By George, Sherrod Brown an authentic lefty?

 When we spotted a headline on the Beacon Journal's op-ed page that said "Sherrod Brown,  authentic progressive," it appeared to be an accurate  reference to the authentic  Ohio Democratic senator.  So imagine my shock when the columnist was George Will.  Was he really paying homage to the guy that he described as  a "leftist"?

No dear reader, he wasn't. Instead he cleverly  used Brown, as  "rumpled"  and "hoarse" as he may be,  as a wedge to get at his real target: um, gender-crazy Democratic activists who are clamoring to nominate Hillary Clinton or Elizabeth Warren in 2016.

( I will dispense with professional courtesy at  this point and refer to the sniffy conservative columnist only as George because any sentence beginning with his surname  sounds ungrammatical, as in "Will wrote..." or "Will asserted...")

From a point early in his gender diatribe, George  slams both women as phony or theatrical leftists and offers up Brown as the "authentic progressive" to fill in the blank at the top of a hypothetical Democratic ticket.

Oh, the subject has come up more than once.  Brown  deflected an  insistent question from MSNBC's Chris Matthews, saying he is "quite happy where I am but, thank you".   And to the Huffington Post he said: "I have no interest.  I mean zero interest.  I love what I do.  I think if you want to be a really good senator you shouldn't   be looking over your shoulder and running for president. Zero interest.  I appreciate the question but no thanks."

Nothing, of course, is ever final in politics, particularly in George's  tantrums against female lefties.   And Brown's intense fund-raising efforts for Democratic candidates across the land does cast him as an authentic team  that more than a few  of his colleagues will remember down the road.

But George has a widening reputation for his erring punditry.  Item:  Romney would win in a landslide!    So George's readers might conclude that Brown is in fact  an authentic  crypto-right winger.  In this instance, however, we'll stick with the headline. Thanks anyway,George.

Huckabee plays God card in school massacre

How delusional!

While the nation searched into the deep night for answers to the numbing tragedy that murderously claimed 20 children and seven adults, a prominent preacher who once aspired to the presidency insisted that he can explain it.

Speaking from his favorite pulpit at Fox News, Mike Huckabee unhesitantly played the God card.

By his reasoning, a young man went into an elementary school in Newtown, Conn, armed to the teeth because America has banned God from public schools.

The former Republican presidential candidate put it this way:  "We ask why there is violence in our schools, but we have systematically removed God from our schools.  Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage?"

As the Huffington Post noted, Huckabee has debased rational discourse in the past when such massacres occurred.  "We don't have a crime problem, a gun problem or even a violence problem,"  the preacher said. "What we have is a sin problem" by denying God in our daily lives.

HuffPo reports Kasich's Wackadoodles and more

THE DAY AFTER Governor Kasich's unscripted State of the State speech in Steubenville, he drew satirical national attention that couldn't possibly have burnished the state's political brand.

It was reported by the Huffington Post, sort of awestricken, that a governor would make so many juvenile references in what should have been a serious accounting of his plans for the Buckeye state.

It noted that he had referred to his "hot wife" and described Californians as "a bunch of wackadoodles". (That immediately drew a protest from some of our family members out there. As far as wackadoodles are concerned, I insisted it takes one to know one.)

Oh, he awarded three Governor's Courage Awards but warned the recipients that he didn't want to see the pieces on eBay.

HuffPo's accounts summed up his odd oration:

"During the address, Kasich imitated a Parkinson's patient [simulating the movements], cried, insulted the people of California, praised his "hot wife," gave 14 shout-outs to the same person and played an awards show host while tearfully channeling a famously emotional fellow Ohio Republican House Speaker John Boehner."

The multiple shout-outs were to Ohio State University President Gordon Gee, a buddy-buddy deal in which Gee practically serves as a member of Kasich's cabinet.

Kasich repeatedly praised him, HuffPo reported, for leading the way on medical research, higher education and clean coal research. "God bless you, Gordon," the governor effused.

I nearly referred to Kasich's antics as The Comedy Hour. But then I remembered that it ran this way and that for more than 90 minutes.

When your public disapproval rating is as low as his, I guess you have to find other ways to amuse your audience.

For Tom Price, haste makes waste

IN THEIR haste to prove that they ain't kidding around these days, hyperventilating House Republicans unveiled a plan to eliminate a welfare program that they say would eliminate $2.5 billion from the federal budget. But wait! The Huffington Post reports that the proposal announced by Rep. Tom Price of Georgia, who heads the Republican Study Committee, would kill a program that has already expired. ( Price was targeting a program in what he called President Obama's failed "stimulus" package. ) Well, it made another good photo-op for the congressman.

And the Republican-controlled House hasn't even been seated yet. Never mind.

Newt Gingrich, the anecdotal candidate

With more than two years ahead of us before the next national election, we are already in the advanced stage of anecdotal presidential candidates who may be remembered more for their nonsensical utterances than for a single thought on how to improve the Republic. Years from now if somebody mentions the name of an anecdotal president, somebody else is bound to say, "Wasn't he (or she) the person who insisted that you can make lemonade from apples?" (Tee-hee) Among those who quickly come to mind is Newt Gingrich. Newt, who seems to remain obsessed with his need to retire to the Oval Office, was back on Fox saying a couple of curious things that have been logged into the oddball department for future political historians.

First, he said President Obama should withdraw his nomination of Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court because she hates the military. To which I would append: "And what was your reason for avoiding military service, Newt?

Secondly, he huffed that Harvard accepted money from the Saudis while she was on the faculty there. Thanks to Sam Stein, of the Huffington Post, for reminding everyone that Gingrich offered this complaint on Fox, whose second highest shareholder in NewsCorp., the parent company, next to owner Rupert Murdoch is Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a Saudi oil tycoon.

And Newt is laying to the groundwork to run for president!

Bunning: a bit player in GOP assault on Obama

NOW THAT MANY of us (except Fox News) have had a little fun over Jim Bunning's meltdown that jammed up the government for a day or so, the more likely version of this mad tale is that he was not really acting alone. Instead, he was merely an unsightly spurt from the boil that forms the seething Republican enclave on Capitol Hill. In the nanosecond after Bunning's first claim to the national media-driven spotlight, it is fair to conclude that some of his partisan colleagues were satisfied that his Caligulan rant had served their cause well in further debasing the Obama Administration. Some even muttered as much. But when the returns came in that the Kentucky senator may have gone too far in holding up his entire party to further ridicule, the game was up. Given Bunning's loony track record on The Hill, no Republican could happily adopt him as the GOP's poster boy - even if they agreed that he got it right.

We are long past the stage of constructive dialogue in Congress, which seriously puts a halt to social progress in a system that most of us with even minimal historical awareness call a democracy and the other side sneers is socialism. The sickness runs incurably deep. Since the day that Barack Obama stepped into the Oval Office - Barack Hussein Obama! - the Old South began its dramatic return to the podium with the vibrant assistance of the GOP's high priest, Rush Limbaugh, unapologetically aided and abetted by a television network whose deception begins with the kooky assurance that it is fair and balanced.

Why has the unanimous assault from the political right been so much more bitterly sustained beyond ordinary ideological disagreement? . The most entrenched element, less and less muted as time goes on, is racism. Losing to a Democrat, as has happened from time to time in presidential politics, is one thing. Losing to an African-American Democrat is unacceptably something else. Particularly for the political party that is not represented by a single black in Congress.

As Columnist Bob Cesca writes in the Huffington Post:

"...when you strip away all of the rage, all of the nonsensical loud noises and all of the contradictions, all that's left is race. The tea party is almost entirely about race, and there's no comparative group on the left that's similarly motivated by bigotry and racial hatred."

So-called mainstream Republicans have stood before angry crowds and stared diectly into the ugly racist placards with indifference. At the same time, Cesca notes that Limbaugh "can stoke racial animosity on his show by suggesting health-care reform is a civil rights bill - reparation - and no one seems to mind. The Tea Party is an extension of talk radio...of the Fox News Channel. It's an extension of the southern faction of the Republican Party - the faction that gave us the Southern Strategy, the Willie Horton ad, the White Hands ad , the racially divisive politics of Lee Atwater and Karl Rove. It's an extension of the race-baiting and, often, of the outright racism evident in all of those conservative spheres."

In the grand scheme of things, Jim Bunning was no more than a bit player who enjoyed his 15 minutes of fame for the team. Unfortunately, there will be others.

Tom Strauss lays it on the line

TOO BAD THE stone-faced Republican opposition at yesterday's "summit" with President Obama didn't have the cautionary words of Tom Strauss to consider before they demanded that the health-reform bill be wiped clean (Read: delayed forever) before any further action.

Strauss is the chief executive officer of Summa Health System in Akron whose urgent appeal for prompt governmental action appears in Newsweek and the Huffington Post. Coming from a realist who is in the trenches daily to keep the health system afloat, it effectively undercuts the GOP's manifesto that reform should take more time - for reasons that are more or less genetic with that side of the aisle on Capitol Hill.

"As health professionals," Strauss writes, "every day we see more people who need care, but cannot afford to pay. Ohio's free clinics have seen a 30 pct. jump in patients the past year. At one local clinic, it typically takes three months to fill the slots open each quarter for new appointments. Last January, it took three days. This January, it took three hours, as people who used to work as volunteers sign up to receive care themselves."

The figures reported by Strauss for the Summa System offer a somber picture of the enormous challenges that are not uncommon for non-profit hospitals today.

"The vast majority of the uninsured we see are working families. They either have employers who cannot afford rising premium costs, are self-employed and cannot afford the cost of health care themselves, or they cannot find coverage due to pre-existing conditions. The economic cost is staggering, but the human cost is beyond any dollar figure; just ask any nurse, who has looked into the eyes of a parent, ashamed that he or she cannot provide for family members until they are so sick that the emergency room is the only answer.

"We're all trying to do our part to help. At the system level, our hospital continues to treat everyone, regardless of ability to pay. At a community level, our health professionals volunteer in free clinics - more than 150,000 hours of personal time last year. At the county level, public health officials are working with local hospitals to address the root causes of chronic illness. At the state level, legislators are working to stretch depleted tax coffers to keep up with burgeoning Medicaid demand. Unsung heroes at non-profit, faith-based, and community organizations continue to fill the gap."

Strauss notes that the Summa System provided $57.6 million in net uncompensated care in 2008, including nearly $23 million in direct charity care.

And the costs continue to rise dramatically..

"What we really need is for the federal government to do its part, too - finish the job it started a year ago, and pass some form of health care reform. Is the compromise bill proposed by the Obama Administration this week perfect? No. Will everybody be able to find fault with parts of it? Yes. But we are far beyond the point at which our elected officials can allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good."

Strauss is an enlightened executive at a time when there are too many others who prefer to serve by only standing and waiting, athough equally confronted by the critical mission of health care. Unfortunately, those Republicans who showed up at the summit yesterday regard their only critical mission as the next election.

Robertson's CBN demonizes Halloween

IT USED TO be so simple. As Halloween approached in my little town, we looked to the annual Volunteer Fireman's parade up Main Street for kids to compete for prizes for the best costumes. Our parents stood on the sidewalk gesturing to us to hang on as we trudged to the top of the hill, self consciously looking from side to side. The parade ended there in suspense among the motley participants. We waited for the judges' decisions. Since you didn't have to be a costuming genius, I chose as a nine-year-old to dress as a football player with no shoulder pads. I won anyway and was awarded a shiny new frying pan, one of the many prizes donated to the event by townspeople. My mother was proud and bragged to the neighbors. (Trick or treat night came the next night and nobody died from the experience.)

That was it. We enjoyed the evening and thanked the firemen. Not so simple today. Beyond all of the scary seasonal ghosts and goblins, kids are being warned that Halloween is a witch's brew that will destroy their lives. This sort of dark talk arises every Halloween and so it is here again today. The Huffington Post reported that Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network has posted an alarm that Halloween is not good for the soul. According to the frightful message,

"During this period demons are assigned against those who participate in the rituals and festivities. These demons are automatically drawn to the fetishes that open doors for them to come into the lives of human beings. For example, most of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches. Curses are sent through the tricks and treats of the innocent whether they get it by going door to door or by purchasing it from the local grocery store. The demons cannot tell the difference."

I think that if somebody had said that to my mother, she would would have hit 'em with her new frying pan.

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