If you’re sick, do you try to choose the smartest doctor or the dumbest?
When you want an accountant, do you want to feel confidence in the ability of that man/woman to add, subtract, multiply and divide? Use excel formulas?
When you need legal assistance, do you want a wise man/woman or a dope?
These are not trick questions.
I’ve always asked myself similar questions about the people who want to run my country. I want the smartest people in office, from Town Selectman to President. Naturally, that means I’m a Democrat.
But you know, I always sort of figured that Republicans at least thought (mistakenly) that theirs were the smart candidates.
Ummm, not so much. At least, not according to one of the GOP’s shining stars, Rick Santorum. You know, Rick “Don’t Google Me” Santorum, the former Senator from Pennsylvania (who lost by 18 percent!) who was also a former GOP candidate for President just this year.
Listen up to Ricky speaking just the other day to the Values Voter Summit here in DC:
We will never have the media on our side, ever, in this country. We will never have the elite, smart people on our side.
Well, Duh!!!!! You got that right, Ricky. But is it something to be proud of?
Today at lunch, I am sitting in my office having my salad, looking out the window and reading the newspaper. It is September 11, 2012. Eleven years after.
My office overlooks the Capitol, the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials. The Washington Monument. The Pentagon.
From here, I can just barely see the flag that was unfurled this morning on the side of the Pentagon that was struck that morning. Another Tuesday. Another beautiful, blue sky day. Folks who still work in my office were here that day, I was not. Of course they still remember. (We all do.) They heard and felt the impact; nobody saw it hit, as everybody except me keeps their blinds down because the office gets the hot morning sun.
I have long felt that George W. Bush let us down. That the attack shouldn’t have happened. That it should have been foiled.
Remember this?:
On Aug. 6, 2001, President George W. Bush received a classified review of the threats posed by Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network, Al Qaeda. That morning’s “presidential daily brief” — the top-secret document prepared by America’s intelligence agencies — featured the now-infamous heading: “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” A few weeks later, on 9/11, Al Qaeda accomplished that goal.
Might they have prevented the attack? We will never know.
Well, in today’s NY Times, there is more evidence that the Bush Administration had more than the one presidential daily brief. There were numerous reports, meetings and presidential daily briefings: ON May 1, on June 22, on June 29, on July 9, on July 24. These are the ones the reporter, Kurt Eichenwald, saw excerpts from.
But, and there’s always a but, isn’t there.
But some in the administration considered the warning to be just bluster. An intelligence official and a member of the Bush administration both told me in interviews that the neoconservative leaders who had recently assumed power at the Pentagon were warning the White House that the C.I.A. had been fooled; according to this theory, Bin Laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration from Saddam Hussein, whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat. Intelligence officials, these sources said, protested that the idea of Bin Laden, an Islamic fundamentalist, conspiring with Mr. Hussein, an Iraqi secularist, was ridiculous, but the neoconservatives’ suspicions were nevertheless carrying the day. [Emphasis is mine.]
These neocons who got everything so disastrously wrong are the same folks that are working with Romney/Ryan on Foreign Policy. This time they want us to go after Iran and Syria.
This is a true story that happened in about 1980/81. It was early in my career. Really early. I worked as a lobbyist back then. What I really was, though, was a flunky. Mostly my job involved going to government buildings and Xeroxing. Yes, being a lobbyist can be exciting.
But one day when an important vote was coming up that impacted my firm’s clients, I was asked to make some phone calls to find out what was going to happen.
I didn’t know the issue. I didn’t know “the players” – the Congressmen and women who were involved in the issue. I didn’t know their staffs. I didn’t know shit.
So naturally, in trying to find out the information I needed, I started at the top.
I called the office of the Speaker of the House, Tip O’Neil. And somehow I got through to Tip’s Chief of Staff, Chris Matthews.
Now, normally, flunkies like me don’t get to speak with high level staff unless they know the guy. I didn’t know Chris, and he didn’t know me.
I started the conversation the way I always did with my sure-fire trick to get help. You see, not only was I very young, well, I sounded even younger. I sounded about 12, according to friends. So, well, I took advantage of it …
“This is probably a stupid question,” I began (as I often did).
“There are no stupid questions. Ask me anything you want, and I’ll do my best to help you,” said Chris Mathews, Chief of Staff to one of the most powerful politicians in Washington. To me!
Chris not only answered my question, but he explained how things happened, how they were likely to play out on this issue, what other issues might be helpful for me to look into. He told me what was happening on the issue in the Senate. He spent about 30 minutes helping a young, inexperienced person he didn’t really need to help. He was terrific, and I’ve never forgotten him or his voice.
When I went back to my bosses to tell them the news, well, to be honest, I wasn’t really sure who Chris Matthews was. But when they asked for the source of my information, well, they were impressed. Because I had gotten to talk with Chris and they had been unable to get through to him.
I did less Xeroxing after that day. A lot less. And I’ve used the information and the knowledge that Chris helped me get ever since.
So this morning when I learned that as an MSNBC “Talking Head,” Chris Matthews called out the head of the GOP because they continually play the race card, and divide America. Today, I am proud of being able to say that Chris Matthews was one of my teachers. Way to go, Chris. Way to go.
As you can probably tell, I don’t normally struggle with making my opinion known. But the last few days I’ve been so overwhelmed by the crap that the GOP is spewing that, well, I went into “outrage overload.” It’s an epidemic amongst thinking Americans everywhere.
But after reading Eleanor Tomczyk of How The Hell Did I End Up Here, I was reminded of someone I knew slightly when I worked at a law school in my younger days.
Mark was member of the “Lawyers for Christ” group while at law school, and was known as a deeply devout, incredibly pleasant guy. We weren’t close friends, but he was a nice guy.
Well, Mark is now a Federal Judge! It’s pretty cool, isn’t it? I mean when folks you know make good?
One night when Mark was in DC, I was invited to a dinner of some of his law school classmates who were also friends of mine. I came away in shock. Because this good man who had been the bible studies leader at law school, the number one Christian sharing his beliefs and values, well, Mark had changed.
“I went back home and studied my soul, studied my bible,” Mark said. “And I came away knowing that Christianity, in fact, all the beliefs Jesus preached on, well, they’re based on property rights. In fact,Jesus preached property rights.”
Huh?
Yes, Mark, the man who had believed that Jesus preached love, preached helping the poor, preached paying Caesar what is Caesar’s now had, well, a different line of thinking. One that was way more compatible with his expanding wallet, waistband and increasing prominence as a fat-cat GOP member.
Holy Shit.
Available for $3.95 from Zazzle.com. It’s their picture.
Or should I say “Holy Bullshit”?
Stephen Colbert on Jesus and Our Christian Nation
“If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus is just as selfish as we are or we’ve got to acknowledge that he commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition. And then admit that we just don’t want to do it.” – Stephen Colbert
Mark, Federal Judge Mark, that is, went with Stephen’s first option – choosing to believe that Jesus was just as selfish.
Me, I believe that Jesus would be a liberal Democrat. Because the difference in the parties can be summed up one way:
Democrats believe in helping the poor;
Republicans believe in helping themselves.
* * * * *
Thanks to Eleanor Tomczyk of How The Hell Did I End Up Here for reminding me of this conversation and for her incredibly eloquent post on this subject: A Warning to Mittens and the Gang. Eleanor included Colbert’s comment, which I must say, I think of often.
Ladies, ladies, ladies. Please. Don’t get yourself extra-cited about this news item from yesterday.
Just because this man who clearly has never gotten a proper “birds and bees” lecture is possibly going to be the next Senator from Missouri is no reason to get upset. Besides, there are a whole bunch of Senate and House candidates who feel the same way as Todd. But don’t worry your pretty little head about it.
And another thing. Just because the nominee for Vice President, Paul Ryan (R-Neanderthal) agrees with Todd, well, that is no reason to worry either. Here is a link to some of that cute Pauly’s positions, but I’m sure you have dishes to do.
Trust me. Not a thing will happen if these guys are elected. Nothing will change. Not with abortion. Not with birth control. Not with Medicare.
“Now how can you be so sure about all of that, Elyse?” you wonder.
Well, just now I got an email from CNN that reassured me that we ladies just made huge progress in equal rights. So much so that we no longer have to concern ourselves with issues of birth control, of abortion, of violence against women. About equal pay for equal work. Because this is HUGE:
Augusta National Golf Club has admitted its first female members, the private club announced Monday.
The decision to admit former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and business executive Darla Moore of Lake City, South Carolina, ends a longstanding policy excluding women as members of the exclusive Georgia club, which hosts the Masters.
So ladies, don’t get your knickers in a twist about Todd Akin. Or about Paul Ryan. Or about any of the other crazy right wing candidates who may directly impact your life come November.
Wait a minute. On second thought, maybe getting your knickers in a twist would be a good thing! After all, doctors have told me privately that “twisted knickers” is a great method of birth control.
FiftyFourandAHalf 