Category: politics

Why do we still add “gate” to the end of our scandals still? Watergate happened thirty years ago, and it’s about time we let the ritzy apartment complex on the Potomac its name back, and remove the stigma from “gate” so it can get back to meaning something again. “Wilsongate” doesn’t even sound cool. It sounds like a really horribly named, faceles suburb of Akron. Now, I know the Media will never go for this. They love their cute little names for complex conspiracies and scandals. I’ve come up with a couple suggestions for possible replacements and usage examples:

• “ron” – a la “Enron”: It sounds so much more tech geeky when you add “ron” to the end of words it doesn’t belong on.
  • Wilson-ron

  • File-ron

  • Travel-ron

  • Energy-ron (kind of redundant, don’t you think?)

  • Monica-ron

• “iburton” – a la “Halliburton”: It adds a certain officiality to a name, doesn’t it?
  • Wilson-iburton

  • File-iburton

  • Travel-iburton

  • Energy-iburton (again, kinda redundant)

  • Monica-burton (shortened for ease of pronunciation)

I really think this’ll catch on. It’s a new century, it’s time for new scandal suffixes! Bring on Bush-ron and Cheney-burton!!

The following is a drug-induced attempt at humor:

You can thank Dawson’s latest treatise on Israel and Palestine for this piece of stupidity. I was thinking the other day about Israel and Palestine and how part of the problem is the proximity of the two parties and how all they really need is some space. Israel’s well-established, and has a working government. The Palestinains don’t. They’ve got resident crazy bastard Yassar Arafat and a bunch of cronies. The one guy who looked reasonable and actually agreed to wear a suit and tie just resigned.

I don’t think Palestine and Israel will ever live together in anything resembling peace. So, I’ve come up with a plan. Let’s give the Palestinians half of Montana. I don’t even care which half – we’ll let Montana vote on it. It’s more land than the Palestinians could ever hope to milk form the Israeli’s, and they’ll already have streets, a highway system and McDonalds on which to build their own economy.

I think George W. Bush could be seen as the greatest peacemaker of all time if he pulled this one off (although the Republicans would never win Montana again, but really, they have what, 1 electoral vote?). He’d be seen as a hero in the Middle East because now Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Iran don’t have to hear the Palestinians whine about Sharon anymore, or have Arafat over for dinner.

All this problem needs is some creative thought. I think GW should through in cowboy hats for everyone too – and a pony – and maybe some brush for the new Palestinian Prime Minister to clear. I hear it makes you look presidential.

I just finished reading Al Franken’s book, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. It’s an amazing book that I can’t recommend highly enough, with a couple caveats:

Don’t Read This Book If:

• You can’t take a joke, especially if it’s about “your guy”. I believe this book is very well researched, and honest in everything it says, but the humor is pretty rough. If you love Bill O’Reilly and think he can do no wrong, well, you’re going to hate this book. Should you read it? Yeah, you should, but be prepared for your guy to get tarred and feathered.

• You can’t handle profanity. It’s not over the top (ok, this point is totally for my parents), but there is some.

• You can’t handle the truth. This book will shock you. It will make you question everything that this Administration has done, and you’ll never see those in the Right-wing Media or the Administration the same – which is a good thing.

Why You Should Read It Anyway:

• This is a great piece of research. The sources are impeccable, and it felt like Franken went out of his way to not take quotes out of context. It’s an amazing and depressing read. Not depressing because it’s bad, depressing because he’s right.

• It is funny. It’s really funny. The line about the Malawi Space Program was hilarious. I laughed out loud many many times.

• It will put lies in perspective. It does a great job exposing the Administrations lies, and exposing the mainstream media’s absolute hypocrisy in not exposing them.

I loved the book. But, I can take a joke and knew when he was joking and when he wasn’t. I want my family to read this book, but I won’t ask them to because the book doesn’t come in a “humor-lite” version. I want them to see the proof of all the lies, but I know they won’t be able to get past the jokes. They’ll take them too seriously and get so offended by the humor that they’ll shut down to the real meat in the book. I know why Franken wrote it this way. It falls under satire if it’s funny – even though the book is an amazing indictment of the right-wing media and campaign politics.

Is there a book that’s this well researched that’s just the facts, ma’am? If so, pleeeee-ase tell me!!

He knows the emperor has no clothes. It’s time to see if the rest of the Republicans in the country will see that Bush has actually kept one of this campaign promises: to run the government like a corporation. Unfortunately, he’s modeled the government “corporation” after his friend Kenneth Lay’s corporation: Enron.

Anyone, anyone? Write any letters to McCain this week?

I so inspired myself, I decided to write my letter tonight instead of put it off any longer. You can too. Here’s what I wrote:

Do you think that with this news we could convince John McCain to run? I voted for him twice (once as a Senator, once in the 2000 Republican Primary) – I could be convinced to vote for him again. He’s a reasonable and moderate Republican – not an unreasoning idealogue like the President and his friends. So, who wants to send some letters? Anyone?

John Kerry officially announced his candidacy today. To compare, I went back and read Howard Dean’s. Now, Dean’s was a couple months ago, and is lacking in specifics. Kerry’s was today and is pretty darn specific on the big issues. After watching his Meet the Press appearance yesterday, I’m not sure who I’m going to vote for on February 24th (the day of the Democratic Primary in Virginia).

John Kerry has years of experience at the national level. We’ve elected governors the last two presidents, and maybe it’s time to see how a Senator does (you have to go back to, I think, Kennedy to find another President who went straight from Senator to President – LBJ was VP first, Carter – Bush II were all governors, right? Correct me if I’m wrong). John Kerry, like Dean, strikes me as a reasonable man who uses a sharp intellect to make decisions based on facts. This is an advantage over Bush. Kerry has military experience. Kerry is a member of the Foreign Relations Committee and therefore has some foreign policy experience, which Dean doesn’t.

I still like Dean’s fire. I love the grassroots support he’s built up. I like his honesty, but Kerry impressed me. They both have until February to win me over. Honestly, I’m happy to have two quality candidates to choose from, both with a solid chance of beating GW in 2004. I’ll be happy to support either one against GW next year.

This article about how the Administration makes policy decisions is scary. It’s depressing that the most powerful man in the world makes decisions without the facts and then tries to make the facts conform to the outcome he wants. It’s unbelievable. It’s unethical. Jen and I have been talking about this quite a bit (I finally got Ms. Political Science degree to talk politics with me – yay me), and we both agree that we’d rather have a President who reasons through an issue and comes up with what they honestly think is the best solution and not what we have now – a President and Administration that decides on a course of action before looking at the facts or consulting experts. Their disdain for people who actually know what they’re talking about is frightening to me, but makes perfect sense when you think about their track record – read the article. It’s an eye-opener.

And because I linked to that, I have to tell you about Talking Points Memo and Oliver Willis. Talking Points is one of the most intelligent and coherent political blogs on either end of the political spectrum, and has turned into a daily must-read for me. Oliver is a funny guy who frequently makes excellent points (plus, he’s got a huge Dean banner on his site and is a ‘Skins fan). Read ’em both. Enjoy.

Oh, and Dawson loves me.

I tried to send Michele an e-mail for her Voices project. I couldn’t do it. I just can’t. Why? I’m not sure. The memories are too raw, too real and too close. It’s been almost two years, and I can’t do it.

I watched Bowling for Columbine yesterday. It was difficult, but even if you don’t agree with him, the message of the movie is important. It’s time to stop being afraid. As a country, we’re still full of grief, anger, pain and in some cases, guilt. Call it national survivor’s guilt. The thing I took from the movie was that we’re a country that’s afraid of itself. We’re afraid of our neighbors, unforeseeable catastophies, shadowy conspriracies, natural disaster, etc. We’re scared because we’re not in control, because the news media crams fear down our throats. The comparison between international media and our’s was incredible.

Even if you hate Michael Moore, he’s right. It’s time to stop being afraid. It’s time to stop allowing the Administration to play on that fear to advance its ideological nonsense while we duct tape our windows and buy distilled water.

It’s time to ignore the Media. It’s time to stop paying attention to vague threats, insufficient theories and hysterical diatribes from those paid to make money for their networks.

I think that this year, on September Eleventh, I’m not going to watch the news. I’m not going to watch TV at all. I’m going to hug my wife, hug Max and I think I’ll take the day off and we’ll do something quiet as a family. He’s too young to remember what happened while he was over at a friend’s house playing, or understand why his father is crying. Hopefully, he’ll remember that we spent a good day savoring twenty-four hours that will never come again.

Maybe that’s what it’s about. Maybe the way we honor the dead, the damaged and the grieving and fight the fear is to take that day to create better memories, create visions of our loved ones smiling and laughing to replace the tears and disbelief of that day.

I don’t know if that’s the answer. But, I’m not afraid to try. I’m not afraid.

What are you doing on the 23rd? Not doing anything? Good! Come see Howard Dean in Falls Church at 4pm. I mean it. Even if you’re a Republican. Even if you hate the idea of ever voting for a Democrat or if you’ve never voted and don’t plan to start in 2004. Please, just come out and see what it’s all about.

I love that Howard Dean is running with a crazy grassroots, web-based campaign. I love that he’s out there doing things a little differently than everyone else, and it’s working for him. He seems like an honest guy, a capable and intelligent leader and when I compare him to our current president, I get depressed. Why am I depressed? I’m depressed that I see none of those qualities in our current president. I’m depressed that not enough people can see that. I’m afraid that Bush will win in 2004, and we’ll have four more years of criminal incompetance and corporate government. I don’t think I could stand that.

So please, do me a big favor and look at the alternative. You might be impressed. You might not be, but at least you looked.