Stranger-than fiction campaign dumbly moves on

AFTER A RELAXING Sunday afternoon family cookout, I've now  found my way back to the big shovel in the garage to report on the stranger-than-fiction presidential campaign.   These items fall into the category of, the more things  stay the same, the more they stay the same.


We can always count on John Boehner to give us a lift by continually saying things that are grimly foolish.   For example, without tearing up, Boehner  asserted that he fully expected Romney to win because he is a proven success and the voters don't like losers.  Was he thinking about President Obama as the loser who isn't worth a couple of hundred million dollars because his father, well...blah, blah, blah? As he put it:

"The American people don't want to vote for a loser.  They don't want to vote for someone that hasn't been successful.   I think Mitt Romney  has an opportunity to show the American people that they, too, can succeed." (As we've previously noted, there isn't a million or two difference between Dubya and Romney. )

At what point will Romney''s Midas card be shelved?


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Here's another  in championship political style:

Romney advisor  Hank Brown predicted  that his man can win the youth vote because...because..because at 65, Mitt is "younger'" and "more dynamic"than John McCain was in 2008.   He said what???  Pause, while I get another shovel.

(In the inspirational words of our former president: "Brownie, you are doing a heck of a job.")

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It was good to read this paragraph from Economist magazine's report on the NRA's recent convention in St.Louis:

"The [NRA's] future does not look bright , either.  Despite attempts to attract women, most convention-goers in St.Louis were  white men over the age of 40 - a segment of the population in decline. The classified sections in NRA magazines such as American Rifleman feature, besides all the weaponry, advertisements for gardening equipment and Viagra."

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Finally, what's with  the big stink from Republicans over President Obama's references to Osama Bin Laden?  And Romney's laughing remark that even Jimmy Carter would have acted in the same manner. Good grief, once again history has been trashed.   Obama, all authoritative accounts have since reported, was warned by some of his top advisors that it was a high-risk deal that could ruin him if it went awry.  And wasn't it the very same Romney who urged college students to take risks if they wanted to succeed in the post-collegiate world?  It's an opportunity that Obama can't replicate because the carrier is now headed for the Bush Library.  
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Obama foes shout fire in empty theater

April,  as T.S. Eliot once wrote, is the "cruellest month..." and nobody needs to remind President Obama of that sad tale. As everybody knows by now, he's the guy who lured those Secret Service agents into sexual encounters against their solemn will.  And as Joe the Plumber, nee Samuel Wurzelbacher, the Man from McCain and Republican congressioanal nominee against Ohio Rep. Marcy Kaptur, now convincingly  reports, the president's parents were Communists.  Let Obama deny that one!

Finally, for April at least,  it is now fairly certain through subsequent DNA tests that Obama ordered the Seals to waterboard Osama Bin Laden before forcing him to drink the Kool-Aid,  a hilarious voodoo stunt he learned as a community organizer for  the Muslim Mafia in Chicago's southside.


As if that isn't enough to convince you that we have a failed president, as Mitt Romney repeatedly assures us, there's the awful news about the thousands of dead fish in the waters of Cleveland Metroparks this week.  And who was cleverly campaigning around the country on Air Force One  when the mysterious fish-kill occurred? Right!  Some of Obama's critics would remind you that Al Capone was never on the scene when the worst was taking place in Chicagoland under  his remote control.

The great outpouring of these undeniable truths will guard the nation from doing anything foolish all the way to November.  It is reassuring to know that Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and their countless operatives  can continue to make a damn good living by shouting fire in an empty theater.



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Where there's Perkins' smoke, there's fire

BUSINESS MUST be slow these days for Tony Perkins and the American Family Association.  Perkins, the Christian conservative  group's president,  has been increasing the volume  of his attacks  on President Obama, particularly now that red-baiting has become fashionable  among some of Obama's more temperamental opponents.

You wouldn't think that Perkins could be so nasty in his own venues if you saw him on TV as the sort-of grown-up kid from the Andy Griffith Show.  But now that the American Family Association was among the losers who seriously endorsed Rick Santorum, he's had to fully turn his aggrieved attention to Obama. Aside from spreading doubts about the president's birth certificate, Perskins urged  his constituents  to read a  column suggesting there is  an alarming Communist strain in  the President's behavior.   The right-wing writer, Sandy Rios, hisses  that the president has so weakened America  that it will encourage a Communist takeover.

Perkins says  he isn't exactly naming names but "We're looking at facts." To add more trash to the fire, Rios praised Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) for declaring there are 81 communists in Congress.

And Perkins' group defends its wholesome mission as defending family values, lunacy obviously not being one of them.  

Well, Walter, the old wagon is gone

A report to my late friend Walter Mirapaul:


After all of these years, Walter, it might come as a pleasant surprise to you that I finally dumped my 19-year-old Taurus station wagon.   Yep, as I write this, the old war horse may be on its way to Ford Heaven if the dealer can figure out how to get it started.  ( I explained that if you turn the key to the first faint click, you can then shift into NEUTRAL from PARK, whereupon you can then turn on the motor and freely shift gears.  The good man at the dealership seemed puzzled and asked me what that was all about.  I said, "Damned  if I know, it's been that way for a long time." All of that probably took his mind off the muffler, which hung no more than an inch or two off the road. Now I have to figure out all of the bells and whistles on the new car without your immediate advice.

You never did appreciate the usefulness of the old wagon and often ridiculed it to friends.  Besides, unlike your insistence on trying to repair my VCR's and TV sets with a screwdriver and pliers, there wasn't anything that tempted you to stick your head under the wagon's hood.  It's one reason I never mentioned the bizarre way that you could shift  the gears to start up the motor.

On another subject, Newt Gingrich, the Crazy Guggenheim in the field, finally gave up  and said he would endorse Mitt Romney, which leaves a big hole in the Republican cast of characters who were so much fun.    Did I tell you that Romney's name was totally ignored by the speakers at the Tea Party Rally in Cuyahoga Falls?

Finally, I had to get a new garage door for the house.  The old one was in awful shape.   I know.  You might have had an extra one or two in your garage.  Didn't know that Rex's sold those things, too.

Abe

From the mouths of lawmakers who said what?.

Back in my Columbus days, I discovered it was best not to hang out in the Ohio legislature on those days when I showed up without my Tums.  It was asking too much of my digestive system to listen to a backwater lawmaker explain the meaning of his dreadful bill that he had yet to read. Although legislatures have produced some folks who went on to greater deeds, it's also true that you never know what you're getting when you encounter a hominid who insults himself by forever calling attention to his mindless brief moment on earth.

Still, for pure moronic outlook,  none of the low-enders from the 19060s-70s General Assembly could compete with  the strange collection of state lawmakers who earn a living today by saying a lot of things that make no sense.  We've already mentioned Ohio  House Majority Leader Bill Batchelder's defense of pay raises for the representatives by telling us that they deserve more money because they "work hard".  Or Akron Rep. Lynn Slaby (R) excitedly looking forward to his new position on the Public Utilities
Commission of Ohio shortly after winning an uncontested Republican primary for reelection.  How could that be?  He said he didn't find the legislative seat a good fit for what he wanted to do, at age 73,  with the rest of his life.  (As candidate Slaby, his home page said things like "we need his wisdom and leadership in the legislature more than ever...")

Sorry, we'll have to muddle along without him.

None of this however, matches the right-wing noise occurring in other legislatures acorss America.  There was Indiana State Rep. Bob Morris (R),  who unsuccessfully tried to enter a resolution against celebrating the  Girl Scouts' centennial celebration   because the  group is being subverted by Planned Parenthood's agenda to "sexualize young girls."

And how about  South Carolina State  Sen. Jake Knotts' (R) calling President Obama and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley "ragheads"?

 But our clear winner` so far is Missouri State Rep. Dwight Scharnhorst, (R),  co-sponsor of the "Don't say gay bIll'  in the legislature  to ban any mention of homosexuals in public schools.  How can you top his whirling logic that tells us, "There is no need to talk about Billy wanting to marry a goat."


For that one, I will even give him the Grumpy Abe Linguistic Lunacy (GALL) award.  It was easy.

Robart and his blessed pals may win this one

IT'S BEGINNING to appear that the issue of whether to grant family rates to a same-sex married couple at the Natatorium in Cuyahoga Falls will break in favor of Mayor Don Robart's conservative political and religious forces.  The months-long question will be on hold until May 10  when the city's Parks and Recreation board will again meet to discuss whether to grant the couple  its request for the lower family rate.

Unfortunately, the opponents still have the numbers on City Council and the Park Board to vote down a $130 annual fee  change.  It is hard to imagine how reactionary the Robart-defined  crowd is to  turn its back on the couple, one of whose spouses is a wounded Iraqi veteran.

The Tea Party mayor has disingenuously argued that the city cannot recognize the couple's family status because same-sex marriages are not recognized by the state. He has  even  simplistically dismissed the issue  as a "can of worms"  for the city's finances and described the current attempts to change anything a matter of "fiddling around".     Even his own law director has said he sees no reason why the city can't offer the family rate, as has been accorded in some other cities.  At the same time, the mayor's political and religious allies on the board and city council have expressed religious opposition to any deal.  And Robart has ingloriously decalred he will veto a majority vote on council.

The current partisan makeup of council  favors Democrats, 6-5 over Republicans, But Councilwoman Diana Colavecchio, who along with the other five Democrats  who favor a rate change , says she would need eight votes to override a veto, which is not likely to be reached.   Parks board Chairman Tim Gorbach, likewise a Democrat who supports a change, has seen the board's 3 Republicans turn it down, 3-2.

What price the stigma for Robart and his town?  Try a $130 rate change.  Go ahead.  Fiddle around.  

Lieberman: Count me out. Good!

Joe Lieberman, the Independent/Democratic/Republican senator from Connecticut, says he won't endorse either President Obama or Mitt Romney, announcing his non-participation to Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday.  Nor would he say how he will vote. "I'm going to try to stay out of this one," he purred.

My only question about this is why would anybody besides Joe's immediate family care?  Now that he's declared his neutrality, we can only hope that we won't hear from him again.

A man of many blog comments

Some of you may have wondered about that a name that pops up frequently on this blog's comments - David Hess. The reason that it does has a long history. We are both ex-newspapermen with combined experience and liberalism that adds up to about one century. And although I would argue that I was a much better poker player than Dave, I can't say the same about our relative talents as journalists He was always at the top of his or anybody else's game.

We met in the early 1960s when I was a reporter for the Columbus Citizen-Journal and he was working through his master's studies on Latin America at OSU while trying to earn a modest living as a PR man at Nationwide Insurance. When I became the editor of a new liberal magazine at Nationwide ordered by the company's progressive owner, Murray Lincoln, Dave joined the tiny staff as the Statehouse reporter whose reporting became a major nuisance to then Gov. James Rhodes. As the editor of his column, I might add that Rhodes got off easy if you saw some of the original copy of Dave's work. In editing out certain of Dave's preferred references to Rhodes, "Machiavellian," 'insane", "sniveling", (occasionally in the same sentence!) - I had to remind Dave that we could land in jail. Dave's response, which left little room for argument, was "Dammit! It's true."

It was profoundly true, too, that the only reason that we continued to work together happily was our gritty coal-cindered roots in southwestern Pennsylvania and West Virginia. (You get a glimpse of his sardonic impatience with today's Republicans that is evident in his blog comments.)

After Lincoln's death in 1967, the magazine was abolished by Lincoln's' successors, pure insurance people who preferred a more amicable relationship with Rbodes and his insurance department.

Dave and I were hired by the Beacon Journal's Ben Maidenberg, one of the state's most conservative executive editors, who enjoyed arguing vigorously with staffers who disagreed with him. As newcomers on the staff, we worked closely as an investigative team before the paper sent him to the Knight Newspapers Bureau in Washington, where he covered Capitol Hill close-up for many years, including the back channel antics of an Ohio congressman, John Kasich.

During that tine, Dave was so respected by the Washington media that he was elected president of the National Press Club, no small honor. From there he moved to the National Journal and from there to retirement in Springfield, Va. Without encouragement, he now has hooked on to the blog with no pay. Along with being his close friend, I'm also happy that he shares his incisive comments on Washington's bizarre political life. Conservative Republicans aren't happy with him, but he's a helluva lot more forthright about the system than they are.

As I noted, he is adding his brief comments voluntarily . You can be sure of that. If he didn't want to do it, he wouldn't. Hrrrumphhh....

Kasich & Romney: Now joined at the lip

I see that Gov. Kasich has stepped forward to endorse McMitt Romney, joining the tattered Republican establishment's half-hearted rescue mission for a candidate who will need more than millions of pennies from heaven to win in November.

What do these exercises in Day-Glo politics mean, after all? Not much, for either party.

I've always considered them as ephemeral efforts that fall into the category of here-today-gone-tomorrow collegiality , even for a guy like Kasich, who I'm sure has more than once thought of a spot on the national ticket.

Again, as Team Romney's enablers step forward they repeat the authorized version of conservative politics, asserting that they are the sole protectors of the job creators in America. Even Cuyahoga Falls Mayor Don Robart loudly asserted to Sunday's Tea Party outing that President Obama is so witless that he wants to tax the job creators

Lt. Gov, Mary Taylor, who has been off in the wings in case something better turns up, also endorsed Romney, accusing Democrats of being ...must I to say it?... "tax and spend" operatives even though that old rubbery phrase doesn't hit the road. A few Republicans (Sen. Orrin Hatch for one) would disagree, arguing that under George W. Bush, the party preferred to spend without taxing .

OK, with the formality of governor's endorsement out of the way, we can all relax since the suspense was killing us. And maybe Kasich will now be able to get back to doing something he ought to be doing for the army of school teachers who are being laid off in Buckeyeland. Can we really call that job creation?

A way to survive education budget cuts

THE HEADLINE IN the Plain Dealer gave us more sad news about public education. It said:

City schools to cut 500 teachers, shorten day, eliminate classes

It's becoming an old story everywhere, as states severely cut back funds for public education.

As I've mentioned before, education is no longer a priority for the budget hawks, including those in Ohio.

I have a remedy.

Let's split up the students alphabetically. Everybody with a last name beginning from A to M can go to class for a half year; from N to Z, the remaining half year. The only criterion would be that the split would not interrupt the school's football season.

Such a plan would cut class size in half, reduce the number of teachers accordingly and dramatically shorten the lines at the school cafeteria.

Do you think this would work until we can come up with a plan to eliminate students and teachers altogether? Desperate times call for desperate solutions. Mention it to your state legislator and tell him or her that I sent you. Meantime, isn't there anything in the

Constitution that requires every politician to take an IQ test before they can file for office?