The only thing we have to fear is...Boehner

Happy Halloween! Run out and buy a fright mask to join the dark revelry of Rep. John Boehner and his like-minded moon prancers who market fear as their moronic way of challenging President Obama, health-care reform or any other obstacle to their claim of honorable public service.

They've cast their latest evil eye on what they insist is a government attempt to kill off old people. Yep. Grandpa is just a government bill away from being sent to the nearest morgue. It's somewhere , they insist, in a health care reform proposal. And like most of the dead fish that guys like Boehner or Fred Thompson (remember him?) are throwing around, it can be easily disputed, which is all anyone should have to say about such nonsense.

One might excuse the malignant chatter of talk show hosts like Sean Hannity or Glenn Beck, neither of whom impress me as having much brain gloss. They are paid to make fools of themselves. As one Fox News executive noted , the network only hires people who can improve ratings. I would have never guessed.

But when an always grim fellow like Boehner, the House Minority Leader who speaks regularly for Republicans , and Fred Thompson, who tried feebly to run for president, come at us with trash talk for the sake of terrifying an already confused mass, we ought to start worrying about the consequences, don't you think?

Republicans are no longer the loyal opposition; most of them sit around twisting their handkerchiefs while Boehner sets the pathetic cultural tone for their party. If they aren't embarrassed, I'll step into the vacuum. Watching fools pretending to be serious thinkers does embarrass those of us who hang on to the belief that political discourse should be better than that. A zillion times better!

Morrison: How long will he stay on the UA board? .

NOW THAT AKRON lawyer and University of Akron trustee Jack Morrison has been convicted of two of the 7 ethics charges against him, the next question: Will he do the honorable thing and resign from the Board of Trustees? Until the court ruled against him today, his apologists had argued that he shouldn't have to leave the board because he hadn't been convicted of anything. Well, now you know. What will it be? Will he continue to be indifferent to the discomfort of the other trustees? My hunch is that he will now delay any decision about his relationship with the University , using as an excuse that the conviction will be appealed. God knows how long that would drag out a festering situation for the University.

You can run, but you can't hide

AS ANY political spectator knows, Rob Portman was hardly a bit player in the Bush Administration. In fact, Portman, a Republican senatorial candidate in Ohio, was Bush's beloved director of the Office of Management and Budget and a member of Dubya's inner-circle. As the Associated Press noted at the time: "It's difficult to find a more faithful supporter [of George Bush] than Rob Portman. Bush reciprocated by calling Portman a "trusted adviser" and thanked the Cincinnatian for his "friendship."

Well, none of that mutual admiration stuff is all that newsworthy. But Think Progress has now alertly pointed out that none of the warm and fuzzy Bush-bonding appears in Portman's official campaign website. In fact, Bush's name never appears. I hurriedly glanced at the site earlier today before rushing off on another matter. It confirmed the initial report by Think Progress. . However, when I checked again tonight for this post, it was gone with the explanation, "page not found."

Where did it go? Things have a way of disappearing, not the least of which is any reference to Bush. Did Portman enjoy preferred status through divine intervention, or did he really get the job from Bush? That will come later in the campaign - from Portman's political opponents whether he likes it or not, probably even more so now that he has shown such guarded sensitivity to his previous line of work.

Chuzzlewit: Democrats' secret weapon?

ONE OF THE big reasons the Republicans get their way on so many issues is that they are profoundly clever in controlling the national story line. Clearly that's the way the line is going on the health care issue and who would think to challenge these pros? They have been aided and abetted, of course by the networks. A long time ago the networks laid off their fact-checkers as an economic move in anticipation of the recession, which as late as last September didn't exist because John McCain said the "fundamentals" were strong. That question having been settled, Republicans and their friendly broadcasters were free to cast the Obama clique as doomsayers and Obama himself in many wicked incarnations as socialist, communist, fascist, outer-space alien, and arrogant SOB, to name a few. Speechless from the absurdity of the GOP's designated hits, timid Democrats were unable to respond in kind, other than to describe Sarah Palin as an opportunistic hottie, which nobody outside her immediate family denied anyway. Democrats have a long tradition of being meaner to each other than to the other party.

But there is a way to handle such glaring linguistic deficits for Democrats to balance the playing field. They need to develop their own name-calling terms. Having thought about this for several minutes, I've concluded that the most effective start would be to refer to the other party as packed with chuzzlewits. When an acquaintance mentions that he heard Obama is a full-blooded Husseinian, you must bat it aside by referring to his accusers as dangerous chuzzlewits.

"Chuzzlewits?" you would certainly be questioned.

"Right. Chuzzlewits - and it could be quite effective in retaliating against the cliches that line the streets leading to Capitol Hill. It's fresh. It's provocative. It's full of non-meaning."

"But what is a chuzzlewit?"

"My dear sir, all I can tell you is that a chuzzlewit is so bad that you don't ever want to go there It doesn't mean a damn thing. It just has a dumb but fetching sound. Still, it will soon be the talk of the talk shows."

"But - "

"If you must know, l I can tell you is that it is worse than snoozing in the bathtub when an enormous 0ak tree falls smack on your house."

"Do you know any...eh...chuzzlewits today? I mean, really..."

"Sure. Think of Mitch McConnell."

"But he's a senator, right? How can he be a chuzzlewit, too?""

"See what I mean? Still not satisfied? Try John Boehner..."

"Who?"

"And Rush Limbaugh..."

"Wow! I never in a million years would have thought that Rush was, as you say, a chuzzlewit."

"Now we're getting somewhere. And if you really want to help your party, call all of your friends and tell them that Dick Cheney is not only one chuzzlewit, but two. Maybe even three."

"But I still would like to know what it means."

"Don't have to know what it means, my friend. The world is filled with things we don't know. But somehow we manage to survive."

"How awful."

"Right. Still such ignorance can work to the advantage of either side. If it helps, look at it this way: How many people on the other side know what a socialist or fascist is? Still, it works for them, just as chuzzlewit will work for you."

"Chuzzlewit."

"With 2 z's."

.

Dark news from the health-care reform front:

DISPATCHES FROM the health-reform trenches:

• A friend reports that the medical bill for his four-hour out-patient hospital visit for the replacement of a pacemaker battery was more than $50,000.
• A middle-management fellow whose overtime has been frozen also faces a 20 pct. increase in his share of health insurance next year. That's a monthly bill of $600 instead of the current $500.

These aren't exceptional stories. So when President Obama says the situation will only get worse if we do nothing now, here's the gruesome evidence. Is Congress listening these days? I think not.

Out of the mouths of...

FAIR WARNING to Jon Stewart: a new comedy team on Capitol Hill and in the outlands is getting dangerously closer to challenging your top-rated comedy schtick. The past week saw an avalanche of droll one-liners from Conservative Central. Can't stop laughing, and I don't have to wait until your late night news spoofing to make my day. Much of last week's fun derived from the so-called health reform debate but there were other fiscally conservative spinoffs. Don't have the space or energy to repeat all of the examples, but here are some that made the cut, with help from Think progress and other gag-watchers:

Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., on the Obama health-care reform plan : The president is "dropping likc a rock. The plan would make us look like Havana in 1959 when Castro came in." (Or the U.S. when Dubya went out?)

Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N. C.: "There are no Americans who don't have health care."

Rush Limbaugh, who thinks he should play the high priest in Mozart's Magic Flute: "Let's

face it, Obama's black, and I think he's got a chip on his shoulder."

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C.: " If we're able to stop Obama on this [health care reform] it will be his Waterloo. It will break him."

Lou Dobbs, CNN, on Obama's birthplace: "The questions won't go away because they haven't been dealt with."

Rush Limbaugh, again, on why he has an audience: "I'm inspiring."

U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn: "Let's agree that we're going to have PAYGO [pay as you go] enforcement, that we're not going to cry 'emergency' every time we have a Katrina, every time we have a tsunami, every time we have a need for extra spending, that we don't go call for a special appropriation to allow us circumvent the PAYGO rule. [Note to Blackburn's district of Memphis: Stop laughing. This could cost you big bucks, and everything you own!]

My sides are splitting.

More half-baked Alaska?

FROM THE unpublished works off Percy, Bysshe & Shelley:

It's really a matter of not knowing

Where Sarah Palin is intent on going.

She must need more attention

with deals she won't mention

Before her fading stardom stops glowing.

Rep. John Campbell: In need of a language tutor

AMONG THE MANY boasts on Rep. John Campbell's home page is that he is a co-sponsor of legislation to make English the national language. After hearing the California Republican's evasive gibberish in a debate with Chris Matthews the other night, I would advise him to begin with some English lessons for himself.

Campbell is a co-sponsor of a bill that would require all presidential candidates to reveal a birth certificate. (Hint, hint.) When Matthews demanded to know whether the bill wasn't really playing to the "wackos" who insist that Obama is a foreigner and ineligible to serve in the Oval Office, Campbell insisted that his effort has nothing to do with Obama and - hint, hint - "as far as I know" Obama is an American.. As far as I know? Campbell seemed a bit blind-sided when Matthews held up a copy of Obama's birth certificate, which, for the congressman, was hardly irrefutable proof for him because it was on a TV screen that he was unable to read.

Pure blather. And as Matthews noted, a play to the paranoia that has existed in the right-wingers who gathered under their coconut trees last year to raise hell and havoc. In fairness, Campbell finally hedged on Obama, continuing to argue that his legislation only applied to the future. On the other hand, his co-sponsor, Rep. Bill Posey, a Florida Republican, says he couldn't swear on a stack of bibles that Obama is one of us. The wackos aren't the only sillies who spread ridiculous gossip. Some of them sponsor legislation.

The less said, the better?

THE NORMALLY loquacious John Kasich has literally been speechless on what to say about eliminating Ohio's debt. POLITICO notes that the Republican gubernatorial candidate has simply refused to give his learned insights, apparently developed while on the payroll of Lehman Brothers, on what ails the Buckeye State's budget. He has allowed from time to time that a phase-out of the state income tax would greatly help the economy. Kasich's aides say it's too early for him to be precise as a candidate because the voters wouldn't be paying attention.

So I think I'll hand out the Grumpy Abe Linguistic Lunacy Award (GALL)to Kasich for his dismissal of reporters' questions about his remedy for dissolving the deficit. Says the candidate, ever so tersely:

"I'm not messing in that."

Well, I would agree, John, that it is a mess. And it could all be yours someday.

The Fellowship is more than fellowship

MAUREEN DOWD'S reference to the "C Street house" in D.C. didn't quite identify it as a house of sinful repute, but played it on a broader scale as a "monument to Republican hypocrisy." In case you missed the column, the place in question is a darkly created religious/political safe house for true believers, straying Capitol Hill pols and whatever else the traffic will bear. Taken altogether, the clan is familiarly known as The Fellowship and its disciples have some important adhesives for their cause: they seek unlimited power, worldwide influence and the daily double of Jesus and political conservatism.

Among the current residents of the right-wing warren are Sen. John Ensign, who sought shelter from the locusts of adultery, and Sen. Tom Coburn, of Oklahoma, a deeply religious conservative ob-gyn and deacon who was on hand to counsel the Nevada senator, or whatever went on. South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, who strayed from the path of righteousness to saunter south of the border, is also a member of The Fellowship. So are countless other Washington evangelically-inclined achievers. There have even been reports it is a great place to bring your lady when day is done as though it were a far-from-home Waikiki Beach house. As a senator, even Hillary Clinton reflected favorably on the group's mission to spiritualize the world in the context of its own fervid dogma. President after president, including Barack Obama, have shown up at the annual prayer breakfast sponsored by The Fellowship. To ignore it is to expose yourself to disdain or worse in your critics' prayers.

The Fellowship is headed by an influential evangelical operative, Doug Coe, who has been aided in the movement by such household Nixon/Reagan luminaries as Chuck Colson and Ed Meese. The group has served as a conduit for young college-fresh evangelicals to enter government at various levels and also as a guest stop for world leaders. It makes allowances for dictators who have no interest in Christianity but are drawn to the tactics and the kind of covenants the Fellowship's leadership finds effective in the Mafia, Hitler and their fellow-travelers.

Although it has been around for decades, it's reasonable to ask why the Fellowship is becoming a topic du jour on the Potomac. For one thing, it has obviously increased its clout on Capitol Hill with folks who carry its banner. The breath and depth of the movement far exceeds normal church involvement. That much was made clear enough in a book published last year titled: "The Family: the secret fundamentalism at the heart of American Power." Its author is Jeff Sharlet, an associate research scholar at New York University's Center for Religion and Media. Sharlet lived at the Fellowship's estate in Arlington. Va., to witness a remarkable religious movement that is organized in prayer cells at the highest governmental and corporate levels, meeting secretly while luring likely prospects to what the movement calls "Biblical capitalism".

Sharlet writes: "The Family (fellowship) maintains a closely guarded database of associates, members, and key men, but issues no cards, collects no official dues. Members are asked not to speak about the group or its activities." But there is evidence that in its carefully guarded way, it has demonstrated considerable political influence in its lifetime, often without fanfare. One example: Former Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird helped convince Gerald Ford that, Sharlet tells us, "Richard Nixon deserved not just Christian forgiveness but also a legal pardon." On the other hand, some of the members' lifestyles are deliciously bizarre, as was that of one religiously dutiful chap who wore a plastic get-up on his wrist that he called a "masturband". Sharlet writes that the fellow allowed himself to wear the band to tell him how long he had refrained from masturbating.

The author gives us detailed view of The Fellowship behemoth and it qualifies as recommended serious reading by anyone who wants a much closer look at its intricate subterranean quest for worldwide power that can only be achieved by recruiting the already-powerful. And, as Sharlet

writes of The Fellowship, "it is the story of an American fundamentalism, gentle and militant, conservative and revolutionary, that has been hiding in plain sight all along."