Douchebag of the Week: Senator John McCain...

I wish someone would finally (metaphorically) put a stake through the heart of John McCain before next sunrise. 

His continued ability to leave his coffin every evening, suck some more blood from the body politic and return unscathed to strike again the following night is beginning to remind me of Count Dracula.

Actually, McCain often reminds me of Count Chocula -- a goofy, cartoonish, two-dimensional character on a cereal box -- only with power and an over-developed sense of self-importance. It’s time to knock him down a few pegs until he’s little more than the Count from Sesame Street.

Fighting For The Female Vote...

...and why it's probably a waste of effort.

This Lunatic has been busy this week, which is why I haven’t been posting. My apologies to all my loyal readers who come here first for diseased commentary, but I reckon that once you know exactly what I  have been doing, you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me.

For I have been doing important political research.

You see, it all began when I started really paying attention to all these news reports about poll numbers in the upcoming Presidential election. Normally, I could care less about polls because they are typically useless for just about anything except which brand of dishwashing liquid is more popular than another, Typically, when a newscast or somesuch starts talking about polling data, my eyes glaze over, and I retreat into a sort of semi-conscious reverie in which I become Wolverine, and I’m fantasizing about using my incredible mutant powers – and those way-too-fuckin'-cool claws – to rob banks, and my incredible animal magnetism (complete with mutant pheromones!) to get Salma Hayek out of her clothing and into the sack.

Douchebag of the Week (5/20/11): Lindsay Graham...

We haven't handed out a Douchebag of the Week Award here at the Asylum for quite some time. Probably because it's jut been way too difficult to pick a winner, what with the competition being such a close-run thing in the last few months. Douchebags abound, and picking the worst of the worst is sort of like diving into a pile of rotten apples thrown into an open sewer, looking for the most egregious example of what not to eat.

But,like most things in life, if you wait long enough, someone eventually emerges from the pile, shakes the slimy, wet dung off, and demands a rousing round of applause.

This week, it's Senator Lindsay Graham (Douchebag - South Carolina) with a complaint about Fox News concerning 'comprehensive immigration reform', or as we like to call it around here "giving life-sucking parasites a free ride for political purposes."

Poor Senator Graham. It's not our fault if his plan to give something sacred, citizenship, to a mess of people who invaded our country hasn't been received with the thundering applause he expected. It's not our fault that we have been blinded by misinformation so that we cannot see the inherent brilliance in his Master Stroke ('Stroke' being the operative word) to destroy what remains of the Right. We've been led astray by Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly, because like democrats, Mr.Graham seems to think the average citizen is dumber than a bread mold, and wouldn't know enough not to stick their tongues into an electrical outlet if it weren't for some doofus on television telling them not to.

He defends his stupidity with some mealy-mouthed appeal to 'bi-partisan support', as if this was as essential to American Citizens as air and water. Usually, bi-partisanship means each party gets to take a turn at slipping us all the Great Purple Shaft.

There can be no 'bi-partisanship' on the issue of illegal immigration, not when that term, far from it's original meaning, has been warped in Washington until it means either 'a new horde of poor, uneducated, disease-carrying vermin who will be wards of the state, and thus, vote solidly democrat', or 'a horde of poor, uneducated, disease-carrying vermin who will provide cheap-and-easy-to-exploit-labor for the restaurant, hotel, landscaping and construction industries'.

And it certainly isn't a good thing when the American Taxpayer is, as He and She have all along, expected to continue to bear the costs and burdens,and when the end result will be to encourage even more people to enter the country illegally. At which point,the process begins anew,and we'll need an even more complicated,more expensive 'comprehensive immigration reform plan'.

Both sides are full of crap on the issue of immigration reform, and they know it. Worse for them; we know it.

Lindsay Graham, himself, is a rather odd duck. He calls himself a republican, on occasion he might intimate that he's a 'conservative', but he's really neither. I'm not certain just what, exactly, he is, but if we had to start a list of what the Senator might be, I'd start it with 'opportunist' and probably end with 'retard'. Lindsay Graham's first priority is always Lindsay Graham, and if the issue of Immigration Reform matters to Lindsay Graham, you have to believe that it's probably a bad idea for the rest of us.

His objection is to the use of the word amnesty. He prefers the euphemism 'path to citizenship'. I fail to see the distinction, except in this way: 'Amnesty' is pretty much an admission by government that it cannot, and will not, do what it should have been doing in the first place: which is enforcing it's own laws. Having looked the other way in something like 12-15 million cases, the job is just too difficult to tackle after the fact, so our 'pragmatic', 'enlightened' Senators will just opt for the easiest option: surrender. 

While Graham surrenders to avoid doing his job, and forcing the government to do it's job, millions of people who will pay no income taxes (like citizens do) will be eating up public services and tax money like termites feasting on a redwood forest. These days a Graham-style 'republican' complains often and loudly that the costs of government are too great a burden for the taxpayer to bear. In the meantime, millions of laborers will undercut the wages of American citizens and make it difficult for them to find even entry-level employment in an age of double-digit unemployment, and the tax base shrinks. In the meantime, millions of unassimilated (and they're encouraged to stay that way by government) people are milling about clogging up the court system, filling the prisons, overwhelming the emergency rooms, diverting billions in educational funds, and destroying the quality of life for millions of American citizens.

Citizens, incidentally, who also have to suffer the indignity of having to pay for the piece-by-piece destruction of their culture and society.

If we applied Senator Graham's logic in a variety of ways,we Citizens could, conceivably, thumb our nose at the Government until it just gives up.

So why not have 12-15 million Americans just refuse to pay income taxes next year? If the government is going to be selective about which laws it sees fit to enforce,why not start with this one and see if we can get them to just quit?

If 12-15 million Americans should just decide it's a good idea to march on Washington and burn down the Capitol if they don't get their way on a particular issue, Senator Graham, by his own suggestion, should just skedaddle and then advocate that no one be punished for it.

Wanna bet? Lindsay Graham is a whining pussy: he'd be the first to cry about the loss of civility and decency, and openly wonder -- What Happened to America?

If 12-15 million dog owners should just decide that they simply won't clean up after their pets because it's inconvenient for them to do so, by the Senator's own reasoning they should be pardoned, no questions asked, because prosecuting them will be too great a task, even if it meant that communicable disease from all that uncollected dog crap would constitute a serious public health risk.

If we all did what Senator Graham is suggesting -- forgive criminals or simply ignore their crimes, and not even try to punish them, let people do whatever the fuck they feel like when they feel like it regardless of what it costs others, or simply abrogate our responsibilities as citizens and legislators because to do the opposite is simply too difficult -- then he surely couldn't complain about the perfectly abysmal quality of life that follows, could he?

But back to the subject of 'bipartisan' anything, a term which Graham throws around as if it was the greatest idea since fire; people don't want 'bipartisanship' if that means that both political parties are able to craft a policy or law in such a way as to suit their needs, and relieves them of the responsibility to do the right thing. And anything in which Graham is in cahoots with Charles Schumer is definitely something that will screw the Public. You could hardly find a better amalgam of Dumb-Ass and Evil-Douchebag than in that pair.One only need look at the recent 'bipartisan' success stories of Washington, D.C. -- the repeal of the Glass-Steagel Act, Campaign Finance Reform, Sarbanes-Oxley, TARP, The Patriot Act -- to see that whenever there's 'bipartisan support' for anything, it's typically bad news for John Q.Public, who's rights and liberties are eroded, his pocket picked, his quality of life destroyed, and his ability to petition his government for redress of grievance practically erased.

So far as I'm concerned, any politician who asks for 'bipartisanship' should be taken out and flogged, publicly. There's Right, there's Wrong, and then there's bi-partisan, which is a catch-all for "grab your ankles, Folks!"

The only 'bipartisan' support required on the subject of Immigration should be "the law and current policy, as they exist, needs to be enforced -- with vigor and fairness -- before anyone starts talking about changing it".

Then again, it's difficult to talk about reforming immigration policy when the American government doesn't seem to have a coherent one:

If you're Cuban and can manage to cross the 90-miles of open ocean on an innertube or leaky oil drum, you're granted 'political asylum'.

If you're Haitian and can manage to make the passage, you're going to be sent back.

If you're Chinese and claim that that China's One-Child Policy violates your Human Rights either through forced abortion or sterilization, you're in. Unless, of course, you're a scientist or a computer engineer, in which case,we'll grant you a visa -- like yesterday -- and even help you find a job in a Fortune 500 Company, or within the U.S. Government, itself.

If you're Mexican, and crossed the border to give birth in an American Emergency Room, you're Golden, although technically you're not supposed to be, supposing you stay under the radar.

If you're a Middle Eastern Christian who's being persecuted by your Islamic neighbors or government, we demand meticulous attention be paid to the technicalities of the law.

If you're an Islamic 'student' who overstays your visa, we don't bother to look for you...until you try to build a car bomb, or go to Pakistan for Al'Qaeda training.

I'm not against Immigration, for I am the descendant of Immigrants myself. When my forebears came here from Italy and Sicily at the turn of the last century, they were taken to Ellis Island, quarantined, had their personal information recorded, in some cases had their names changed by the WASPS who couldn't understand the distinction between an 'o' and an 'i'. They were often forced to wait months before being allowed to enter the slums of Brooklyn, in many cases with no money, no prospects for a job, no place to live, and into a society which demanded they conform to American culture, speak English, and keep their filthy peasant habits to themselves. All the while, they were discriminated against for their Catholic faith and endured the open denigration of their native culture as something unworthy, despite the fact that the English Bluebloods who 'owned' America had hearkened back to that very culture when designing it's government and writing it's Constitution.

The same thing happened to the Irish, the Swedes, the Germans, the Jews, and all the rest. Blacks were dragged here in chains. And there were no 'advocacy groups' to help them, there were no charities to support them or their cause, and there was nary a Senator or Congressman who spouted complete bullshit about 'bipartisan' anything on their behalf. They were expected to work, pay their taxes, obey the law, and conform.

Why should Mexicans be exempt from the same principles? Because there's just too many of them for the government to retroactively do what should have been done before they embedded themselves within society and the welfare system?

The only immigration reform we need is armed Marines with vicious dogs and instructions to give two warnings in English and Spanish, and then to open fire if they're not obeyed.

Another thing on this whole republican fascination with amnesty-disguised-as-reform; the GOP believes that by accommodating Hispanic immigrants and forgiving their criminal violation of Sovereignty and then their continued, illegal existence with the Borders of the United States, that it's buying itself a Hispanic Voting Majority on the poorly-thought-out belief that Hispanic anti-abortion views align them, naturally, with the GOP. This is patently false. While a great many Hispanics DO oppose abortion, the Hispanic's natural inclination is geared towards the Welfare State. They may be religiously conservative and family-oriented, by they too, have drunk deeply from the well of Social Justice.

'Courting the Hispanic vote' in this case means playing to the infantile pathology of another group who believes they are 'owed' something by the Gringo. If you doubt this, go read the La Raza website, or take note of the rancor in Arizona over school curriculum's which teach students that the United States 'stole' the southwest from Mexico. Come here to New York and count all the Immigrants with North Carolina license plates on their cars (they commute between states for seasonal work, keeping New York as a permanent address for the generous welfare benefits), who seem to show up in the supermarket with thousands in food stamps, demand bi-lingual education all the way up to High School, write their separatist and drug-gang-related graffiti upon every vertical surface, and then fill the streets with their spit, urine, feces, drunks, and unruly vandals...erm...children... who can't speak English.

Come see all the Mexican Flags on display on the Fourth of July, come see the vast numbers of tubercular incubators coughing, spitting, sneezing and infecting us all on public transport. Come see the crack vials, dirty needles, and broken beer bottles all over what used to be a pristine neighborhood. Come see the line of it-might-be-Spanish-speaking addicts lining up at the local methadone clinics that have sprung up in the last five years in eerie coincidence with the influx of Hispanics. Come to New York, Mr. Graham, and see the effect the policies you advocate actually have on the Average American. Come and see if you can figure out if the exploding number of Black-on-Hispanic 'Hate Crimes' in this area have anything to do with excusing a Third World Invasion.

Senator Graham attributes opposition to his stupid ideas as a 'manipulation of the 24-hour news cycle', or 'constant media scrutiny' -- you get the distinct impression that he'd like to call someone,anyone, a racist in all that beating-around-several-bushes doubletalk of his, but he doesn't have the courage -- but he's seriously wrong. The opposition to his asinine idea is based upon simple Common Sense, a quality which Lindsay Graham has proven, repeatedly, to have a severe and persistent allergy to.

Lindsay Graham is but one example of what's wrong with the GOP these days. It's brighter lights are consistently undermined by squishy, self-interested little toads like Him...and John McCain, his comrade-in-stupidity.

For being such a big baby, for being such a toadie to the Immigration Reform Lobby (i.e.Businesses who can't remain in business and stay profitable without breaking the law and then being protected from punishment), for being willing and eager to give amnesty -- and I don't care what you call it, it's still amnesty -- to millions of unwashed criminals, for wanting to excuse the obnoxious and presumptuous behavior of millions who can't, won't, and have no reason to assimilate, and who believe they have a God-Given Right to get fat on the Taxpayer Teat, who remain in America, but are not OF America. For his failure to recognize that a significant portion of the bloated federal budget is simply being wasted catering to the needs of non-taxpaying criminals, and for being an all-around clueless dipshit, you Senator Graham, are our Douchebag of the Week.

I'm sure you'll wear it well, and proudly, too. It might be the last thing you ever win, including re-election, if you continue to advocate on behalf of such destructive policies. I hope the bribe from the Hotel Industry in Myrtle Beach and The Outer Banks can cover your expenses until your McDonald's job comes through.

The sooner The Good Senator -- and the politicians like him -- get thrown out of office, the sooner this country can go back to what it once was.

Too Smart for His Own Good?

Three anonymous (probably Leftard) 'experts' subject President Obama to a thorough examination -- without meeting him -- and form the following diagnosis:he's a complex dude, and that's why we don't understand just how absolutely fucking incomprehensibly awesome he really is.

Let's get this out of the way: I like Barack Obama, The Man, not Barack Obama the Jumpshot-in-Chief. I think he is genuinely smart in that Ivory Tower, bookish sort of way which makes for interesting cocktail party conversation, but which usually doesn't work when applied to practical problems. I'd like to spend an afternoon with him over a couple of beers and a ballgame, or maybe an evening of poker, cigars and dirty jokes. Hell, he can fuck my sister, I admire him so much.

It takes a great man to be this utterly clueless and still get elected to the highest office in the land. I'd like to know his secrets to success.

But, there's something about Obama that just doesn't compute, and as we used to say in my old systems programming days, if it doesn't add up, then you've fucked up. There's something missing, a key variable, a lack of data, some error that must account for the gap between the Hope and Result.

So, I've done my own evaluation of Barack Obama -- debugging, as it were, the Man's code -- and since I'm not a psychiatrist, haven't read any of his three, five, seven, whatever, biographies, don't parse his speeches looking for flashes rhetorical brilliance, I don't faint at the mere sight of him, or read any of his policy papers, I figure this makes me just as qualified to evaluate the President from a distance and with no direct input as three so-called psychiatric experts who apparently are incapable of speaking in coherent sentences.

I don't believe that Barack Obama ever expected to win the election in 2008.

I believe this, without proof or first-hand evidence -- but that didn't stop Millbank's Experts, did it? -- that B.O. was just as convinced as every other Flapping Rectum in the summer of 2008 that Hillary Clinton had the democratic nomination all but stolen, and that his job in that case was to remind the Clinton Wing of the democratic party that the Moonbat Left was still there and had stuff to say (It may have been stupid stuff, but it still needed to be said), and they would not be silent while a candidate they saw as fundamentally the same as McCain took her premature victory lap and coasted into a uncontested November win.

Obama was probably content to play Clinton's Ralph Nader, and then try again another day.

But then the Economy hitthe skids. The Stock Market crashed. The Housing Market was imploding. The country was still embroiled in two wars that appeared to be becoming social laboratories and Straw Men for Left and Right to argue over rather than actually WIN. People began to worry, they began to panic, and when they examined their choices come November 2008, they found two people who were indistinguishable in their 'maintain the status quo' politicking, and some dude who gave good speech and managed to make 'more of the same' even more unappealing.

So, they voted for Barry. Whether this was the desperation of Hope, or the desire for Change, matters not: if Obama had one thing in his favor it was that he wasn't an aging Cold Warrior who couldn't stay on the same side of the political street for three minutes, or an opportunistic hellion in a Black Crusty Pantsuit who was going to have her Presidency run -- and probably ruined -- by her horndog husband. Obama was seen as alien to the viper pit of Washington politics that had caused the multiple messes we were in. That was enough for a good many folks.

So there he was, actually winning. The problem was, I think, that since he hadn't expected to win, he had no plan for what do next.

This became evident almost immediately with the Stimulus Plan. it wasn't an economic plan as much as it was a wish-list of ridiculous projects and pet peeves compiled by Congressional Democrats. The only thing "shovel ready" about that plan was The Plan Itself. It's not surprising that it failed because it wasn't really intended to do anything beyond ensuring that certain democratic (small 'd' intentional) party allies and constituencies were fully funded before the money well-and-truly ran out.

The next clue was ObamaCare. In the midst of an economic crisis, Obama puts forth a brand-spankin' new entitlement program, and then leaves the details to Congress again. He then spends 15 months -- the first third of his Presidency, in effect -- trying to sell a plan that he can't explain, can't describe the need for, and can't justify at a time when people are losing their jobs left and right. A year after it's been passed he still can't explain it, and the more we learn of it as the days unwind, the less we like it. Nancy Pelosi wasn't just being coy when she said "We have to pass it to find out what's in it"; none of the people who allegedly put it together even KNEW what they had wrought, and what they did know of it was sure to be political suicide (see 2010 midterms). That's why the thing was cobbled together in secrecy, funded up-front, and passed almost in the dead of night with the hope that it would eventually just be too complex -- and embeded -- to kill at a later date.

The next indication that Barack Obama wasn't prepared for this job was the enormous amount of time he spent complaining about having to do it. I was especially shocked to listen to President-Elect Obama take daily questions from the Press on this or that subject, and alternately expound a load of fertilizer where he thought it would do him good, and then gently remind the Press that he wasn't President yet when a question was inconvenient. Later, the criticism becomes too great and mean-spirited, everything was George Bush's fault, it's racism and he inherited every problem and they couldn't all be fixed overnight(this is true, but it's not as if he didn't know about the pile of horse dung that is Washington and American Politics; but he did, after all, lobby for the job and should have known), and this led to the next clue:

The amount of time Barack Obama has spent in the last two years NOT being President of the United States.He's on vacation every few weeks. He's delegated a shitload of authority and responsibility to 'czars' and 'Blue Ribbon Panels', he's taking "Date Nights" with the Missus, taking the kids to Hawaii, playing as much golf as possible. When catastrophe strikes, and the Gulf Coast is poisoned by a massive oil spill, Obama goes on vacation, but promises to file a lawsuit when he comes back. He starts a war by committee, so that England and France can fight Khadaffi to the last American on behalf of their oil supplies, and then tries to back away from ownership of it. This as American forces are already fighting on behalf of the  Europeans in Afghanistan and Iraq. Our foreign policy leadership has been turned over to the U.N., the Arab League, and the European Union.

But the Biggest Clue about about how clueless Barack Obama is in the selection of his advisers; he went back into the Clinton Administration to find a good number of them. Nothing says 'Change' like a return of the legions of Clinton Zombies who had served so well that Al Gore couldn't even win his OWN STATE in a time of peace and prosperity, and was reduced to trying to sue his way into the White House.

Leon Pannetta, Rahn Emannuel, Eric Holder, and if that's not frightening enough, there's a cavalcade of democratic party stars rumored to be waiting in the wings, whispering this or that piece of sage advice, or angling for jobs: Jimmy Carter, Jamie Gorelick, Donna Brazille, Joe "The Raging Dumbass" Biden. Some change.

Whatever economic plan Obama and his team managed to write on the back of a cocktail napkin and presented as a serious solution to our economic woes sounds as if it came right out of a Soviet Three Year Plan, one that college students are obliged to read about in their textbooks: massive government 'investment' in Green Energy -- an industry which has, to date, not delivered a single result to ever match it's claims -- a return of FDR's Public Works Programs, Nationalization of the Banks and selected (union-dominated) Industries on a scale, and in such brazen fashion, that it would have made the Nazis blush with envy.

Change? We're trying the same things that have been tried in various countries since the 1930's; they didn't work then, they sure as hell won't work now. We're being lectured to on Capitalism by the Chinese and Russians, for Christ's sake! I'm sure everyone in the White House has read Das Kapital, but has anyone there read The Wealth of Nations?

Don't even get me started on how it is that Candidate Obama and President Obama are polar opposites on Gitmo Detainees, The Surge, Raising Debt Ceilings, Bush Tax Cuts (he's now changed positions on these, by my count, three times), talking about ending two wars, but then starting a third, etc, etc. I guess it's easy to criticize when you're ignorant of reality than it is when you're in full possession of the facts -- or at least when you're trying to get someones job, only to find out it's not all it's cracked up to be. In the end, it looks as if you're making it up as you go along, flying by the seat of your pants, confused, uncertain, disinterested.


This guy always seems to be two or three steps behind the curve on everything. Everything comes as a surprise, every issue or crisis is one that is unforeseen, and is preceded or followed with the adjective 'unexpectedly!'. He doesn't know what to do about Egypt. He doesn't know what to do about Libya. He doesn't realize that governments don't run economies, businesses do. He doesn't know what to do about much of anything, and when he tries to explain what action he does/doesn't take, no one buys it. We see right through it all.

Too smart for his own good? A complex thinker? Not by half. Barack Obama would have made a good insurance salesman. There's no shame in that; the world needs insurance salesmen. But a deep thinker? a Complex personality? A mathematician's ability to juggle variables in his head? On what fucking planet?

What Barack Obama is -- to use a poker analogy --  is a guy who's had his bluff called when he's short-stacked, and has but one option left: to go All In; he talked the talk, so the American people gave him an opportunity to walk the walk, and then it became apparent that Obama WAS, indeed, nothing but talk, and even then, he was given the benefit of the doubt seeing as how he was walking into a gigantic mess; maybe,some hoped, he would grow into the job?

No such luck. If anything, Barack Obama has shrunk while in the job, which is a pity almost beyond words. It was a task that he was not prepared for. Attempts to spin Obama's deer-in-the-headlights performance by resort to the well-worn political columnist's trick of "he's too smart for most people to understand", "he's too complex", "it's bad communications", "he's a deep thinker" are outright distortions of the truth, and that a newspaper columnist should have the audacity to promote such distortions as serious reportage/editorial is an absolute outrage.
Before firing Dana Millbank, his bosses should kick his ass for being a dipshit.

Dana Millbank's job is to present the facts; not trot out the shop-worn "He's too smart for us" bullshit in an attempt to explain away or paper over what is, already, a failed Presidency. We've been there and done that with other political figures; Hillary Clinton and Jimmy Carter, for example, and it wasn't true then, either. What makes anyone think the third time's a charm?

On Counting Chickens Before They Hatch...

Call it The Audacity of Golf.

I read that this morning and tried to remember just how it was that we arrived at this sorry state of affairs. When I finally did, I decided the best thing to do was to get drunk in an effort to forget, but then remembered that I don't really drink, anymore. Maybe I'll take up heroin?

President O-Blah-Blah is really not up to this job. Personally, I think he's wanted to quit for quite some time, and I thought to myself that this is what happens when you elect an inexperienced person with no real qualifications to do such an important job, and then are stupid enough to believe that he might, at least, give it the Ol' College Try.

Or at least appear to be trying.

And then I had another thought (that's three in one day! Someone make it stop!) regarding some of the navel-gazing that's going on vis-a-vis the 2012 GOP nomination, and one Marco Rubio.

If I have to listen to one more 'conservative' (by the way, they don't exist anymore) scream the name 'Marco Rubio' in a presidential context this week, I'm going to start shooting people. Marco Rubio got elected to the Senate like five minutes ago, and his instant branding as Presidential Timber reminds one of the same 'conservative' ecstasy over Senator Scott Brown two years ago. Brown turned out to be just another politician --even if he was against ObamaCare.

I mean, really, you at least squeeze the bread, smell the melon, and kick the tires before you buy stuff, right? I'll bet more people put more effort and thought into buying a new cellphone then they do into their decision to pick a President.

How about we stop anointing people this-that-or-the-other before they've proven themselves? If there's anything we should have learned over the last three years, it's that jumping on the band wagons of the Tabula Rasa class of politicians -- just because they aren't part of the Washington Establishment -- sometimes just doesn't work, no matter how good it sounds? That's how we got Barry Soetoro, the Great (half-) White Dope, after all.

Just ask Ambassador John Bolton, who should be someone's Secretary of State one day, about what happens when your current Secretary of State is, like her boss, without the right experience and temperament for the job at hand. Being able to roll over and ask Bill for advice (assuming he isn't already sharing his bed with something with a barely-discernible pulse and room-temperature IQ) is not a qualification for anything, either.

If Barack Hussein Odouchebag has proven anything it's that when you elect your leadership based on the Cult of Personality rather than upon solid qualifications, you end up with a lot more to complain about and your quality of life simply shrinks under the oppressive cloud of stupidity and apathy.

Was there really anything in B.O..'s past that led you to believe he was going to fix the national economy? Was there anything there to instill confidence in his leadership skills? Did he display an extraordinary grasp of the truths of the modern world? Or were you simply desperate enough that anyone who had no discernible connection to what had gone on before in the previous two decades of American political life seemed that much a better choice? Even if he had spent a whole year-and-a-half voting "Present' on the great issues of the day, and had a Walking Menstrual Cycle of a wife (who probably gives him his orders) you'd like to feed to the wild boars one piece at a time?

Granted, the alternatives weren't all that much to write home about, either. Here were your choices in 2008:

A) Aging Cold-Warrior-Fence-Straddler with the Sexy Poster Girl for Pro Choice Governor (before she quit) of a State with More Polar Bears than People in tow. John McCain couldn't find his own ass with both hands, on a good day, and Sarah Palin finally found hers when Katie Couric and Charles Gibson (no shining lights, themselves) handed it to her on national television.

B) Carpetbagging, media-proclaimed Smartest Woman in the World who somehow didn't know her husband was screwing everything within range of his crotch, and the rancid smell of corruption clinging to every business venture in her life A woman who was so unacquainted with truth and candor that she felt compelled to invent an easily-disprovable yarn about how her parents came to decide her name?

By the way, on the subject of Hillary, Chris Matthews is getting all tingly again. My, how fickle that man can be.

That's what we had to choose from, so I guess I can see why Obama was, in retrospect, so attractive to so many dingbats. I guess they'd figure he'd grow into the job, but it's apparent that now that he has it, he doesn't want it anymore. Being President is hard work and people expect you to, you know, do stuff.

So don't give me the Marco Rubio/Paul Ryan/Eric Cantor bullshit. Those guys are in the same boat; they talk a good game, but what have they actually done, and in those achievements, can you show me something that is even remotely a qualification for POTUS? Give that crowd some more time to season -- and us more time to figure out who and what they are -- before you start putting them on national ballots.

Otherwise, you end up with a President who leaves the business of governing to the Senate and House leadership (and we see how well that's worked out), or to a bewildering array of non-elected Unknowns, and then goes on vacation every time there's an oil spill, natural disaster, war, revolution, economic emergency, or when the wife decides it's time they went to a sunny beach someplace, and took 1,000 sycophants along for the ride.

I do a lot of Obama bashing here, I admit, and I know some readers get upset over it. I want you to know that it isn't because I think Barack Obama is a bad man, it's because he's an extremely ineffectual President. I wasn't happy when he was elected, but I thought it was at least a shining moment for America, and the man had enough trouble heaped upon his plate to at least be given the benefit of the doubt. He lost that benefit the day the word ObamaCare entered the lexicon, which was like, four days after the inauguration.

It took 16 months to eventually pass that legislation, and it's been a year since it has passed, and still, no one can explain it. Fiscal year 2010 went by without a budget bill for 2011, and I'm still waiting to hear if there's going to be one coming from the White House for 2012. The national debt has nearly tripled. Unemployment is still over 10%, regardless of what the media tells you. We're still in two wars, and now have taken on a third in Libya. And I can't recall a single accomplishment of the Obama Administration since ObamaCare (a dubious one) that is actually worth a bucket of warm spit.

Gays can serve openly in the military? Yay.

A trillion-dollar stimulus which has turned out to largely be a waste of money? I'm astounded.

Naming over-budget, barley-used train stations after Joe Biden? Stop! I can't take no more!

Filing a lawsuit against BP in the teeth of one of the greatest industrial disasters in recent memory? Pure genius!

A Michelle Obama diet plan for the nation's chubby youth? My, our cups runneth over.

This is why you have to carefully weigh whether or not your candidates are truly up to the task of governing, and shouldn't be so easily seduced by the mere appearance of leadership without anything to suggest even the substance of it.

You Know It's a Bad Idea When...

...both John McCain and John Kerry agree on it.

With regards to creating a 'No-Fly Zone' over Libya:

a. Whenever I'm considering military options, the last people I usually ask for an opinion are; a guy who got himself shot down and spent the bulk of the war in a POW camp, and another one who got four draft deferments before volunteering for a service which was unlikely to see combat, then volunteering again for a branch with an extended training period that kept him out of the War for as long as possible, and then finally, once finding himself in combat, had himself followed around with a camera so that he would have some really neat footage with which to launch his political career. After he collected enough self-inflicted gunshot wounds to be sent home on a technicality.

Oh, and then I wouldn't want said loser to have tossed his ill-gotten medals away (the ones he wrote his own commendations for) and then call his comrades in arms 'baby killers' and 'war criminals'.

News to McCain and Kerry; you guys LOST your war. Let me get the opinion of someone who has actually won one, or at least had been on the winning side.

b. John Kerry ran for President on an anti-Iraq War platform, after, mind you, having voted for use of force against Saddam Hussein, after having decided that yes, there were indeed WMD's in Iraq, and with the cynical expectation that being on the record in favor of the Iraq War was a good career move...until it wasn't... because Hillary Clinton (another pro-War democrat back then) was making political hay out of opposition on the issue. She at least had the brains not to run in 2004.

And the sophisticated, nuanced Kerry lost to a man that his own party considered a mouth-breathing, warmongering, illiterate who couldn't find his own ass with both hands and a compass. How must that make you feel, John Boy?

c. Kerry has a history of voting in favor of wars/military action in which it is fairly certain that no one is likely to be shooting back at us: Kosovo, Bosnia, and now Libya. This is probably due to his own wartime experience of making sure he shot himself in order to be sent home, rather than taking a bullet from the enemy. Then again, when you're the scion of the New England Upper Crust and Country Club Set, if you're going to be shot you don't want it to be with that cheap stuff made in China; only the finest American ammunition will do the trick.

John Kerry may have been the first (and only) man in American military history to care enough about appearances to ensure that he shot himself in a manner, and with bullets, that met the highest standards for quality, class, bearing and breeding of the smart Martha'sVineyard Social Scene.

d. John McCain is probably senile. If you doubt this, just review his 2008 Presidential campaign. Anything he has to say, I should think, is suspect.

e. Who gives a fuck if Muslims are killing each other? It's what they do, anyway. Hell, it's what they do BEST. So far as I'm concerned, the more they kill amongst themselves means the fewer we'll have to kill later on. I'd love to see Khadaffi standing trial for the Pan Am 103 bombing, but if leaving him free for a few months longer means a few hundred thousand more dead inbred nomads, then I'm all for it.

It's bad enough that we're saddled with Barack The Indicisive; that's a handicap that no nation should ever have to endure, but much like John Kerry's, this is a self-inflicted wound. It gets even worse when aging Cold Warriors -- from opposite ends of the political spectrum, with different experiences of a war in which they were both defeated -- can both agree that committing even more Americans to combat is a great idea. Particularly when you look at the track records of the men in question.

Both men probably cry themselves to sleep at night because there is no more Soviet Union; McCain because he misses the heady days when the world was this-close to nuclear annhiliation, and Kerry because his cherished childhood idols (Stalin, Kruschev, et. al.) were proven to be so badly wrong about Socialism.

American Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen shouldn't be sent into battle as a public relations stunt. We've had enough of that in Afghanistan and Iraq. They should only be sent into battle to destroy the enemies of this country utterly and completely. Libya shouldn't be a 'No-Fly Zone'; it should be a 'No-one-left-alive Zone'. That's what you call 'Victory', something neither Kerryor McCain has any experience of. If we're not willing to do that, if we're not willing to WIN and leave a lot of bodies in our wake, then we shouldn't be sending anyone.

John McCain's only talent is for straddling fences and antagonizing conservatives, and Kerry's for marrying other men's wealthy widows. One lost an election to a man with absolutely no qualifications whatsoever, and the other lost his to a man who couldn't pronounce 'nuclear' properly, but at least had the moral clarity you'd expect to find in your smartest of parakeets.

Would you follow either into battle? I wouldn't follow either through my own front door. And over Libya? These are two of the people who helped to craft and shape the successful debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan. What makes you think they'll have any clue as to what to do in Tripoli?

Some Predictions for 2011...

I normally don't do this, but someone asked for it. His name and address will be withheld for his own personal safety. I'm not Nostradamus, and come to think of it, he was an Asshole: if his "predictions" are so damned good, how come they only make sense AFTER something happens? What kind of useless power is that?

Anyways, here's some things that I can see happening in America in the year 2011;

1. Hillary Clinton quits as Secretary of State, and announces her candidacy for President in 2012. She will talk up a heady Far-Left agenda in an attempt to outflank Obama with the disaffected pseudo-revolutionaries, aging hippies, and welfare queens of the New Left. This new-and-more-Lefty Hillary will be in marked contrast to the woman who spent the four years prior to 2008 positioning herself as a moderate, and has changed positions more often than Bill and Monica did. This transparently dishonest charade will go completely unremarked upon by anyone at (P)MSNBC. No one will call her a "quitter" for leaving the Senate, or abandoning her post as Secretary of State, because only Republican Woman ever quit to take better jobs and more money. When a Libtard does it, it's all in the name of Public Service, which somehow always means you leave Public Service with a really big bank account. The only thing worse than a Hilliary Clinton victory in 2012 will be the sight of Bill doing the pimp-walk back into the White House.

2. Mitt Romney will become the GOP front-runner for President in 2012 in the early polling, but will eventually be defeated in his quest to become Leader of the Free World because no one will vote for him in the Bible belt, where being a Mormon is synonymous with "Devil Worshiper" and "Baby Rapist", and only slightly better than "Catholic". This will leave the GOP hard-pressed to find a decent candidate that doesn't creep people out, have a secret pedophile past, bore them to death with invocations of the deity, or talk like a Tea-partier-but-possess-a-democrats-record. Which means that Mike Huckabee somehow sticks around far longer than he has any right to expect to bore the bejesus out of us with all his Jesus talk, and somehow manages to wrangle a VP slot from whatever hybrid Country Club-Inbred Redneck republican candidate the Tea Party happens to choose for them.

3. Michelle Obama finally fesses up, and reveals a secret so shocking that you will be amazed that it was successfully kept for all these years; she is actually a post-op transsexual, and used to play power forward at an NCAA Division I school that actually made it to the Sweet Sixteen, but was ultimately defeated by (who else?) Duke; a game in which she scored 12 points, and had 4 rebounds, coming in off the bench, but ultimately, fouled out, her sharp elbows more curse than aid that day. President Obama, stunned by the news, deals with this mighty personal blow by taking yet another vacation, this time to do some soul-searching and to re-evaluate his life, in Jamaica, Amsterdam, Las Vegas and Tierra Del Fuego. Upon his return, he and Michelle reconcile their differences over a game of HORSE in the Rose Garden.

4. Sarah Palin does what every woman does at least once in her life, given the opportunity. She entices the "return to the 1950's" wing of the Republican party right down to the very last second in 2011, showing a flash of political leg here, heaving a breathless, bosomy rhetorical sigh there, winking at the True Believers, batting her Conservative eyelashes at the Falling-All-Over-Themselves-Just-to-Be-Close-To-Her. She'll take their money. She'll drink in their adoration. She'll laugh at their stupid jokes, and playfully giggle at their innuendo, or perhaps, give a speech that gently caresses the back of their hands, before quickly withdrawing her lightest, gossamer touch. When the date is over, as they're standing on the front porch in that moonlit-awkward moment, she'll give them a handshake goodnight, trot out the old I-had-a-great-time-don't-call-me-I'll-call-you-quickly-duck-inside-slam-the-door-routine, and avoid those disappointed Conservatives at the Malt Shop for the rest of the school year. That's right, Sarah Palin eventually turns out to be a political cocktease, because she can't win, and hell, there's more money to be made soaking the rubes and getting free publicity out of your fertility.

5. Senator John McCain suffers a debilitating stroke or heart attack, and must step down from his by-now-largely-ceremonial post as Senator from Arizona. In the ensuing special election, McCain is ultimately succeeded by the GEICO Gecko, who has now also become the Official State Bird of Arizona (conservative commentators will remark that such things must be expected in a state populated by a growing number of Alzheimer's cases and illegal aliens who can't read the English ballots, and consequently, have no fucking clue just what they're voting for in the first place). The U.S. Senate will honor McCain with a Minute of Anti-Aircraft-Fire-and-Loud-Voices-Screaming-In-Vietnamese on the Senate Floor. In addition, Congress will authorize the John McCain Memorial Border Gate, a cardboard door mounted upon a single, rusty hinge, placed at a strategic gap in the Border Fence that will be opened or closed on alternate days in recognition of the Senator's principled stand on the issue of illegal immigration, and of his Herculean efforts to secure America's borders. *

6. Osama Bin Laden will make an appearance on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. having been granted the necessary travel and work visas by the Obama Administration. After yukking it up with Jay for an evening, bin Laden will be invited to the White House where President Obama will apologize profusely about all those close-call Predator strikes, and promises that it won't happen again if only Al'Qaeda pinkie-swears not to be mean to us anymore. Bin Laden agrees, but the deal is suddenly called off when Joe Biden spills his soup in Bin Laden's lap, and steals the cherry off his Parfait Desert, when no one is looking. The next day, there is a mushroom cloud billowing over Los Angeles, and President Obama will take great decisive action by going on vacation after this exhausting round of successful negotiations, which Chris Matthews will call "the greatest feat of American diplomacy, evah!" just as the fallout begins to descend on the east side of the Rockies.

7. Someone will, finally, shoot Rep. Anthony Weiner (Douche - NY) and Senator Charles Schumer (Dingbat - NY), two of the most annoying people to ever walk the face of the Earth. Schumer will survive the assassination attempt, if only because the .38 caliber bullet fired from a range of seven feet did not possess the power to actually penetrate his thick skull, and bulletproof inanity. Weiner, however, will not fare so well; his killer knew enough to shoot Weiner in the ass -- which was closer to his brain -- and after 72 hours of being kept alive by various machines, a little-known provision of ObamaCare kicks in, in which Weiner's plug must be pulled, his friends and family mercilessly teased by hospital staff, his organs harvested and auctioned to the highest (foreign) bidder, and his remains cremated and sold to be used as an additive to kitty litter. By such methods, American health care is kept as affordable and efficient as ever, and the populace is reassured that there is, indeed, Cosmic Justice.**

8. President Obama will return from a minimum of five vacations this year. It will be remarked that Air Force One works harder than he does, and the person who makes that remark will be shouted down by the media for being the absolute worst of racists. Two days later, Al Sharpton will remark that White People want to burn Black Babies in the Womb, and Infect the Black Elderly with Ebola , and he'll be applauded by the same media for his superior"Social Conscience", and actually taken seriously.

9. Nancy Pelosi will finally have that exorcism that she's been putting off for the last three decades. In the process, we will find out that the woman who became Speaker of the House and ran roughshod over the Constitutional Process, was actually a demon named Larry from the 345th layer of the Abyss, who has no idea how it was that he came to be entwined with the soul of Pelosi, as he thought he was catching a train to Scarsdale. In an exclusive interview with People magazine, Larry will tell the harrowing tale of being trapped inside such an unattractive body, but lift your spirits with his "when life hands you lemons, make lemonade..." philosophy, which he discovered when he came to painful terms with his imprisonment; If you're going to be stuck inside a cast-iron bitch with a black soul that frightens even the demonspawn, you might as well make the best of it. He takes credit for the devious manner in ObamaCare was passed, and the $14 trillion National Debt. Larry will later be the hands-down winner of the Hellspawn Award, given in recognition of great contributions to Earthly Chaos and Black-hearted Evil, and personally decorated for his actions by Satan himself. Of course, Larry will be wearing Chanel on the Big Evening, and simply can't wait for the Joan Rivers Red Carpet interview.

10. Vice President Joe Biden will have emergency surgery to remove a small fragment of brain lodged in his skull. In a daring, never-before-tried medical procedure (paid for by the Gold-plated private medical insurance that all members of the Executive Branch were given for free under Obamacare), doctors will try to perform the first Anoencephaloplasty, in which they will try to save the brain fragment by implanting it in Biden's rectum. They decide this risky maneuver is the safest and most logical thing to do, seeing as how Biden's head is already firmly ensconced within his asshole. The operation will be a success, and Biden will have finally learned his alphabets, and to tie his shoes. These accomplishments make him the hands-on favorite to win the democratic nomination for 2012. As the Vice President convalesces, President Obama takes a quick trip to Rio De Janiero for Mardi Gras, and then plays a month of golf in Scotland.

* = we here at the Asylum certainly do not wish any misfortune upon Senator McCain.

** = we here at the Asylum certainly do wish the worst-possible misfortunes upon Rep. Weiner and Sen. Schumer, we're just not advocating that someone actually take any action in that regard, nor that anyone should take it upon themselves to go hunting for these men.

Buchannan: McCain Won By Being A Douche...

Who knew Pat Buchannan was still alive? Who the fuck taught him how to use a computer? When does he go back on his meds?

Pasty wails today about the unseemly electoral tactics of John McCain in his defeat of The Joker-Look-Alike Contest Runner-Up, J.D. Hayworth.

A few quibbles, if I may, Mr. Buchanan:

1. J.D. Hayworth is not an "authentic" anything, let alone conservative. His kind of "conservatism" is a tribal affiliation, little more than the wearing of gang colors. Then again, neither is McCain a conservative. In the race between neither-really-a-conservative "Douchebag" and "Shit Sandwich", the people of Arizona chose "Douchebag" as the lesser of two evils. This, unfortunately, is the state of American electoral democracy today. In a perfect world, neither man would have been on the ballot. Why don't you write something about that tragedy, Patsy?

2. In the Obama-McCain race of 2008, I don't recall you being quite so critical of McCain, except for your appearances on MSNBC as resident-curmudgeon-in-chief, where there's a check involved, I imagine. In your own personal dilemma of Douchebag-vs-Shit-Sandwich-and-which-do-I-criticize-more-on-TV, you grudgingly supported Douchebag McCain too, if only because to do otherwise would have been a tacit approval of Obama.

3. Don't suddenly get bent out of shape because you've just NOW realized that politics is a dirty profession. I suggest that your disgust at the process has less to do with McCain's tactics as much as it does with his victory, because if you could do to a democrap what McCain did too Hayworth, you'd do so with an indecent haste.

4. How is it that someone still pays you for your opinions? You are the Al Sharpton of the Pantybunched Right.

5. This quote is quite puzzling...
　

"But if the GOP takes the advice of its establishment,
and the neocons who seek power to start another war, and walks away from
cultural, social and moral issues, which are far more popular than the party
itself, folks who care about the character of the country and national identity
should walk away from that party, and find outliers who will pick up the banner
and carry it forward..."

...coming, as it does, from one of those very same "establishment" figures in GOP politics, i.e. YOURSELF.

And what the fuck is a "neocon"? Ever since that term has come into common parlance, it seems that it's only possible definition is "a republican that doesn't agree with Me,and just cave to my ridiculous demands", and has been freely used by both the Communism-is-good-Left and the Taliban-Has-Some-Good-Points-Right. If it is, as I take it to mean "a republican who is willing to find common ground and consensus where that is possible, for the common good, even if it means telling the Church Pikers to fuck off", then this makes a nonsense of this little bit of stupidity in the very next paragraph;

Americans motivated by causes need to maintain their freedom and independence of both parties, forming what George W. Bush liked to call "alliances of the willing.

This is rich: in one paragraph you denounce the "Neocon" War-starters, and then cite George W. Bush (with whom the term "Neocon" originated), as a shining example of enlightened leadership? Do you even read what you write, anymore, Pat?

Stuff I Didn't Talk About Because I was Away...

A lot has happened, and here I was to NOT write anything about it. So, here's a synopsis of what I missed, and what I might have said:

1. The Arizona Immigration Thingy
So let me get this straight: the Federal Government sued the State of Arizona in order to make the following points:

a) The Executive Branch has reserved the power and right to decide NOT to enforce laws passed by the Legislative Branch ,and deemed Constitutional by the Judicial Branch, if it finds doing so to be politically troublesome.

b) That the Executive Branch, having made a decision upon which laws are to be followed and which can be chucked for political purposes, can declare that since it won't uphold the laws it is Constitutionally-required to enforce, that no one else can assume that responsibility in it's stead.

Good going!

Once again the Administration, it's naked partisanship and political tin ear evident because it has taken yet another unnecessary action that two-thirds of the country disagrees with, has finally laid to rest some of the myths about the political left that have been repeated for at least a century; These people are not evil little conspirators, playing at romantic revolutionary. They are not sublimely intellectual souls who simply see the world differently in subtler shades of grey than we mortals. They certainly aren't champions of the Common Man, fighting for his rights and freedoms, rising to the defense of personal liberties.

They're just a bunch of fucking retards. Smart people (defined as: having just enough sense not to shave your own ass with a cheese grater, and a bottle of Witch Hazel) simply don't do things like this. The amazing thing is that they're all lawyers, the President has even taught Constitutional Law, but apparently none of them has bothered to read the document in question, and if they have, they this ability to misunderstand the English Language to such an extent that I'm surprised they haven't "discovered" the right to stand in your front yard, completely nude, with three daschunds and a light bulb jammed up your ass, making Kitten Kebabs whilst saluting the swastika.

For all the Harvard, Yale and Princeton graduates in the Administration, none of them seems to be able to find their own asses with both hands and a flashlight. The next time someone tells you the Ivy League schools are the best, you should point out to them that the Obamatards and the MBA's who ran Freddie, Fannie, Lehman Brothers, and AIG, were mostly Ivy Leaguers. That should shut them up.

2. Charlie Rangel
Good lord, Charlie: just give it up. You're caught dead to rights and still you insist that you "welcome the investigation" which will, you assume, "clear your name" as if you can actually brazen this out. The days when you could make the most asinine excuses -- "I didn't inhale", "I didn't have sex with that woman..." -- and get away with it, are long gone, Congressman. You especially can't get away with unpaid taxes in this day-in-age when half the Obama Administration didn't pay their taxes, either, and the general public is about to be taxed within an inch of their lives to pay for shit that none of them ever wanted, but you so eagerly voted for.

You're 80 years old, and frankly, the only reason to tune into these hearings is to see whether or not you have a coronary under questioning, or break a hip on your way in. Otherwise, this exercise is academic: you're guilty, you'll lie a lot and try to play games with the evidence against you, and then play the race card (...you magnificent bastard! I read your book!). The only half-way plausible explanation I've heard to date about why you're going through with this came from Juan Williams, and he basically said "because you're batshit crazy". Juan seems to think that it's quite possible that, having been in Washington for 40 years, you are so steeped in graft and corruption that it's literally become your normal way of life. The very air you breathe, your food and drink, and that you may not even be aware that what you're doing is wrong.

Even more reason to toss you out on your fat ass, Chuck. Nancy is NOT going to find a way to keep you around: she wants to be re-elected, you know.

3. Senator John Kerry has a $7 Million Yacht...
...which he had custom-built in New Zealand, and moved from Massachusetts to Rhode Island, allegedly to avoid paying luxury taxes on it.

Nothing like a) making sure you Buy American, b) making sure you put some folks in Massachusetts (where I'm told they DO make some pretty spiffy luxury yachts) to work, and c) leading by example in a time of financial crisis, where the American people are bring asked to sacrifice and give Uncle Sam just a Little Bit More (Little Bit More defined as: the Lion's Share of the 50% of your income we don't already tax) to pay for all the"Change you Can Believe In"...and you don't even make a show of sharing that sacrifice. In fact, you tried to find a way to circumvent the law. I don't know who's worse: Rangel or Kerry.

And I'll bet this Asshole still lays awake at night trying to figure out just how it was that he lost to Geroge W. Bush, generally considered a blithering idiot. Here's a short list of reasons why, Senator:

a) You're a douchebag, who's only real talent is for marrying wealthy widows

b) Two words: John Edwards

c) After obtaining four draft deferments, and then volunteering for duty with a service that was not likely to see ground combat, and THEN volunteering for duty that required another 18 months just to complete training, you spent, like, five whole days in Vietnam faking diary entries, having yourself followed around by a camera crew, collecting self-inflicted gunshot wounds and writing your own commendations, just so you could start every sentence with "When I was in Vietnam..." for the next 50 years.

d) You're wife made Ted Kennedy look sober....you made him look like Cincinnattus by comparison.

Frankly, we're incredibly fortunate to have been spared the unmitigated disaster that would have been a Kerry Administration, if your personal history, choice of friends, and obvious character flaws are anything to judge by, Senator.

4. Vis-a-Vis Journolist...
Newsflash: when 400 or so egghead, douchebag, metrosexuals with access to a chatroom and a wild hair up their collective ass get together, this is what they do: complain about normal people and plot their demise, and conspire to achieve World Domination, or at least to get the Gay Discount from Netflix on Movie Night.

They'll never succeed, by the way, because they're all slackers who just like to think they're really smarter than everyone else. It's why they picked Journalism -- a dying profession -- as their career choice, after all.

I'm actually surprised that half of the exchanges published to date didn't begin with "Hey, so-and-so, what conditioner are you using this week" or "does anyone have any helpful tips on how to remove a small rodent from my bunghole without the embarrassing emergency room visit?"

It's clear these "professional" journalists behaved like a bunch of fucking 16 year-olds, which is not surprising, because the e-mails reveal that they all fucking think and write like a bunch of fucking 16 year-olds!

I understand that part of the conservative (small "c"intentional) deconstruction of the Obama Administration depends on showing that a) the press is crooked, and slants news stories in a way that tends to put conservatives in a bad light, and b) the press was in bed with the Obama Campaign, so that they can make the case that c) John McCain lost to an untested, unvetted Communist because the Press Didn't Do it's Homework and Failed The 'Merican People, because this narrative is easier for "The Base" (btw, doesn't Al'Qaeda mean "The Base", too?) to swallow than the truth;

The 'Merican people were desperate enough in November of 2008 to have elected a hobo with stinging halitosis, if one was on offer. Most people who have enough sense to pour piss out of a boot already know the Press is biased, but that's not why they chose Obama -- they chose him because they were Sick of War, because of the images and bitterness of Hurricane Katrina, because the country was in dire financial straits, because Republicans spent money like drunken sailors and defended homosexual airport Lotharios and child molesters (allegedly) making a mockery of it's "Family Values" and "Fiscally Responsible" brand labels. And the best the Republican Party could do to respond to these issues was to stand a 70+ year old Cold Warrior -- who's only claim to fame besides being a POW and getting tortured in a war that we lost -- was that he was also the man who led the biggest assault of free speech in American history (Campaign Finance Reform), has flip-flopped on immigration so often it's hard to know just which side of the fence (literally!) he's on from day-to-day, who selected a running mate so ill-prepared she couldn't even outthink Katie-goddamned-Couric --no freaking Einstein, there. Not to mention that "I'm-suspending-my-campaign-so-that-I-can-vote-against-a-bailout- I-still-wound-up-voting-for-two-days-later-anyway" stunt a week before the actual vote.

They Public didn't need the Press to help them fuck this one up; John McCain and the Republican Party made it easy for them to make a bad choice. In this light, Journolist isn't so much a tool of evil Leftards as much as it is a coffee clatch for perpetually-menstrual douchebags who could otherwise be safely ignored, and who's only power is that which you give them.

5. Alex Rodriguez and Home Run Number 600...
As I write this, I don't know whether he's hit it or not, and I really don't give a shit; Baseball's most sacred record has been tainted by cheaters and drug addicts, and now every milestone homer means absolute jack shit.

Babe Ruth is rolling over in his grave, and Hank Aaron must weep with the pain every goddamned day.

But this is NewYork City, and Alex Rodriguez is a New York Yankee. Yankee fans, incidentally, happen to be the biggest tools in this Solar System. They are insufferable, and they are remarkably fair-weather; today's walk-off home-run hero is tomorrow's trade bait because he went 0-for-4 with a strikeout the next day...and every one of them will tell you they KNEW the bum was no good five years before he made the team.

They are a breed of severely brain-damaged mouthbreathers who haven't discovered that:

a) they play in a league where pitchers don't hit. Real baseball leagues make pitchers hit.

b) they play in a stadium in which the right field fence is within spitting distance of home plate, turning every left-handed pop-up hitter into Ruth, Mantle and Maris,and turning legitimate lefty hitters into absolute gods.

The only reason the New York Yankees are making a big deal out of Alex Rodriguez and 600 is that they hope to replay the game,. and the moment, for the next 100 years on the YES Network,which is pretty much all Yankees 24/7/365.

Alex Rodriguez CHEATED. He is NOT to be celebrated.

6. BP...again...
Okay, so you finally plugged the fucking hole, and then we find out you're getting terrorists freed for"humanitarian reasons" which somehow result in BP getting major drilling contracts in Libya. Sit by the phone long enough, and Usama Bin Laden just might surrender to BP so he can spend a few years in a cushy English prison, then get released for an ingrown toenail.

Here's the solution: the Obamatards have pretty much already signed BP's death warrant, having extorted $20 billion and threatening lawsuits from now until St. Swiven's Day, so let's finish the job, shall we? Nuke Libya.

If Megrahi (the terrorist in question) only had "three months to live" according to the doctor who accepted the bribe that got him out of prison, then let's help him keep to that schedule, and while we're at it, we can make sure that BP doesn't profit, the corrupt Scottish and English government individuals/organizations that helped see this happen don't get to profit, and Moammar Khadaffy gets to see his Prophet ASAP.

Remember when Khadaffy actually went to George Bush on bended knee, begging for forgiveness and demanding the West dismantle his nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs, and offering his oil contracts to American companies, with no requests to release convicted terrorists in return?

Hey! The Wall Street Journal AND Commentary Agree With Me!

So, I must be right!

It's indicative of how stupid and desperate an electorate can get that they will swallow almost anything uncritically, and with their eyes wide shut.

Now more than ever, not only should Barack Obama and his party be defeated, as soon as the fight is over we should all line up and kick John McCain square in the balls for being such a rotten candidate, and running such a cluster-fuck of a campaign. In retrospect, it not certain that McCain would have been any better as President (he certainly wouldn't), but he might have at least been polite enough to die in office and leave Sarah Palin in charge.

I'm not saying she would have been the best choice, either, but in replaying all the possible outcomes of the peculiar set of circumstances that came into play in November of 2008, I'm not so sure. Your choice was between the Old Man with the Woman Who at Least Had Held a Real Job Once Her Life, or the Bi-Racial Bullshit Artist with the REAL Retard in Tow. America took Plan B, and this is how we got here. But for the fact that John McCain had a senior moment in pulling that "suspending my campaign" stunt so as to look "statesmanlike" before bending over like a $10 whore for the bailouts he so vociferously opposed, he managed to get outmaneuvered in the process by the parvenu Obama (who managed to vote "Present" once again). It probably cost him the election, regardless of the rhetorical mastery of Obama's speechwriters and Teleprompters (we've since found out that Obama has no real speaking skills of his own).

And in the end, this is what we have: an Egomaniac-in-Chief, who believes that having perpetrated the Greatest Scam in the History of the World, he can not only get whatever liberty-destroying bill he wants passed, but that he's goddamned entitled to have it pass on his terms, and Fuck Us if we're not with the program.

This is why the right to vote should be taken away from at least 50% of the people in this country.

The Healthcare Summit...

I watched for about two hours this afternoon. I should have found something else to do.

It went like this:

Random Republican: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah...Listen to us! Let us have a hand in crafting this monstrosity, under the guise of fighting for the American people, that we've all but accepted as a foregone conclusion, blah, blabbity,blah.

Barack Obama: Blah,blah, blah, blah, blah, but that's a good idea but it'll be another 1,000 pages after Nancy And Harry get through with it, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Random Republican: Blah, blah, blah, blabbity-blah-blah, can we just start over?

Barack Obama: Blah, blah, blah, we've come too far for that, and I can't hold any more dem votes on what we have already, blah, blah. And besides, it's not a good bill for me unless i can create another 100 federal bureaucracies stuffed with union labor to skim money off the top, blah, blabbit, blabbity, blab, blah.

Random Republican: This bill is bad: how about we do this, blah, blah, blah?

Barack Obama: Blah, blah, blah, screw you, we're doing what we want, blah, blah, blah, but that was a good idea that we won't consider, though, blah, blah. We'll now have five minutes of Chuck Schumer to put everyone to sleep.

Senator Schumer: Whine, cry, whinge, where's my closeup?

Random Republican: I should have won, dammit!

Barack Obama: Blah, blah, please sit down and shut up, Senator McCain, I won...oh,and blah,blah, blah to you, too! Do you have anything to add, Senator Reid?

Senator Reid: Blah, blah, blah, waaaaaaaaaah, blah, blabbity, blobbity, blah,blah blah. Oh, and blah, blah, blah.

It was a tour-de-force, so far as dog-and-pony shows go, and I should know: I've seen absolutely masterful dog-and-pony shows given by expert bullshit artists in even more expensive suits, with even bigger salaries.

The only thing that could have made even more ridiculous would have been the use of props...Oh, wait! There were props! Some repub tried to evoke the Spirit of Reagan, and brought the entire 2,500 page Senate bill to the meeting to make the argument that no one could make sense of a pile of paper that thick and full of Senatorese.

And of course, there was John Boehner, who's function I could not, for the life of me, discern.

But then again, what did I expect? The event was staged to make Barry I look all Presidential and to lob the same, tired attacks at the other side; Stop obstructing! Stop politicizing! Stop criticizing! Arguments against Obamacare were heard; hell, Barry's Boys and Girl's Club knew what the points against it were before the thing ever started. This "meeting" wasn't called to really hash anything out, nor was it intended to exchange ideas; it's supposed to blunt the predictable mid-term election battlecry: There was no bi-partisanship, and it wasn't on C-Span!

So, we got three-plus hours of absolute drivel that will, ultimately, change nothing. The democrats (small 'd' intentional) will do what they've wanted to do all along, and implement this sucker piece-by-piece, buried in countless appropriations bills where no one will see it, and which if Republicans try to filibuster will result in the threat of (if not the actual) shutdown of the Fed'ral Gubmint. Just like what happened when Newt Gingrich got all uppity about balanced budgets.

Democrats think Newt lost that fight because some Social Security checks got held up, but history tells a different tale: Newt did get his balanced budget, and Billy Jeff Clinton had to "reform" welfare. His republican inheritors fucked that all up in the years that followed, and so they are now in the position they find themselves in today; crying about bi-partisanship, and then eagerly rushing to the Potemkin display of bi-partisanship they got today so that they can still appear relevant, but still unable to stop the worst idea to come down the pike since the Battery Acid Enema Diet.

We will get Obamacare. It's almost a forgone conclusion. The question now becomes whether the genie can be put back in this particular bottle if, and I do mean if, republicans win the mid-terms and are in a better position to first limit the damage done, and then, eventually roll it back. I say if because if McConnel and Boehner and the assholes who were on display yesterday in the Toyota Hearings are what the republican party calls"leadership", then nothing short of Barack Obama being seen lustily filleting a panda on You-Tube will guarantee victory in November.

And quite frankly, why this need and clamor for bi-partisanship, anyway? Why is it that the repubicans believe that a bad bill made worse by bi-partisanship is somehow more palatable, especially if Libtards get the bulk, or even the beginnings, of what they've wanted in the first place? Quite frankly, you were elected to be republicans -- not accessories-after-the-fact.

This piece of shit needs to be defeated in toto; not steered into a presumably less-worse direction. Barack Obama is dead-set on raping the United States Healthcare System -- republicans, with their insistence on having their ideas included instead of insisting their ideas replace what Harry and Nancy hath wrought -- are pretty much looking as if they're begging Barry to wear a condom while he does it.

Three hours of absolutely sleep-and-vomit-inducing television didn't bring anyone one step closer to that.

Update: Something that I was thinking about that didn't make it's way into The Screed; I made it sound as though republicans "lost" this battle (in effect, they have: the dems will try to sneak this thing into appropriations bills as poison pills), but there was another aspect to this thing: Barack Obama, while trying to appear all Statesmanlike, is basically in the position of having to beg republicans to lower their tone (to get the heat off of him) and maybe, move a bit to his way of seeing things. He was basically saying: listen, I'm throwing you a bone here, so do a brother a solid and make it look like we're negotiating and co-operating, okay?

A pox on both their houses.

Quote of the Week...

Is from S.E. Cupp, writing on the Daily Caller, in reference to Steve Schmidt, former campaign director for John McCain, and Sarah Palin's biggest critic:

"While wondering what happened to Steve Schmidt to make him such a boorish, classless, puerile dick, I finally figure out who he reminds me of: Stewie Griffin. A big, bald, baby."

Yep. Just about covers it.

Not So Fast, Sean Hannity...

For the last three weeks, I have listened to Sean Hannity make the mistake of conflating the Tea Party movement with Conservatism, and then postulating that the whole thing simply must be the natural state of the American political landscape reasserting itself; it's a Conservative country, always has been, and now Conservatism shall return in force.

I beg to differ.

Frankly, I think if you looked at it intelligently, you'd probably come to this conclusion; about 30% of the country is actually republican/conservative, about 30% of the country is actually liberal/democrat, and the 40% in the middle wouldn't know what they were if you wrote it down for them on the back of their hands. That 40% is simply too ignorant to care much about politics, is too easily bribed with other people's money to be a reliable vote for either party, or is too dependant upon one party or the other to shift to the other side.

Sean trumpets some recent polls in which 40-something-percent of Americans call themselves Conservative, and thinks this bolsters his argument. But it doesn't. Considering what the democrats placed in office with the help of the so-called moderates, if a pollster called you and asked if you were a lib-comm-symp or a conservative, how many of you would actually admit to having been on Obama's side all along? I'd bet at least 50% of those who answered the question lied through their teeth to avoid the embarrassment.

The fact is that Obama was elected by the moderates, many of them now telling pollsters "I've always been a conservative". They voted for him because they bought the Hope and Change nonsense, and because John McCain was perhaps the worst Presidential candidate since...well, John Kerry.

Now, as to whether or not the Tea Parties are Conservatives in disguise; to a certain extent, yes, they are. They are the small-government, lower-taxes, federalist conservatives which the right has largely ignored these last 20 years because it would rather kowtow to the Religious Right. It's the wing of conservatism that has been ignored because it's more Republican than Puritan, and because there wasn't any money in it.

Here, we come to a difference of opinion over a definition. This is why people like Sean Hannity should read more George Orwell. Because if they did, they'd realize that what they describe as "Conservative" is nothing of the sort, because the terms 'liberal' and 'conservatism' no longer mean what they should, and this blurring of definition is done on purpose by both parties and their operatives for their own reasons. Sean and others like him are unwittingly helping to carry this deception forward.

Technically, a Conservative is someone who seeks to preserve that which was created by liberal means (like the rights and privileges spelled out in the U.S. Constitution, a fairly radical document, historically speaking), or as Irving Krystal once put it (paraphrasing) "A conservative is someone standing in front of the runaway freight train of progress yelling STOP!".

In modern parlance, a Conservative has very slowly been morphed into a caricature of the Bible-carrying, shotgun-toting, gay-hating-flannel-wearing-flag-waving-rural-dwelling hick who is a) under the impression that he's always right -- even when he's wrong -- because God said so, and b) he believes all us city-dwellers don't 'get' him or his way of life, and we're out to persecute him because apparently we have nothing better to do, and c) will do anything Pastor Bob tells him to do, especially if it's presented to him as a holy imperative, because his form of Christianity is often indistinguishable from Islam, in many respects.

You can disagree -- and so would I -- but that is the general impression of 'Conservative' that most people in this country have, and you know what? That's exactly how the so-called leaders of Conservatism would like to have it; they actually believe there is a value in this fable of the continued virtues of the Pioneer Spirit, and the American Do-or-Die drive, concepts which no longer exist in a world of Sleep Number Beds, Sexting, E-mail, cable television, the NFL Network, Once-a-day Osteoprosis 'cures', and frozen pizza rolls. That sort of Conservative, trapped between his traditions and the modern world, is in the same boat as the guy who joins the Taliban. It's an 'us-versus-them' mentality which the republican party has been able to milk for money and votes for a very long time.

It's what I like to call the God-Guns-and-Gays mentality. It's a political philosophy that revolves around school prayer, abortion and opposition to gay marriage, with the small-government-low-tax thing more or less accepted as a good thing only after you promise to pack the Supreme Court. It's not conservative in any real sense, politically. It has very little cachet in a world where the prime concerns of the people are unemployment, a broken economy, out-of-control government and simultaneous wars.

You don't see that sort of thing at a Tea Party Rally. Oh, yeah, you do see a few signs with "God Bless America" and "One Nation Under God", and so on, but you don't see people singing hymns, you don't see men of the cloth making impassioned speeches before the multitudes, you don't see Jerry Falwell -figures front-and-center. In fact, you don't even see establishment politicians in the van of this movement, and the ones who have tried have looked extremely sycophantic and phony while doing it. What you do see is a bunch of reasonably intelligent people who seem to have checked their social conservatism (if they had any) at the door; for them, this is not about abortion and school prayer, it's about getting the government to do what it's supposed to do and then forcing it to stop doing what it actually does.

In that respect, Sean, I would argue that the Tea Parties are actually out to knock that Calvinist brand of Conservatism out of the conversation, and focus the energies of the American people into a more positive direction; into restoring the sovereign rights of the people...not the Republican Party.

Discuss.

Pity Meghan McCain...
See this, from the New York Post. The column is, of course, pure farce, but judging from 90% of the responses to it, you'd never know. Those folks took it far too seriously, which is a defect all liberals have; they haven't got a sense of humor.

Then there is the picture of Ms. McCain, which I assume, was the inspiration for the whole thing.

You see, in the last few months, Ms. McCain has bemoaned the fact that her father's association with such rabid conservatives like Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh (as if John McCain can be considered a conservative!) has cramped her style. In her blog (which I can't be bothered to link to) and in recent interviews, Ms. McCain has complained that politics has ruined her social life. All the really cute guys lose interest in her because of politics. Either they just want to meet her father, or she has to endure hours of "how can you associate with Ann Coulter?" lectures, and it's very annoying. She's said so. Repeatedly. Only now, she stands to make a living for it, writing for whatever online rag Tina Brown is publishing these days (I can't be bothered to link to that, either).

She's making her displeasure known by criticizing said conservatives, and denouncing them. Just to make certain you get the message that she's rebelling, she'll tell you that gay marriage is all cool an' stuff, and that Obama is The Bomb. Publicly.

That's her right, I guess. But the underlying reason she does this is not any actual political belief of principle; she does it so that she'll seem cool and all that much more attractive to the social set she seeks entry to.

I don't always agree with Coulter and Rush, either, but the truth is they're often right. Conservatives, on the whole, are right. They have 10,000 years of history on their side. Where I split from them is on the idea that all of our moral and societal ills can be cured by a government-sponsored imposition of a Calvinist brand of Christianity which went out of fashion in about 1650 or so. Social ills are cured at home, with strong parents and families, not by the government. Let the churches do their work where they do it best: in church. Morality will never be legislated (despite all the morality laws on the books and the convictions and punishments for offenses, immoral behavior still occurs), and this is where the Republican party makes it's mistake; it allies itself with people who believe it IS the government's job to install and enforce Christian morals, values and ethics.

But at the end of the day, while I can certainly understand Meghan McCain's angst -- why, when I was younger, girls wouldn't talk to me because I had pimples, or I couldn't get with the in-crowd because I didn't wear Capezios and skinny leather ties, or hung around with some geeky people -- this is basically what her argument amounts to), I eventually found my own groove.

My advice to Miss McCain; if you need to change or compromise to gain the acceptance of people who find you or your associations unfathomable based on some shallow criteria, perhaps they aren't the sort of people you need to be hanging out with in the first place. In the meantime, you're only embarrassing yourself.