“If you tell the same story five times, it’s true.”
– Larry Speakes, Ronald Reagan’s White House Press Secretary.
It’s a Given: President Obama must strongly stick up for a public option in his health care speech tonight or the game’s over. The Dems will lose big in 2010, maybe even a majority in the Senate, while Obama himself will be marginalized by the right, abandoned by his progressive base, and become a one-term president, battered into a cartoonish wimp by right-wing lies and smears. We’re begging you BHO – bring out your inner FDR; boil the corporate moonshiners in some salty Truman oil. Even if you don’t manage to pass a health care reform bill, at least stand up for yourself and those who supported you!
Camp Whiggy-Watchee: Howsomever, knees are knocking at Republican HQ these days at the idea that the GOP will be heading into the 2010 election without a solid trusted leader of the party and dragging the chock-full-o-nuts baggage of the screwy-squirrel teabaggers with them. While the shouters and doubters are good public theater for astroturf airtime to dilute health care reform, independent and MOR voters – most of us, in other words – are put off by these nattering ninnies yelling ‘Nazi’ at anybody who dares disagree with them. The TV shots of men armed with rifles and handguns at the various ‘protests’ didn’t help improve the GOP image of maturity and stability either. (White Ex-Republican Soccer Mom: “How can you trust Republicans when they cater to people like that?”) Outside of Old Dixie, how do you get Congress-Creatures and other GOP detritus elected without the moderates tossing in some votes? The Repos, to their distress, are about to find out the answer – you can’t, at least not without the help of quivering Democrats.
(Speaking of Teabaggers, Here’s Some Free Advice: Dip yourselves in boiling water for ten minutes, then add sugar or lemon to taste.)
Bell Curve to Hell-Care Reform: The Dems will also feel the pain in 2010 if they don’t smarten up their act on health care reform. The unions, as well as many progressive groups, have already said ‘nada’ to putting the ‘GO’ in GOTV in the next election, if a public option isn’t in the final bill. Some (alleged) Dems central to the health care issue – Max Baucus, Harry Reid and their mealy-mouthed, corporate cash compadres – may also feel the heat from the left as real progressives challenge their nominations. Sure, they might still win, but it would cost them a bundle and leave a residue of ill-will, making them easy pickings for the GOP. If somebody like a Gov. Brian Schweitzer challenged Baucus for the Dem nomination, I think Montana primary voters would dump Max in a mixed-cliche New York heartbeat.
Goodbye, Green Giant: Van Jones, Obama’s former ‘Green Jobs Czar’ and a co-founder of Color of Change, was just forced to resign, allegedly for once signing a petition asking for an investigation of the government’s involvement in 9/11 and for appropriately referring to Republicans as ‘assholes.’ Of course, the real reason Jones is walking the plank has to do with Fox News/Glenn Beck’s wacky-doodle tirades against him, accusing Jones of the usual all-purpose wingnut grab-bag of Commie-pinko-radical connections. Behind the scenes lurks the Usual Gang of Corporate Suspects – AKA King CONG (Coal, Oil, Natural Gas) – worried Van might actually be effective and successful at building a ‘green jobs’ economy that would save us money and give people good-paying jobs while it cleans up the environment. Word is the mentally-challenged who believe Beck’s ditzoid frothings, abetted by the soulless Astroturfers, mounted a vicious hate-mail campaign to dump Jones. See, Color of Change is the group responsible for throwing up an online petition against Beck, and getting his major sponsors to withdraw their ads in the wake of his laughably calling President Obama a racist. (57 advertisers have pulled out of Beck’s flying circus so far.) Par for the course, Beck went after the wrong guy – Van Jones had nothing to do with the petition, CoC leader James Rucker is the culprit there. But the telling and risible moment, and a perfect microcosm of what’s wrong with our Big Media, was encapsulated by CNN’s Ed Henry proclaiming indignantly that Jones signing a petition to investigate the Bush Administration’s role in 9/11 was “beyond the pale.” Get that? Just asking for an investigation of this question is ‘beyond the pale’ for Henry, but covering every loony dive and dodge of the Republicans over mythical Death Panels, Obama’s ‘radicalism,’ and Mommie Dearest from Wasilla with a straight face is real live journalistic reporting. Perhaps Time-Warner and the GOP rewarded Ed with a monogrammed set of gold-plated knee-pads for that bit of reportorial subservience — maybe they even threw in a year’s supply of lipstick for this ardent media hog farmer. This is what the pampered pups of the Meet the Press Gang mean when they talk about preserving ‘access’ in DC — unspoken is that it’s in the ‘below the beltway’ sense.
Welcome to Beckistan, Citizen! Jimmy’s brother Jack, after surviving a brush with death, decided to do something for humanity other than waste his life away in some corporate Cube Farm crunching numbers. The 20-something was in a perfect position for this act of altruism – single with no kids, ex-wives or other common attachments. Jack quit the rat race, cashed in his stock, sold off most of his worldy possessions, received basic medical training, and moved to a tiny isolated island in the Pacific where he became the primary care doctor to a tiny tribe of natives, teaching them how to clean wounds and boil water to get rid of bacteria, while they taught him to enjoy life without a cellphone, computer, television, newspapers, magazines or the latest electronic gadgets or blockbuster movie. Only a battery-powered shortwave radio connected him with the outside world and that was rarely used. For five years, Jack was blissfully mostly unaware of what was happening in the world, except for the occasional gossip passed on by the man who delivered the mail once a month, and he measured time by the rising and setting of the sun. But last month a family emergency in the U.S. demanded his attention. Reluctantly, Jack left his island paradise and flew back to the states. He had heard of the election of Barack Obama from the postman, and knew about Fox News, but he had never heard of Glenn Beck. Sitting in the airport in Los Angeles, waiting for a flight to Chicago, he happened to catch most of a recent Beck show. Arriving at Jimmy’s place in Chitown, Jack mentioned in passing how refreshing it was that Fox News had changed their format. Jimmy shot him a puzzled look – what did he mean, ‘changed their format’? “You know, going with that Monty Python satire – I haven’t laughed that hard in awhile. That guy on Fox was hilarious!” Jack followed this by explaining he had seen Beck’s show at LAX. Sadly, Jimmy told his brother that Beck’s show wasn’t comedy – Beck was, supposedly anyway, for real. Jack slumped in his chair, stunned, “No – you mean people really take his crap seriously?” When the family emergency was resolved, Jack couldn’t wait to get back on the plane to his island in the Pacific. As he told his brother right before boarding, “I’m going back to a place where we may live primitively and we don’t have the latest fads, but the people still make sense.”
Copyright 2009 RS Janes. LTSaloon.org.