[ Note: First, thanks for great encouragement!!! In hard copy or ebook, this text includes awesome illustrations by renown (?) artist Tommy Mousetrap. I have reformatted my file and published as an ebook on Smashwords.com!!! A little glitchy, it is out there, but awaits their review process. They have a backlog and need two weeks. – Kevin ]
President Whosis: Gaga 4 Obama?
Political Satire by Kevin Feingold
Part One
Introduction
A Hobbit in Hillaryland
*
Some people have all the fun. We’re the other 99%. Our turn!!!
You’ve been conned. Read how!
In a nation founded on equality, overachievers get life served on a silver platter.
President Blackie Rufus Diamond.
Orator, Denver politician, con artist, voodoo witchdoctor, America’s new Messiah…
Welcome to a parallel universe of political irony. The presidential campaigns of 2012 reek of clunky oratory, gaffes, flubbed opportunities, condescension, partisanship and arrogance. The bullshit artist Democrat runs against the idiot savant Republican. You gotta laugh! The true genius of America’s first black president shines through. We get to know “Blackie” best through his speeches. Like a city on a hill, a lighthouse in the fog, a taser up your butt, the stirring words and inexplicable deeds of President Blackie Diamond are breathless to behold.
Good luck with that!
In a mash-up of serious discussion and whimsy — Kevin Feingold, guilty scribbler of the humor blog http://www.yustyoking.com — desperately tries to cut through the posturing, rhetoric, b.s. and subterfuge, portraying a presidency and a country seriously out of control.
— Dante Phillips
*
Introduction
Barack Hussein Obama, the 44th president of the United States of America, doesn’t know what he’s doing. According to Marc A. Thiessen of the American Enterprise Institute, the current administration makes investments in ecological, “green” technologies, but the companies to whom they loan the money, all too often turn belly-up. Leaving us taxpayers holding the bag. 1
Billions of dollars!
Solyndra, whose out-dated technology cost taxpayers a cool $535 million in loan guarantees.
ECOtality received $126.2 million in taxpayer money in 2009 to install electric car chargers in five states. The company has since incurred $45 million in losses. They themselves say that they don’t believe the company will ever reach profitability!
The Obama administration made a $33 million grant to Raser Technologies to build a power plant in Beaver Creek, Utah. The company now owes $1.5 million in back taxes and has filed for bankruptcy protection!
Nevada Geothermal Power received a $98.5 million loan guarantee in 2010. With their cash reserves depleted, the company is in economic turmoil and may go under.
First Solar: $3 billion in loan guarantees for power plants in Arizona and California. They just burned through $401 million in restructuring costs and fired 30% of the workforce.
Abound Solar received a $400 million loan guarantee to build photovoltaic panel factories. The company halted production in February and laid off 180 employees.
SunPower received a $1.2 billion loan guarantee and, in January, owed more than the company is worth.
Brightsource: A $1.6 billion loan guarantee has been followed by losses totaling $177 million.
Too many of the people behind these businesses either contributed bigtime to the current president’s campaign or are major donors to the Democratic Party. We’re seeing crony capitalism lead to dud investments.
I’m tired of the president playing mutual fund manager. He’s no good at it! When I have shares in a mutual fund saddled with bad management, I liquidate my holdings!
Other things that get my goat:
Bailing out the banks, the Wall Street brokerage houses and the auto industry, our leader has let Main Street wither. As home values and share prices tumbled, the average American family lost 35% of their net worth in the last five years! The average wealth of a family of four is currently $66,740, according to the Census Bureau.
The “McCain-Feingold” legislation, allowing campaign finance reform— cleaning up a veritable cesspool of politicians for sale to special interest groups— received only a tepid response from the current occupant in the White House.
Why does the president support oil prospecting off the coast of Virginia? Haven’t we learned anything about off-shore drilling from the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster?
In “fracking” or “fracturing,” the gas companies pump poisonous chemicals into the bedrock to release natural gas. Supposedly, these poisons won’t leak into the groundwater. Wherever fracturing is used, however, all kinds of environmental issues result.
The ethanol industry lied to us. They claimed they could make ethanol from the sheaths and stalks of corn, while the corn itself would be reserved for human and animal consumption. Once the government funded the tech research, provided the start-up capital and got the ethanol producers underway, these tricky capitalists announced that in order to be profitable, they needed to grind up the corn along with the stalks.
We bought one of those newfangled H2Low / he washing machines that use very little water and high energy detergent. Like the Obama presidency, there are a lot of bells and whistles, but it doesn’t get the job done! This machine does everything except clean clothes.
According to Rajiv Chandrasekaran of The Washington Post, the 54,000 soldier “surge” in Afghanistan in 2009 – 2010 put over a third of the task force—20,500 Marines— in Helmand province, where they had very little work, instead of placing them in Kandahar, where the insurgency is mushrooming. 2
As Commander In Chief, the prez failed to back the State Department and Richard C. Holbrooke’s peace initiative, which could have made a deal with the Taliban and ended the Afghan conflict with “Dayton”-style accords. Instead, Mr. Passive-Aggressive, the president allowed bureaucratic infighting and one-upmanship to overshadow a possible solution. Our boots on the ground continue to be killed while billions of dollars go into a wasted war effort. 3
Chandrasekaran calculates that the war in Afghanistan is going to cost the American taxpayer an additional $100 billion in 2012.
The Taliban are still using Pakistan as a sanctuary. The Pakistani military is losing patience with America’s demands that they clean out the sanctuaries.
In this election year, the Democratic incumbent in the White House sides with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who is little more than an American puppet. One of Hamid’s brothers runs “The Helmand,” a restaurant on North Charles Street in Baltimore, Maryland featuring Afghan cuisine. A Pashtun, touchy and corrupt, Hamid himself heads a cantankerous regime in Kabul. It’s nice for Hamid Karzai that he has U.S. backing, since his fellow Afghans in the countryside feel no particular affection for him.
“Basically, Karzai bitches about night raids whenever we bag one of his relatives,” explains a military source.
You know those attack ads on TV denigrating Obama, Romney and your local candidates? The Congress could outlaw them overnight! Television content is strictly enforced by the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission. So why this glut of bilge? Because our politicians like slash and burn politics, and the Supreme Court has given corporations the right to form super PACs, who can spend enormous amounts of money and whose members are known only to themselves. When Congress passes a law banning attack ads, a conservative Supreme Court might overturn it, based on First Amendment rights. We can still rid ourselves of this filth, if the American people want to: If two-thirds of the state legislatures vote to abolish them, attack ads are history!
My mom has three additional issues:
We’ve got a “liberal” president who is a closet lackey of Big Business. The Republicans have a “Big Business candidate” who is a closet liberal.
Now that the Muslim Brotherhood won the election in Egypt, no one in the U.S. Congress is petitioning for one penny of the Egyptian aid appropriation to be released. Sharia law is not the American way. With this president, however, you never know: He may decide the Muslim Brotherhood will like us better if we send them the one billion dollars in aid.
Our dear president favors the Canadian tar sands project. Extracting oil from the sands requires three times as much water as oil produced. Once used to clean tar sands, the contaminated water returns to the earth, poisoning the water table for generations to come. By 2030, drinkable, unpolluted water, H2O, will be the scarce commodity over which countries go to war. As such, the Canadian tar sands project seems both shortsighted and incredibly foolish.
*
_______________________
1 “Obama’s equity problem,” Marc A. Thiessen, The Washington Post, May 25, 2012, p. A19.
2 “A MISPLACED SURGE,” Rajiv Chandrasekaran, The Washington Post, June 24, 2012, p. A1, A16 & A17.
3 “The war within the war cabinet,” Rajiv Chandrasekaran, The Washington Post, June 25, 2012, p. A1 & A18.
***
From the desk of Kevin Feingold
Journal A Hobbit in Hillaryland
Saturday, March 1, 2008
There is something of the flimflam artist about Barack Obama. This flashy character arrives in town, wows everybody and gets us to do his bidding. This amazing young man is signing up millions of people to march behind him to a New Jerusalem. Yes, I’ve seen the pictures of his “gorgeous” wife and his pretty daughters. Yes, I’ve heard his life story. It seems a little too good to be true. Only a grouchy cynic like me would stand on the sidelines, muttering, “My experience is, when things seem too good to be true… they usually are. This guy’s a snow job.”
I felt like I was the only one, but I soon found that there were a lot of us saying the same thing. We got behind our own candidate, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Not a totally unknown commodity. I have become an unpaid volunteer, manning a phone bank at Hillary headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. Retired from the military, twice divorced, I live with my mom, sharing the family house I grew up in.
I tried being a rent-a-cop, but who wants to get shot defending a shopping mall? So desperate for money, I’m not.
Monday, March 31, 2008
John F. Kennedy was a combat veteran with 14 years in Congress before running for president. Obama is a freshman senator with three years to his credit. He talks endlessly about the 10 years he spent as a labor organizer in Chicago and the legislation he claims to have authored. This latest issue of Newsweek sports a cover story “When ‘Barry’ Became Barack.” It asks us not to judge too harshly since Barack Obama is still very much a work-in-progress.
I don’t want a president who is still learning the ropes!
We already have a George W. Bush-style experience: An affable man learning by doing, sure of his own convictions, unilaterally making up policy as he goes along. Once is enough!
The presidency is too important to be an on-the-job training program. I want to elect a professional.
When my sink clogs, I want a plumber, not an enthusiastic amateur who stands in the kitchen waving his arms, making speeches about how I should feel good about myself. Or recites the history of indoor plumbing back to the ancient Greeks. When I go to the dentist, I want a professional who cares for my teeth, not a gabby amateur who stands by the dental chair making glorious pronouncements about dentistry.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Apparently, the Obama people have given us a piece of brilliant political theater, proffering the vice presidency to Al Gore. I say apparently because the only media coverage mom and I can find consists of one radio announcement and a reference on TV’s nightly news. I think David Letterman mentions it in his monologue. Willful blindness? Anyway, Gore says “No.”
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Watching the hallelujah choruses surrounding the Papal Mass on TV, mom asks, “What’s this, an Obama rally?”
The Washington Post television critic Tom Shales administers a tongue-lashing to ABC News regarding last night’s Philadelphia debate. Co-anchors Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos are accused of “shoddy, despicable performances.” Shales complains that the debate was snippy and clearly weighted against Obama. He describes “network newsniks” panting like dogs in anticipation of candidate missteps and misstatements. Shales feels that Tim Russert and MSNBC do a much better job. From the vitriol in his review, you might think Shales favors Obama.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Thousands of good, imaginative suggestions come into campaign headquarters every week from Hillary supporters, by phone, fax, email and letter:
Places she should visit, people she should meet, local events we can combine with campaign rallies for maximum effect.
Atlanta, Georgia: “We’re the Peanut State. Hillary and Shirley Franklin, the Mayor of Atlanta, can have a peanut-eating contest. We’ll call it ‘Battle of the Nuts.’ That fits Hillary and our mayor like a glove! We’ll ask each person at the fundraiser to contribute $1 to Hillary’s campaign for every peanut eaten.”
or
Indianapolis, Indiana: “Hillary knows how to drive, doesn’t she? We’ll put her in a souped-up roadster— nothing dangerous— and have her drive a ‘Victory Lap’ around the speedway before the big race.”
We also get the usual kooky ideas (“Have Hillary climb the tallest butte in Montana!… Have Hillary spend a day in a slaughterhouse to show solidarity with the meatpacking industry!… Have Hillary scuba dive for eco-friendly tourism!”) as well as bizarre requests for top-level negotiations with the big names at the top of the food chain: “I need to talk with your campaign manager!”
Yeah, right! Fat chance, considering I never even see her.
“Let me talk with the campaign treasurer!”— I transfer the call to her office.
“Connect me with Hillary! It’s urgent!”
Ha ha ha ha!
We enter all suggestions into our data bank, attributed or anonymously… “You choose!” It’s a miracle if the campaign actualizes 1/10th of the best ideas. Put simply, nothing happens. Even the greatest concepts never see the light of day, smothered by a bureaucracy where no two departments communicate.
“This is New Zealand Television. I’m doing you the courtesy of telling you that Christchurch is going to do such an exposé on Hillary Clinton, she won’t have a peg left to hang her duster!”
“Whoa! Whoa! I’m just a volunteer. What’s this about?”
“We’ve been after Hillary for three months to set up an interview and she keeps giving us the walkabout. You don’t brush aside New Zealanders and not pay a price!”
“I’m sure it’s a screw-up! This campaign has an abiding affection for Kiwis. We love you guys! Who did you talk to?”
“That’s just it, mate. No one will talk with us.”
“Wait! You’ve been leaving messages on the Press Office voicemail?”
“That’s the way of it, laddie.”
“PLEASE, don’t take it personally. They never call back anybody. Our Press Office is constantly on the road. They’re a total bollocks.”
“Well, you understand my point then!” ranted the Kiwi a little less violently.
Trying the extension, all I got was voicemail.
I took the man’s particulars and passed his request to Cathy, my supervisor. Unflustered, brilliant, she can handle anything. I’m always fascinated by the incredible collection of Hillary campaign tjochkes 1 on her desk: pens, pads, coffee mugs, umbrellas, watches, baseball caps, T-shirts, books, photos, CDs and DVDs. [ 1 Yiddish: knickknacks, small possessions ]
I don’t know if the New Zealanders ever got their interview, but Cathy and I did what we could. She and I are extremely proficient. Farther up the chain of command, however, life becomes murky and chaotic.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Facing Indiana and North Carolina primaries, Obama’s message of “Hope!” is still there, he’s merely narrowed the focus to “I hope you vote for me!”
Manchester, New Hampshire: “Why are you working at Hillary headquarters, young man? Bill screwed the chambermaid and Hillary forgave him. That shows the Clintons harbor not a shred of human decency. Get out of there while you still have your integrity intact!”
Thursday, May 8, 2008
TV nightly news: Barack Obama says if he wins the Democratic primary in Oregon on May 20, he’s going to declare victory. Hey, Barry, it ain’t over ‘till the fat lady sings! What a dude!
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Natalia Mendez reports a polling irregularity in Palestine, West Virginia. At her polling place in Burning Springs, Wirt County, she went in to vote this morning and says Hillary’s name was not on the ballot. I call our precinct captain in Wirt County. She investigates. Answer: Natalia got a Republican ballot by mistake!
*
“Can’t you do anything about MSNBC?” ask Hillary supporters over the phone. “Can’t you call CNN and get them to treat Hillary fairly?”
“We call,” I tell them. “We call and complain. But since we seem to lack even the support of Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean, it’s an uphill battle, countering the flow of negative propaganda.”
Washington, D.C.— which used to be a nice enough town— has become hellish, what with the self-righteous fury of the pundits, the newspeople and the Obamaniacs. Suddenly, those of us who simply cannot follow the flimflam man are an oppressed minority! It’s bad enough that we don’t “get” his appeal, we are now held up to public ridicule and told our hopes for Hillary are delusional. (I gotta stop reading the newspapers!)
Norman, Oklahoma: “Ken Starr spent $44 million and found nothing—absolutely nothing— on the Clintons. The people around here don’t understand that! You tell Hillary, ‘You go, girl!’ Don’t tell my husband, but I’m sending Hillary some money for her campaign!”
What started out as a contest between several attractive contenders has degenerated into a witch-hunt. Hup-Hup Clinton is behind by 150 pledged delegates in the primaries. We’re on the 15th tee of a golf tournament. It’s the third quarter of a basketball game (Obama’s sport, basketball). We’re in the 7th inning of a baseball game, and instead of being allowed to play to the end of the game, the announcer is shouting over the P.A. system, “Hillary is behind, she should leave the field!” The Obama campaign half-heartedly rebukes the announcer while harping on this message, claiming Hillary is destroying the great game of politics. Where is the Obama team’s sense of good sportsmanship? Quitters never win and winners never quit!
And Obama is a poor winner: Instead of being glad about leading the field, he is vindictive. Wake up, America! Harassing your opponent is not the American way.We’re supposed to be magnanimous in victory and gracious in defeat. Shame on you, Barack Obama! Why do you resent Hillary Clinton and John McCain also trying for the presidency? Why sulk?
Duluth, Minnesota; Albuquerque, New Mexico; hundreds of other places: “You tell Obama…” Good Lord, the things our supporters wish us to impart to the Obama campaign! Generally, I delete or rephrase the profane parts.
Look, Barack Obama insists on running in 2008, it is his campaign. He sets the tone, he calls the shots. Hunched over the microphone at press conferences, the insulting barbs roll off his acid tongue.
Suggestion from Skokie, Illinois: “I want Hillary to kiss a baby pig. I know, I know, but Chicago is the center of the pork industry and we need to do something to counteract that black guy!”
Barack and Michelle Obama, David Axelrod and David Plouffe have a lot to answer for. They play their mind games, they parse words, they shout that they are victims. They claim they are being swiftboated because of race.
How dare Obama play the race card! There are blacks throughout the Hillary campaign, top to bottom. Plus Asians, Latinos, Indians and Caucasians. A veritable hodge-podge of humanity works in “Hillaryland.”
Biloxi, Mississippi: “Bill Clinton was our first black president and don’t you let anybody forget it!”
Sometimes the regional accents are so thick, I have to cobble together the message as best I can. Our callers are nice. They may lose patience, but they only chuckle over my ineptitude. “Don’t they teach you people Mountain English before turning you loose on the phone system?” twangs a hillbilly from West Virginia. I can all but hear the tobacco juice running down his chin.
My kind of people! Grounded. Real.
Team Obama blames the Establishment for beating up on the little guy, the outsider. And every few days, one of them makes a disparaging remark about Hillary: She “doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” She’s “out of control.”
We pride ourselves on being a democratic country, free of hate, but there is bad blood in this election, fed by misbehavior, “gotcha” journalism and an endless series of attacks on Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain.
We have “Change We Can Believe In,” all right. Politics used to be fun and exciting. These weasels have made it bloody and heartbreaking for the 18 million Hillary supporters. This climate sucks!
Life is bleak in Obamaland!
Madison, Wisconsin: “When she’s out here campaigning, have Hillary milk a cow! It won’t kill her and it will show, symbolically, that she supports the dairy industry. What does a city boy like Obama know about cows? He couldn’t tell the back end from the front.”
Hillary was there first. Everyone knew in 2000 that eventually she would make a run for the White House. The country was finally going to have a woman president!!! How’s that for a change? Obama appears to be a Johnny-come-lately, a usurper, a wrecker. He has turned the Democratic Party primary process into a SmackDown!
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Two ladies in Cambria, California own a bed-and-breakfast facing the ocean. Each of them gets on an extension and we brainstorm campaign concepts. I enter the data in the appropriate files for the delectation of my bosses on the floors above. We also exchange malicious gossip. (We’re as bad as everyone else!) “Of course Obama is a Muslim,” they insist. “He’s just this side of a terrorist! In Chicago, he hangs around with Bill Ayers, an anarchist bomb-thrower from the Weather Underground! Obama learned Marxism at the knees of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, who are both slightly to the left of Chairman Mao. Mobster Tony Rezko bought a million-dollar house in an up-scale neighborhood and sold it to Obama for half-price! The only change that interests Team O is the change in your pocket!”
I share with them an aphorism provided by one of our callers:
“On Monday, Wednesday and Friday
Obama is a white boy.
On Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday,
He’s black.
He takes Sundays off.”
Mom and I have vacationed in Cambria. We stayed at Cambria Pines Lodge on the edge of town.
“Next time you come out, stay with us!” my lady friends laugh.
Sure, they’re gay, but we dig each other. I keep their info for future reference.
Seattle, Washington: “You tell Hillary to get out of the race! How dare she try to compete with Obama?! Who does she think she is? Obama offers hope! All Hillary and Bill— and you— offer is more of the same. You tell Hillary to get the hell out of the way. She should throw her support behind Obama! Everybody should!”
Since Hillary isn’t as popular as Obama, all these people in authority continue screaming at us that Hillary Clinton ought to get out of the race. Who? Obama, his supporters, his campaign manager David Axelrod, NBC’s Tim Russert, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, The Washington Post. Congressional bigwigs.
Why aren’t the rest of us allowed to disagree with the Obama campaign without getting attacked? Why are all Americans required to think only one way, the Obama way? What happened to freedom of speech, freedom of thought? Barack, what are you doing, bro’?
Landover, Maryland: “Who are you? Who am I speaking with?”
“I’m Kevin. I’m a volunteer on the Hillary for President campaign.”
“How much do they pay you?”
“I’m an unpaid volunteer.”
“Are they still accepting unpaid volunteers?”
“I would think so. Here’s my supervisor’s phone number…”
“I live in Landover, Maryland. What’s your address? I’m coming over there tomorrow to volunteer! I’m sick of people being mean to Hillary!”
Wow.
*
In America, we like our religion straight, not mixed with politics into a religio-political cocktail. The Obama campaign has bragged in Rolling Stone magazine about the “Camp Obama” program, where young people are taught to go out and spread the word— “missionaries,” to use the dictionary definition. People on a mission, spreading a gospel. When working, they tell how they “came to” Obama, as if they were coming to Jesus.
Oprah Winfrey toured with the Obama campaign in South Carolina. That’s where they really found their voice, in Columbia, S.C. They got that “Ol’ Time Religion.” The ultimate crowd-pleaser— more popular than Jay Leno— nobody knows how to whip up hysteria like Oprah.
Obama the lawyer knows all about the separation of church and state, but he’s willing to harness the power of religious euphoria, if that’s what it takes to get elected. Give the man credit, he may be an Elmer Gantry, but he is having a ball! Read Newsweek! His formula for success has made him the hands-down favorite for the Democratic nomination.
Witnessing the hysteria at Obama rallies— the four-hour waits in line, 10,000 spectators at a local suburban event— I entreat my fellow Democrats, “We have separation of church and state. You are worshipping a false Messiah.”
To no avail.
They want to worship at Obama’s feet. They want to touch the hem of his garment. The “whatever” generation has found its redeemer, all gloss, no substance!
I, on the other hand, worry about a polarized society. Obama is no friend to the black community: They have every right to support their man, but what happens if he is unsuccessful? By raising their hopes to the very pinnacle of expectation, Barack is paving the way for a terrible disappointment if he goes down to defeat at the Democratic Convention in August or in the general election in November.
For all his talk of being a unifier, Barack Obama is the greatest polarizer since Richard Nixon. This young man’s campaign claims John McCain is losing his bearings. We’re talking about a war hero, the Republican candidate for president! Show some gentlemanly respect, Barry!
Your fancy lawyer tactics are bad for the U.S.A.
Newark, New Jersey: “I have a plan for paying off the deficit and balancing the budget!”
“That’s wonderful! I’m all ears.”
“Well, now, you got to negotiate a contract first, bubba.”
“You have a plan for righting the economy, but you want a consultant’s fee?”
“You got that right! This is the only meal ticket I got. I can’t just give it away!”
“Well… I can enter your contract proposal into our system. If the higher-ups want to get in touch with you, they will.”
“Yeah. Okay. You do that!”
“What’s your name?”…
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Some days, the pollen absolutely kills me. Since it grabs me in the stomach, I subsist on coffee. Weak as a kitten, I don’t tell Cathy. She’d send me home!
The campaign is getting to me. What have I heard, fielding calls from our volunteers during the primaries?
“I’m at our caucus location, but the Obama people have elbowed me out of the building. They’ve shoved me onto the gravel parking lot and they won’t let me back inside. What do I do?” asked a volunteer on his cellphone.
“The Obama people are keying cars,” reported another, this one on March 4 from the Great State of Texas. “Everybody knows who supports who in this town, so they’re takin’ their car keys and scratching the paint on the automobiles of Hillary’s supporters.”
“I got a problem,” reported a third. “I’m the precinct captain for Hillary’s campaign. I thought the Obama guy and I had an understanding. We had two voting boxes on the table, y’know? People could put their ballots in either one. Now the Obama guy has picked up one of the two ballot boxes, marched out the back of the gym, hopped in his pickup and driven off. What do I do now?”
Half the Democratic Party is beating up on the other half because, as their slogan says, Yes, we can! As long as John Edwards was in the race— and it was a three-way— people didn’t hound Hillary to death. Politics was still a contest. The tone remained civil. Today, the Obama people don’t care who they hurt or what damage they do, as long as Barack gets the nomination.
A divisive character out of a bad novel, a Willie Stark, Obama turns friend against friend and neighbor against neighbor. What a trick this slick pol has pulled on the American people!
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
My doctor feels smoking is the most unnatural activity imaginable. After a lifetime of addiction, I stopped on December 18, 2005. I smoked my last cigarette at 10:05 p.m., the nicotine making my heart almost leap out of my chest. “Holy mackerel,” I decided, “I’m not doing this anymore!” Nowadays, I take regular coffee breaks, instead. Here at headquarters, I brew instant coffee in a porcelain mug at the hot water nozzle on the office water cooler. Instead of getting angry, the bosses find my little enthusiasms endearing. I’m a star! The shifts are four hours long, but I bring a bag lunch and give the campaign a full eight-hour day, three or four times a week, as the election season heats up.
*
“Hey, man, you got to move your trucks, man. You blocking our access to the trash containers! You gonna get rats, man,” says the bantering voice in thick Chicano.
“Wait! Where are these trucks?”
“Behind you building, amigo. Two big white wans. ‘Hillary for President’ on the side. Move them so we can collect the garbage!”
“Listen, I’m up on the third floor. Let me look through the back window.”
I see the green refuse truck and the driver standing on the pavement with his cellphone pressed to his ear. I can also see the roofs of two large white vans very decorously parked behind our building. Two big green dumpsters sit between the vans and the back wall, hopelessly boxed in.
“I’ll get the vans moved!” I tell him, furious that no one put them away in the parking garage.
“You gotta move ‘em, man. We get paid to collect the garbage. You screwin’ up our schedule. It hot out. That garbage gonna smell. That attracts rats.”
I take the problem to Cathy. Ten minutes later, I’m back manning a station on the computerized phone system when Cathy comes into the Call Center, extends two sets of keys and asks, “Do you know how to drive a van?”
In Vietnam, troops in the field soon learned that military command in Saigon understood next to nothing about their situation. Each unit learned to organize the war in their own little theater of operations. Field commanders ran their own ops. The Clinton campaign is strikingly similar. Our command center, on floors four and five, is manned by amateurs— with a few windy operatives spread throughout the ranks like raisins in a cake. Despite numerous attempts, they fail to come to grips with even the most menial of duties: scheduling events, arranging transportation, paying bills. Only through endless redundancy— and people taking personal initiative— do we paste over the gaping holes in our organization.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
“Hillarity” is a major part of the problem. Everybody’s screwball sister, some members of the family hate her and some adore her. She is too moral and too nice. Would that she were the barracuda her critics claim! This primary season purgatory would have ended two months ago!
When the Reverend Wright scandal broke in March, Hills could have gotten on a soapbox and— full of righteous indignation— she could have spoken out for 32 minutes “on behalf of all fair-minded people” and blown the Obama campaign… out… of… the… water! Once and for all!
What a set-up! The pastor who married Barack and Michelle Obama— whose church in Chicago they attended for 14 years, whose sermons they listened to— now claims the government created AIDS to kill black people: ”The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color.” He says America brought 9/11 upon itself. He wants his parishioners to sing “God damn America.”
Instead of going for the jugular, Hillary chooses to play nice and show understanding.
When Michelle Obama said her husband’s candidacy is the first time, as an adult, she has felt proud of this country, Hillary could have thundered a denunciation from the mountain tops: “I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN PROUD OF AMERICA!” She could have hurled lightning bolts. Not wanting to bolster her political cartoon caricature as an assassin, she didn’t do it.
Meanwhile, the Obama camp— exhibiting no such reluctance— wounds her with a thousand cuts, slights and barbs. “You’re likeable enough, Hillary,” Obama said sourly at a January 5, 2008 televised debate, looking ready to puke.
Gee, thanks, Barry!
Whenever Obama’s campaign has hit a brick wall, when he’s planted a wingtipped shoe squarely in his mouth— yo! his daddy never met John F. Kennedy, and no, his uncle was not in the Red Army when it liberated Auschwitz— instead of going for the kill, Hillary thinks with the right side of her brain, declares us all brothers and sisters in one Democratic Party, and begins singing a refrain of “Kumbaya.”
With the Democratic National Committee, The Washington Post, Newsweek, NBC, CBS, CNN, The Oregonian and the Los Angeles Times all firmly against her, Hillary the Loser acts as if she is on a level playing field! Politely, she follows political etiquette, avoiding the impulse to resort to killer tactics. Hillary believes in the Tooth Fairy, but the super delegates may never come and put a quarter under our pillows!
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Every Saturday morning at exactly 11 a.m., Zack calls from Detroit. There are 12 stations in the Call Center, but at that hour, only one or two of us are working. Often enough, I field his call. “Zack my man!” I exclaim, recognizing his voice.
“What kinda week has Hillary had?” he asks.
I yank some tidbit from the press releases in my looseleaf notebook.
Zack is just making conversation. As soon as I finish, he launches into a full-frontal attack: “When is the Democratic Party going to do something about impeaching Governor Jennifer Granholm? She is the Angel of Death here in Detroit! Replace her, recall her, repeal her, march her before a firing squad!”
“Easy, ace!” I say, and try to talk him down.
He then asks my (my!) economic solution to the budget deficit. “I’m not an economist!” I counter.
I get a 10-minute lecture on balancing the budget and finance reform.
“I’ve got other calls, boss! Anything I should send up the chain of command?” I ask.
“Tell Hillary to choose someone with balls for a vice president!” Zack suggests, before launching into a fresh tirade over Jennifer Granholm.
“Until next time, ace!” I say, gently interrupting. “Always a pleasure, Zack, always a pleasure.”
He is one of about a dozen people who call headquarters for a weekly therapy session. Nice to everybody, we give them their seven-day fix of adrenaline.
Sean Lengell writes in The Washington Times that
“Clinton sees end of road for campaign.
“Mrs. Clinton yesterday rejected the notion of a summer-long fight to capture the nomination,” Sean writes. He then quotes Hillary on a conference call to Montana reporters: “‘I think after the final primaries, people are going to start making up their minds. I think that is the natural progression that one would expect.’”
To quote Mark Twain: “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”
[ New York Journal, June 2, 1897 ]
Sunday, June 1, 2008
The Democratic National Committee and the states of Michigan and Florida failed to agree on primary dates. Both states held their primaries early. This has pissed off the Committee, which is now threatening to disenfranchise the Michigan and Florida delegations: They’ll have no say at the August convention, their votes won’t count.
The DNC is holding deliberations. Always ready to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, Hillary compares the elections in Michigan and Florida to Zimbabwe… as if the American people know anything about politics in Zimbabwe! Here we go again! Is Hills-and-Valleys Clinton fishing for the Zimbabwean vote?
Raymond in Florida has emailed us a copy of the Tampa Tribune’s article of September 30th, 2007, “Obama Promises To Do Right.” It seems Obama signed an agreement that neither he nor Hills would campaign in Florida. After a fundraiser in Tampa, Obama promptly went across the street and gave an impromptu press conference, violating this written agreement! This is a constant problem with Barack Obama: He thinks the rules don’t apply to him.
My supervisor Cathy asks me to follow up. When I get Raymond on the phone, he wants me to take a printout of the article to the DNC. “Think of what this will do for your career,” he insists. “A 20-minute taxi ride downtown to the hearings and yours will be the act that changes history!”
Is the article true? Did the Obama and Hillary people sign the agreement before or after Obama’s Florida press conference? This is the problem with my job. Well-liked, but at the bottom of the pecking order, I remain amazingly uninformed. People call in and tell me things, but I never know what is fact, what is conjecture and what is wild fantasy.
Thanking Raymond, I take the issue to Garrett on the Policy Desk. He reads the exposé and hears me out. “Even if we caught Obama with his pants down,” he smiles sadly, “the DNC won’t even let you in the door of the committee room! You have no standing. What voting district does Kevin Feingold represent?!”
Friday, June 6, 2008
So here they are on the front page of The Washington Post in a huge color photo: Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, Obama and Virginia Senator Jim Webb, smiling from ear to ear, standing side by side. Gripping each other’s hands, holding aloft their arms in victory, they are awash in a sea of ocean blue placards that state: “Change We Can Believe In.”
“From Across Region, 10,000 Rally for Obama”
reads the headline. Hmmm, what’s wrong with this picture? Firstly, who announced the rally? I was pretty busy on Thursday, but I never heard duckshit. Probably “as advertised on the Obama website…” It’s impressive what the Obamaniacs can do with telepathy! Why didn’t The Washington Post advertise it? Not a word did they print. Maybe I would have attended.
Full disclosure: I DON’T LIKE OBAMA!
Saturday, June 7, 2008
The Washington Post’s attitude seems to be, “Why did they hold primaries in South Dakota and Montana, why have super delegates committed to a candidate, when it would be so much easier, cheaper and less complicated to have the nominee selected and announced by… The Washington Post!”
What’s The Post going to announce next, the end of the war in Afghanistan?
St. Louis, Missouri: “I am trying to buy a Hillary for President yard sign online, on your website. Every time I put in my credit card information, I get an ‘error’ message.”
“That, my friend, has been happening all morning. There is something wrong with our server. My supervisor tells me that our IT people are handling it and to please be patient. Can you try again tomorrow?”
The phones are ringing off the hook. My supervisor Cathy comes in wearing her Hillary designer T-shirt and explains to me that what I’m reading in the newspapers isn’t propaganda, it’s advocacy journalism.
“We think the press has been calling in to get us to say something outrageous, so please don’t make any out there comments. We’re trying to stay on message.”
Half my job is data entry. My old buddy Foluka calls from NYC. This is one hot South African lady. She calls at least once a week. The Jo’burg accent is unmistakable. She dishes me some dirt. I enter it on my desktop. I read it back to her: “Michele Obama is on YouTube conducting an anti-white tirade, right?”
Foluka gives me two more items.
“You’re my eyes and ears in New York!” I thank her.
A minute later, while I’m correcting my typos, Cathy comes up and says, “That’s exactly the kind of incendiary comment we don’t want to make. No outrageous remarks!”
I explain that I was repeating the caller’s comments to confirm that I heard correctly.
Cathy apologizes. “I’m exhausted,” she sighs. “If I get confused, humor me.”
Eventually, Cathy’s boss comes into the Call Center and suggests I join the rest of the staff in the main room to watch Hillary’s concession speech on widescreen TV.
“What about the phones?”
“They can ring for awhile,” he smiles resignedly.
I sit on a swivel chair by one of the desks, eating a sandwich. I view her speech with critical detachment: “Not good enough to win an Oscar, but certainly good enough to get an Oscar nomination.” Whenever Hillary gets to an applause line, the room erupts in wild clapping. I love the dude who is going “Woof woof woof! “ like at a football game. The next time Hillary comes to a pause and we start clapping, I do a “Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman,” making a circular motion with my hand and going “Ruff! Ruff! Ruff!”
It’s only when he gets excited and starts running about the room that I discover my partner in crime is a brown and white Jack Russell terrier.
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