A Constitutionalist first

I am at heart a Constitutionalist first before being a libertarian. Put it this way, even if I were a pro-choicer I'd still be against Roe vs. Wade, there ain't no talk of trimesters in the Constitution or even in the emanations of its penumbras. Even if I were a pro-choicer in favor of Adam and Steve getting married I'd still be against what the California Supreme Court did by overturning a clear majority of the voters there. Whasa matter? don't wanna do the legwork in your state legislatures ya lazy bums ya! So even if I were a pro-choicer in favor of gay marriage who feels pot should be sold over the counter at CVS I still wouldn't have a gripe with people who don't want drivers on angel dust plowing into shoppers at crowded shopping malls, would Ben Franklin say that the War on Drugs is somehow wrong-headed and irresponsible as a national policy? The document comes first, not your personal preferences, libertarianism is not the same thing as constitutionalism. As that conservative wag Florence King once quipped "as ye roe so shall ye wade."

Tim Russert 1950-2008

Nothing seems to throw a man's lifework into sharper focus as when he leaves us, we tend to forget. It'll be strange watching "Meet the Press" this Sunday morning without Tim Russert. One of the most common forms of praise we're hearing about him yesterday and today is how unbiased the man was in his journalism, the sentiment most commonly expressed by politicians and everyone else is "he asked tough questions of everyone." I totally agree but the fact that everyone seems to be bringing it up, that it comes so naturally to mind, implies that most of the rest of the msm is just the opposite, otherwise why does this point stand out so clearly? One interview in particular stands out in my mind among many others and that is when he had Al Gore on and asked him his personal views on abortion. He asked the quite simple question three times and Al Gore just kept saying "I support the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision" but that's not what Russert asked him and truth be told Russert irked alot of feminists by his line of questioning. Bravo Tim! it was from the nature of his interviewing that if you didn't know any better you'd never have guessed he was a lifelong Democrat. Bob Newhart once said of himself that, while he has some strong political views "my job is not to educate but to entertain." If you change the last words around and put in "but to practice objective journalism" you have the man Russert. R.I.P.

Confuse people, be nice

Kind of a blanket statement but many neighbors, many people in general, if they're not nasty are at least indifferent, to be indifferent is not necessarily to be mean but a large chunk of the public falls into one of the two groups (or both). So I know this guy who used to live in a large city, neighbors today kind of keep to themselves and don't even say hi, many times you don't even know their names, just a big gray cloud of blah hanging over many sections of the country right now. So anyway the guy moves out to the country and on the second day a man comes up to him and says "good morning, how are you?" and he goes "what?" We had some storms last night, high winds, rain, a Dorothy and Toto watch for the upper areas and this morning the heat finally broke, so some older lady was walking in the street and goes to me "hello, good morning! Beautiful day, isn't it?" so I pause for a sec and then go "it sure is". Not used to it, like my friend says alot of people have a touch of I don't want to help you. I was talking to him at his job once and he went to ask a co-worker a question and he kinda grunted something piglike and kept walking and my friend imitates someone blowing an imaginary dart into your neck aka the societal insult. Used to go ice-fishing alot and I'm parking after a fairly decent snowfall and some guy comes out of his house and offers me his shovel so I can park better and I much appreciated such a rare act of kindness but for a nanosecond there you think maybe he's going back inside to finish his Cap'n Crunch in a skull and you're next. Women are known to blow the darts too so when one finally says to you in the library "you smell nice like you just got out of the shower" it takes time to register, you almost want to verify and confirm that it was an official act of niceness and maybe something more. So if you really wanna confuse the hell out of people be ye kind.

One nation under Prozac

Kind of a theory in progress of mine but seems to me in my day-to-day dealings with people in general and even through just plain observation, couldn't put my finger on it right away but it seems like there's this vast fog out there. People have lost the art of communicating clearly, people drive funny, nobody's coherent, there's some kind of a funk thing going on out there. The conclusion of my theory, most everybody is on something these days and if you're one of the few who isn't and you're totally clear-headed it's like a feeling of being, well, stranded. You have some of the same problems they do but you don't take anything. You can look at the sit'ation rationally, from many different angles, you've been buffeted by Life for sure like everybody else and have the bruises to show for it but you can still drive a car without farting along and drifting totally oblivious to the fact that you've just created a minor traffic jam behind you, you can still clearly communicate your desires to the waiter at your favorite restaurant without your mental fog making his job that much harder, you pay your bills on time and don't whip out your credit card just to pay for some Double 1/4 pounder with cheese at Mickie D's. Dunno, just might want to deal with the Amish these days.

I am proclaiming this day

National Get a Grip Day. Even conservatives have enjoyed the collective orbasm. As you all know by now (except apparently Hillary) Barack Obama is now the 1st black presidential candidate to win his party's nomination. That's cool, it's duly noted, but I don't get all bent out of shape about it. Dick Morris feels we are living in what he calls a post-racial era, dunno, if we were it'd be, to borrow a line from soapie, "BFD, I like pizza and beer." McCain is positively dull by comparison, he's an asterisk, a formality before letting History happen, a future question on Jeopardy, a Sunday crossword question. Hill has no choice but to accept the VP post, that is if Michelle lets her. It ain't the same though, what exactly was Ed McMahon's position again? If you take your conservative political philosophy seriously this is definitely one of those pass the Zoloft elections, either way you look at it Santa is coming on his sleigh with some Big Government goodies, most likely McCain won't be getting the reindeer to mush but he'll be helping hand them out. What's that you say, you don't believe in Santa? stick in the mud.

A referendum on the War

If Obama vs. McCain turns out to be a popular referendum on the Iraqi War Obama wins hands down. It matters not that these people may have originally supported the invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam or if they opposed it from the getgo, it's only 2008 and McCain's gone on the record that the Iraqi campaign should go on 'til 2013 and then he'd withdraw the troops in an orderly fashion after declaring victory there. If a majority of the voting public, whatever their political persuasion, is tired of the war then it matters not what us conservative bloggers have to say, it's a done deal, McCain is toast. Now Obama has gone on the record himself saying to Jim Lehrer "we need to be as careful getting out as we were reckless going in", McCain is just same old same old and will go the way of what's-his-name hawking Viagra in a few years. I see one positive in a President Obama, RINOS out to pasture.

keeping it psycho

Channel-surfing last night and came across "Dateline NBC" and on came these women who had planned on putting out hits on their husbands only thing is they were really contracting out to an "undercover hitman", really a cop. Chris Hansen, of "To Catch of Predator" fame, narrated. Now what's scary, truly disturbing, is not that this is supercommon, it isn't, but it's common enough, these psycho chicks are out there. Every woman was casual about the whole thing, in the "transactions" they talked about it like grocery shopping or getting their hair done. We are living in the Golden Age of the Psycho folks and in the past these ladies had the edge since, as everyone knows, paranoia is

a bad thing

but Chris Hansen is onto their little game. It's all a cheapening of life, blame Roe if you want, blame relativism too, it all made for interesting, even fascinating television in a weird way. What makes this so hard is people don't walk around wearing t-shirts saying "I'm crazy". There's an old joke, an old saying, the people who act the most weird, the most eccentric, the most out-of-the-box or whatever are really not the ones to worry about, it's some of the normal folk out there but they go right under the radar screen because our weirdster alert is up. I like Chris Hansen's journalism more each day, it's groundbreaking in its own way. Kudos.

Your insensitive, politically incorrect Id at work

Had a dream the other night and it went like this. I was in the front of my house and a young black man passed by and stopped, nicely dressed in a casual way. Maybe new in town, kinda quiet and we just had a decent snowfall so to break the ice and be a friendly sort I suggest we build a snowman. Still kind of aloof so I try some humor and go "maybe we can stick a crackpipe in his mouth". Now many people still don't get this, humor in general, and the better comics will tell you it's not your intent to perpetuate stereotypes but to make fun of those very same stereotypes kinda like your Muslim friend you see on his cell phone and you say "what? do you have OBL on speed-dial?" It's whole purpose is to take the sting out of it and sometimes they laugh and sometimes they don't (more often it's the latter these days). It's humor, it need not come with a set of Monarch Notes, and you trust people to know what a NUANCE is. Anyways in my dream-sequence I'm like OH NO! the guy ain't laughing, he looks a little angry and that was kind of the end of it, off to another dream but I think the whole moral of the dream is that some jokes are best left in your head. Oh no, did I just blog about this?

Her remarks are not so much offensive...

...as confusing. Hillary met with the editorial board of the Sioux Falls (S.D.) Argus Leader the other day and said she couldn't understood the forces that be that want her to end her campaign. She emphasized that Bill didn't win the Democratic nomination in '92 until mid-June when the California primary was held and then the killer line: "and we all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California." Now in order to be offended we have to understand what was said first but on this one it wasn't so much I was offended as WTF! She later clarified that what she meant was that the Democratic Party has had primary contests that go into June. I call this having a nanosecond of insanity moment, kinda like when you're sleepwalking and think there's a squirrel in your room and you come to your senses and say WTF! It happens so quick, she had some neuron or two temporarily misfire, happens. Obama should have shut up, he'll have a nanosecond or two himself and he won't know when, it'll just come out as some involuntary sneeze/burp before he can stop it, there but for the grace of God. OF COURSE it could be a symptom of her impending meltdown.....

Denver angst

Now Hill says she's gonna take it all the way to Denver regardless saying she has more of the popular vote than Obama. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi politely explained on one of the morning shows today that it's the delegates that count and she's lacking in that department but that doesn't take into account her gargantuan ambition. Hillary will overthrow the Universe to become Commander-in-Chief if need be and may take this baby into Christmas. It's been said she's positioning herself for 2012, I don't think so, she wants 2012 to be her second term. To paraphrase that new one from Fergie the girl can't help it.

I've heard of sleepwalking but sleepdriving?

So I'm channel-surfing last night and rooting for my favorite Idol star to triumph,

David

I always thought David was by far and away the best, Dave sure can sing, what a voice that David has

so anyway in between I caught some "Frontline" about depression, some guy with it was showing all the pills he took to battle it, 5 or 6 of 'em, some to combat the side effects of the others like weight gain, real trial and error stuff and I'm like dude, just deal with it. Anyway on another station on comes this ad for the sleepaid Ambien CR, not just one layer like other sleepaids to help you fall asleep but a second layer to help you stay asleep, one possible side effect being driving while not fully awake.

Police Sergeant: "Do you know we clocked you doing 65 mph going down the wrong lane on the freeway? You coulda killed someone!!!"

Ambien Patient: "Yeah but I sure did get a good night's rest though and that's the important thing."

Geraldine Ferraro, old party hack

She's been touting the line that opposition to Hillary, especially in the msm, is sexist by nature. To be against her is to be sexist by definition. Real Gloria Steinem stuff, people stuck in cultural timewarps. Yes, dinosaurs still roam the Earth folks but here's why the T. Rexes are wrong. Think about it, think about the courts, the culture, our laws. Almost everything is seen through a women's eyes these days, her perspective from child-custody cases in divorce proceedings to Anucha Brown Sanders & oh, don't pay your child support you're a Deadbeat Dad facing some serious jail time. To take a man's view these days or even to consider it is considered retrograde. Whatever animates political opposition to Hillary it ain't this but there Ferraro was on the Today show this morning still talking like it's 1968. Now as has been already pointed out by some conservative commentators this is fascinating stuff to watch, this identity politics thing which is now so firmly entrenched in Democratic Party machinery. You have an African-American dude running, you have an older liberal chick in the race, it's like Ferraro is saying we'd sooner rid ourselves of our latent racism rather than our sexism. We're living in the Age of the Ism only now we have different schools of thought as to which Ism is more important, it's kinda like, how do I say? Al Sharpton and Gloria Allred oil-wrestling (sorry) with those superdelegates in the audience tired of the whole thing. Now what would have really made this race even more interesting than it already is would be for a Gay Guy to run.

Liberals hoist by their own petard

Now if we posit that racism is a part of human nature, I've heard a few libs in my day assert such a universal "truth", then it should cut across the board, no? Like when some social conservative brings up the racist philosophy of Planned Parenthood's founder, eugenicist Margaret Sanger, and why are so many abortion clinics located in so many poor urban areas and NO, their liberal anger at such an accusation, it's like you're a rightie version of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright but I mean if we're all racists deep down and we have to work on this...

I'm not a liberal...

...I just have liberal positions (Obama)

"I'm not an alcoholic, I'm an alcohol abuser" (Billy Joel to Katie Couric)

I'm not a criminal, I just commit crimes.

I'm not a drug dealer, I just sell drugs.

I'm not a stalker, I just follow people (the old Jack Jordan line)

Welcome to the general election buddy!

Bush made some recent noise about those liberal "appeasers" of terrorists, those who want to compromise and talk with them and Obama took great offense at having his manhood questioned and so Bush and friends said

"were we talking about you brother?"

just a flava of the upcoming election brotherman, get used to it. Now Obama has gone on record as saying he would meet with the leaders of such rogue nations as Iran, Syria and North Korea and now doesn't like to be called a pansy on foreign policy. He'd rather it all be a game of whiffle ball between himself and Mac, softball even and he'll choose the umpire.

chin music bro, don't crowd the plate like that

but if you ask me this McCain guy seems in it to win it and now you can't even use the Hagee thing against him 'cause the good Rev just apologized to the Catholic League but you seem to have gotten a bad case of the cooties from that Wright guy and they don't seem to be going away. Then there's that Weatherman and I ain't talkin' 'bout Sam Champion. Dude, things are gonna get off the hook after your Convention and you can't keep quoting from your Emily Post Rules of Etiquette that you have tucked under your arm. Toughen up! grow a pair.

Some homey sayings

They say this in the kitchen alot: "If you have time to lean you have time to clean."

Saw this one in a restroom once: "If you sprinkle while you tinkle please be neat and wipe the seat."

On an edgy t-shirt: "It's funny until somebody gets hurt, then it's hilarious." (hmmm...don't know about that one)

"I used up all my sick time, now I'm calling in dead."

"Don't hate, participate" (we've covered that), "people who live inside your head" (like that poor man's Kennedy neighbor we all have, he's strictly middle-class but has clout, knows some bigshots and can park on the street cleaning side w/o getting a ticket), "people who masturbate your mind" (like what Obama is doing right now with practically everybody except a few lonely bloggers)

"the great mental flush" like when you dream all night about practically everything, your mind's way of going through your mental dumpster, didn't think that job of so many years ago could still haunt your dreams huh?

"I'm not afraid of dead people, I'm afraid of live people" (very apropos in this day & age) and finally,

"It's a great life if you don't weaken."

You may have heard

about the troubles currently besetting Staten Island Republican Rep. Vito Fossella, preached "family values" his whole life but got arrested recently for a DWI but more importantly, at least in terms of the media, is the revelation that, although married and a family guy, he had an extramarital affair with a lady, she got in the family way herself and bore him a daughter. Now there are calls in some quarters for him to resign but what I don't get, if you take out the DWI from the equation, our friend and hero Bill Clinton got away with hummers right there in the Oval Office (or in some hallway just off the library way there) with an intern no less, he was impeached for perjury in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case relating to this matter but he became stronger over time, he even seemed more popular after the sex stuff. T-shirts appeared out of nowhere in trendy malls across the nation - "so he had an affair, get over it" - and one guy told me "so what, my 401K is doing great", so what's the BIG DEAL about this Fossella guy anyway?

I'd sooner read a tube of toothpaste

than read Barbara Walters' new book Audition which, during one interview on a radio station here, she said would make a wonderful Mother's Day gift. Every book has to have a hook to sell and hers is her Affair. I was never into Barbara Walters, she once famously asked Katherine Hepburn "if you were a tree what kind of tree would you be?" (oh I don't know, a weeping willow?) Never much was into celebrity worship anyway, hated those pre-Oscar specials where she'd chat up three big-time celebrities. I myself, if I met a celebrity today could care less to ask for their autograph, don't care if I have a mini-Mead memopad on me, that's for shopping lists and such. They all be so interesting during the Big Interview but I believe Don Rickles once said it best when he said of the famous they all go on the throne like us regular folk or words to that effect & don't bother those bigger bombshells, they of the golden, um, womb, 1/2 of 'em are already reserved for horndog crooner John Mayer anyway and kudos-cubed for ex-View co-host Star Jones' recent commentary on l'affaire Babs, it was refreshing. Now if she were to put the rest of her thoughts in print I'd be the first on line at Barnes&Noble.

Talk about baggage

Obama looks like he's getting ready to board JetBlue! There's the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, then there's his longstanding friendship with 70's Weatherman terrorist and radical Bill Ayers, we have Obama's recent elitist comments at that SanFran get-together, and then there's his book in which he rather casually talks about his little bit of casual pot and coke use in his youth when times were rough ("a little pot, a little blow but no smack").

a little Samsonite action

...toothbrush (check), clean underwear (check), socks (check)...

"Sir, can I help you with that?"

That's mighty white of you

Why is it ok for Obama to talk of his support among African-Americans but Hillary can't talk about her support among middle-class working-class whites without college degrees? So what's up with organized punditry these days? they all speak with the same voice and this echo chamber insists Hillary leave now and cede the nomination to Obama or else risk tearing the very fabric of the Democratic Party apart. Whence comes this melodramatic hyperbole? (yes, I can out-Will George Will at times) In the olde days the longer and more drawn out and fierce a primary season was it was all good, now we have our candidate and he's gone through our crucible, should be the right guy (or gal) for the job. The chattering classes have got it all wrong, the real question is not should she drop out but is he even sellable in the general election against McCain? The Cult of Obama has gotten everyone, including even many prominent conservatives, totally disoriented and off-center. Wake up and smell the coffee people and pundits, who do you really want answering that phone at 3 in the AM?