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.)
So many topics . . .
When President Obama names the new Attorneys General across the USA, how long will it take for the conservative talk radio folks to distort the issue (all incoming Presidents do it) and say that the Dems are hypocritical for doing what they condemned Bush for doing just last year?
Rush or Dennis mentioned Friday that a return to the fairness doctrine may be on the Obama agenda. In Australia, radio has a variety of formats and community radio (which is a lot like the radio version of local TV cable access shows) are the norm. Rush will want his listeners to protest the fairness doctrine. It will be twisted into blocking the unfair ratio (90 conservative to 10 liberal) of talk radio as a way of promoting freedom of speech. Is it time for an update column?
Did you see an item on-line this week saying that Republicans are promoting a bill that would eliminate all IRS tax penalty fees?
Which is worse; the journalists in Thirties Germany who could not tell the truth or the American journalists who stifle themselves so as not to antagonize the Bush family? (When George HW Bush spoke about the possibility of Jeb becoming President, did any mainstream journalist say just the phrase “Broward Savings and Loan,” let alone elaborate on why that might be a relevant side-bar story?
On radio in the San Francisco area, in promos, Mike Savage is saying that now that Barack Obama is President, folks should follow the money. He doesn’t indicate if it would be important or of interest to follow where the bank bailout funds went. Is that unfair and unbalanced?
This past week Rush Limbaugh seemed to be quarterbacking the Republican strategy. He wrote an article outlining his version of a good bailout legislative package. Would a column speculating about the possibility that this might be an early part of a Rush for President effort be premature? If Rush is not the Republican “front-runner,” then who is?
Sean Hannity (on Thursday) suggested that the Obama program would be to go toward “European style socialism.” Any thoughts that the Bush banks bailout funds were socialism for capitalism, was not verbalized. Would a column outlining that contention be appropriate for this weekend?
If (conservative moles/trolls please note the use of the subjunctive mood)President Bush & Co. were guilty of war crimes, does the mainstream media silence about “justice,” indicate a move to avoid any allegations of “accessories” because of their poor performance on that story? (Was Robert Brasilach guilty of collaboration or just a misplaced effort to be fair and balanced?)
Should we write a weekend column speculating on the possibility that Murilee Martin ever leaves Alameda and if he does why does he?
What can readers do with pictures of their smiling dogs?
Isn’t “the Bark” magazine looking for such material?
Would folks in the SF Bay area rather see “The Blue Angel” (Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Museum) than the big football game and all those cool ads? Can that question be expanded into an interesting column?
What is the mathematical probability that any readers of this site would read a column about “the Monty Hall problem”?
What are the odds that Rush would use this Gen. George S. Patton quote:”If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.”?
Now our disk jockey will play Seasick Steve’s “Save me.” It’s time for us to ask: Will Karl Rove testify for . . . Jesus? Have a “hallelujah” type week.