Top Ten Cool Things About Obama’s Victory
10). Breaks down the biggest barrier of all. Having a funny name no longer disqualifies you from becoming president.
9). Obama will have the executive authority to designate Dick Cheney an enemy combatant.
8). Obama vs. Osama: With George W. Bush out of the equation it will be a lot easier to tell the good guys from the bad.
7). I will no longer have to apologize to every international airline stewardess, foreign taxi driver, and Third World hotel clerk for being an American.
6). Obama has the power to appoint Bill and Hillary to the Supreme Court (so we’ll never have to worry about having another Clinton in the White House again).
5). Sarah Palin will have time to fill in for Tina Fey should the star of 30 Rock and SNL need a break from her busy schedule. After all, let’s face it, the Alaska governor has more potential as a comedian than as commander-in-chief.
4). Joe the Plumber’s hopes of parlaying his 15-minutes of fame into a political career or a position in a McCain/Palin administration have gone down the drain.
3). The Axis-of Idiots – Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Michael Savage – are exposed as impotent, washed-up, useless old farts who can no longer stir up enough angry & ignorant voters to tip an election.
2). Democratic Congress with full investigative and subpoena powers can make George W. Bush’s retirement a living hell.
1). After eight years of enduring “Dubya,” it will be great to have a president who is not a joke for a change.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Sarah Palin -- Not Ready for Primetime
The only difference between Sarah Palin and George W. Bush is lipstick. Actually, that’s not entirely fair to the president, since he presumably knows what the Bush Doctrine is. In fairness to Sarah Plain, however, there have been five Bush Doctrines: 1) America’s right to engage in preventive war, 2) America’s right to act unilaterally, 3) America’s right to establish a Pax Americana, and 4) America’s duty to spread liberty across the Middle East. Ok, off the top of my head I can only name four out of the five Bush Doctrines, but then I’m not running for Vice-President. However, some of my friends think I should run for high office, especially since I can see the Russian coastline from my backyard, which is pretty impressive since I live in Connecticut.
Watching Sarah Palin’s interview with ABC’s Charlie Gibson left me with the feeling that America has long since slipped into a Twilight Zone where the lunatics will be running the asylum for the duration. Palin, of course, showed plenty of grit and gumption in her one-on-one, but no gravitas. She’s clearly smart, but her vacuity on foreign affairs was disconcerting to say the least. As David Brooks of the NYT noted, Palin has tendency to use decisiveness to cover up for her lack of knowledge and experience. This is precisely the same defect that has gotten the current occupant of the Oval Office into so much trouble.
Palin shares another character trait with the much reviled and discredited Bush; both have displayed a glib and even cavalier attitude towards war. One can debate whether including the Ukraine and Georgia in NATO makes strategic sense for the United States, but it was unsettling to see the ease with which Plain accepted and espoused logic that could commit the U.S. to war with Russia. She also seemed unperturbed by the thought that Israel might take unilateral against Iran without consulting the United States, action which would have profound implications for America’s foreign policy and national security.
Palin is clearly not ready for primetime. Just a few weeks ago McCain was lambasting Obama as a celebrity, but the geriatric Senator has clearly pinned his presidential hopes to a political glamour queen. The country is facing a financial meltdown – both on Main Street and Wall Street – severe weather patterns associated with climate change, two protracted and indecisive wars, and the prospect that terror groups like al-Qaeda will acquire WMD. But it seems that throwing in a few cosmetic changes is all that it will take to convince tens of millions of citizens to vote for Bush redux.
