Be It Never Forgotten...

Be it never forgotten, Brothers and Sisters, just how this Great National Embarrassment that is George W. "The Smirking Marionette" Bush's tenure in the Oval Office first came about...

Be it never forgotten that the great Florida Voting Debacle of 2000 and its subsequent Florida Recount Fiasco was but one prominently ugly symptom of a far more rampant and widespread disease...

Be it never forgotten, Brothers, that the right to vote is a truly great and grand gift, fought for and bestowed upon us by the wise and exalted Founding Fathers...

Be it never forgotten, Sisters, that the right to vote is great and grand and was fought for and handed down unto you by wise, if unjustly less-exalted, Women...

Be it never forgotten, Bruthuhs an' Sistahs, that the right to vote is great and grand and was fought for and handed down unto you by wise Women like Rosa Parks and exalted Men like Martin Luther King...

...and be it never forgotten that the right to vote is supposed to be more precious than a three-day weekend.

Be it never forgotten: The symbolism of the hanging chad-- that of the tragically, tragically low number of us who actually bother to cast our ballot, even fewer take it seriously enough to not be sloppy about it...

Be it never forgotten: The symbolism of the butterfly ballot-- that if you sloppily elect incompetent and/or crooked officials, or passively allow them to be elected, you will get incompetent and/or crooked governance...

Be it never forgotten that His Obstinacy King George the Dubya was elected in 2000 because there were enough 'swing' voters --just barely enough, but enough-- who found him more likable than Al Gore, even though they knew damned-well (or should have) that Gore was more intelligent and better qualified...

Be it never forgotten that America was stupid to value likability over intelligence and qualifications...

Be it never forgotten --I beseech you-- be it never, ever forgotten where choosing a president based on that sort of criteria has since led us...

Be it never forgotten: Last week's lasting image of The Smirking Marionette-- knuckles whitened by a death grip on the podium, eyes rounded by a mixture of fear and blank confusion, staring down the barrel of the teleprompter as if it were Dick Cheney's 28-gauge and stiffly stating, "Now, Ah'm not sayin' that Ah screwed the pooch, but a lotta people think that the pooch got screwed, an' Ah can't deny it --heh, Lord knows Ah've trahd-- but, as President, Ah'm the one in charge of whether or not the pooch got screwed, so... *shrug* ...y'know? Ah mean... y-ya can lead a pooch to water but, uh, b-butcha can't make 'im a horse..."

Be it never forgotten that his very presence in the presidency is an embarrassment...

Be it never forgotten that his presence in the presidency makes us all look like fools...

...and be it never forgotten that it is our own damned fault.


Be it never forgotten that the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center were not carried out by "Islamic fascists" who "hate our freedom," but by people who --with reason-- hate our government's policies in the Middle East, and who use religious zealotry as a political tool...

Be it never forgotten how we all lusted blind and desperate in our zealous hatred and near-religious patriotism in the wake of 9/11 to go Kick Some Arab Ass...

Be it never forgotten that their argument that Israel has no right to exist --unpragmatic as that argument might be, at this point-- is every bit as logical and has every bit as much merit as does our argument that Israel does have that right...

Be it never forgotten: Our self-righteousness...

Be it never forgotten that our invasion of Iraq was opposed by the United Nations, a body whose very existence was the brainchild of past American presidents who brought more dignity and respect to the office --even despite their failings-- than this pretender has ever possessed-- men who fought and fought hard when it was time to fight, but who preferred not to...

Be it never forgotten: Our fervored fear of being attacked again...

Be it never forgotten that our invasion of Iraq was, from the very beginning, unwarranted; that it was, from the very beginning, rationalized only by a handful of half-cooked lies; and that it was headstrong and headlong and personally motivated...

...and be it never forgotten: Our fevered fear of being branded "unpatriotic," or perhaps even "blasphemous," for saying so at the time.


Be it never forgotten that our subsequent occupation of Iraq has been both criminally clumsy and downright criminal-- a mission that has accomplished little more than the exponential destabilization of the entire Middle East, the elimination of one old Bush family nemesis, the increased fat-cattedness of already-fat cats with government contracts, the blood sacrifice of thousands upon thousands of dedicated American lives and body parts on the front lines of a foreign civil war, and the equally inhuman sacrifice of untold multitudes of collateral innocents...

Be it never, ever forgotten that the blood of thousands upon thousands upon multitudes --from the very moment he gave the green light for Operation Shock and Awe (which is, without question, far and away the single most childish code name ever given to anything, anywhere, in the entire history of spoken language) to this very moment and for years to come-- the blood of thousands upon thousands upon multitudes will now and forevermore stain the hands of George Walker Bush, as well as the twisted, sinister hands of Dick "Chancellor Palpatine" Cheney and Donald "Dummy Rummy" Rumps-felt and Karl "The Offensive Coordinator" Rove and every other hate-mongering, fear-mongering, war-mongering bastard in This Blinkin' Administration who manipulates all the well-worn levers that make The Smirking Marionette walk and wink and blink and smirk and trip over his own tongue and stick his foot in his mouth...

...but be it well-understood: Some of that blood is on our hands, too.


Be it well-understood: I have hated this piss-poor example of a caricature of a president --this screeching, smirking, mugging little chimpanzee who denounces the Theory of Evolution while at the same time defecating in his own hand and flinging the product at gawking, pointing onlookers-- I have hated him and all of his big-moneyed string-pullers on both an intellectual and visceral level since about four seconds after he first announced his candidacy...

...and be it well-understood that I was opposed to the invasion of Iraq from the very day then-Secretary of State Colin Powell went before the United Nations and said, in effect, "Well, I'm sure we probably do have evidence of WMD... they just won't let me see it."

However...

Be it well-understood: The nation-state of Iraq is, at this point, a wobbling, teetering, 60-deck house of cards, and now is not the time to hold our breath and slowly pull our hands away, cross our fingers and quietly walk backwards, gingerly switch off the light and leave the room...

Be it well-understood that if, through the dark rectangle of the open doorway, we merely hear, but don't actually see, the ticking-clicking-clattering collapse of that house of cards, it won't mean that we don't have one hellacious, godforsaken, red, white and black mess all over the table and floor in there...

...it will just mean we weren't actually in the room when it happened.

Be it well-understood: Staying in Iraq at this point isn't about supporting our Great National Embarrassment, the president-- although there are, still, 735 days left in his current term...

Be it well-understood: Staying in Iraq at this point isn't even about supporting the troops in the field-- nor is it even really about some grandiose, empty notion of making their sacrifice worthwhile...

...it's about cleaning up our mess now, instead of later.

------------------------------
P.S....
Bud Selig must --oh, how it pains me to say
this-- Bud Selig must also stay. (See Bellow.)

Bellow

There is a schoolteacher in Battle Creek, Michigan, who --I have it on good authority-- was so inspired by a very passing and facetious reference I once made to "Killre's Glossary of Perfectly Good Words That Nobody Ever Uses" that she actually gave her grade-school class the assignment of compiling just such a book.

Ahhh... Blasphemes: Proudly warping the young minds of tomorrow through the use of semi-obscure polysyllables.


Believe it or not, there's other evidence that there are people taking notes here at our little whine and cheez party...

On August 7th, in "An Open Letter To One-F," I rather pointedly asked which would be a better nickname for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki: "The Mayor of the Green Zone," or "The Large Kurd Cottage Cheese." (One F's response to my letter, which was titled "Task at hand," was posted two days later.)

According to a news report I heard a couple/three weeks ago, reference to al-Maliki as "The Mayor of the Green Zone" is now the running joke in Baghdad.

I am unsurprised --and surprisingly unbothered-- by the fact that I have received absolutely no credit (other than the credit I am now taking) for dreaming up that line. Such is the way of such things.


More evidence...

You might recall that in the days leading up to last November's mid-term elections, there was a great deal of talk and deliberate obtuseness over Senator John "Hari" Kerry's botching of what was not a very good joke to begin with aimed at George W. Bush.

You might also recall that on the eve of said elections, I publicly skewered Senator Kerry right here on this very, uh, blog-thingy and even went so far as to suggest that the inclusion of the word "us" in the punch line would have made the target of his punch a little less open to interpretation.

That was not his story at the time, though. No, his addle-minded entourage said at the time that the real botch was in his leaving off an entire phrase:
"Just ask President Bush."

Ahh, but that didn't stop Senator Great Wooden Chin from telling Larry King more than a month later that all he'd done wrong was leave out "one little word... the word 'us'."

Again, I'm unsurprised.
This time, though, I have to admit that I'm a little bit bothered-- bothered that the man who will go down in history as "The Guy Who Was Such A Putz That He Lost To George W. Bush, Even After America Had Already Had Four Years of George W. Bush" has to steal even his jokes. I'm bothered, too, by the fact that a United States Senator would have to steal those jokes from a self-publishing (and, heh, self-promoting) truck driver.

Now, I would take the time to call Senator John Kerry a Thief and a Liar, but to do so would be patently redundant. After all, by referring to him as "Senator," you already know he's a member of Congress.


More evidence...

I don't know if you've ever noticed this since I so often indulge my penchant for all of that subtlety and literary nuance for which truck drivers are so well-known, but I have, from time to time --not often, but every now and then-- called for the removal from his cushy little gig that symbol of all that is twisted and wrong in the universe: Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig. I've never really kept track, and such references are always so understated and ill-defined, that I couldn't really tell you exactly how often I've made some passing mention... but I figure it's at least, you know, like, four or five.

Usually, I try to give ol' Bud a little nickname. For those of you who are curious, I have repeated myself a time or two, but usually I come up with something new. Among my own personal favorites are: "If That's Senator Mitchell on the Phone, Tell Him I'm Not Here" and "Shhh... Be Vewy, Vewy Quiet... I'm Hunting Wabbits."

Last August 28th, I pointed out the following rather cosmic coincidence: "Bud Selig is Major League Baseball's ninth Commissioner... and should be 'Plutoed'." To the best of, well, to the best of pretty much anybody's knowledge, this was the first-ever usage of the word 'plutoed'.

Why do I bring it up? Because...
On January 5th, 2007, the American Dialect Society met, deliberated, voted and selected my verbal creation, "plutoed," as their Word of the Year for 2006.

Hooray and Halleluja! 'Bout damned time somebody noticed.

The American Dialect Society is a 117-year-old organization that --as their name suggests-- basically keeps their finger on the pulse of the American dialect of the English language. Refreshingly, they don't seem to take themselves too seriously. They have been awarding "Word of the Year" honors for 17 years, now. Stephen Colbert's "truthiness" was the winner last year; Yours Truly's "plutoed" was this year's.

Obviously, this is a great honor. I, um, I do have some questions, however...

First of all, uh, just where is the awards banquet?
Better yet, where's my invitation?

Oh, and how big is my statuette? I need to know if it will fit on my mantel, or if I should build a separate shrine.

Most importantly, is there a cash prize? I mean, it seems like I should at least get, like, a twenty-dollar gift card for one of the big bookstore chains or something.

Oh, yeah... Uh, why didn't your press release mention me? Or Blasphemes? I mean, come on. Where's the credit, people?

Well, anyway, I'm sure I'll be hearing from you soon. Looking forward to it.

------------------------------
As for Bud Selig, I've decided that he should stay in office... for a little while, anyway. There's a fair chance, you see, that Barry Bonds will indeed hit a 756th career home run. If and when that happens, rest assured, the sacred ritual that is the Game Being Played will be interrupted in favor of a pompous and circumstantial ceremony in which --right there in front of Cartwright and everybody-- some representative from the Office of Major League Baseball will have to get down on his knees and delicately smooch Bonds' needle-marked [jackass].

I want Bud Selig to be that guy.

Then I want him tarred and feathered.

Weekend Predictions

Well, it is that time of year again. Better than Christmas but less understood by my wife. The fantastical NFL playoffs! {da-da-da-da-da-daaaaah}. And is it time for this prognosticator to let you know where to put your hard earned cash with your friends and why.

In italics are the Vegas odds and bolded at the end of each analysis my predicted final score. Good luck. Bet small.

Indianapolis at Baltimore -4:

Sure as the sun will rise in the east and Madden will fawn over crybaby Brett Favre, the Indianapolis Colts will take a page out of a first time whore's playbook and choke on the big one. They almost were able to do it last week against the dreaded Kansas City Chiefs who learned that it is hard to run the football and pat yourself on the back at the same time. Baltimore's defense is tenacious and it will shut down Joseph Addai and the Colts' running game. That puts us right where we are every year at this time. The Colts relying on the arm of Peyton Manning. And although an awesome arm, it does not seem to be a clutch arm. Not in the post season. They will have their chances to win (they always do) but they won't (they never do.

Indianapolis 21 Baltimore 31

Philadelphia at New Orleans -5:

This could be the hardest game to call yet it will not be the closest. Someone will get trounced and I am unsure who. New Orleans is playing in a very excited Superdome at the end of an amazing season. Drew Brees is one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL in the midst of a career year. Reggie Bush is a rookie phenom with moves that would make Michael Jackson cry like he just found out the kid was 18. They are explosive and deadly. Philly on the otherhand is a slow and steady churner. Garcia makes few mistakes and Westbrook is the best rounded player in the NFL. Donte Stallworth is back at his "home" stadium to show his (ex)fans what they have lost. I would have picked Philly until last week. With the loss of Lito Sheppard to a dislocated elbow I don't see how Brees can be stopped.

Philadelphia 10 New Orleans 34

Seattle at Chicago -9:

It is said that there are two kind of people in this world. Those that think everything is divided into two (black and white, good and bad, etc.) and those that don't. In Chicago, we too have a bipolar problem, Good Rex and Bad Rex. Which will show up? Grossman has the most games in the NFL this year with a QB rating over 140 (7) and the most under 40 (5). Which one will show up in Soldier Field on Sunday? It doesn't matter. Seatlel is a beaten up weak team with no secondary and a QB and RB that are far less than 100%. The Bears defense just got back a secondary that has been sorely missing for a few weeks now. The Bears defense could win this one alone. But they will not have to. I predict a good Rex this week. A Rex so good that the papers will scream how a Superbowl bid is all but done. It will make the future hurt just a litle more. But not this weekend. This weekend the Bears win.

Seattle 10 Chicago 21

New England at San Diego -4 1/2:

The game of the week. Roll the dice and call me Nathan Detroit. this one needs some thought. LaDanian Tomlinson is the most prolific runner of the year. Tom Brady belongs in Yellowstone he is so reliable. Both defenses have stregths and weaknesses and both offenses have some question marks. I think I need to go with experience. A hunch but Brady likes these kind of games and I do not know about Phillip Rivers. A rookie cannot keep up. If it gets away from the running the Chargers are sunk. But will it?

New England 24 Dan Diego 17

Today, we are all high

Well, this is it for me. My last political post. Americans nor America itself can possibly win back it's respect and dignity while the man to my left is anywhere near a suit, tie, and Karl Rove. We will never do what is right. We will spy on our own by tapping phones and reading mail. We will torture and kill based simply on our ideology and not based on guilt or innocence or any sort of judicial process that this country was founded on. We will send our sons and daughters to die in deserts in the middle east without the courage to look them in the eyes and tell them why they are risking their lives for us without the proper armor and with an ever changing rational. There is nothing that we can do to stop this man. We are not smart enough. And like Billy Pilgrim, we will repeat our steps and know our demise. And like Billy Pilgrim there is nothing that we can do about it.

Last night, the President of the United States of America, stood in the White House library to trick us one more time. Rove put him in the library because if he were to deliver the speech from the Oval Office Americans WOULD BE REMINDED OF THE FALSE PROMISES that proceeded this series of false promises. It also was not in any other room that would be recognizable as having a feeling of power. He didn't want to remind us.

How low have we sunk? You know what else was not in the speech. Do you know what symbol that once referred to power and hope and dominance and good was missing? The symbol that now is a somber reminder of failed promises and the lives and treasure wasted in the name itself? The American Flag. Absent because we might be reminded of previous lies spread from this President's mouth under the shadow of a giant flag.

And what took the flag's place as a backdrop. No slogans. No troops (thank God). No members of any party. No 'Mission Accomplished' banner. A simple, ornate water pipe. A bong.

And looking like the scared and unsure child that he is, the President tricked us again. The conversation we will have now is to surge or not to surge. To call it a surge or an escalation. A month ago it was to stay or to go. We lose.

I am now no longer going to worry about it. I will opt to enjoy the rest of my life in the empire that we have become: Rome II. I will now write strictly about music, dancing, games, books, drinking, and general fun historical facts. But the political thing is over. I mean it. Over.

Until the presidential campaigns start.

Verbal Diarrhea

Politicians are scum. We can all agree on that. Recently there has been something with a little extra stank floating along the D.C. sewers. Bobbing and weaving, zipping around leaving a wake filled with [shit] particles that will be consumed and eventually be regurgitated back to us in entertaining and mind-blowing blabber of the elected official. It could be the poor policy poo or the terrible turd of wartime but whatever it is needs to be emptied into our already overly-polluted oceans.

I have been in awe the past few weeks listening to this special breed of politicos glossing over the sacrifice in both life and money of Americans with callous and surreal explanations. The type of shit that would have flunked my sorry ass out of the Debate 101. I have a few examples here I would like to share with you. Feel free to share your faves in the comments section. The pickings are plentiful this time of year.

Example #1: Fran Townsend (Homeland Security Advisor) to Ed Henry (CNN W.H. Corr.)

"HENRY: You know, going back to September 2001, the president said, dead or alive, we're going to get him. Still don't have him. I know you are saying there's successes on the war on terror, and there have been. That's a failure.

TOWNSEND: Well, I'm not sure -- it's a success that hasn't occurred yet. I don't know that I view that as a failure."

Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick! This is the kind of argument that gets children beaten. Honest to Betsy, I had to go to the original transcript (link above) to ensure that this is truly what came out the mouth of our HOMELAND SECURITY ADVISOR.

I have some follow up toast for Little Miss Looney Tunes to spread some of the old neo-con raspberry jam on. How many have fucking died chasing Ozzy through the dry deserts of Afghanistan to have their lives irreversibly changed forever? Besides Pat Tillman. Do you even keep track of that shit? Let me guess. No. That would not be a homeland security question. You were busy taking breast milk away from mothers to stop terrorism and shampoo bottles from models to stop, I don't know, the twinge of anger I get when I see a full head of hair. Pleasure me with one more question: What color is the fucking alphabet in your world? I know the answer will be equally as inane as the question but at least I won't care.

Example #2: Joe Lieberman (Senator from Connecticut)

"Even those opposed to the surge, he said, “ought to at least let us try it.”

“The worst that could happen,” he continued, is that this policy could become another partisan flashpoint in Washington.

Holy Joe, you are a more dishonest than most snake oil salesmen. I single handedly blame you more than anyone else for each and every death that has occurred in Iraq. Allow me to explain Mr. What's-the-worst-that-can-happen Asshole. You lost the election for Gore. You were only nominated VP because you bad mouthed a President who got a hummer in office then defended a President who has killed thousands in a meaningless war which has made more terrorists and the US more hated and less safe. You voted and defended this war repeatedly. And now that it is going badly and over 3000 have died you want to send more men and women into battle "to at least try it."? You half-wit. The worst that can happen is more death of United States citizens. How does that sit in your tin yarmulke you little war-monger. And you got reelected? What has happened to my beloved home state of CT? Killre has given up on the Cubs? Well, guess what, I give up on the state of Connecticut. Harder to spell but equally as moronic.

"But One F," Joe would argue, "don't you see? This is just a political flashpoint."

Joe, you snail-stain, not everything is about you. Families are being torn apart because of your "let's give it a try" attitude. You, sir, have no decency.

Example #3: President George W. Bush (43rd President of the United States)

"I will not withdraw [from Iraq] even if Laura and Barney are the only ones supporting me."

Well first of all I am glad that he not taking advice from his drunken, hooligan daughters. Either that or his drunken, hooligan daughters are no longer supporting him. It's good to seem him toss the side the opinions and cares of every single adviser, military personnel, diplomat, congressperson, friend, former president, and expert and be happy to know that he has the love of his murderous wife and a dog. I have some advice which you can ignore, Mr. President. The dog would love you if you vomited on the carpet. In fact, if I know my dogs, he would probably like you more for having fed him. Maybe someone in your corner would support you if you did the right thing. Try it. Not much fun but you do sleep better at night.

Alright. That's it rave over.