Friday, September 05, 2008

The Bottom Line In '08: Dumbos Are Stupid!

Bill Maher is back in the saddle for the fall season at HBO. He says what he means and means what he says. Today, this blogger learned that the hottest rhetorical device, known in the '08 campaign as the "reversible raincoat," is when words are repeated in transposed order. This pattern is a favorite among the speechwriters on both sides of the aisle this season. Even better, Maher describes Turd Blossom's most prominent feature and it ain't his face. If this is a (fair & balanced) antimetabole, so be it.

[x Salon]
Republicans, Stop Calling Obama Elitist — Because The Real Reason You Don't Like Him Is....
By Bill Maher

New Rule: Republicans need to stop saying Barack Obama is an elitist, or looks down on rural people, and just admit you don't like him because of something he can't help, something that's a result of the way he was born. Admit it, you're not voting for him because he's smarter than you.

In her acceptance speech, Gov. Sarah Palin accused Obama of using his run for the White House as a "journey of personal discovery" — this from the lady who just spent 10 minutes of her speech introducing her family — Track, Trig, Bristol, Piper — for a minute there I thought she was calling in an airstrike.

Karl Rove described Obama as "the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini, and making snide comments about everyone who passes by." Unlike George Bush, who's the guy at the country club who makes snide comments, and then passes out. Now this characterization, of course, was something Mr. Rove just completely pulled out of his bulbous, gelatinous ass, but remember this is America, a land where people believe anything they hear. One of McCain's ads casts Obama as "the one," implying he thinks he's the Messiah. Good, maybe he can raise McCain from the dead.

It doesn't matter to Karl Rove that his country club characterization is fictitious, it's the role that Obama must play if the party of plutocrats is going to win over the little guy. Over and over at this convention we heard about the new put-upon victim in our society, the person in America, like Sarah Palin, who's constantly mocked because they're from a ... small town! Governor Yup Yup's got 'em all riled up about being disrespected.

Barack Obama can't help it if he's a magna cum laude Harvard grad and you're a Wal-Mart shopper who resurfaces driveways with your brother-in-law. Americans are so narcissistic that our candidates have to be just like us. That's why George Bush is president. And that's where the McCain camp gets its campaign strategy: Paint Obama as cocky and arrogant and wait for America to vote him off, like the black guy in every reality show. A black president? Half of Pennsylvania isn't ready for black quarterbacks. Forget Obama, they think Will Smith needs to be taken down a peg.

And finally: As for "country first," you know who's putting country first? I am, by supporting Obama, because a victory this fall for the McCain-Mooseburger ticket would make my job in the next four years very, very easy.

[William (Bill) Maher, Jr., is a comedian, actor, writer, and producer. He hosted the late-night television talk show "Politically Incorrect" on Comedy Central and ABC, and is currently the star of "Real Time with Bill Maher" on HBO. Maher received his Bachelor of Arts in English from Cornell University in 1978.]

Copyright © 2008 Salon Media Group, Inc.


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Pssst! Hopester! Just Jangle Your Keys During The Debates!

The Geezer has flashbacks when he hears keys jangling. He goes back to the awful memories of the Hanoi Hilton when the North Vietnames guards rattled their keys when opening his prison cell. The Geezer, through no fault of his own, is the Vietnamese Candidate with a hidden trigger. The issue of The Geezer's mental health is a real issue in 2008. If this is (fair & balanced) psychoanalysis at a distance, so be it.

[x The Providence Phoenix]
What About McCain’s Mental Health?
By Mary Ann Sorrentino

While some worry about the impact of John McCain’s age on his physical health and his potential longevity in office, others are more concerned about his mental health.

The more than 1500 pages detailing McCain’s medical information do not dispel the notion that the candidate’s notorious temper may be related to his more than five years in a Vietnam prison camp. Reporting on his health in May, the New York Times noted how McCain’s doctors called him robust. The end of the story also noted: "As a prisoner of war, Mr. McCain told doctors, he had tried to commit suicide twice. But by 1977, he said he had 'all but forgotten the traumas of captivity.'"

Yet Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD) — which is diagnosed in one of eight veterans returning from the hell that is Iraq — did not appear in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders until 1980, seven years after McCain’s release from Hanoi. Anger and depression are two key symptoms of PTSD.

Much has been said about the government’s failure to provide veterans with the medical help they need. The New England Journal of Medicine reports that only 23 percent to 40 percent of soldiers suffering from PTSD seek help because of the stigma the military attaches to psychiatric treatment.

In John McCain: An American Odyssey (2007) author Robert Timberg (who knows, the candidate has said, “more about me than I do”) calls McCain’s legendary rages “out of all proportion to the provocation.” He has also cited the sound of jangling keys as a trigger for McCain’s POW-related nightmares.

Columnist Sidney Blumenthal has quoted McCain as calling colleagues “asshole” and “fucking jerk” on the Senate floor. Even if this were considered “normal” behavior, it would be difficult to classify it as “presidential.”

As with Hillary Clinton’s red telephone commercial, all this raises a question: if the call comes at 3 am, do voters want the awakened president to be prone to disproportionate rages or trauma associated with jangling keys?

McCain’s claim to superior “foreign policy” skills is based on his Vietnam War experience. By that standard, the approximately 500,000 US soldiers who have served in Iraq would be quali-fied to become president, though roughly 80,000 of them will experience post-traumatic stress, and some of them try to commit suicide virtually every day.

In the end, the Arizona senator’s undoing may not be his age, but very life experience that makes him — even to his critics — a war hero.

Some counter by noting that McCain’s mental health is no worse than was Richard Nixon’s — but that’s hardly a ringing endorsement.

Presidential candidates vie for the faith and confidence of voters. John McCain still has to show that he’s up to the task — and he needs to do it without flying into a rage when someone asks a legitimate question about his mental health.

[Mary Ann Sorrentino was Executive Director of Planned Parenthood of Rhode Island, from 1977-1987. In 1985, the diocese of Providence tried to prevent her then 15-year-old daughter from being confirmed and publicly excommunicated her from the Roman Catholic Church and called her "public enemy number one of the unborn."]

Copyright © 2008 The Phoenix Media/Communications Group


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The Geezer Is NOT A Maverick!

The Geezer wouldn't know a Maverick if one came up and kicked him in the ass. The Geezer has been McNasty all his life. That means he was a wise-cracking smartass who thought the rules did not apply to him. It is no coincidence that The Geezer voted with The Dubster 90%+ of the time. Smartasses of a feather flock together. The Geezer can call himself a Maverick until the cows come home and he will NEVER be a Maverick. If this is (fair & balanced) male bovine excrement, so be it.

[x Daily Kos Blog]
True History: Real Mavericks Were Democrats And Progressives
by Andy Ternay

Conservatives are thieves; if you visit this site, you know that. You also know that conservatives and authoritarians know that progressive concepts hold great appeal and great power and that is why they steal and pervert the meanings of those words.

They linked compassionate, a progressive word if there ever is one, with conservatism to steal its power for their own use.

Did you know that they have also done stolen to to the word maverick? It's true — the word maverick used to be the proud property of progressives. Most modern Democrats have not a clue why calling McCain a "maverick" should offend them to the core. I'm here to tell you why, as Democrats and as progressives, you should be offended every time you hear John McCain referred to as a maverick.

Conservative authoritarians stole that word from us.

I know about this history because I married into the Maverick family — and as a true Maverick, my wife kept her maiden name.

The Texas Mavericks have a long and proud progressive and Democratic heritage. It is the heritage of fighting for equality for all Texans and all Americans. As Democrats, this is our heritage and you should know what the media and the Republicans have taken.

The first Maverick to enter Democratic history was Samuel Augustus Maverick (July 23, 1803–September 2, 1870) a Texas revolutionary, lawyer, and politician.

He fought in the Texas Revolution against Mexico helping capture of San Antonio. The citizens of San Antonio elected him to Texas' Congress (remember, Texas was it's own country then. It kinda still is now).

Shamefully, he owned slaves and supported the Confederacy. Still, the seeds of the progressive philosophy were there as shown by Sam Maverick's choice to champion the rights of Hispanics, fighting for them to be treated as equals — not a popular move in that day and age.

The term maverick originated because Sam Maverick refused to brand his cattle. So unbranded cattle became mavericks and then over time, independent, "unbranded" people - those driven by personal principles, not party platform — became known as mavericks. I can vouch that this is a Maverick family trait that has not diminished with over the generations.

The Mavericks who were and are much closer to the Democratic progressive principles we fight for today were Congressman Maury Maverick, Sr. and his son, Maury Maverick, Jr. In 1934, Hispanic voters helped put Maury Maverick, a World War I veteran, into Congress.

A huge fan of the New Deal, Maury Maverick fought like hell to help FDR bring relief to Americans hit hard by the Great Depression:

As a New Deal congressman he attracted national attention as the organizer of a group of "maverick" congressmen who tried to "out-New Deal" the New Deal. He was influential in... the defeat of bills that threatened civil liberties.

Maury Maverick consistently enraged the conservative Texas Democrats who finally defeated him in a primary. Maury Maverick then ran for mayor of San Antonio — and won. A contemporary article from 1939 describes Maverick's victory:

"Maverick, in a record-shattering vote, was swept into office, defeating the very machine that last summer prevented his reelection to Congress. His election came just one hundred years after his grandfather, the late Samuel Maverick, was named mayor of San Antonio."

Of most immediate significance to Texas is the fact that for the first time in twenty years the power of one of America's mightiest old political machines is broken... People on the streets on May 10 told each other over and over, "The machine is dead" — as though only by repeating it could they come to believe it.

Maury Maverick (called simply "Maury" by all San Antonians) not only overthrew the machine that defeated him last August, but he brought the New Deal to San Antonio. The historic old city has usually been very conservative; and when Maverick was sent to Congress it was because of his pioneer stock and his tremendous personal popularity, not because of his outspoken progressive views. Striking evidence of a quickened liberalism in the South is the fact that he now holds the most potent position in Texas local politics, less than a year after his defeat in the congressional primaries and in the face of the same virulent opposition which branded him a communist, a rabble-rouser and a CIO-lover.

Sounds just like the tactics of conservatives today, doesn't it? After allowing the Communist Party to hold a rally on behalf of Hispanic women who were paid a pittance to gather pecans, San Antonio voters turned him out of office. Maury Maverick went on to serve on FDR's Smaller War Plants Corporation board in World War II.

His son, Maury Maverick Jr. was a tireless warrior for progressive causes.

Like his father and great grandfather, he too served — in World War II. A well known activist, newspaper columnist and member of the Texas House of Representatives, Maury Maverick Jr. may well have done more to thwart the schemes of Texas conservatives than anybody else until Ann Richards. You get a feel for the man when you read the headline of his New York Time Obituary: "Maury Maverick Jr., 82, Champion of the Unpopular." From the obituary:

"Maury Maverick Jr., a cantankerous Texas liberal who regarded his passionate public pursuit of unpopular causes -- as a civil liberties lawyer, a legislator and a newspaper columnist -- to be his proud birthright, died Tuesday in his native San Antonio...."

Mr. Maverick, whom the editor Willie Morris once termed "the last angry man in America," contested Jim Crow laws, supported labor unions and derailed an effort by the Texas Legislature to extend the death penalty to Communist Party members. He defended draft resisters, represented atheists and won a Supreme Court case against the F.B.I.'s seizure of publications from a Texas bookstore on charges that they were seditious.

A more personal remembrance of Maury Maverick, Jr. details the causes that were close to his heart:

Maury was a people’s hero. He’d stand up for you if you were ordinary folk whose rights were beat to shreds. He’d take on the toughest fights. He fought for civil rights and civil liberties in the days of Jim Crow and Joe McCarthy. He fought the Red Scare as a member of the Texas Legislature. He successfully defended Texas Communist Party Secretary John Stanford’s rights against search and seizure. He showed the U.S. Supreme Court, including Justice Hugo Black, that among the items seized were the writings of Pope John XXIII and those of Justice Black. You know he enjoyed that. He talked about the wounds from those battles like they were old war wounds. But you also knew they took their toll. Maury probably represented more conscientious objectors during the Vietnam War than anyone in the country. And most of them were farm boys or boys from the inner city who’d only begun to think about war once they were already in the service. Maury worked to get them out. That was a hard row to hoe.

Maury Maverick Jr.'s last newspaper column, written in January 2003, right before his death, condemned the imminent Iraq War as unjust.

I wish Maury Maverick could have seen Barack Obama accept the nomination. He would have been so proud of his Democratic party and his country.

If I had the chance to say just one thing to John McCain, I know exactly what I would say:

"Senator, I married a Maverick. I know the Maverick family. Maury Maverick, Jr. is a hero of mine. Senator, you are no Maverick."

[Andy Ternay is a Garland (TX) Precinct Chair in Dallas County. He is a self-described Progressive activist for over twenty five years and Texas Democrat since Ann Richards was elected Governor in 1990. Ternay subscribes to Will Rogers' aphorism: "I don't belong to an organized party — I'm a Democrat."]

Copyright © 2008 Kos Media


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