people keeping the public eye sore. You can bet that the Arizona PR people are plenty busy, too.

Misery loves company and, unfortunately, tragedies build audience share.

Ratings will go up as those rich bloviators of hate -- Palin and her contemporaries Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh -- become beneficiaries of the Tucson tragedy. Thoughtful people who find them distasteful will just dial them out. Their followers, however, will wrap themselves in the flag and the 1st Amendment and try to blame the liberals for the Tucson murders, since such is the way of that trio’s audience.

Elected officials such as President Obama, Speaker Boehner, and others have shown considerable statesmanship for the circumstances. Senator Robert Kennedy showed remarkable statesmanship in the aftermath of Martin Luther King's assassination in 1968. Back then, hatred and hateful speech were quite common, but their mediums of expression were more up-close and personal. RFK was later murdered.

The Speaker has a job to do, part of which is the waste of time the new Republican majority is involved in with passing a bill to repeal a law along strict party lines. The bill, when passed, will go to the Senate and, should it pass the Democratic majority there, will go to the President who signed the law in the first place. It will take a two-thirds majority in the House and in the Senate to override his veto.

Statesmanship is admirable. It just doesn't last long. As to the continual AP assertions that Ms. Palin is a presidential contender, let us hope that idea is put to rest in respect for those who lost their rights to life, liberty, and happiness.

140 Characters, Huh

The point of this exercise is to see just what a 140 character limit looks like. That sentence has only 80 characters. This makes it to 140. [27 words]

It confirms my observation that Twitter is ideal for teaching people how to write good cut lines. Present active voice helps to pull it off. [25 words]

It is almost like saying that one has 29 words or less, so long as the words are short, to make a point. Using bigger words buggers it up. [29 words]

Just like everything else in journalism, the re-write is where it is at. There is nothing that cannot be improved, especially the new Tweet. [25 words]

Personally, I have trouble thinking that Tweeting is important to anyone without a broadband gadget and an extra $30 bucks a month to spend. [24 words]

Then again I probably said the same sort of thing when I was forced to use a word processor instead of an electronic typewriter by my boss. [27 words]

“Damn it Jim, I’m a writer, not some digital space scribbler!” Bones McCoy barked. “Besides that, the character count includes quote marks.” [22 words]

And the good doctor would have been correct, even if he used the word quote instead of quotation; but I am digressing from my original point. [26 words]

At some point the discussion about danger has already been discussed by others. Things like texting while hiking or driving get people killed. [23 words]

Perhaps a discussion about just plain flat being rude is in order; although to date I have not read anything about Tweeting while copulating. [24 words]

For those waiting for me to bring up Sarah Palin in the Tweeting context, wait no more. I just did, by shrinking political discourse process. [25 words]

Can you imagine how much money it would cost to get the Klondike Twitterer to endorse a broadband texting gadget? Think of an i-Palin device. [25 words]

It would doubtless have an American language debasing app and another one that makes up words. But I hope that’s all in some distant future. [25 words]

In the long run, writing a letter by hand, using a pen and ink, and developing personal handwriting may actually become in vogue and return. [25 words]

Hopefully I have made my point. The average word count in this exercise was 25 words. And my point, in case you missed it, was get over fads. [28 words]

It’s not like I wrote about the Hoola-Hoop. Think of a fountain pen as a hand held, fluid medium, friction driven, analogue texting devise. [forget the count]

# # #

originally published on Blogcritics as "140 Characters, Huh", December 30, 2010

A Jack, a Hack, and a Quack

Getting lost in the spin-coverage of Sarah Palin, Jan Brewer and Rand Paul is the essence of what they allegedly stand for.

In common, they espouse theme positions that at best do not make sense and at worst are hateful and bigoted. Two of those themes are “the outsider” and “anti-establishment”. Before I get to specifics, let me ask a few questions for clarity. Please, pardon my pronouns.

What is this being “an outsider” supposed to mean other than you have not been elected yet? How does being an outsider benefit your constituency that elects you to office? What is in it for them? How are you going to get what your constituents elected you to get? Do you work well with others? Can you collaborate and negotiate on your constituents’ behalf, especially since that will be with the “insiders” – you know the people who actually run things?

What is this anti-establishment “no more politics as usual” rhetoric supposed to mean? Does that include anarchy? Does that mean other than usual or abnormal politics? Isn’t normal politics as usual really what voters elect a person to do in the first place? Isn’t the conduct of legislating so that the electorate does not have to what normal politics is about? How is being different from other people who successfully do politics for a living a valid qualifier to hold an elected position?

The Tea Party backed son of big-time insider, the rookie Rand Paul’s opinion on the Civil Rights Act did not get the coverage it deserved. The deniable plausibility defense that his comments were taken out of context is a cover-up story. The story is the Tea Party connection and an unconscionable position that supports invalidating parts of the Civil Rights Act. And even if Paul did not mean it, it is tooth paste out of the tube – hard to get back.

His dad called to coverage “unfair,” as if fairness is a high priority to establishment Republicans and their Libertarian cousins like Ron Paul. That Pops Paul is incumbent is because he plays well with others and has for years deserve noting. His official website proclaims that he is “America's leading voice for” among other things “. . . a return to sound monetary policies.” It does not say when such sound monetary policies existed, although presumably it was sometime before the Civil Rights Act, you know like the “I Like Ike” era. I digress.

Both Paul and Palin espouse positions on off-shore drilling that get incomplete or disconnected coverage. Sarah Palin says she remains a "big supporter of offshore drilling" despite the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, according to AP. She says it’s safer to dig in Alaska. Of the oil spill Paul says that “. . . sometimes accidents happen.” Each excuses the environmental catastrophe BP created. The Tea Party likes drilling. Never mind the pesky environment or conservation.

Meanwhile, Arizona’s governor has new propaganda that is both evocative and shallow. Jan Brewer is Rosie the Riveter, “Doing the Job the Feds won’t do.” That used to be called codswallop. The Feds are the only ones who can do anything about immigration. Arizona’s racial profiling law is being taken to court by no less than the NAACP and is also a matter of presidential inquiry by the Justice Department. Palin’s contribution is the Tea Party connection.

Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act in 1921. President Warren G. Harding signed the law which established national quotas for immigrants, although Latin Americans are not mentioned. It became the Immigration Act of 1924 and lasted until 1965, when it was replaced by Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. After President Lyndon B. Johnson signed that law it went into effect in 1968 and is pretty much at the core of US immigration law today.

Johnson said of Immigartion Act of 1924, "This system violates the basic principle of American democracy, the principle that values and rewards each man on the basis of his merit as a man. It has been un-American in the highest sense, because it has been untrue to the faith that brought thousands to these shores even before we were a country." LBJ signed the Civil Right Act. He was not a lawyer.

Neither Palin or Brewer or Paul is a lawyer so they might not recognize that while their speech may produce resonance with populist sentiment, it espouses segregation. They might not know that the 1896 Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson endorsed "separate but equal" racial segregation. It might be unclear that the law remained until the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka renounced it 58 years later. They are not lawyers, alright..

The Tea Party and its spotlight-celebrities do like to cheerlead when they play in their ideological theme park -- “limited government, lower taxes, less spending.” If they really want to cut government size, reduce the tax burden and spend less, so much as they say, how come they do not call for ending the Iraq War and bringing our troops home? That would be all three rides in the Tea Party theme park.

The answer is that they are big supporters of the military, never minding that the military is a huge part of the government and is ridiculously expensive. The Tea Party loves guns, the 2nd Amendment and wants to "take the country back." It is anyone's guess how far back they want to take it.

Being the anti-establishment outsider for limited government who gets elected makes a great movie theme, like Frank Capra’s classic Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. But it ends there. The rhetoric is codswallop. The Tea Party connection of Palin the Jack, Brewer the Hack, and Paul the Quack has a segregationist tilt. The essence that is lost due to inadequate coverage is the disingenuousness of the themes being peddled with such Tea Party pandering.

Last Frontier of Sedition

One of the drawbacks liberals face is the fact that although we may find the words of such rousers as Sarah Palin distasteful, we will still defend her right to say those words. What we need to remember, however, is that our defense of the right to free speech does not extend to seditious speech. Palin and the Tea Party have entered sedition’s last frontier.

The recent pseudo-event with Sarah Palin headlining the Tea Party Express' Showdown in Searchlight, she addressed a throng of 9-thousand and attempted to sell a negative message to the disenfranchised of that crowd. Her disingenuous rhetoric aside, Sam Adams would have been proud of her. Sam knew a thing or two about pseudo-events and inciting a crowd. He headlined the original Boston Tea Party and proved that when you win a war, your thugs become patriots. Sedition is what gets things going.

Here is the short version. Sedition is “any act, writing, speech, etc., directed unlawfully against state authority, the government, or constitution, or calculated to bring it into contempt or to incite others to hostility, ill will or disaffection; it does not amount to treason and therefore is not a capital offense.”

After Palin posted the rifle scope cross hair target map on her Facebook page, she entered the frontier of sedition using Twitter. “Don’t Retreat, Instead – RELOAD!” And on national television, in U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s hometown of Searchlight, Nevada, Palin proclaimed to the crowd that the big-government, big-debt spending spree of the Senate majority leader, Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is over. “You’re fired!” she said.

The Donald Trump tag line is from the hit TV show "The Apprentice,” produced by Mark Burnett who also produces “Survivor.” Burnett is about to produce “Sarah Palin’s Alaska.” The Learning Channel is said to be paying more than $1 million per episode for that Palin business. We will see what other words are loaded to her lips. Having loaded lips will be an audience pleaser since Palin gets $100 thousand per appearance.

Sarah Palin is like Anna Nicole Smith with glasses – known for being known and not standing for anything. It is fine to be a celebrity of a rally circuit in tertiary US metro-markets. It seems a bit much for the 6 figures pay for her to declare to the multitude “We're not going to sit down and shut up. Thank you for standing up." You’re welcome, but what are we supposed to do now that we are standing? In the frontier of sedition, this is where they pass out hoods for us to wear.

Palin Scopes Targets

I expect the Associated Press writing to be plagiaristic. Take the story headlined “Palin, Tea Party Take On Reid, Health Reform. “ Referring to a Tea Party rally in Arizona “that's been called a conservative Woodstock” is an example. Who called it that? The Woodstock comparison was first articulated on PBS Frontline about Karl Rove and it pertained to the Republican Convention of 1964 that nominated Barry Goldwater for President. But who needs editors when there is spell-check?

The “Tea Party movement” and Sarah Palin deserve lots of derision. The codswallop that they perpetrate is infectious to bigots. Using the posting graphics of rifle scope cross-hairs of a map to “target” Democrats up for re-election on her Facebook page and sending the tweet “Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!" pander a demographic with disingenuous rhetoric pretending to be rogue conservativism. Barry Goldwater must be turning.

When a pop star backs a cause or a purpose, it is self-aggrandizement. Representing oneself is what pop stars do best. As a political pop-star, Palin is a Twitter natural. What better way to disseducate people than with Twitter, where one can use non-words to say virtually nothing of any import to everyone all the time. Pop stars have staffs of people and lots of fans to create image and manage media. The Betcha-Gotcha Palin staff appears to have hateful people on it who must be really irked by having to play nice with the Retiree-To-Be McCain staff and especially Cindy McCain.

The Boston Tea Party is one of those historical tales that has long lost its integrity. We never hear about Sam Adams and his bully boys, as they’ve been called. When you win a revolution, your thugs become known as patriots. The name Tea Party looks and sounds better than Loose Coalition of Conservative Groups Opposed to Anything Democratic.” Actually, the name Loose Cannons is more to the point.

It must be galling for John McCain to face a re-election bid so tough that his staff had to get with the Palin staff to bring the two electoral and popular vote losers together for a maverick reunion for camera lenses. George W. Bush’s staff doubtless said “Not at this time. We’re doing a presidential makeover with the Big Dog (Bill Clinton).”

Truly, a political off-season -- not being an elected official -- can be fickle. McCain is a handful of votes from having his off-season. Palin will make it so. Remember what Palin did for the last McCain campaign? Imagine what she can do for the GOP, the country for that matter.

Where Is Our Money?

According to the Associated Press (AP), the banks will not say what they are doing with the taxpayer bailout money they have received. Basically, the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) is a bank loan on steroids. Banks who received loans in the billions of dollars are saying things like “We've lent some of it. We've not lent some of it,” according to a spokesperson for JPMorgan Chase, which received $25 billion. “We have not disclosed that to the public. We're declining to."

Need I ask what is wrong with that picture? A business management consultant by trade, I am used to preparing banking presentations and helping my clients ask for business loans. I can guarantee you that one of the most important questions that banks ask is, “What are you going to do with the money?” I can also guarantee you that answering, “We're choosing not to disclose that," would get me and my client shown the door, but that is what Bank of New York Mellon said and they received about $3 billion.

If you ever wondered why the Federal government is not in the banking business, here is a little insight. Just ask the Treasury department what it is doing to monitor the spending of those TARP billions. It is a fair question, right? Now ask yourself what you would think if you got an answer like this one: "What we've been doing here is moving, I think, with lightning speed to put necessary programs in place, to develop them, implement them, and then we need to monitor them while we're doing this. So we're building this organization as we're going."

You might think that your question had been answered by Sarah Palin.

However, it is much worse than that. For the record, those are the words of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. After all, he was the banker who put the rush job on Congress, which at last look was part of the same Federal Government and is not in the banking business.

For argument’s sake, let’s overlook the “lightening speed” bit and focus on Paulson’s central point. If he had said “We are making it up as we go,” he would be telling the truth. It would also explain why Geo. Bush picked him. We can only hope that before the next $350 billion is released in the next administration, Tim Geithner will have a plan he can show to congress, which must confirm him to replace Paulson.

Tax payers deserve more in the way of policy than “making it up as we go.” Banking’s top executives deserve to be shown the door. As to being paid bonuses on their way out, to quote one of their spokespersons, “We’re declining to.”

Waiting For It to Hit

I could have listened to my grandfather. He turned down the governorship of West Virginia in the 40s, retiring to Florida and to a second career in banking. He wanted me to go to Florida law school, marry one of his State Senate cronies’ granddaughters and become Governor of the Sunshine State. I went into broadcasting instead. Under the circumstances, I am beginning to think I really missed out on a lot – hookers, clothes and jail. Governors Eliot Spitzer, Sarah Palin and Rod Blagojevich, take a bow.

New York’s crime busting Spitzer at least had more class, if not gravitas, than to get busted in Trenton by undercover police busting “Johns” for soliciting sex from street walkers. It would have made better story. Right-wing radio ate it up anyway. A Democrat and a prostitute make a great daily double. Alaska’s “Bridge-to-Nowhere” Palin should be incarcerated for the attempted murder of a language. That she could not get her stories straight and helped John McCain lose the presidential election did not matter to right-wing radio. Being a Republican and a conservative babe made for another daily double.

However, Illinois’ crusading reformer Blagojevich (Bluh-GOY-uh-vich) succeeded Republican Governor George Ryan, who was sentenced to six and a half years in federal prison for racketeering and fraud. Few people outside of the Prairie State (also known as the Sucker State) care. The Democrat governor having been arrested on federal corruption charges for attempting to sell the president-elect’s senate seat for which he can go to jail gives the right-wing a trifecta. Rush must be in heaven. What could be better than graft, corruption and Obama-by-implication?

The Washington Post’s George Will cannot quit chewing on the Fairness Doctrine rag that right-wing radio named the “Hush Rush Bill.” Now that Blagojevich has hit the news, Will and the rest of conservative center-right broadcast and print punditry have a new rag to chew. Wait until the inauguration is over.

It is doubtful that main stream media will go easy on this story, especially since its subject seems oblivious to the size of the dung heap he has built for himself. What is significant to the Premise Loft is how the conservatives respond to the case. Kristol, Will, Krauthammer, Gerson and even Brooks are doubtless word processing as I post. Doubtless they are looking up “Sucker State.” We will get to see how they prepare for the moments when the ubiquitous It hits the Obama administration. And It will.

This That and the Other Thing

Back in September in my posting titled Radio or Not, I took issue with the Post’s George Will over his assertion that a Democratic Presidency would mean the return of the so-called Fairness Doctrine. I wrote that such a notion is bunk since conservative talk radio is cheap to produce. Will’s colleague Michael Gerson has brought it up again. They probably share a new corner of the Post’s commissary and both wrote that in 1987 President Reagan “eliminated” (Will) or “overturned” (Gerson) the 1949 FCC regulation.

No the president did not. The FCC overturned the regulation. By the way, as an independent regulatory agency, the FCC has the power to reimpose the fairness doctrine at anytime without action by either the executive or legislative branches. What Reagan did was veto a congressional attempt to make the regulation a law. The Supreme Court set the stage for the FCC dumping the regulation in 1984 (FCC v. League of Women Voters, 468 U.S. 364). The regulation has come up since then, but congress would not support it and nor did the Clinton administration.

The broadcast media of 1949 is a chapter of history, as will be the Internet. So who keeps coming up with the fairness doctrine (beware, brother, beware) with respect to the newly elected administration, other than Will and Gerson? I am going to guess they got it off of talk radio. Besides, other than the Palin worshipping Rush Limbaugh, who cares? That is unless Gerson and Will have information that the Obama administration plans to “pack” the FCC.

Anyway, there you have the “This” part. Now, here is the “That.” I have previously written that both “W and Cheney deserve a place in history – in a penitentiary.” I call on all US citizens to urge the president-elect to offer no blanket pardons to Misters Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld or Rove. I urge their prosecution for “high crimes and misdemeanors” (Constitution, Art. II Sec. 4).

Here is another by the way. “High,” according to Jon Roland of the Constitution Society, “does not mean ‘more serious’. It refers to those punishable offenses that only apply to high persons,” more specifically public officials. I have posted a poll on that topic at http://www.youpolls.com/details.asp?pid=4143 You can vote and see the results for the next few weeks. I will be writing about what we find later.

And now, here is “the Other Thing,” also known as the Alaska Senatorial race. As of this posting, with 60% of the vote counted, Democratic challenger Mark Begich leads the incumbent Republican convicted felon Ted Stevens by 1022 votes. To check them, go to http://www.elections.alaska.gov/08general/data/results.htm .

Stuck in Stupid

The Republican Party is not dead. It might be a tad stinky, but it is not dead. Right now it is just stuck in stupid. There are still plenty of Republican Senators and Representatives to raise a stink. Moreover, there is a veritable plethora of Republican Governors, including the Alaskan. After W and Cheney leave office, the GOP will be able to take a break and retool if they will unstick themselves.

Meanwhile, the conservative punditocracy has already begun its 2012 elephant race that may or may not include Palin, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, or even Newt Gingrich, as the Posts venerable Robert Novak has suggested. But, there are two questions such speculation raises – who are the Republicans and who, in their right mind, would want to lead them? Oh, yah, that would be you know. So let’s take a look at Alaska.

As of this posting there are still 90,000 absentee/early ballots being counted in Alaska to determine whether Ted Stevens, a convicted felon, will be elected to represent the Frontier State. Regardless, he plans to return to the senate next week, where Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina has “ filed official notice that he will call for a vote to have Stevens ejected from the Republican Conference,” according to Mike Ross, of Anchorage television station KTUU.

Governor Palin remains at large, running off at the mouth like the comic king of double talk Irwin Corey after she and the first dude treated “the vice presidential run as a second honeymoon,” as mused Maureen Dowd in her NY Times column. Ms. Palin will join the Republican Governors Association meeting later in Miami. One wonders if the spotlight will tire of her. I am sure the RGA does too since they will be in it.

As to the condition of being stuck in stupid, as I have written, the Republicans may be a lot of things but being stupid is not one of them. After all, they allowed Palin to be on their ticket and successfully lost the Presidential election. Showtime Sarah aside, the Republican Governors are a smart bunch and I expect they will be the most influential in the party’s rehabilitation.

As a business management consultant, I would describe a lot of what I see in business families as people stuck in stupid. They are not stupid; they're just stuck in it. The primary reason they are stuck is their lack of flexibility, which inhibits change. The GOP has a lot of work to do in order to unstick itself. Alaska’s Governor Palin and Senator Stevens will not help them in their efforts.

Rubes, Parapets, Lions and Lambs

I was incorrect when I wrote that Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post was “an author of the Bush Doctrine” (Putting Descartes Before Horace). In his September 13 column he wrote “I was the first to use the term.” (June 4, 2001, Weekly Standard) He also wrote “Yes, Sarah Palin didn't know what it is,” after referring to Palin as “the moose-hunting rube.” It’s good to be quoted, even if the term “Bush Doctrine” is incorrect (I looked up doctrine). Krauthammer is correct about Palin (I looked up rube).

In addition to being a Pulitzer Prize winner and an MD, he provides commentary for Fox News and is one of the most articulate conservative writers of our time. I like to read Krauthammer’s Post column because I can philosophically disagree with his well wrought prose and agree with his observations at the same time. For example, “The vice president's only constitutional duty of any significance is to become president at a moment's notice. Palin is not ready.” (September 5)

I agree. However, if he is correct, then how can he endorse John McCain’s presidential bid, which he does not once but twice? In the first endorsement (October 24) the good doctor wrote “. . . I'll have no truck with the phony case ginned up to rationalize voting for the most liberal and inexperienced presidential nominee in living memory.” It’s a nice turn of phrase. The contradiction is that his endorsement of McCain also endorses the most inexperienced vice presidential nominee in memory.

“Today's economic crisis,” he wrote, “like every other in our history, will in time pass. But the barbarians will still be at the gates. Whom do you want on the parapet?” I can just about guarantee you the answer is not the “moose hunting rube.”

By the way his rhetorical answer to the parapet question is “I'm for the guy who can tell the lion from the lamb.” I must agree. There is little worse in this world than barbarian lions and lambs.

I can also agree that “the current economic crisis demands extraordinary measures.” In Krauthammer’s October 31 second McCain endorsement, he continued “an Obama-Pelosi-Reid-Barney Frank administration will find irresistible the temptation to use the tools inherited -- $700 billion of largely uncontrolled spending -- as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to radically remake the American economy and social compact.”

Other than the omission of Joe Biden’s name, I could not agree more. I certainly hope Krauthammer is indeed correct. That is exactly what the nation needs. So does the Republican party.

October Surprise Ball Booted

The October surprise ball was booted, unless a report that a distant Kenyan relative of Senator Obama is living in Boston “illegally” is the perfect mole hill upon which a political mountain may be built. A Senator McCain spokesman, Tucker Bounds, said his campaign had no comment. That is a shame since it is the perfect fodder upon which the Alaskan running mate likes to graze, but I digress. The real problem with the story is that it has limited television appeal, compared with the presidential debates which were all about television appeal.

The RNC has shown little interest in vetting anyone or anything. However, it sure thinks it knows the importance of television appeal. That is why the RNC booted the “hockey mom” ball with its concern about the Palin makeover. Television appeal is how the RNC booted the “Joe the Plumber” ball when they gave a real person a television name (I’m Joe Plumber, RNC News.) They would have been better off hiring an actor.

Television appeal is how the RNC booted the “Presidential debate” ball. Perhaps it would have better for their standard bearer had the debates been broadcast in black and white – McCain would have come across like Ike and Obama a skinny college kid. Following along that line, it would have better had the debates been broadcast on radio – the skinny kid would have come across like a crooner and Ike would still be Ike.

Twenty years ago ABC News claimed, “More people get their news from ABC than from any other source.” Although a frightening concept at the time, the network can no longer make such a claim. CNN put the debate solidly in the television appeal category, as opposed to a content substance category, with its goofy, color coded crawling graphic. In so doing CNN reduced the candidates to being the red guy and the blue guy with an imaginary green guy in between the two.
Television reduced the debates to an extended, three part infomercial, a ball booted by the vice presidential debate. There is more that television does than suck the substance out of things, it allows for the substance to reappear on the web, such as http://bravenewfilms.org/blog/39179-mccain-s-youtube-problem-just-became-a-nightmare . It also pays Tina Fey and Will Ferrell.

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Thanks to Dick Cavett in his NY Times column Talk Show for the link referenced above.

Things That Could Happen

The NY Times Blog, Opinionator, ponders the use of the word “yet” in the most recent John McCain campaign ads. Here is the voice over line in question. “The fact is Barack Obama’s not ready … yet.” Columnist Tobin Harshaw goes on to quotes the New Republic’s Jason Zengerle. “Maybe McCain’s final Hail Mary is to pledge to serve one term … and then to pledge his support to Obama in 2012.”

That is not likely, but McCain could pledge to serve one term to be elected. It is just that the pledge business has not proven to be his long suit and the electorate knows it. That makes me wonder just what else could the aged former jet-jockey do to create an October surprise and “fool the pundits”?

He could dump the current running mate, for the ‘good of Alaska in its troubled time’, and replace her with Joe Lieberman so that they could both serve one term. That team would have been plausible had he gone with his esteemed colleague before his convention surprise, when he one-upped the Times’ Kristol and Post’s Gerson in their adoration of the divine Sarah. Of course such a move would allow her to replace Ted Stevens with herself, but that’s a separate matter.

McCain could himself withdraw and recommend Mitt Romney to replace him as the party’s standard bearer. There is nothing as sweet as the tinkling of a bell, unless it is made of lead (atomic number: 82). However, Romney would never agree to wearing sack cloth and ashes. Since McCain is in her way anyway, Palin would not blink at trying to finish the run by herself.

Actually, that’s not accurate. She would still have Kristol and Gerson.

Crooks Win and Go to Prison

I moved from Tampa Bay to Portland Oregon as the presidential election had not been decided in 2000. By the narrowest of margins, the less qualified major candidate got over the most qualified candidate. My interest at the time was that the outcome proved Florida’s crookedness, especially since the least qualified candidate’s brother governed the Sunshine State. Crooks win. Crooks also go to prison.

On this blog in Ticket to Nowhere, I wrote that the Alaska Governor, who claims to have “stood up to her Republican Party “ was the only candidate who wasn’t a member of the ‘Corrupt Old Bastard’ network in Juneau when Federal corruption investigations began or [was] just witless enough to let the Ted Stevens Party have her installed. Little of anything governmental in Alaska has ever been done without that Grand Old Patriarch’s approval.”

Live with me for quoting myself and make a note. Upon Senator Stevens’s conviction, the Washington Post says, “[I]t was difficult not to feel some sadness . . . when the 84-year-old Republican was convicted of all seven counts of accepting more than $250,000 in gifts.” The arithmetic suggests that the $150,000 in wardrobe “gifts” that Alaska’s Governor received, which was a mere $100,000 short of Stevens’ gifts, is legal while his “gifts” are not. It shocks me to think of what she can do with this country.

So will the octogenarian Senator be returned to the Senate a convicted felon? His gubernatorial selection, now running to become vice president of the United States, says he should “do the right thing.” Even though main stream media is now quoting a written statement that the RNC folks cleaned up, here is the unedited version.

"Ted Stevens, you know, a sad day for Alaska yesterday when he was found guilty of seven felonies," Palin said. "But — and now he needs to do the right thing, and the right thing is — as he's proclaiming his innocence and proclaiming, too, that he will go through the appellate process, OK, then he needs to step aside and allow our state to elect someone who will be supportive of those ideals of America: the free enterprise, the missions that we're on, to win the war, those things that have got to take place in order to progress this country. Ted Stevens has got to play a very statesmanlike role in this now."

She has yet to be investigated. But when she speaks, as the Post opines, I “feel some sadness” too.

Are We There Yet, 1964

Writing earlier this week in the Washington Post, Richard Cohen concluded his column that this is “the second time that a senator from Arizona has led the GOP into the political wilderness.” While his implications that the 1964 campaign of Barry Goldwater is being revisited by the GOP in its ugliness, there are some striking differences.

The most striking is the choice of vice presidential candidates. For Goldwater it was the formidable William Miller, an attorney and 14 year congressional legislator who went from being an assistant prosecutor in the 1945 Nuremburg Trials to becoming the Chairman of Republican National Committee. Goldwater would have found Mr. McCain’s choice unconscionable, especially the wardrobe and expensive makeup to hide the lack of any substance.

Goldwater believed that the Johnson administration had usurped constitutional role of Congress. Whether or not the Old Maverick believes the same thing, McCain has voted with the Bush administration to get away it. But then again, Old Goldie thought he was going to run against Jack Kennedy and later said he had no chance of defeating LBJ, "because the country was not ready for three presidents in two and a half years."

Helping to assure his defeat, Goldwater turned the GOP into a conservative institution that would beget the elections of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. To assure his defeat, McCain has “driven out ethnic and racial minorities” as well as “a vast bloc of voters who, quite bluntly, want nothing to do with Sarah Palin.” As Cohen says, “For moderates everywhere, she remains the single best reason to vote against McCain.”

The Good Americans Indeed

Thursday night during a fundraiser in Greensboro, NC, Sarah Palin said, “Every area, every area across this great country where we’re stopping and where also the other ticket is stopping and getting to speak at these rallies and speak with the good Americans, it’s all pro-America.” Just some more hick gibberish from an anti-intellectual parrot or is there a meandering meaning buried in the Sarah speak?

The answer is $1600 per person to listen to it, and just as we thought All Pro-America was the name of a sports store. As to the “good Americans,” they would be the ones who would spend that kind of money to listen to a Nit-Wit who can be heard for free.

When Mark Liebovich of the NY Times writes “the Tar Heel State’s “Pro-America” bent”, he is lost in irony because North Carolina seceded from the Union to become a Confederate State. And, oh by the way, the original term “tar heel” was like saying “white trash.” I point that out since I was born in Charlotte and always wondered.

If there is a theme, other than secession, it is only that with each day Ms. Palin reinforces the notion that her selection to become vice president is to prevent John McCain from becoming POTUS.

More Ticket to Nowhere

In its editorial on the vice presidential debate, the New York Times concluded that John McCain’s selection of Governor Palin as his vice presidential running mate “was either an act of incredible cynicism or appallingly bad judgment.”

My observation is that people do things that are contradictory on purpose. Consider Jesse Jackson’s remark about Obama, three months ago, when he said he wanted to cut Obama’s nuts off. He later explained "Stop twisting my words, news media. I meant 'cut his nuts off' in the nicest way possible." That really cleared things up. Or was the usually eloquent Mr. Jackson saying “I don’t want to do public speeches anymore.”

Consider the television actor Paul Reubens who Sarasota police arrested at a porno theatre on lewd and lascivious charges. Was that bad judgment or Reubens saying to his agent “I don’t want to be Pee Wee Herman anymore”?

So, the New York Times missed the point. The Palin choice is neither cynical nor bad judgment. The Palin choice is Mr. McCain saying “I like the campaigning and the attention; but, I really do not want to be elected President of the United States.”

Governor Palin’s selection to become Vice-President guarantees a Republican ticket to nowhere.

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For the Jackson Medieval comments, see http://www.funnyordie.com/jokes/6cfa82c8f7

Experience This

The bandied about issue of candidate experience is bogus. The entire discussion obfuscates the real deal which is competence. The Democratic party has selected two highly competent candidates for the executive branch of our government. The incumbent, dangerously incompetent Republican Party has selected a retiree and a rube.

I mind the fact Ms. Palin cannot speak any American language I would expect to hear from a competent executive. It’s not alright, folksy or cute. It says that her journalism degree is worthless. Are we really to expect that when she becomes President, she will be able to baffle foreign executive leaders with her untranslatable speech?

I mind that her grasp of US history is incredibly weak. During the founding period, the Vice President was the runner up candidate for the Presidency, never mind that fact that the position is constitutionally limited, and not “flexible” as Mr. Cheney would have it.

I mind her stupid assertion that one can see Russia from Alaska – not from Wasilla or Juneau. I mind her Pole dancer hair-do. I mind her baby holding on stage. And I mind that her husband supports Alaskan secession from the Union. Those are just a few trivial things that are disqualifying of the candidate for the office.

As to her running mate, Mr. Steady, he makes me blink.

Codswallop

Whenever I read or hear the words "liberal political and media elites," I know that only codswallop can follow. Are there no conservative political and media elites? Or is such an expression a metaphorical secret handshake to let the initiated know that a conservative is about to sling other than shot.

Michael Gerson, of the Washington Post Op-Ed department, wrote a column recently entitled Faith-Based Condescension. In that piece he wrote that “liberals have been drawn, helpless and mesmerized -- like beetles to the vivid, blue paradise of the bug zapper -- toward criticizing Sarah Palin's religion.” Never mind that he never quoted a source or attributed anything. It is called “opinion” for that reason.

Since Michael Gerson is at least a “media elite” himself, his comparison of Lincoln to Palin is a mere opening affront if not a “condescension” in and of itself. The fact is, to quote Michael G, that “Democrats and their liberal allies” hardly need bother to “set out a self-destructive mixed message.” That is the purview of Republican sympathizers, such as his honor.

Criticism of another person’s faith is as far from being “liberal.” It is “conservative,” hand shake or no. And the assertion without specifics that “Deriding Palin's religion has been a poor strategy” is Rovian. It is codswallop.

9.12.08