Part the One
– Wow. Obama’s been president for three days and already he’s signed Executive Orders closing Gitmo; banning torture; suspending those odious ‘military tribunal’ trials; ending revolving-door lobbying; preventing lobbyists from occupying senior positions in agencies they once lobbied; requiring ethics courses for all of his staff (and he took the course himself); limiting the use of secrecy classification, even imposing Justice Department oversight on his ability to classify documents secret; and expanded government transparency, directing his administration to err on the side of Freedom of Information Act requests rather than the other way around. He also froze the pay of senior White House staff and informed them that as long as he’s president, none of them will quit and then turn around and lobby their friends still in his government, reversing years of Bush/Cheney corruption, sleaze, secrecy and illegality.
What’s more, he did all of this while acting like a grown-up, speaking in full, clear, grammatical sentences, and taking his job seriously. It will be difficult, but pleasant, to adjust to a president who doesn’t have a smirk perpetually playing about his mouth, doesn’t need someone else to run his brain, and can think on his feet. We’ve gone from Barney Fife to Denzel Washington, and the change is striking. I’ll be criticizing Obama in the future I’m sure, but for now all I can say is: Wow. I think he’s one of those rare politicians who really meant what he said when he was campaigning.
– The Dying of the Right 1: While the vast majority of America is celebrating our new competent president, the peevish drones over at Fox News, led by Chris “My Dad’s the Journalist!” Wallace, have been foaming at the mouth over whether Obama’s really president, since Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts bumbled the reading of the oath on January 20th and Obama followed him. This is the largest load of unprocessed fertilizer since the questioning of Obama’s birth certificate. (Hint to all the ‘reporters’ at Fox: As well as the certificate itself, long available online and sanctioned as genuine by fact-checking organizations, there was also a birth announcement in the Honolulu Advertiser newspaper welcoming Barack H. Obama Jr. into the world in 1961.) In fact, the law says that, as the victor in the last election, Obama was officially president at Noon last Tuesday, whether he was sworn in or not, and documents were signed after the inaugural ceremony signifying that official transfer of power. Just to head off frivolous lawsuits from tinfoil-hat pinheads, Obama had Roberts drop by the White House the next day and redo the swearing in. Incredibly, some of the bloviating scoundrels claimed this was a – oooohhhh — ‘secret ceremony’! Horse pucky. The press was invited in, still photos were taken and an audio track was recorded – it was as secret as an American Idol audition. Only the TV cameras weren’t involved, and that was likely because Obama wanted this formality completed quickly and didn’t want to get bogged down with silly questions from the Usual Media Meatheads like Fox News. (“Mr. President, will you now come clean about your place of birth? Weren’t you really born in Kenya or Cuba or Mexico? Isn’t it true that Patrice Lumumba is your real father and Squeaky Fromme is your real mother?” )
– The Dying of the Right 2: Rush “Rhymes with Limbo” Limbaugh, who once went apoplectic criticizing liberals as ‘unpatriotic America-haters’ because he had convinced himself they wanted the Little King to fail in Iraq, has now joined the ranks of unpatriotic America-haters, according to his lights. On his radio show the other day, he confessed openly, “I hope Obama fails.” Aside from the fact that about 83 percent of the public doesn’t agree with him, even some the brain-dead rubes who still give any credence to the great blubbery gasbag, suffering under the GOP economy and dying in the senseless Republican wars Rushbo helped peddle, had to be appalled by this statement. He wants the country to go down the drain to what – make the era of conservative Republicans look good? That’s some patriot; George Washington would be proud. Prediction: This is the sort of nasty, psychotic hypocrisy that is losing ratings for the neocon hustlers of the broadcast media and it’s going to result in Limbo being dropped from the airwaves across the country. In eight years, Rush will have lost his syndication deal and will end his miserable existence shouting through a tin can at a little 1000-watt daytimer in North Peckerwood, Alabama. (“Hey, Limbaugh, y’all forgot to take out the trash from the studio last night!” “I’ll get it, boss, I’ll get it!” “Yeah, and don’t forget to mop them washrooms extra good while you’re at it.” )
– Laugh-A-Bullroar: If you were watching the inaugural ceremonies on CNN or MSNBC, did you notice they cut the mics picking up the crowd sounds when Bush, Cheney and the Republicans were introduced? And the band was cranked up extra loud to try and drown out the tidal wave of booing. Earlier in the day, even addle-pated ‘Morning’ Joe Scarborough remarked on the two to three million Obama fans flooding into Washington that the GOP had better pay attention to this political shift or risk being the minority party far into the future. Forget Dimmy and Dick, they’re gone, but I wonder if those Congressional Republicans got the point? (Some of them nearly lost their safe seats last election.)
The Tattlesnake – Tales of Incredible GOP Slop Edition
You Know When They’re Lying…
Not that I want them to ever figure this out, but if the GOP wishes to know why wide swatches of the American public no longer trusts them, aside from the Little King’s eight long years of rule by error, and an economy that had to be peeled from the bottom of the barrel, they might look at some of the incredible statements that emanate from the acrid mouths of the supply-siders.
For instance, Martian Talking Point Ari Fleischer appeared on the Matthews boy’s MSNBC variety hour the other day and spread it on thick for Bush’s Legacy. Out of the steaming heap of preposterous twaddle and dead-eyed slag with which he repeatedly insulted the audience, one statement, along with the outrageously delirious quote that heads this piece, was the ‘tell’ that removed all credibility from any other word he spoke – that’s when he implied that Republicans would never blame Obama should there be another 9/11. The remnants of Karl Rove’s viperous, vile, vicious, kick-below-the-belt Republican Party and their cohorts in Murdoch’s Media would give Obama a pass on a major terrorist attack? As Mark Twain once wrote, it’s enough to make a cow laugh.
Then there was CNBC’s Mad Money maniac Jim Cramer getting some needed schooling in journalism from Jon Stewart on The Daily Show last Thursday. As much as Cramer bobbed and weaved, Stewart kept landing solid punches, but the one line that took any faint breeze of credibility out of Cap’n Jimbo’s sails was the ludicrous, fall-on-the-floor funny take that he didn’t realize corporate CEOs were lying to him. This hyperactive lump of dross has been selling his 20 years of financial experience on Wall Street and he didn’t know CEOs LIE? Okay, either this guy is the dumbest wide-eyed hayseed to ever hit the big time, in which case CNBC should rip up his contract and send him back to Mayberry, or he has such contempt for average Americans that he thinks he can get away with this monumental sleazebag-of-the-month con job, and I’d pick Door Number Two here.
Since Obama’s election, we’ve heard a landfill of these absurd head-slapping ‘tells’ from the Party of Limbo – “We believe in small government”; “We honor the Constitution”; “We’re the party of fiscal responsibility”; “Bush beat al-Qaeda and won the war on terror”; “We’re against earmarks”; “It’s Obama’s recession” – and I hope the Republicants keep it up. No advertising from the opposition could more effectively doom the GOP than endlessly repeating something as patently ridiculous as, “We’re the party that cares about the people!”
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