The Krait Bites The Geezer (And Warren G. Harding?)

The world needs a new place of veneration for GOP heroes: The Dimwitted Dumbo Hall of Shame. Obviously, the ol' Emancipator wouldn't qualify. Nor would Ike. However, the first class of inductees would include Warren G. Harding (thanks to The Krait), The Geezer, Dutch, and The Dubster. What about Turd Blossom and The Dickster? They belong to be somewhere else through eternity and they won't need to bring overcoats either. The Geezer is dimwitted. He didn't graduate in the bottom 5 of his class at Annapolis because he was the brightest bulb in the Naval Academy lamp. The Geezer's choice of The Mighty Quinnette (and all of her baggage) is another tribute to his stupidity. If this is a (fair & balanced) tribute to Forrest Gump, so be it.

[x NY Fishwrap]
McCain’s Grizzly Politics
By Gail Collins

“There is only one man in this election who has really fought for you in places where winning means survival and defeat means death,” Sarah Palin told a crowd in Wisconsin on Friday. John McCain, standing behind her, shifted restlessly as she went on and on about his idealism, his leadership and — did you know he was a war hero?

“... the kind of fellow whose name you will find on war memorials in small towns,” Palin said.

On behalf of the big cities, can I point out that we have memorials, too? Palin had already suggested to her audience — which happened to be in a small town — that people who live in communities of modest size are harder working, more patriotic and definitely not community organizers. At least give us credit for honoring our war dead, Sarah.

“Isn’t this the most marvelous running mate in the history of this nation?” asked McCain, when he finally got a turn at the microphone. A visitor from another planet who dropped in on the Republican campaign at this point would very likely assume that the presidential nominee was a guy who had spent his life as a prisoner of war until he was released just in time to pick Sarah Palin for vice president.

“I can’t wait to introduce her to Washington, D.C., and the pork barrelers and the lobbyists,” he said.

Ah, the dreaded pork barrelers.

John McCain is not actually running for president. He’s running for Senate majority leader. All his passion is directed at defects in the legislative process. He’s been a military man or a senator for virtually all of his adult life, and listening to him talk, you get the definite impression that the two great threats of the 21st century are Islamic extremism and the appropriations committee.

“When I’m president, the first earmark, pork-barrel bill that comes across my desk — I will veto it!” he announced right off the bat. “You will know their names!”

McCain hates, hates, hates earmarking — the Congressional habit of sticking appropriations for special back-home projects in the budget without going through the normal priority-setting process. He talks about it with an enthusiasm that he never manages to summon for the economy, health care or education.

Earmarks are indeed a bad thing. If you ever become a U.S. senator, please dedicate yourself to getting rid of them. But for the chief executive of the country, they’re about as critical a problem as the overlong Christmas shopping season.

“As governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin said: ‘We don’t need a Bridge to Nowhere, and if we do, we’ll build it ourselves!’ ” McCain enthused.

The Bridge to Nowhere was that $230 million federal appropriation to help build a span to an island with only a few dozen residents. For McCainiacs, the fight to kill that bridge was the Battle of New Orleans, the invasion of Normandy and the charge up San Juan Hill all rolled into one.

Palin, whose state is more pork-laden than a barbecue stand, actually turned against the bridge project because she thought Washington might make Alaskans build it themselves. If she ever agrees to talk to a reporter, the interviewer should ask Palin whether she thinks a state that is extremely wealthy from oil and gas revenue should not be forswearing federal aid entirely so that less fortunate places can have more.

Really, a governor who puts her country first might think about that.

“We’re not going to spend $3 million of your tax dollars to study the DNA of bears in Montana,” McCain continued. “I don’t know if that was a paternity issue or a criminal issue, but ...”

This is an old line, which he continues to use even though it has been established that the bear project was an extremely useful attempt to figure out how many grizzlies Montana has and whether they need continued protection as an endangered species. But even if it was the biggest waste of $3 million in history — even if it was money to sedate grizzlies so hairdressers could apply attractive red tints to their fur — do we want a candidate for president of the United States obsessing about it?

American voters generally don’t like to elect senators to the White House. They’ve done it only twice in modern history. John F. Kennedy was not much affected by time in the Senate. Like Barack Obama, he regarded it as a boring stepping-stone to something better. Warren Harding was so dimwitted he may never have noticed he was there.

The problem with the Senate is that the skills you need to thrive there — even if you thrive as a maverick — aren’t the ones you need to be president. If McCain wants to convince us that he can adapt and widen his vision, he can start by vowing never to mention the bridge or the bears again.

[Gail Collins joined The New York Times in 1995 as a member of the editorial board and later as an op-ed columnist. In 2001 she became the first woman ever appointed editor of The Times editorial page. At the beginning of 2007, she stepped down and began a leave in order to finish a sequel to her book, America's Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates and Heroines. She returned to The Times as a columnist in July 2007. Collins has a degree in journalism from Marquette University and an M.A. in government from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Prior to The New York Times, Collins wrote for the New York Daily News, Newsday, Connecticut Business Journal, United Press International, and the Associated Press in New York City.]

Copyright © 2008 The New York Times Company

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