300 down
Just before the 2004 political conventions, I began writing humorous/outraged political screeds. It seemed more productive than mooning the TV. This is the 300th. While writing each essay has been rewarding, it has also been like pulling teeth. It’s tough to observe the dismantling of a nation. It’s like watching a tape loop of The Hindenburg disaster and trying to find the funny bits. So, last week I thought to myself: maybe it’s time to pull the plug.
But, while seriously considering sending my political brain on a permanent vacation and simply stop writing about politics altogether, I ran across several inspirational stories. The kind of news items that, even after seven years of Bushit, move you to shake your head and emit a noise halfway between a chuckle and a sob. The kind of stories that compel you to yell “WTF?” and, then, alert others to their existence.
Remember World Trade Center Building 7, which mysteriously collapsed hours after the Twin Towers did on September 11? A federal report was just released by the National Institute of Standards and Technology saying that the building went down because of a totally new phenomenon in structure failure called “thermal expansion.” An undetected fire in the building, unchecked by water, caused steel girders to expand and actually triggered columns to separate from structural concrete. The Institute labeled the collapse an “extraordinary event.” In fact it’s the first time it’s alleged to have ever happened in such an incident.
Rumor has it that the first draft of the report blamed the collapse on “extraordinary fairy farts.”
While on the subject of our current government, FEMA, part of our vaunted Homeland Security Department, showed just how well we’re protected from evildoers last week when a hacker broke into its telephone system and racked up over $12,000 in calls to the Middle East and Asia.
The hacker made 400 plus phone calls on the newly installed Federal Emergency Management Agency voicemail system. The only problem with the new system is that it’s outdated. It’s a Private Branch Exchange, easily hackable, as opposed to the newer Voice Over Internet Telephony system many companies are using. The type of hacking done was considered very low-tech and “old school,” dating back 15 years in its methodology.
Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, India and Yemen were among the countries called by the crank yanker. Oh, yeah, it wasn’t FEMA that noticed the hacking. It was Sprint. Next time a hurricane hits New Orleans? Send in the Sprint team! They get results.
Also, in terms of money well spent, the U.S. Army is spending $4 million for scientists to develop gadgetry that will be able to read people’s thoughts. I guess it’s just not enough to read people’s e-mails and transcripts of their phone calls.
For anyone bored by the Olympics, BushCo. offered some swell gymnastic/tap dancing events of the Gold Medal category last week. The White House announced that the U.S. and Iraq had reached a tentative agreement for a timeline for U.S. troop withdrawal. Yes, a timeline. Be sure to watch for some great White House spinning on this one. Supposedly, the latest approved code words for the process will move from “aspirational goal” and “time horizon” to “persperational fold” and “time out.”
In a show of true democracy in action, Denver authorities have bowed to pressure, backing off a “police state” stance proposed for the Democratic Convention. Two weeks ago, investigative reporters discovered a warehouse filled with holding pens for possible demonstrators. The kennel-like pens were topped with razor wire and signs warned would-be prisoners that stun guns would be used in the area. When civil liberties groups protested, Denver backed down. They removed the razor wire from the incarceration pens. Way to go.
On a related front, Republicans in Saint Paul, Minnesota have allegedly agreed to remove the fecal matter from the tips of the Punji spikes lining the bottoms of their convention’s free speech pits.
The Republicans also announced that Senator Joe Lieberman would be speaking at their convention…obviously due to the recent death of Larry “Bozo the Clown” Harmon.
When it comes to sheer comic inspiration, however, nobody can top the new Republican Error Apparent, John MuckCain. He’s the kind of guy you know goes home after a campaign appearance, puts on a Teddy Roosevelt costume and runs up and down the stairs yelling “charge” until it’s time for his warm milk.
Last week, in a live broadcast, he “joked” that he defined rich people as those who make at least $5 million a year. I guess if you only make $1 million, you’re blue collar in McCain’s naib.
A couple of days later, he was asked how many houses he owned. Man-of-the-people Mac replied with a deer-in-a-headlight look and the garbled response: “I think — I’ll have my staff get to you. It’s condominiums where — I’ll have them get to you.”
That sent the media off to the races. Just how many homes DID McCain own? Some reports said four. Others postulated seven. (It was tricky because one property housed more than one structure, including a guesthouse and staff quarters.) Talking Points Memo did some digging and they came up with a final, tally. Sort of. Depending on how you counted the adjacent condos and the like, the McCains own eight to eleven houses in Virginia, California and Arizona. (Not counting the property the Mrs. owns via her company.) Hey, toss in a private jet and you have the patron saint of populism heading the Republican ticket.
The McCains’ latest acquisition, a new condo, was purchased last March in Coronado, California. Said Cindy McCain in “Vogue,” “I like the ocean, and the kids love it here, and I love that. When I bought the first one, my husband, who is not a beach person, said, ‘Oh, this is such a waste of money; the kids will never go.’ Then it got to the point where they used it so much I couldn’t get in the place. So I bought another one.”
According to TPM, this purchase occurred while Everyman McCain was on the stump, gas-bagging about homeowners taking second jobs and skipping vacations to keep up with their mortgage payments.
The combined value of the McCains’ properties is close to $13 million.
The McCains’ budget for household employees increased during 2006-2007 from $184,000 to $273,000.
When the Obama camp took note of McCain’s ignorance of how many places he actually hangs his hat, the McCain team fired back, using every retort imaginable. They were Cindy’s homes! McCain is a former POW! Obama is elitist! McCain is a former POW! It was classic.
One McCain spokesman said that Obama’s criticism was, actually, an attack on Cindy McCain. “She owns the homes. I thought he said the wives were off-limits.”
Another spokesman said that Obama’s criticism was unfair because Obama has a big house. “We’re delighted to have a real estate debate with Barack Obama,” said spokesman Brian Rogers, adding that the press should focus on Obama’s home. “It’s a frickin’ mansion. He doesn’t tell people that. You have a mansion you bought in a shady deal with a convicted felon.” The latter claim is, of course, a lie.
Another reason that criticism of McCain’s vague awareness of his properties is unfair is that McCain is an ex-POW and Obama is weird. “This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years — in prison,” lamented Rogers; referring to the prisoner of war camp McCain was in during the Vietnam War. Rogers called the house story “by far the most personal attack” of the campaign, and said; “It comes from a candidate who said he was against this kind of thing.” He opined that the story would not “stick” with the American people. “In terms of who’s an elitist, I think people have made a judgment that John McCain is not an arugula-eating, pointy headed professor-type based on his life story.”
So, there! Yo’ mama!
And, um, oh, yeah…Obama wrote a coupla best-selling books so he’s rich, too! Fumed Rogers, “Does a guy who made more than $4 million last year, just got back from vacation on a private beach in Hawaii and bought his own million-dollar mansion with the help of a convicted felon really want to get into a debate about houses? Does a guy who worries about the price of arugula and thinks regular people ‘cling’ to guns and religion in the face of economic hardship really want to have a debate about who’s in touch with regular Americans? The reality is that Barack Obama’s plans to raise taxes and opposition to producing more energy here at home as gas prices skyrocket show he’s completely out of touch with the concerns of average Americans.”
Apparently, the McCain team reacts to arugula the way vampires do garlic. Come to think of it, they react to reality in much the same manner.
For his part, McCain sought to tamp down the rich man/poor man fire by waxing poetic: “I define rich in other ways besides income,” he said. “Some people are wealthy and rich in their lives and their children and their ability to educate them. Others are poor if they’re billionaires.”
McCain’s wife is worth over $100 million.
Rumor has it that his new campaign song is “Just A Gigolo.”
Recipe rustler Cindy McCain has also provided some comedic zing to the current political circus. She has constantly described herself as being an “only child.” Well, it turns out, thanks to her Dad’s earlier marriages, she actually has two half-sisters: Kathleen Hensley Portalski and Dixie Burd.
Burd hasn’t weighed in on her official invisible status but Portalski, who has met Cindy several times, isn’t really pleased. “It’s terribly painful,” she told an interviewer. “It’s as if she is the ‘real’ daughter. I am also a real daughter.”
Welcome to McCainWorld, where nothing is real. Why, even Mother Teresa has been folded into the McCain mythology. As Mark Nickolas of “Political Base” and “The Huffington Post” reported, Cindy McCain’s story concerning the adoption of their daughter, Bridget, was changed in order to make the McCains seem more saintly. In the new version, Mother Teresa personally asks Cindy to rescue an orphaned baby girl with a cleft palate.
When “The Christian Science Monitor” discovered this story was bogus, the McCain camp quickly backtracked.
Before the McCain for President campaign took off, Cindy, in numerous interviews, told a tale wherein, while on a relief mission to Bangladesh in 1991, she visited an orphanage founded by Mother Theresa in Dhaka. She told Tim Russert in 2000, “I found her in Mother Teresa’s orphanage when she was 10 weeks old in Bangladesh. She had a cleft palate; she had some other problems. And the nuns persuaded me to bring her home, and I did.”
By 2008, Cindy was telling “The Sunday Mail,” “While working at Mother Teresa’s orphanage in the early 1990s, I stumbled upon the most beautiful little girl I’d ever seen. She had a terrible cleft palate. She had problems with her feet. She had problems with her hands. She had all kinds of problems.
“As only Mother Teresa can, she prevailed upon me to take this baby and another baby to the United States for medical care.'’
Presto! Instant Mother Teresa!
The official John McCain web site suffered a similar case of Pinocchio-itus. Back in 2004, Cindy’s official bio read: “Cindy led 55 medical missions to third world and war-torn countries… During one of those missions, on a visit to Mother Teresa’s Orphanage, Cindy agreed to bring two babies in need of medical attention back to the United States. One of those babies is now a happy and healthy little girl named Bridget McCain.”
The 2008 bio read: “On one of those missions, Mother Teresa convinced Cindy to take two babies in need of medical attention to the United States. One of those babies is now their adopted daughter, 16 year old Bridget McCain.”
When Alexandra Marks of “The Christian Science Monitor” investigated the Mother Teresa claims, she found them to be false.
Wrote Marks: “According to biographies of Mother Teresa, in 1991 she was in Mexico where she developed medical problems. From there, she went to a hospital in La Jolla, Calif.
“A McCain source acknowledged that Cindy McCain did not meet Mother Teresa during the 1991 trip to Bangladesh but said McCain did meet her later on, although the source could not say when or where. The campaign has since reworded the reference to the adoption on its website.”
Next week: Cindy meets Jesus, wipes his face with a bath towel and, viola, make way for the Straight-Talk Shroud of Turin.
“The Monitor’s” Marks also found another piece of mythology that didn’t really fit the facts. She wrote: “In another instance, McCain told ‘The Chicago Tribune’ earlier this year that on one of her medical missions to Vietnam she was in ‘the very hospital – and in the very room – where her husband was brought after being shot down and then beaten by a mob during the war.’
“A 1992 ‘Washington Times’ story recounts a different version: ‘Mrs. McCain asked to see the operating room and her husband’s cell, but was turned down. She took the rejection philosophically. ‘It’s 27 years later. Let’s go on,’ Mrs. McCain said.’
“The McCain campaign again declined to comment on the discrepancy.
“On background, a source close to Mrs. McCain confirmed that she was denied entry. But, the source added: ‘At some point thereafter, she toured the hospital and did coincidentally end up in the senator’s room.’”
Wow! What a lucky break!
Anonymous McCain backers have alleged that Cindy’s memory distortions have occurred because she accidentally ingested arugula. Others jumping to her defense have claimed that, while Cindy is not actually a former POW, she has watched John Wayne in “The Green Berets” over 100 times. That’s got to hurt.
A personal aside: attempting to write for a living requires three things – a lot of faith, a lot of discipline and the sense of sunny stupidity that leads Wylie Coyote to all things Acme. Four years ago, when I was out of work, out of money and out of gas, an old friend of mine gave me a free web site she’d designed. She dubbed it “M. Kane Jeeves” because of my devotion to W.C. Fields and even threw in a picture of Fields on the site.
I let it sit there for four months. Then, Dick Cheney let the “F-bomb” drop and I found myself inspired. I’ve been chronicling the Big American Flush ever since. When I get discouraged, I read the responses to my screeds to perk me up. When I really get discouraged, I turn to the news.
Today, as I write this, the Associated Press has galvanized me. Their main man in Washington, long-time McCainiac Ron Fournier, actually had the balls to write an editorial entitled: “Analysis: Biden pick shows lack of confidence.”
Adding to the absurdity, AP actually distributed this bucket of bilge.
On the plus side, AP veered dangerously close to real reporting when, earlier in the week, via a typo, they referred to Joe Lieberman as the 2000 “Democratic vice-presidential PRICK.”
Some screeds write themselves.
I’ll be bek. You betcha.
