Gadhafi and other riffs
Quick political riffs at week's end
Gadhafi and other riffs
Dick Polman, Inquirer National Political Columnist
TGIF quickies:
Put your hands together for Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, who earlier this week at the U.N. delivered a stellar imitation of Alec Baldwin playing Saddam Hussein on Saturday Night Live. Rarely have we ever witnessed a mass murderer walk such a fine line between thuggery and buffoonery. The black hat was a nice touch, but, given the loony nature of his filibuster, his head should have been topped with whirling propellers. It was nice that he wants to solve the Kennedy assassination, but, since we're on the subject of murder conspiracies, let it be said that if Gadhafi had spoken up soon after that Pan Am plane was blown up over Scotland in 1988, he could have saved investigators a lot of time and trouble.
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Deval Patrick, the governor of Massachusetts, was smart to bypass Michael Dukakis for the newly-created job of interim Democratic senator. Patrick yesterday tapped former Democratic national chairman Paul Kirk (he'll be sworn in today), reportedly at the urging of the Kennedy family. That makes sense, since Kirk is a Kennedy family loyalist who worked as a top staffer for Ted. But just as importantly, Kirk doesn't have Dukakis' baggage. The aim is to theoretically give the Democrats a 60th Senate vote for health care reform, without any media distractions. If Dukakis had been named, the journalistic plot line would be "The Duke's Comeback," and cable TV, as we speak, would be running (and re-running) that '88 footage of doomed presidential candidate Dukakis looking wonky-nerdy inside a military tank. No Democrat wants to relive that era and step on the party's current message.
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Jeez, that New Jersey gubernatorial race is sure getting personal. The other day, Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine released a TV ad which attacks his challenger for being a fat guy. (U.S. attorney Chris Christie is indeed a fat guy, so at least the attack was accurate.) The narrator says: "If you drove the wrong way down a one-way street, causing an accident and putting the victim in a trauma center, would you get away without a ticket? Chris Christie did. If you were caught speeding in an unregistered car- would you get away without points? Chris Christie did. In both cases, Christie threw his weight around" - and, seconds later, there is a verrrry slowwww motion shot of weight-challenged Christie emerging from a van. Corzine's slam is a tad, um, heavy-handed...but arguably shrewd. Think about it: how often do voters actually elect fat candidates in major races? The last truly rotund president was William Howard Taft, elected 101 years ago. Today, when strategists first meet with their overweight candidates, the first piece of advice is to shed a lot of poundage, because some voters are prone to equate excess weight with a lack of personal discipline. That helps explain why Corzine is running his ad...even though it may well signal that, with just six weeks to election day, the governor is getting desperate.
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There was a lot of advance buzz about a new CBS show entitled The Good Wife, purportedly chronicling the traumas of being married to a politician snared in a sex scandal. Given the usual dearth of political drama shows on broadcast TV, I was curious this week to see the pilot episode. Here's a thumbnail recapitulation: The wife stands by her man during the first two minutes; five minutes later, she has landed an exciting job in a tony criminal defense law firm (yay!); 30 minutes later, she has cracked open a big case and freed an innocent woman (yay!); the big case was, naturally, her very first case (yay!); 20 minutes later, word arrives that her fallen husband might soon be freed from prison - but the wife is strong and independent, with a nice income and impeccable mid-life grooming, so clearly she doesn't need that stinker anymore (yay!). You go, girl; like Mary Tyler Moore, you're gonna make it after all. No wonder so many people sign up for HBO.
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Check out this passage from New Republic magazine: "(There is) a phenomenon which social historians of the future will very likely record with perplexity if not with astonishment: the fanatical hatred of the President...No other word than hatred will do. It is a passion, a fury, that is wholly unreasoning. It permeates, in greater or less degree, (a) whole stratum of American society." Among the examples: people grousing that "we might just as well be living in Russia right now," people lying about the president's genealogy, and a store owner even declaring that he would sell a volume of the president's words "only if bound in that man's skin." Care to guess the identity of this president? Franklin D. Roosevelt. The New Republic passage, quoted above, appeared in print 73 years ago. (The haters also circulated word, which they actually believed, that the president had caught gonorrhea from Eleanor, who had been infected by a black lover.) And no, I'm not implicitly equating Barack Obama with FDR. I'm merely pointing out that, with respect to politics, each and every generation produces its own constituency of morons.
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And speaking of America's dark side, Karl Rove made an interesting remark the other night during a Las Vegas speaking gig. He said that, back in 2003, he wished he had more fiercely opposed the Democrats when they charged that President Bush had lied about Iraq possessing WMDs. In Rove's words, "We should have stood up and taken a two-by-four to them in a polite and respectful fashion." Yep, Rove thinks he was merely wimping out when he and his surrogates slimed the Democrats for lack of patriotism...Elsewhere during his gig, however, Rove was far more rational. He said it's fine for the moment that the congressional Republicans are known primarily for their opposition to Obama's health care reforms, "but by next year, we need to be able to articulate what it is we're for." Gee, ya think? The latest New York Times-CBS News poll, out today, reports that 76 percent of Americans fault Republicans for not explaining how they would change health care; that, by a margin of 52 to 27 percent, Americans say Obama has better reform ideas than the Republicans; and that nearly two-thirds believe the Republicans are opposing Obama's reform push only for political gain. (Which reminds me: Whatever happened to the so-called "Obama tax on tampons"? I kid you not. Fox News floated that one back on Sept. 18, but apparently it didn't fly.)
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The word is out that Ralph Nader, of all people, is putting the finishing touches on a 700-page novel. Apparently, he has concocted fictional episodes in which the world turns out exactly the way he wishes it to be. And since we're talking fiction here, I can only assume he will conclude that he deserves no blame whatsoever for taking Florida votes away from Al Gore and thus putting Bush in the White House.
The flap over a black school promoting songs praising Obama is a little overblown. Obama is the first real hero black people have had for a while; their admiration of him has nothing to do with partisan politics. When I was in grade school we had pageants praising Pope Pius XII, who turned out to be a Nazi sympathizer, and it didn't hurt me any at all.— liberal- rgreen--your information that the Poles and Czechs "hate" Obama for pulling out the anti-missile system seems to have come from Fox News-type sources. Some polls showed, however, that a majority of Poles and Czechs opposed the antimissile system. This is not surprising because the system did not protect the Poles or Czechs in any way, it simply made them a target for whoever wanted to send missiles past them.— liberal
- The republican idiots who are "outraged" by the plan to penalize excess health care expenses above a certain threshhold don't seem to realize that this is essentially the basis of Sen McCain's healthcare plan that he offered during the presidential campaign in 2008. Back then, the republicans seemed to like it.— liberal
- CD--It's the "Obama Youth" that's budding out there in NJ, not the "Obama Youth Corps." The latter sounds more like a wholesome New Deal forestry program. Or, in the original it would be the "Obamajugend." Please make your absurd rants a bit better researched in the future.— liberal
- First of all, I guarantee that the students found the songs corny, which they are, as are most elementary school songs. Second, I can understand picking nits with the first song. The second song, well, it's just corny and that's it. Third, it was black history month and Obama made history as the first black president of the USA - *that* was likely the celebrated accomplishment. Fourth, saying, "if it had been GWB, there would have been..." is about as weak a point as if someone were to say, "if it had been GWB, conservatives wouldn't have said a word". To the post: I don't know who is more full of himself, Rove or Nader. Close call.— puttinonthefoil
- liberal then why did their elected leaders refuse to take calls from Hillary Clinton because his people love him? The papers in Poland and Czech Republic are all killing OBAMA the great. Is that the work of FOXNEWS and it evil network of evilness. OBAMA the great has alienated these nations you can point to polls from months ago but the truth is they feel betray by America not just OBAMA the great. Oh and you please answer me how it feels to have Chavez and Gadhafi love OBAMA as much as you, does that make you feel good or like most resonable people do you feel like you are on the wrong side of history? If they are your friends and I know you libs love dictators. You libs are the most hateful people like Olberdud and Madcow all you can do is insult and in the end steal from peopl who actually work. Good luck with your handout buddy your gonna need them.— rgreen72
- Liberal - your post from 2:22 today was correct. Sadly it could all erupt into another world war. Hope I am wrong.
- Tom Wilminton said: "Republicans, on the other hand, complained not about the speech but about the DOE questionnaire developed for both before, during and after the speech." *** Oh dear. Someone's talking out of his rectum ... again: "Florida Republican Party Chairman Jim Greer, who called it an attempt by Obama to 'indoctrinate America’s children to his socialist agenda.' 'The idea that school children across our nation will be forced to watch the president justify his plans for government- run health care, banks, and automobile companies, increasing taxes on those who create jobs, and racking up more debt than any other president, is not only infuriating, but goes against beliefs of the majority of Americans,' Greer said Sept. 1 in a statement on the party’s Web site." *** Hmmmm .... nothing in there about the DOE questionnaire, tom. Just the speech. Like some more? There are lots and LOTS of these quotes on the web. Here. Let me save you the trouble of a reply: "Oops." Oh, and here's the link. It was the third hit on Google. Thanks for making things easy. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=ahKOOpmVc7Vo— sully64
- NE Philly said: "I'm just saying, people would be screaming to high heaven if GWB & his minions tried to pull this nonsense! It is OUR country, so you can't teach 8 year olds to praise a President and his policies from either party." *** Your contention here seems to be that Barack Obama "& his minions" called Bernice Young elementary school in Burlington NJ and said "Write a song about us and our policies, please." Is that the case, Philly? Otherwise why bring Obama "& his minions" into the discussion?— sully64
- smike said: "According to Rasmussen Reports only 16% say Congress is doing a good job." *** No surprise there, smike. Republicans hate congress for who's running it, and Dems of all stripes hate it because it's not moving forward the major issues of the day. Interesting to me, however, is that you want to mention polling data, but you have no comment at all on those Polman put into the blog enttry you are supposedly replying to. You know, these ones: "76 percent of Americans fault Republicans for not explaining how they would change health care; that, by a margin of 52 to 27 percent, Americans say Obama has better reform ideas than the Republicans; and that nearly two-thirds believe the Republicans are opposing Obama's reform push only for political gain." Why not comment on those, smike?— sully64
- People always say Congress stinks. Then when asked how THEIR Congressmen are doing, they usually give them the thumbs up.— yobill626
- AHiredGun: Maybe better for Nader than an epitaph & a headstone --- park a Corvair with Florida plates next to his grave.— yobill626
- sully, where have u been? I was answering another post in that quote u cherry picked:) In any case, the song and book were already written and the author was asked to come to the school by a very partisan principal! I guess u think it is okay to teach 8 y/o to sing songs of praise about a sitting President, I do not! You can't bring politics into school for kids that age and I think u know that. Like I said, it would have been wrong to sing my song above of GWB praises after 9/11 in schools and it is wrong now!— NEPhilly
- liberal....who said that school in Burlington was a "black" school? Exactly what is a "black" school?— tom - wilmington, de
- sully...I could post here dozens of quotes from Republicans saying they had no problem with the speech but did with the DOE questionnaire...but what would it prove besides that you and I could both find quotes backing our position. But I find it amusing that you left out this report a week after what you picked to quote...: ABC News: The Florida Republican party chairman who last week accused the president of trying to "indoctrinate America's children to his socialist agenda" now says he'll let his children watch what he calls a "good speech," one the president "should give." Interesting...isn't it?— tom - wilmington, de
Cited by the Columbia Journalism Review as one of the nation's top political reporters, and lauded by the ABC News political website as "one of the finest political journalists of his generation," Dick Polman is a national political columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer. He is on the full-time faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, as "writer in residence." Dick has been a frequent guest on C-Span, MSNBC, CNN, NPR and the BBC. He covered the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 presidential campaigns.
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