John and Pete

Pete just couldn’t tell a joke.

The old one-liner "A termite walked into a pub and asked, ‘Where’s the bar tender?’" usually elicits a chuckle and a few groans.

Pete’s version went like this, "A termite walked into a pub and asked where the bar tender was."


It still got chuckles and groans, but people were laughing at Pete, not at the joke.

At times John McCain reminds me of Pete. He just can’t tell it right. He wants the joke to be on Obama, but the joke ends up being on him. His attacks are intended to wound Obama, but they are wounding John McCain instead.

Poor John is screwing up the punch line and everybody seems to know it but him.

There’s something wrong here.

I can’t be mad at John. I wish I could. I would rather be mad at him than sad for him.

You see, I identify with John. We’re about the same age, and I resent the fact that people say he is too old. I liked the self-depreciating John McCain who was able to comfortably laugh at himself, who was quick with a quip. That phone call at three AM doesn’t scare me, John is probably up then anyway, going to the bathroom.

Once I even thought that he was a maverick, a straight talker. When he spoke up against the Bush tax cuts I thought he really cared about the middle class. When he reached across the aisle to work on campaign finance reform, I appreciated the effort, if not the result.

When did his statements start backfiring on him? It wasn’t always that way. Did something happen to cause him to speak against his beliefs.

It happened to him once before.

Maybe John thinks he is in captivity again, spreading propaganda he doesn’t really believe, doing the bidding of his captors because he thinks not doing so would be committing career suicide.

Maybe he’s not so much like Pete after all.

Watch Those Suffixes!

I don’t mind an occasional suffix now and then, but man! . . . .am I ever tired of all the "-isms" and "-ists" that have been tossed around in this election!

You’ve got your ageism, sexism, racism. And then there’s liberalism, libertarianism, conservatism. You’ve got socialism, capitalism, communism, Marxism and fascism.

How about that terrorism!

And, of course, who can forget anti-Americanism!

-ism! -ism! -ism! The politicians have turned it into a terrible-sounding suffix.
They’ve made it sound threatening, like a bee flying into your ear. You feel like batting your hand against your head to get the damn thing out before it stings you.

And, yes, they’ve made the "ist" suffix sound equally bad, like the hissing of a snake. Isssssssssssssssssst!

Clearly, if politicians want to attack an opponent, they just need to hit him with some sort of an "-ist" word. He’s an elitist or a socialist, a Marxist or maybe a fascist.

Even knowing an "-ist" makes you an "-ist" by association. "Palling around with a terrorist" puts an "-ist" on you, too.

Doesn’t matter whether the charge is true, of even if the term is correctly applied--and it seldom is. Simply being called an "-ist" alone does the trick. It simply sounds bad, not something anybody would want to be. And once you’re labeled an "-ist" it’s hard to brush off.

(It’s a weird reversal. The person who is labeled is expected to refute the label. In all fairness, the person applying the label is the one who should have the serious explaining to do. Tossing labels around is a linguistic injustice that should not be tolerated!)

Whew!

Let’s all take a break and back off the "-ism" and "-ist" suffixes for a while. They amount to nothing more than name calling and don’t allow for the kind of debate that is crucial right now. It doesn’t do any good to label a policy as fascism or socialism. Those labels obscure more than they reveal. We need to understand the components of a policy, accept it or reject it on its merits, and not be distracted by the loaded label an opponent may want to apply to it.

Things aren’t going too well for the country right now. People need to communicate their ideas and philosophies with clear, plain language that foregoes the "ist" and "ism" words that do more to block communication than to enable it.

Come on, people; take it easy on the "-ist" and "-ism" suffixes!

What the . . . . .!

Man, this is confusing!

I thought I knew the meanings of words such as "anti-American," "terrorist," "liberal," "conservative," and "Marxist."

I thought I knew what racism was. I had a vague notion of what patriotism meant.

Turns out my dictionary is filled with words with incorrect meanings. I hate that.

Of course, I realize that words do change through time. "Silly" once meant "lucky, blessed." And, yes, when I’m crooning the tune, "Am I Blue?"(for those of us who still dig the hits of the thirties), I know meanings have changed when I get to the lines, "Was I gay, until today . . ."

In particular, when the Republicans are warbling their tunes, the words I thought I knew seem to have morphed into new meanings.

I had no idea that liberal and anti-American were synonyms. That wealth was virtue and poverty was indolence . . . government money that goes to corporations is stimulus and money that goes to the middle class is socialism.

It’s not just the words, however. My perception of reality seems to be out of whack too.

The sixth commandment applies to a woman and her doctor, but not to a President who invades a country.

The future is 1950. The millionaires are the stressed middle class. And the victims of hate speech are the Republican candidates who are the targets of racism . . . because they are white!

Damn, I think I stumbled into Klub Da Da!

A New Maverick in the Game

I’ve always loved mavericks, the woman or man who swims against the tide to boldly go where . . .
. . . well, to kinda buck the current a little even if it is unpopular. Both John McCain and Sarah Palin have caught my attention with their "maverick" claims.

True, John McCain joined with Russ Feingold to craft the McCain-Feingold Act. Trouble is, the same conservative activists who have signed on to his presidential campaign are also hard at work trying to undo his maverick legislation.

True, he was a maverick when Bush lowered taxes for the rich, saying it would put an undue burden on the middle class. Trouble is, he now wants to keep the cuts. Does that unmaverick him?

Maverick Sarah Palin, too, bucked the tide by changing her mind and not building a bridge but accepting the funding anyway. (I had a maverick builder do that to me once, accepting funding for insulation he never put into my house. "Maverick" wasn’t the name I called him, however.)

But now I have a new maverick to admire, one who took McCain and Palin’s maverick bids, called them, and raised them: Colin Powell!

Ol’ Colin Powell makes McCain and Palin look like they’re swimming "against the current" in the shallow end of the pool, splashing around like crazy but not going anywhere.

Powell, on the other hand, is swimming against the party that "elevated him" to the lofty position he holds. He’s swimming against the sharks who are now out for his blood.

Are you looking for a maverick? Look no further than Colin Powell.

I’m sure both McCain and Palin have deep admiration for their fellow maverick.

Global Economic Summit

In a fine show of executive action President Bush has invited the leaders of the international community to travel to the U.S. to participate in an important global economic summit.
American businesses are struggling right now, and anything our President can do to alleviate their pain is a noble act. Bringing in over two dozen leaders from around the world, along with their entourages, should give Washington hotels, restaurants, limo drivers and night clubs a much needed economical shot in the arm!

Yes, promoting a spike in tourism by getting all those international big wigs, with their big expense accounts, to come over here for a so-called summit is, indeed, a very shrewd move.
Kudos, Mr. President!

She's no Tina Fey

Although I have a fine regard for Sarah Palin, I am a bit disappointed that she is exploiting her uncanny resemblance to Tina Fey.

I guess I can't blame her. Tina Fey is greatly respected in show business for both her talent and her beauty. I would imagine it would help the upstart actress's image to piggyback on someone of such high regard.

After all, Sarah Palin's acting experience has been limited to small town venues and, more recently, regional and state performances. She was a Miss America candidate, so she did have some limited national exposure. She has virtually no experience on the international stage, however, though her supporters say that she can see a Russian troupe perform from where she lives.

All in all, it would also help if she would study Fey's technique.

Audiences that have seen Ms Palin's act sometimes feel that she is not delivering the script with quite the polish of a veteran perfomer. For that reason, it would serve the governor well to learn from an accomplished actress like Tina Fey. For example, Ms Palin needs to learn to better fake an appearance of sincerety when she delivers her more unbelievable lines, intended to invoke emotion--particularly fear--in her audiences.

It would seem that Palin's skills most resemble Fey's in her ability to make people laugh by pretending to be something they are not. Clearly, Sarah Palin has a special knack for that form of humor.

It is clear that Palin was thrust on the national stage before she was able to completely hone her comedic skills. Even though her handlers are proceding with caution and being very selective with the parts they give her, she still sometimes muffs her lines and often lacks verisimilitude.

In spite of her physical resemblance, unfortunately, Palin's appearance on Saturday Night Live proved that she's no Tina Fey.

Which Party Now?

I’m a former Democrat, Republican, almost an Independent, and now I’m thinking about being a Democrat again.

Some years ago, when I was a struggling Democrat, I got a little extra money and put it into the stock market.

Although Clinton was president at the time, Ronald Reagan’s monetary policies eventually caused the market to rise. My investment was looking pretty good and so I became a Republican.

Then, although George W. was the president at the time, Bill Clinton’s fiscal mismanagement caused the market to dip. I didn’t lose enough money to become a Democrat again, but I did flirt with becoming an Independent.

Now, with the current stock market downturn, caused by Wall Street’s fears that a Democrat might win the White House, I’m forced to seriously consider switching parties again.
Without a pile of personal wealth, the only way I’m going to make sure the kids get educated, the roads get built, and the nation stays healthy is by everybody sharing the cost according to their ability to pay. Back in civics class that was called the "American Way."

As a Republican I was told the American Way was "every man for himself, rugged individualism, relying only on my wits, ingenuity and business acumen." It was the lazy poor and Marxists that called for government welfare. We resented giving up our good money to give government handouts to the lazy slackers that couldn’t hold a job.

I used to listen to my former fellow Republicans rail against what they called "socialism," which was anything that government did. "We can spend our money better than government," they said. It made some sense when I was aiming for Easy Street.

But back down here on Main Street, with the recent bailouts, I see that even the hard-nosed capitalists don’t turn down a little government help now and then.

Seems the system works only when there’s enough socialism around to rescue capitalists from their bad decisions. It seems to work like this: private business takes the profits, government takes the losses.

Now where did I put that old poster with the red, white and blue donkey on it?

Why did the Republicans call her a pig?

When Senator McCain used the "lipstick of a pig" phrase nobody thought much of it. When Senator Obama used the same expression, Republicans immediately thought he was referring to Governor Palin. Shame on them!

Why would they so quickly assume that Ms Palin was the pig Senator Obama was talking about? That's pretty nasty of them to apply that tag to their own candidate! Pigs tend to be a bit portly, the Governor is quite slim. Pigs tend to muck around in the mud. The Governor is quite slim.

If I'm walking beside my lovely wife on a crowded sidewalk and someone yells, "what a dog!" I'm not going to immediately assume they're talking about her, because I know that's just not true. I'm certainly not going to attract attention by standing up and shouting, "My wife is not a dog," defending her from a charge not even leveled at her.

If I were Sarah Palin, and my friends got to defending me from a charge not even meant for me, I'd say "Thanks, but no thanks."

Republicans, give Sarah Palin a break.

Don't automatically assume that when someone mentions the word "pig" that they're talking about her!

Back Off On Sarah!

I’ve been listening to the TV and I’m pretty disturbed by all the fun they’ve been making of Sarah Palin.

She’s pretty, keeps her figure up, and seems quite spunky for a woman. Some of the liberal know-it-alls on TV keep putting her down for her statements which, they claim, don’t make a lot of sense when you pay attention to them.

Who cares! Politicians don’t make sense generally. We don’t elect people for their ability to make sense. We elected George W. two times. He wasn’t much good at putting logical thoughts together either.

In fact, you've got to be pretty suspicious of anybody who is too educated.

Look at that Hussein Obama guy! He has a Harvard law degree, some sort of Cum Laude. What an elite!

Yes, Obama has a way with words. That’s pretty suspicious in itself. What's he hiding? Smooth talkers use their fancy words to pull the wool over our eyes.

Sarah Palin's speeches are pretty much attacks on the scary empty suit who is good with words. Yes, you get the feeling that somebody else is giving her suggestions on what to say and she’s kind of going along with it, remembering the phrases as best she can. OK, so she mixes some things up! That’s fine. As she says, she’s been at this vice president stuff a very short time. She can’t be expected to just pop up and handle all those questions without some coaching. She doesn't need to know policy anyway. Her job is to expose Obama, not make policy statements.

Clearly, the mainstream commie liberal socialistic Marxist press is out to get her. Playing "stump the candidate," they hit her with "gotcha" type questions. They’re being unfair when they ask her to name specifics, such as the newspapers she reads, or what the Bush doctrine is.
Would your average hockey mom do any better under all that pressure? I don't think so.

Sure, Joe Biden would probably be able to name specific Supreme Court decisions, or be able to remember the newspapers he reads, but he's one of "them" and Sarah is one of us.

Come on, people, be fair. Stop picking on our girl Sarah!