16th
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Photo by Jay Hagan,
7/12/08 Burbank, CA
A Thought for Today
The battle to remain myself has been
easy. I took it to the streets.
TO BEGIN WITH
I just finished watching the final presidential debate before the
election; you know the one that will probably become better known as
“The Joe The Plumber Dialogues.”
McBush just doesn’t get it; he has misjudged us yet again. He thinks
we’re angry so tonight he decided to act angry too. He smirked; he
grimaced, fidgeted, fibbed and even gave us his trademark painted smile
and all while totally missing the point. Americans are not mad or angry
or even disappointed; we are frightened, scared as hell. Most of us
aren’t even keeping track of how many points the stock market dropped
today but we are anxious and wondering when the next shoe will drop.
Yes, we wouldn’t mind a little leadership considering that we have spent
eight years rudderless and without a captain. But tonight and day by day
this doddering, clueless, would be leader of the free world proves over
and over again that he doesn’t even come close to being up to the job.
John McCain for president? I don’t think so.
RM 10/15/08
WORTH READING
GARRISON KEILLER TELLS IT LIKE IT IS
The following essay was written by the author and syndicated columnist
Garrison Keillor.
We are a stalwart and stouthearted people, and never more so than in
hard times. People weep in the dark and arise in the morning and go to
work. The waves crash on your nest egg and a chunk is swept away and you
put your salami sandwich in the brown bag and get on the bus. In Philly,
a woman earns $10.30/hour to care for a man brought down by cystic
fibrosis. She bathes and dresses him in the morning, brings him meals,
puts him to bed at night. It's hard work lifting him and she has
suffered a painful hernia that, because she can't afford health
insurance, she can't get fixed, but she still goes to work because he'd
be helpless without her. There are a lot of people like her. I know
because I'm related to some of them.
Low dishonesty and craven cynicism sometimes win the day but not
inevitably. The attempt to link Barack Obama to an old radical in his
neighborhood has desperation and deceit written all over it. Meanwhile,
stunning acts of heroism stand out, such as the fidelity of military
lawyers assigned to defend detainees at Guantanamo Bay -- uniformed
officers faithful to their lawyerly duty to offer a vigorous defense
even though it means exposing the injustice of military justice that is
rigged for conviction and the mendacity of a commander in chief who
commits war crimes. If your law school is looking for a name for its new
library, instead of selling the honor to a fat cat alumnus, you should
consider the names of Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, Lt. Col. Mark Bridges,
Col. Steven David, Lt. Col. Sharon Shaffer, Lt. Cmdr. Philip Sundel
and Maj. Michael Mori.
It was dishonest, cynical men who put forward a clueless young woman for
national office, hoping to juice up the ticket, hoping she could skate
through two months of chaperoned campaigning, but the truth emerges: The
lady is talking freely about matters she has never thought about.
On a clear day you can see Moscow
The American people have an ear for B.S. They can tell when someone's
mouth is moving and the clutch is not engaged. When she said, "One thing
that Americans do at this time, also, though, is let's commit ourselves
just every day, American people, Joe Six-Pack, hockey moms across the
nation, I think we need to band together and say never again. Never will
we be exploited and taken advantage of again by those who are managing
our money and loaning us these dollars," people smelled gas.
Some Republicans adore her because they are pranksters at heart and love
the consternation of grown-ups. The ne'er-do-well son of the old
Republican family as president, the idea that you increase government
revenue by cutting taxes, the idea that you cut social services and
thereby drive the needy into the middle class, the idea that you
overthrow a dictator with a show of force and achieve democracy at no
cost to yourself -- one stink bomb after another, and now Governor Palin.
She is a chatty sportscaster who lacks the guile to conceal her vacuity,
and she was Mr. McCain's first major decision as nominee. This troubles
independent voters, and now she is a major drag on his candidacy. She
will get a nice book deal from Regnery and a new career making personal
appearances for forty grand a pop, and she'll become a trivia question,
"What politician claimed foreign-policy expertise based on being able to
see Russia from her house?" And the rest of us will have to pull
ourselves out of the swamp of Republican economics.
Your broker kept saying, "Stay with the portfolio, don't jump ship," and
you felt a strong urge to dump the stocks and get into the money market
where at least you're not going to lose your shirt, but you didn't do it
and didn't do it, and now you're holding a big bag of brown bananas. Me,
too. But at least I know enough not to believe desperate people who are
talking trash. Anybody who got whacked last week and still thinks
McCain-Palin is going to lead us out of the swamp and not into a war
with Iran is beyond persuasion in the English language. They'll need to
lose their homes and be out on the street in a cold hard rain before
they connect the dots.
Copyright © 2008 by Garrison Keillor.
Mr. Keillor is the author of a new Lake Wobegon novel, "Liberty”
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