It's a gray day, so why not some bad news

Condi Rice will be our new Secretary of State.

Remember this from New York Magazine:

Political Conversation: Condi’s Slip
A pressing issue of dinner-party etiquette is vexing Washington, according to a story now making the D.C. rounds: How should you react when your guest, in this case national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice, makes a poignant faux pas? At a recent dinner party hosted by New York Times D.C. bureau chief Philip Taubman and his wife, Times reporter Felicity Barringer, and attended by Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Maureen Dowd, Steven Weisman, and Elisabeth Bumiller, Rice was reportedly overheard saying, “As I was telling my husb—” and then stopping herself abruptly, before saying, “As I was telling President Bush.” Jaws dropped, but a guest says the slip by the unmarried politician, who spends weekends with the president and his wife, seemed more psychologically telling than incriminating. Nobody thinks Bush and Rice are actually an item. A National Security Council spokesman laughed and said, “No comment.”

Duh.

Prescient

For your perusal without comment. Actually, no comment needed.

A quotation from H.L. Mencken (1880-1956). 

"As democracy is perfected, the office of president
represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On
some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach
their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by
a downright moron."

Bye Bye Heinrich, Hello Seigfried

In his handwritten resignation letter (you never can trust computers - you never know who might be monitoring them!), the nation's No. 1 Brownshirt, John Ashcroft, reassured Our Fuhrur that "the objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved.''

Mission accomplished. It was a tad surprising that Herr Ashcroft would want to leave that he's stopped those marijuana-smoking cancer patients in California and we are just a Supreme Court decision away from stopping those pinko-fag doctors in Oregon who are killing those terminal, pain-wracked patients (who admittedly have asked them to perform the task). Naked statues in this Sodom and Gomorrah we call Washington have all been draped, the Bible can be read, argued, memorized and prayed (RAMP) over even in public schools. Thank you Lord for the opportunity to have seen the best of 15th Century returned to the United States. Science, be damned!

The president is putting his own counsel, Alberto Gonzales, who you may remember wrote the famous memo defending torture in charge of our civil liberties. Senor Seigfried blithely threw off 75 years of international law and set the stage for the grotesque abuses at Abu Ghraib and dubious detentions at Guantánamo. The man does seem to have a good grasp of what's just. No doubt we'll soon learn what other protections, besides the Geneva Conventions and the Constitution, Senor Seigfried finds "quaint'' and "obsolete.''

It just keeps getting better and better.

Timeless advice

"The budget should be balanced, public debt should be reduced, the treasury should be rebuilt, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and assistance to foreign hands should be curtailed, lest Rome fall."

Roman orator Cicero

Go figure

Now that we are in our new Dark Age, it seems appropriate to chronicle the descent.

Out of today's news (thanks wire service):

° The Democrats have chosen Nevada Senator Harry Reid as Senate Majority Whip. Who? Well, he opposes abortion, lacks charisma and comes from a state that went Red. So I guess he's perfect.

° School officials in Cobb County, Georgia, have to go to court today to defend themselves from trying to insert religion into their school. Stickers were inserted in science text books warning students that "evolution is a theory, not a fact." Another village has lost its idiot.

° And as if we could not top that, a post-election poll indicates that voters think the first priority should be resolving the situation in Iraq. They also want Bush to cut the deficit rather than pushing for more tax cuts. Only two percent named cutting taxes a priority. I suppose the two percent who will get the cuts.

If you are wondering about how to become a Republican

On Becoming a Republican

1) You have to believe that the nation’s 8-year prosperity prior to W’s
administration was due to the work of Ronald Reagan and George H. Bush, but
that today’s growing deficit and rising gas prices are all Clinton’s fault.

2) You have to believe that those privileged from birth achieve success all
on their own.

3) You have to be against government programs, except Social Security
checks on time.

4) You have to believe that government should stay out of people’s lives,
yet you want government to regulate only opposite-gender marriages, your
personal sexual and reproductive decisions and what your official language
should be.

5) You have to believe that pollution is OK, so long as it makes a profit.

6) You have to believe in prayer in schools, as long as you don’t pray to
Allah or Buddha.

7) You have to believe that only your own teenagers are still virgins.

8) You have to believe that a woman cannot be trusted with decisions about
her own body, but that large multinational corporations should have no
regulation or interference whatsoever.

9) You love Jesus and Jesus loves you and, by the way, Jesus shares your
hatred of AIDS victims, homosexuals, and ex-President Clinton.

10) You have to believe that society is colorblind and growing up black in
America doesn’t diminish your opportunities, but you still won’t vote for
Alan Keyes.

11) You have to believe that it was wise to allow Ken Starr to spend $50
million dollars to attack Clinton because no other US presidents have ever
been unfaithful to their wives.

12) You have to believe that a waiting period for purchasing a handgun is
bad because quick access to a new firearm is an important concern for all
Americans.

13) You have to believe it is wise to keep condoms out of schools, because
we all know if teenagers don’t have condoms they won’t have sex.

14) You have to believe that the ACLU is bad because they defend the
Constitution, while the NRA is good because they defend the Constitution.

15) You have to believe that socialism hasn’t worked anywhere, and that
Europe doesn’t exist.

16) You have to believe the AIDS virus is not important enough to deserve
federal funding proportionate to the resulting death rate and that the
public doesn’t need to be educated about it, because if we just ignore it,
it will go away.

17) You have to believe that biology teachers are corrupting the morals of
6th graders if they teach them the basics of human sexuality, but the
Bible,
which is full of sex and violence, is good reading and right on the mark.

18) You have to believe that Chinese communist missiles have killed more
Americans than handguns, alcohol, and tobacco.

19) You have to believe that even though governments have supported the
arts for 5000 years and that most of the great works of Renaissance art were
paid for by governments, our government should shun any such support. After all,
the rich can afford to buy their own art and the poor doesn’t need any.

20) You have to believe that the lumber from the last one percent of old
growth US forests is well worth the destruction of those forests and the
extinction of the several species of plants and animals therein.

21) You have to believe that we should forgive and pray for Newt Gingrich,
Henry Hyde, and Bob Livingston for their marital infidelities, but that
bastard Clinton should have been impeached.

Some thoughts from our leader

Admit, Bush is already pissing you off. A mandate my ass!

Global warming and the environment is the most immediate casualty. Read the paper today.

But let's listen to Michael. Bless you Michael for having the guts and the energy we all need.

Officially, today, I am a liberal and damn proud of it. I intend to say it a lot over the next four years.



17 Reasons Not to Slit Your Wrists...by Michael Moore

Dear Friends,

Ok, it sucks. Really sucks. But before you go and cash it all in, let's, in the words of Monty Python, “always look on the bright side of life!” There IS some good news from Tuesday's election.

Here are 17 reasons not to slit your wrists:

1. It is against the law for George W. Bush to run for president again.

2. Bush's victory was the NARROWEST win for a sitting president since Woodrow Wilson in 1916.

3. The only age group in which the majority voted for Kerry was young adults (Kerry: 54%, Bush: 44%), proving once again that your parents are always wrong and you should never listen to them.

4. In spite of Bush's win, the majority of Americans still think the country is headed in the wrong direction ( 56% ), think the war wasn't worth fighting ( 51% ), and don’t approve of the job George W. Bush is doing ( 52% ). (Note to foreigners: Don't try to figure this one out. It's an American thing, like Pop Tarts.)

5. The Republicans will not have a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority in the Senate. If the Democrats do their job, Bush won't be able to pack the Supreme Court with right-wing ideologues. Did I say "if the Democrats do their job?" Um, maybe better to scratch this one.

6. Michigan voted for Kerry! So did the entire Northeast, the birthplace of our democracy. So did 6 of the 8 Great Lakes States. And the whole West Coast! Plus Hawaii. Ok, that's a start. We've got most of the fresh water, all of Broadway, and Mt. St. Helens. We can dehydrate them or bury them in lava. And no more show tunes!

7. Once again we are reminded that the buckeye is a nut, and not just any old nut -- a poisonous nut. A great nation was felled by a poisonous nut. May Ohio State pay dearly this Saturday when it faces Michigan.

8. 88% of Bush's support came from white voters. In 50 years, America will no longer have a white majority. Hey, 50 years isn't such a long time! If you're ten years old and reading this, your golden years will be truly golden and you will be well cared for in your old age.

9. Gays, thanks to the ballot measures passed on Tuesday, cannot get married in 11 new states. Thank God. Just think of all those wedding gifts we won't have to buy now.

10. Five more African Americans were elected as members of Congress, including the return of Cynthia McKinney of Georgia. It's always good to have more blacks in there fighting for us and doing the job our candidates can't.

11. The CEO of Coors was defeated for Senate in Colorado. Drink up!

12. Admit it: We like the Bush twins and we don't want them to go away.

13. At the state legislative level, Democrats picked up a net of at least 3 chambers in Tuesday's elections. Of the 98 partisan-controlled state legislative chambers (house/assembly and senate), Democrats went into the 2004 elections in control of 44 chambers, Republicans controlled 53 chambers, and 1 chamber was tied. After Tuesday, Democrats now control 47 chambers, Republicans control 49 chambers, 1 chamber is tied and 1 chamber (Montana House) is still undecided.

14. Bush is now a lame duck president. He will have no greater moment than the one he's having this week. It's all downhill for him from here on out -- and, more significantly, he's just not going to want to do all the hard work that will be expected of him. It'll be like everyone's last month in 12th grade -- you've already made it, so it's party time! Perhaps he'll treat the next four years like a permanent Friday, spending even more time at the ranch or in Kennebunkport. And why shouldn't he? He's already proved his point, avenged his father and kicked our ass.

15. Should Bush decide to show up to work and take this country down a very dark road, it is also just as likely that either of the following two scenarios will happen: a) Now that he doesn't ever need to pander to the Christian conservatives again to get elected, someone may whisper in his ear that he should spend these last four years building "a legacy" so that history will render a kinder verdict on him and thus he will not push for too aggressive a right-wing agenda; or b) He will become so cocky and arrogant -- and thus, reckless -- that he will commit a blunder of such major proportions that even his own party will have to remove him from office.

16. There are nearly 300 million Americans -- 200 million of them of voting age. We only lost by three and a half million! That's not a landslide -- it means we're almost there. Imagine losing by 20 million. If you had 58 yards to go before you reached the goal line and then you barreled down 55 of those yards, would you stop on the three yard line, pick up the ball and go home crying -- especially when you get to start the next down on the three yard line? Of course not! Buck up! Have hope! More sports analogies are coming!!!

17. Finally and most importantly, over 55 million Americans voted for the candidate dubbed "The #1 Liberal in the Senate." That's more than the total number of voters who voted for either Reagan, Bush I, Clinton or Gore. Again, more people voted for Kerry than Reagan. If the media are looking for a trend it should be this -- that so many Americans were, for the first time since Kennedy, willing to vote for an out-and-out liberal. The country has always been filled with evangelicals -- that is not news. What IS news is that so many people have shifted toward a Massachusetts liberal. In fact, that's BIG news. Which means, don't expect the mainstream media, the ones who brought you the Iraq War, to ever report the real truth about November 2, 2004. In fact, it's better that they don't. We'll need the element of surprise in 2008.

Feeling better? I hope so. As my friend Mort wrote me yesterday, "My Romanian grandfather used to say to me, 'Remember, Morton, this is such a wonderful country  -- it doesn't even need a president!'"

But it needs us. Rest up, I'll write you again tomorrow.

Yours,

Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
www.michaelmoore.com

Get over it

Alright, we got our butts beat, but it wasn't for lack of trying. We turned out the vote. The Republicans turned out even more. The reason we lost: God, gays and guns. Wedge issues that the GOP (read that Karl Rove) managed to manipulate and sell to rural America.

This essentially was an election between urbanites and country people, and the country people returned Bush to the White House armed with a rightwing agenda. Pro-choice? Definitely in jeopardy. Stem-cell research? You have got to be kidding. The environment? Watch as the polar ice caps melt. Separation of church and state? Don't be silly. The end (or near end) to Social Security? Sadly, yes. Gun control? Maybe on cannons.

But it's done. Let's get over it and get back into the fight. I for one will be proud to say that I am liberal. I will never let popular feeling erode that. And if you really want to know how to attack - and win - then listen to SENATOR Barak Obama.

From the future of our party, Barack Obama:

I stand here today, grateful for the diversity of my heritage, aware that my parents' dreams live on in my precious daughters. I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that, in no other country on earth, is my story even possible. Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation, not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy. Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

That is the true genius of America, a faith in the simple dreams of its people, the insistence on small miracles. That we can tuck in our children at night and know they are fed and clothed and safe from harm. That we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door. That we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe or hiring somebody's son. That we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution, and that our votes will be counted--or at least, most of the time.

This year, in this election, we are called to reaffirm our values and commitments, to hold them against a hard reality and see how we are measuring up, to the legacy of our forbearers, and the promise of future generations. And fellow Americans--Democrats, Republicans, Independents--I say to you tonight: we have more work to do. More to do for the workers I met in Galesburg, Illinois, who are losing their union jobs at the Maytag plant that's moving to Mexico, and now are having to compete with their own children for jobs that pay seven bucks an hour. More to do for the father I met who was losing his job and choking back tears, wondering how he would pay $4,500 a month for the drugs his son needs without the health benefits he counted on. More to do for the young woman in East St. Louis, and thousands more like her, who has the grades, has the drive, has the will, but doesn't have the money to go to college.

Don't get me wrong. The people I meet in small towns and big cities, in diners and office parks, they don't expect government to solve all their problems. They know they have to work hard to get ahead and they want to. Go into the collar counties around Chicago, and people will tell you they don't want their tax money wasted by a welfare agency or the Pentagon. Go into any inner city neighborhood, and folks will tell you that government alone can't teach kids to learn. They know that parents have to parent, that children can't achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white. No, people don't expect government to solve all their problems. But they sense, deep in their bones, that with just a change in priorities, we can make sure that every child in America has a decent shot at life, and that the doors of opportunity remain open to all. They know we can do better. And they want that choice [...]

A belief that we are connected as one people. If there's a child on the south side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child. If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for her prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandmother. If there's an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It's that fundamental belief--I am my brother's keeper, I am my sisters' keeper--that makes this country work. It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. "E pluribus unum." Out of many, one.

Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America--there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America [...]

In the end, that is God's greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation; the belief in things not seen; the belief that there are better days ahead. I believe we can give our middle class relief and provide working families with a road to opportunity. I believe we can provide jobs to the jobless, homes to the homeless, and reclaim young people in cities across America from violence and despair. I believe that as we stand on the crossroads of history, we can make the right choices, and meet the challenges that face us. America!