Palin: Low minimum wage a roadmap to brighter future

Reposted from Plunderbund

May we pause for a moment to give thanks to the presence  in our midst of comic opera diva Sarah Palin, who brightens each day with cheerful lyrics that sustain us in the rush of awful news from around the world.

 Her latest aria, voiced from a truck stop north of Fairbanks, and played quite broadly, told us there is a brighter  future for people who work for minimum wages - or less. Reaching a high C, she reminded all of us  that such jobs are not lifetime endeavors  but rather "stepping stones" to something quite  more rewarding. Another controversy happily settled!

Speaking of Palin, whom John McCain assumed would be his light to the end of the tunnel, CNN's Candy Crowley gave us some flickering gaslight as to why he appears on so many of her programs.  Listen to this Crowley gem, class:

"Senator McCain, lots of people, when we have you on, often say, why do you have him on so often.  And we say  because he answers our questions,  because he expresses his views quite clearly."

Oh? Still unanswered by him is how he dared risk the nation with a daffy woman a heartbeat away from the presidency."  Fortunately, the voters didn't wait for the answer.  




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Lose or lose, the crocs go after (president) Hillary

Having been thwarted in their four-year mission to make Barack Obama a one-term president, Republicans have now embarked on a new mission: Make Hillary Rodham Clinton a no-term president.  If you checked in on Clinton's appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday, you may have gotten a whiff of Campaign 2016 even though not a soul has yet announced his or her candidacy to succeed Obama.

Given the chance of the Capitol Hill TV version of Project  Runway to get to the root of the Benghazi attack that killed four Americans, the GOP side pounced on her testimony with a story line that Hillary is an incompetent "Madam Secretary" and a phony at that.

Some in the anti-Hillary camp had  accused her  earlier of faking a concussion to avoid appearing before the virile committee that a mere woman could  not match.    And when she teared  up at the beginning of her testimony, that proved  she was following a script to win public sympathy.  At least, that's what Rush Limbaugh raged to his  own audience that nods like wilting sunflowers at his every word.  She did, however, have her strong moments  against the critics on the panel who, um,  were doing the will of the people.

A few of the Republican darts stood out:

Sen. Rand Paul, the airball from Kentucky,  told Clinton that if he had been president,  he would have  fired her.  (The good news: No danger of this guy ever being president.)

Rep. Jeff Duncan of South Carolina, in a blustery melt,  repeatedly declared that the American people are frustrated by the lack of  information about Benghazi. (Translation of this mouthful: Some of the  American people from his southern district.  Wasn't he the guy who once described undocumented immigrants as "vagrants and animals?" )

Tea Party Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin accused her of making excuses for not  taking a  hands-on role in the Sept. 11 attack.    She replied it wasn't an excuse but a fact that she didn't want  to interfere with the ongoing FBI's  investigative role.  When Johnson persisted , she angrily replied, her voice rising:

"Was it because of a protest, or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they'd go kill some Americans? What difference , at this point, does it make?"

With a 67 pct. approval rating, this special woman proved it would take more than the crocodiles from the other side to tarnish her profile with the American voters.  Of course, we're still four years away from the next election. So what's the point of the new GOP search and destroy initiative?  That's the McParty's problem. It doesn't have any points these days.

Today's GOP: a group of leaderless old white guys

The Obama Inaugural festivities are now over and the reviews are in.  While many national pundits  parse every sentence in the president's rousing speech, one thing is certain:  For the grim Republicans and their fellow-snivelers, there is no joy in Mudville.  The Grand Old Party  is neither grand nor a party.  It is rather a chaotic collection of old white guys in vain search of a leader.    Twice defeated by an African-American Democrat  - the latest by  5 million votes! - who has deftly connected with a new generation of voters,  woebegone Republicans have only a beleaguered John Boehner to try to put his House in order in a cave teeming with Tea Partyers.  

Still, there is no evidence that Obama's opponents have learned anything  as they whimper that the "foxy"  Obama  must come out of the chicken coop to meet them halfway in solving the nation's problems.  Of all things, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is demanding compromise - a word that collides with his notorious  earlier mission for his routed party after Obama's first victory:

"The single most important  thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president"

The quote even made page 190 of the Mann-Ornstein best- seller, It's Even Worse than It Looks.  And that was published before  the 2012 election. Can anyone now guess what Mitch's second most important thing is?

Their  post-inaugural chorus was filled out by many of the usual tattered suspects complaining about the usual irritants that guaranteed them a shot at the usual TV cameras.  Sens. McCain and Graham, a couple of tiresome cronies  from past debacles, expressed their displeasure, to name a few.  And Wayne LaPierre, the NRA megaphone, pathetic as he is, isn't going to let anybody forget that tyrannical government is at the doorstep and you can only be saved by even arming department store mannequins.   Fox News, Rush Limbaugh  and the Tea Partyers were heaped among the vanquished.

These folks will never change.   Their work is too profitable. And as  Tennessee Ernie Ford used to sing: They owe their soul to the company store.

They could only deal in playground dares as Obama reeled off his agenda that was immediately described as liberal but dealt with ideas and programs that a majority of Americans support. It's now OK to mention liberalism in polite circles. And about time! 

There was another aspect of the Inaugural that was lost in the excitement:  Mitt Romney's absence from the historic  event.  Few people asked, and most couldn't care less.  Where  was he? We learned that he was at home in California.

Watching the parade as a broadly-grinning Obama waved and Joe Biden sprinted here and there,  I tried to imagine what the scene would have been if Romney and Paul Ryan had won.  It would have been a dreadful setback for a nation whose people would have been  so well ahead of its new team: a presidential  candidate of whom his son asserted never wanted  the job anyway, and a vice president who is a disciple of Ayn Rand. Neither Mitt nor his Tonto had much to say about the dramatic change underway in America because they didn't recognize it.

 To the vanquished go the snivels. And why not?  It's the only thing that seems to make the losers happy these days.

Hagel's enemies: The renenactment of Little Bighorn?

You might wonder how desperately low the psychopathic core of the Republican Party would go until you are reminded that it is flailing in a bottomless pit.

That became obvious once again following President Obama's nomination of Chuck Hagel to be our next secretary of defense.  On cue, as if on orders from  Gen. Custer,   they angrily surged  before the ever-present TV cameras to denounce the former Republican senator from Nebraska with a series of threats that may yet produce a new swiftboat assault on a decorated war hero.

House majority leader Eric Cantor said he was "profoundly" concerned about the president's choice, declaring Hagel to be an enemy of Israel. (When was the last time that Cantor was profound about anything?)  Sen. Lindsay Graham agreed and called it an "in your face" action by Obama.  Sens. John McCain and Jon Cornyn couldn't find enough words to slam their former colleague.  The sky was falling.

Shame on them, even if they are psychopaths.   All of this nastiness flared just as the final figures of  the popular tally in November gave Obama a five-million vote margin. Oh, and the conservative Log Cabin Republicans came out swinging because Hagel was suspected of being against gays.  You get another whiff of how quickly the "Just say NO"gang mobilizes.

The emptiness of these losers recalls the scene from Cinema Paradiso in which the old film projectionist tells a long rambling  story to his  young companion.  "What does it all mean?" the puzzled boy asks.

"What does it all mean?" the old man gruffily replies.  "It doesn't mean nothing."

To Sen. McCain: Trust me, Hillary was actually in Cairo!

Mindless.

No, not the two figures in the photo, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Egyptian Prime Minister Mohamed Kamel.

The mindless one contnues to be John McCain, current embittered ranter-in-chief against President Obama.

While  Clinton was tirelessly on board in Cairo working out a cease fire, McCain was of no mind to cease his own fire.  He sneered that although the U.S. once had Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger or James Baker at the scene of a crises,  Obama was merely in "Burma making phone calls",  clear  evidence, McCain huffed,  of a weak foreign policy by the re-elected president even though the leaders of the combatants  were praising Obama's  efforts for a cease-fire.

It should be clear evidence by now that Kissinger and Baker were not the president of their times  but held the same title as Hillary, who as we see in the photo was actually on the scene.    McCain is so off the page  that it's possible he may have forgotten Clinton's name.

A little history for this totally clueless loser to Obama in 2008:

After the elder Bush lost to Bill Clinton in 1992,  they later teamed up to raise millions of dollars to aid impoverished Haitians.

Following his loss to George W. Bush in 2000, despite the fact that he received a half-million more popular votes, Al Gore devoted his life to environmental projects.

John Kerry, loser to Dubya in 2004, stayed in the Senate to work for his constituents in Massachusetts without raising hell about Dubya  every other hour.

Ah, but John McCain, hopelessly  in a snivel?  Since his loss in 2008, he has pathetically devoted much  of his time to trashing Obama.  He's nowhere close to being the loyal opposition but rather a public figure who is so warped by hatred and despair  that he  needs a lot of help to get him through the day.

Among other things, McCain has pushed another's defined mid-life crises into his mid-70s.

The sad public meltdown of John McCain

From CNN comes this sign-of-the-times testy response by John McCain to a CNN reporter who asked him why he missed a briefing on Benghazi:

"I have no comment about my schedule and I'm not going to comment on how I spend my time to the media," McCain said.
Asked why he wouldn't  comment, McCain grew agitated:  "Because I have the right as a senator to have no comment and who the hell are you to tell me I can or not?"

Sadly for the old soldier who insists on making a fool of himself with his bitter post-election rants  against the President, his meltdown continues in full view of the public.  Maybe it would help if his friends removed the mood ring from around his brain.  After all, no one has appeared more on TV as a guest than...McCain.

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Why do we need   to know that Paula Broadwell, Gen. Petraeus' paramour, has only 13 pct. body fat?

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Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a Republican known for his colorful exercise of the English  language, insists the GOP ought to search seriously for answers to its defeat by beginning with a proctologist.  The party can use a few laughs these days in its darkest hour.

Graham and McCain: The red, white and blue guys

And so we have another red, white and blue moment in the postbellum world of
Republican politicians - a couple of old white  guys from red states taking out their GOP election blues on UN Ambassador Susan Rice and President Obama.  The woman at the left is Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire (these days Republicans are finding it prudent to have a woman in their photo-ops. It's a start, America. )

So McCain and Graham heigh-hoed  to the TV cameras to angrily revive the McConnell Mambo  in which Sen. Mitch McConnell pledged within nanoseconds of Obama's first election that he would do  everything possible to make damn sure that Obama would be a one-term president.  It was one of the few times that a Republican could be accused of thinking ahead.

Oh, the mambo?  You might recall that in West Side Story there was the wild scene in which the mambo was vigorously expressed with shouts and harsh fingerpointing.

Now we witness McCain, still  in a sulk over his own defeat by Obama in 2008, slamming Susan
 Rice as the potential presidential  nominee for secretary of state.  "She's not qualified!'' growled McCain, growing more erratic by the day.  "I don't trust her!" screeched Graham, McCain's buddy in all of those tours in Iraq when when they were still committed to proving the existence of weapons of mass destruction.  Their tour-group included a hawkish third senator, Zelig Joe Lieberman  who is finally leaving town in January.  One out of three is still better than none out of three.

Susan Rice is being accused of messing up the facts in the ongoing probe of the Benghazi bombing, scripted for her by the CIA since she had no connection to any of it.  The Washington Post's fact-checker gave the McCain-Graham hostility  to Rice two Pinocchios for "mischaracterization" in the case.  The two guys still haven't full explained how they so were charmed by  Condoleezza Rice,  who didn't deliver the goods in the lead-up to 9/ll.  They never will.

But Obama brought his gauntlet this time:  "If Senator McCain and Senator  Graham want to go after somebody, they should go after me," Obama asserted at his own news conference.  It was obvious from his tone that the nice guy was no longer at the podium.

Christie: High praise for Obama's efforts in critical times

While New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was praising President Obama's intense engagement  in  the post-Sandy devastation of Christie's state,  Mitt was doing photo-ops in Ohio on a day when he said he wouldn't be campaigning at all.  Christie emphatically described Obama's  quick action  to expedite FEMA's assistance as ''outstanding" and said he didn't care  if such  praise violated party loyalties in the presidential race.

Meantime, Romney was more circumspect about  FEMA, the agency that he has long dismissed as a drag on the federal budget,  having once said that critical disaster work could best be handled by the private sector!   He didn't say  how that would be fail-safe but it is a clue to his secret plan to end the deficit.   Does that make you feel more secure these days if your town is hit by another disaster with him in the Oval Office?

On Tuesday,  trapped by his past feeble notions, he ignored  all questions from reporters on  whether he  now felt that FEMA was necessary for the nation's domestic emergencies.  It was just Mitt being Mitt when he faces an unpleasant situation that can't be solved by metrics and IPOs.

Having watched this guy since the start of the primaries, I've concluded that his campaign is much like the Seinfeld series:  It's a campaign about nothing.

That being the case, the narrative must find a way to gain traction with lies.  Not that he nor his supporting cast worry much  that it all reflects on Romney's incurable waffling and dishonesty.   Indeed, any challenge to his plot devices is merely cause to repeat them.  When top Chrysler executives criticized his fictional  Jeeps-to-China  TV ads,  the trash talk continued to turn up on TV and radio, especially in the Toledo area where the auto industry has heavy impact  on the economy.

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Poor John McCain.  He grows more erratic by the hour.  There he was in Ohio with Josh Mandel at his side - ya know, the old soldier and his young aide-de-camp -  asserting on TV that Obama was  "unqualified" to be America's commander-in-chief.  The only thing I  can figure is that McCain  is bored and needs to hug up to Romney for a possible appointment to Team Romney if Mitt lands  in the White House. I think he might be holding a pair of sixes against a full house.

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The Columbus Dispatch today endorsed Sherrod Brown over Josh - the second conservative Republican paper forced to concede  the wide gulf that separates the two candidates.The other paper: The Cincinnati Enquirer.

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My column on the Romney campaign's lies about Obama and the auto industry is posted on Plunderbund.

Mitt's game change doesn't change very much

Well, at least Mitt didn't land on the battleship Wisconsin in flight gear to announce his Mission Accomplished. His political histrionics also began with another  "game change"  with him announcing, and later correcting, Paul Ryan as the "next president of the United States."

With Mitt Romney, you never know.

As I watched Act One of the media cliff-hanger finally played out, I must admit that it all gave me a sense of Yogi Berra's "deje vu all over again".  As some of the pundits  quickly defined  Romney's  choice as the means to ignite his skeptical conservative base - why must conservatives always have to be ignited? -  I recalled the moment from the 2008 GOP presidential convention in which Sarah Palin bounded  onto the stage  to be introduced as John McCain's exciting runningmate.  There was a lot of talk at that time that this firebrand from Alaska or somewhere could be counted on to invigorate McCain's languishing campaign.  Some of the white guys in the the convention crowd showed up wearing buttons teling us that Sarah was "hot".

That, too, was to be the "game changer'", which ultimately led to a not-so-flattering  book and movie.  The irony of it was that it in fact changed Palin's  game of rising  celebrity to that of a slighted  - if wealthier -  bystander in today's political crowd.

Ryan, the right-wing "blue collar" Wisconsin congressman, has a long paper trail that will be fully vetted in neighborhoods  across America by November..  For now, we're content to  conclude that  McMitt Romney has been handed a partner by the hard right, succumbing to, say, William Kristol, the Koch Brothers, Karl Rove,  Wall Street Journal and Tea Party gurus.

You have to wonder.  Haven't the currents polls been telling us that independent voters are giving President Obama a wider edge over Romney?  They have.  But when you've become a captive of a well-nourished radically ideological base, this isn't really isn't something that worries him.

One of these days I may be forced to take Paul Ryan's advice and read Ayn Rand.

Joe Ricketts: A billionaire out of his league

WHEN WE LAST looked in on Joe Ricketts, the billionaire founder of TD Ameritrade, he was hosting a plan that would have smeared President Obama  with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright gambit that failed four years ago.  But when the GOP Golden Oldie  was exposed, you'd think he would have turned his attention to his family- owned Chicago Cubs.  It can be easily authenticated that the team that once boasted of Ernie Banks, Ron Santo  and Stan Hack ended  its 12-game losing streak on Memorial Day.  For the Cubs, it wasn't another day at the office.

But for all of their riches, billionaires do get bored.  There is nothing left to satisfy their whimsical illusions.   Who can imagine a guy like Ricketts  fretting about the Cubs like a kid from a North Side Chicago sandlot?  You can't.  So Rickets has now found a new path for his intended destruction of President Obama.  It's a book  called "The Roots of Obama's Rage," written by a far-right polemicist Dinesh  d'Souza in 2010 and headed for a documentary! D'Souza insists that Obama is ready to punish America's colonialism  by supporting anticolonialists around the world.  One line in the book will suffice:  "For Obama, the radical Muslims are on the right side of history - that's why he is so unnaturally solicitous toward them."

Ricketts describes D'Souza as a "respected scholar".

Joe, shouldn't you be spending more time looking around for  some pitchers for the Cubs?

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Speaking of boredom, should John McCain's friends find something more productive for him to do on Sunday mornings?  As we've all known for years, he has been the leading go-to guy for the Sunday morning talk shows .  I don't know why that is.  Certainly not because he makes any  sense. Maybe because he figures no one will again ask him why  he agreed to Sarah Palin as his exciting chaperone on the ticket.   Maybe it's because he's not considered to be as crazy as most of the Beltway Republicans. It's certainly not any profound insights that he brings to the table. Old soldiers like McCain don't even fade away.

I should tell you that I stopped watching  these shows a long time ago.  They are so politically correct with pundits on both sides with George Will forever reading the liberals last will and testament.  Except for Fox News, an outfit  from whom I would never buy a used car.

From what I read, McCain showed up at Fox to denounce Obama  for not solving all of the problems in the Middle East. He thought Obama should have been doing more "stuff" to resolve the issues and that we should stay in Afghanistan for an eternity.  I tire.  Do you think he's still sulking  because as a military hero he lost to some upstart community organizer whose skin color was never acceptable in the Oval Office until 2008?

Mr. Romney, she said impeach the president!

ONCE AGAIN, Mitt Romney let a McCain Moment pass without a response at a campaign stop in Euclid Monday.  You may recall that candidate  John McCain rebuffed a woman in the audience who asserted that Obama was an Arab terrorist.  But Romney ignored a charge  from a woman in his audience who declared Obama should be impeached.  (Pressed by reporters afterward, Romney said of course he didn't think the president should be impeached. But only afterward. Some things, he once said, should only be discussed in a quiet room.

There also was this line from Ohio Auditor Dave Yost, a Romney Ohio team leader, who warmed up the audience by  describing Obama as a Ronald McDonald  for claiming credit in ridding the world of Osama bin Laden.   (Like, Don't  credit Ronald McDonald for the Big Mac you ate for lunch.   Is Yost trying out for a spot on Saturday Night Live?   Or is he simply enjoying a standup gig as another Buckeye  hack politician?

For the life of me, it doesn't seem to make much sense to go after Obama on this matter since it only serves to remind the public that this president was successful  on his watch - Mission Accomplished  - as contrasted to George Bush, who claimed he had no interest at all in the whereabouts of  Osama bin Laden.

McCain vs. Mandel: A test of character

In my weaker moments, there are times when I find myself sympathetic with Sen. John McCain, the man, not John McCain the politician. In my weaker moments!

There he was, the Old Soldier, fulfillng his political obligation by soldiering in Ohio for another veteran, Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel - at least that was Mandel's title the last time I looked - for the U. S. Senate. The Plain Dealer reported that McCain showed up at a VFW post in Hilliard, Oh., to laud the Republican whiz kid with words like,

"I believe that the future of America rests with our being able to elect young men and women with the knowledge and background and experience and dedication of Josh Mandel. "

That's a bit obligingly much, even for politics., don't you think? And I'm sure that McCain may have crossed his fingers when he uttered such nonsense about a young man who has been adrift in a fantasy world of well-financed and well-reported lies even before he entered the race against Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown.

You feel McCain's pain when you recall that as a candidate against Barack Obama in 2008, he corrected a woman at a rally who accused Obama of being an "Arab terrorist" - a synonym in her mind for Muslim. He gently leaned forward to her, shook his head, and quietly said, "No, he's a good man...A decent family man citizen." (I think he meant well in this context even though an Arab or a Muslim can very well be a good man.) One of his few memorable highlights in a campaign largely focussed on the decline and fall of his running mate, Sarah Palin.

Fast forward to 2010, as Mandel campaigned for Ohio Treasurer with the guarantee that he would serve the entire four-year term. His TV ads against Kevin Boyce, a black Democrat, strongly suggested that Boyce was a Muslim. It created such an uproar that he finally pulled the ads, but the public jury had already digested it.

Seems to me that there is quite a character gap between McCain and Mandel in how you go about trying to win elections, even if the Old Soldier went off the page complimenting Mandel's "knowledge"(!), "background"(!), "experience" (!) and "dedication"(!).

For McCain's sake, let's hope that the word gets back to him before he is further embarrassed by politically responding to his call to duty.

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There's so much speculation today about whom Mitt Romney will choose as his veep, I might as well enter a name of someone who will be out of work next year: Joe Lieberman. Like Romney, he has been all over the partisan universe. But no matter Romney's final choice, he or she should be aware that McMitt could choose a different person the following day.

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Did you see that the Tennessee senate passed a bill with only one dissenting vote, 28-1, banning students from holding hands because it is a "gateway sexual activity". And teachers who demonstrate such naughtiness instead of "tsking the dangers it poses" could be sued. Time to recall the ghost of Clarence Darrow down there.

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Did you also see that Barberton has dismissed 28 more teachers because of cutbacks from the states and Feds. What is it about educating our kids that we prefer to do without?

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With John Boehner now in tow, I keep waiting fro Gov Kasich to endorse Mitt Romney and invite him to a social occasion to watch a campaign film on Senate Bill 5.

McCain is for and against the Tea Party

BOY, DID JOHN MCCAIN fool us. I, for one, had been preparing to say something nice about his gritty attack on the Tea Party and its ilk in Congress. Next thing I know is, there is our hero on hands and knees on the Sean Hannity show praising the Tea Party. As Tea Party apologist Hannity bore in relentlessly on the teetering senator, McCain responded ever so defensively, purring:

"I admire, respect and appreciate the Tea Party, and they're the ones that gave us a majority in the House of Representatives so that we can get something done."

With that, the white flag went up in the face of a stern inquisition by Hannity and the Tea Partyers who had expressed anger at the senator from Arizona.

You never know about McCain anymore. He took some shots from Hannity with a Mona Lisa smile on his face, hoping to salvage the moment. Meantime, I would ask the senator to head up to MSNBC to explain what "something'' will be done by the TPers on Capitol Hill. Aside from creating havoc, of course.

John Mc Cain: Our man in the streets of Benghazi

AM I MISTAKEN, or was that a stern-faced Sen. John McCain doing his patented presidential strut with rebel leaders in Benghazi? It made all of the TV stations and newspapers. What an opportunity for McCain to (1) show everybody back home that he is a watchful foreign policy expert in troubled lands and (2)blast President Obama for not waging an all-out war on Khadafi. Since his parading around in Libya's rebel-held city could not get him on any ballot as Libya's next president, the message was largely for domestic consumption in the USA and should enable him to extend his vast lead over all others as a Sunday morning talk show guest.

Surely he cannot be thinking that maybe, just maybe, with all of the pallor afflicting the current Republican crop of presidential candidates that he might, just might...no, I cannot bring myself to say it!

Republican attack of "vibrations of weirdness"

ARCH CONSERVATIVE George Will's discovery of "vibrations of weirdness" within the Republican Party is hardly news to liberals who have been scorned for saying the same thing for a long time. He was reacting to presidential wannabe Mike Huckabee's insistence that Barack Obama has evolved from the Zombies that we've been hearing so much about these days. By the way that he continues to make a fool of himself in the media, it's evident that he is increasingly immodest about his credibility....Meantime, Sen. John McCain was back on the Sunday morning talk shows, which is the equivalent of staring into the same cage at the zoo for hours while ignoring all of the other attractions. The networks simply won't allow him to back-pedal into oblivion.

And how about this one: the Republican House Speaker in New Hampshire is upset because hordes of young people register and vote on the same day. He wants the practice to end and there's a Republican bill in the legislature that would do just that. Says Speaker Bill O'Brien of the tads: "They don't have life experience and they just vote their feelings and they're taking away the town's ability to govern themselves." Gee. I thought that's what adult voters do.

Iraq, auto industry: No praise of GOP folly

I HAD ONCE THOUGHT that the worst flogging of reality occurred in the days following the invasion of Iraq. It was the hollow reassurance by the hawkish Bush Administration officials that likened the war to a brief walk in the park. A few reminders as the pro-war hucksters paraded through the TV talk shows to validate the grand design to bring instant peace to the world:

"I think it will go relatively quickly. Weeks rather than months." - Dick Cheney, March 16, 2003.

"I can't tell you if the use of force in Iraq today would last five days, or five weeks, or five months, but it certainly isn't going to last any longer than that." - Donald Rumsfeld , Feb. 7, 2003.

Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, two key Bush hawks that helped design the war plans, inisted that American troops would be treated as liberators by the Iraqis. Perle even went so far as to say that within six months of the invasion, a plaza in down Baghdad would be named in honor of Bush.

How could so many apologists for a single destructive plan be such villains?

Well, some of the untidy elements of that failed group have been showing up in the rebirth of the American auto industry. Thanks to Dick Polman, a Philadelphia Inquirer columnist, whose work appeared today in the Beacon Journal, we can review the psychotic response by the right-wing Ninjas on Capitol Hill who lashed the Bush-Obama bailout of once-bankrupt GM and Chrysler as a dangerous leftwing government invasion of private industry.

A few of his examples will serve the point on how these Republicans ganged up on President Obama as a reincarnation of Lenin. Or was it Hugo Chavez, who's still around?:

Sen. John McCain, who remains the GOP's media star-in-waiting, declared: "Anybody who believes that Chrysler is going to survive, I'd like to meet them." (Have you thought about taking a walk along Chrysler's assembly lines these days, John?)

Or Rep, Eric Cantor, John Boehner's Little Sir Echo, except that he smiles more than Number One, who warned that Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Harry Reid were trying to build a car that he wouldn't want to drive. Why? The Obama crowd will "run it into the ground." (The limo's waiting, Eric.)

Can't overlook Boehner, the Man of the House: The rescue effort "guarantees failure at taxpayer expense."

Sen. Richard Shelby, Alabama: "'I wouldn't loan them any money. General Motors...is headed down this road to oblivion. Should we intervene to slow it down, knowing it's going to happen. I say no."

Fortunately for the country, guys, it wasn't your call and we can understand why you'd prefer to say nothing and move on to other things. As Polman notes, both companies are now out of bankruptcy and showing profits. He notes that President Obama's intervention saved many livelihoods. Since 2009, the auto industry has added 52,900 jobs.

So where are these critics to concede their job-killing errors? Oh. there's still ObamaCare. And abortion. And, well,...you know the drill. There's always something, right?

Will Lieberman have a forwarding address?

MY FIRST SERIOUS encounter with Joe Lieberman was no different than anyone else's who sat in front of a TV set in 2000 for what was erroneously billed as a vice presidential candidate debate. The purported contenders pitted Sen. Lieberman, the Democrat, and Dick Cheney, the Republican. Instead, we witnessed an embarrassingly vapid conversation during which Lieberman played pattycake with his sly political counterpart.

Connecticut Joe, who offered no more than a rubbery smile and the bedside manner of Dr. Welby, was Al Gore's greatest blunder (equaling that of John McCain's in 2008!). It was not until much later that we learned the 2000 campaign was no more than a dress rehearsal for Lieberman's plan to seek the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004. The Democratic voters had other ideas and the senator caused no more than a ripple in the primaries.

That rejection is said to have left him so bitter that he became McCain's shoulder-to-shoulder pal against Barack Obama in 2008 - even showing up to endorse him at the Republican convention. You had to wonder. Did he silently believe that McCain might tap him for veep? I don't know. But Lieberman's track record of see-sawing in his allegiance offers a strong case that he had it in mind.

Well, he has announced that he won't seek a fifth term in 2012 and I can only say good riddance, even if we have to wait two more years. Having switched to the independent slot while caucusing with the Democrats, he fashioned his new life on Capitol Hill by shaking down the Democratic leaders with the threat that unless he held on to the chairmanship of homeland security, he might just start pattycaking with the GOP again. With a hair-thin margin of error in the Senate, the Democrats wouldn't risk it.

So he is back where he wants to be, in front of the TV people. And as recently as yesterday, he was defending his hawkish support of the invasion of Iraq with his version of the facts that have long been destroyed. From President Obama, who was betrayed by Lieberman, on down the pecking order, Democrats have dished out pro forma praise of Lieberman while such conservative pundits as David Brooks have applauded Lieberman's independence. But, again I wonder. Brooks insists the Democrats would be nowhere in advancing their key issues such as health care and the stimulus package if Lieberman had not been on board for critical votes. But would fiercely independent Joe have changed his mind if he didn't retain his committee chair?

The answer should be obvious. When hasn't he planted himself in the main arena on any issue to meet his own self-absorbed need for attention? He now says he wants to start a new chapter in his life. We can only guess what that will - or won't - be. After all, he still has time to change his mind to seek another term.

America's new era of enlightenment

IT WASN'T until New York Jets kicker Nick Folk missed his third field goal against the Browns on Sunday that I suspected Sen. John McCain of being a Cleveland fan. McCain has acquired such a reputation of changing his mind on issues that some discourteous reporters have now accused him of moving the goal posts when cornered with questions about his contradictory positions. Even his wife Cindy is now in the habit of doing it. She, first endorsed the repeal of don't ask, don't tell, and then joined hubby in opposing it.

To recap, McCain first held out against the DADT repeal until he heard from a commission that had been created to study the effects on the military. When word got out that it would support ending such restrictions, McCain complained on Meet the Press Sunday (Does he have a contract as a permanent guest?) that the commission didn't go far enough, so he is demanding further studies until the commission gets it right. The goal posts were moved into the hotdog concession.

I'm trying to acclimate myself to the boldly declared arrival of the breast-plated Republicans in January, although it is apparent that some have already arrived. There is hubris everywhere in the greatest upheaval in proprietary claims since the the Indian Removal Act against the Cherokees in 1830.

In Ohio, the Senate president, Republican Bill Harris, has already vowed to block any appointments to the Ohio Casino Control Commission by departing Gov. Ted Strickland. He told the Plain Dealer: "If they don't resign, then we'll take action." On the other hand, Gov.-elect John Kasich is said to have mixed emotions about gambling and thinks it would be prudent to study it more. Further study? How uncharacteristic of him!

The stakes are much higher at the national level, where there will likely be still greater resistance to Administration policies .South Carolina GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, has become so forcefully bold in the party's winner circle that he wants to bomb Iran. For a time, I thought he and his fellow Republican in the Senate., Tea Party hero Jim DeMint, were leaning toward bombing Ft. Sumter. But if memory serves, that's already been tried to no one's benefit.

Other changes are expected to elevate Rep. John Shimkus, Illinois Republican , to a commanding chair on environmental policy. Shimkus is the fellow who denies global warming with the rationale that only God can destroy the earth. Corporate lobbyists are delirious that we may have staved off Obama's socialism and will no longer have to apologize for Wall Street bonuses. No one is more delirious than Dick Armey, the former Texas congressman, who is credited with being the chaperone of Tea Partiers into seats of power with his lobbying operation called FreedomWorks. Not being a shy person, he invited a number of the new congressmen to a meeting where he explained to the neophytes how the system works.

Be prepared to witness the new era of enlightenment.

Arizona primary day! Hooray!

IT'S PRIMARY ELECTION DAY in Arizona and for this occasion we can all be grateful. The senatorial race has been something awful, even witnessed from afar. Sen John McCain has increasingly seemed as disoriented as a sparrow in a windstorm. The dispatches from the front in that overheated sandbox assure us that McCain will win the Republican nomination against an opponent who is even less well-adjusted to reality than the former GOP presidential candidate. Perhaps the senator will now find time to return to earth.

Change the 14th Amendment? Just another scam

IN CASE YOU HAVE been trying to dodge the thunderbolts from Fox and other Olympian gods, there's one quaking burst that you can discount as an appetite killer. It's the ridiculous effort by some congressmen and their allies who should know better (but seldom do these days) to rewrite the 14th Amendment guaranteeing birthrights. Indeed, it's a scam by Republicans planning a new Gingrich-type Contract with America after they sweep the November elections.

In this instance, the dirty work is being done by a veteran team of "mainstream" GOP plaintiffs that includes Sens. McCain (will he ever get over his humiliating defeat in 2008?) and his over-the-shoulder buddy, Lindsey Graham, as well as Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky, a pathetic soul who will go down in history with far less grandeur than Colonel Sanders' fried chicken.

For good reason, none of them is talking about the geological time frame for an amendment. First, as these three amigos are saying they must have hearings, and we all know how those things go. Then it must pass both houses with a two-thirds vote, which in these times would

be akin to pushing the Queen Mary up Mt. Everest.

Then the proposed amendment would have to work its way through state legislatures for

approval while the locals are busy trying to figure out how to deal with such minor distractions as budgetary holes.

Although the Supreme Court once ruled that all of this nonsense must be completed within a "reasonable time", anybody want to define reasonable?

Folks, fools are playing us for fools. The move is aimed strictly at you-know-who with various shades of skin color other than pasty white. (Not even Boehner favors that color.) But I would bet my office computer and treasured old Steelers towel that we will have a Hispanic president long before this ploy reaches the GOP's promised land.