elvis julep

Holy smoke!  I can’t believe that something like this is actually out there.  Actually, given the absolute temerity and lack of shame amongst the Democrat party faithful, I can, but it’s still idiotic.  Today I saw a link for a book called Why Mommy is a Democrat and clicked on it.  I know I’m kind of late to the dance on this, but it’s the first I’ve seen of this smorgasbord of moronic kiddie-hyperbole.  Here’s some of what I saw:

Apparently the Earth is Michael Moore.

The nasty, snarky tone of these books is bad enough, but the not so tacit implication is that Republicans don’t do these things, as if the GOP is actively prohibiting firefighters and policemen from getting the tools they need, or that they refuse to protect us.  Who the hell is griping about the Patriot Act and police abuse?  Who is demanding that the military shut down GTMO?  Which party has been actively pursuing terrorists, both at home and abroad?  This book is a flat out lie in some places.  But my favorite line is the one about Democrats making sure children can go to school, just like mommy does!

…and George Wallace…and Ross Barnett…and Orval Faubus…and Bull Connor…all good Democrats.

This is a perfect example of the mindset of the typical liberal Democrat and his bigotry.  But I don’t think the author went far enough.  How about really showing why Mommy and Daddy are Democrats:

• Democrats see racism behind every tree, just like daddy does!
• Democrats think burning an American flag is a brave act of defiance, but burning a rap CD full of filthy language is fascism, just like mommy does!
• Democrats give millions to ”artists” who urinate on crucifixes, just like daddy does!
• Democrats want to give convicted felons the right to vote, just like mommy does!
• Democrats want to allow the killing of unborn children, but not the execution of adults who cut people into pieces with a chainsaw, just like daddy does!
• Democrats give tenured professorships to admitted terrorists who pose for pictures stomping the American flag, just like mommy does!
• Democrats consider Che Guevara a hero and General Petraeus a scoundrel, just like daddy does!
• Democrats hate America, just like mommy does!

Illustrated those, Mr. Zilber.

I’m surprised it took so long for this to turn up.  Courtesy of Marathon Pundit, what you see below is a picture of Bill Ayers proudly and gleefully stomping on an American flag.

This is more than an aging hippie flipping a metaphorical finger at his homeland from the cozy, well-protected confines of his tenured professorship.  This is leftist pornography - gratuitous imagery designed to simultaneously titillate the anti-American left while provoking the “establishment” (read: normal Americans) through egregious contumely.  It is all the more disgusting when one reads the caption, where an unrepentant Ayers brags about his hate for this nation with the contemptible line, “Guilty as hell, free as a bird, it’s a great country.”

Here are the captions:

The group was dealing with the past with a kind of anmesia about violent actions.  Bill Ayers recollected his adventurous violence with practiced jokes.  “Guilty as hell, free as a bird, it’s a great country,” he said.  He also said his three sons were incredulous to hear that Bill had burned his draft card to protest the Vietnam War.  “Burned your credit card?” asked one little boy.  “Man, I’m not that stupid,” Bill said.

Bill Ayers, August 2001, former Weatherman, stomps on U.S. flag.  As a result of their friendship with Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, Bill and Bernardine Dohrn Raised Chesa Boudin.

The flippancy with which Ayers treats his violent, terrorist past is incredible.  He “got away with it”, in the truest sense of the phrase and now jokes about it, spitting in the face of the people of the nation who provide for his insulated, opulent existence.  This is a terrorist who is now coddled in the womb of the left and who laughs at those who are appalled at him.  He is the punk kid who sucker punches you on the playground, then runs behind his mommy’s skirt and sticks out his tongue, punctuated with a taunting, “nyah nyah nyah!”

Why does this matter?  Because at the time Bill was treading on Old Glory, he was serving on a board with Barack Obama and was donating money to D-Ill Senator’s campaign.  This is not the kind of person with whom a potential President associates.  Obama can no longer play dumb, arguing that he is just a casual acquaintance.  When it suited his political career, he was rubbing elbows with and accepting money from a man who would have just as soon urinated on the flag if the photographer had requested it.

This is not something that can be sloughed off.  If Obama tries to treat it like no big deal, then he is belittling the genuine concerns of an overwhelming majority of Americans who find such actions more than despicable, but downright treasonous.  The man who wants to be the leader of this nation owes those he would lead an explanation as to why Ayers’ attitude toward this nation did not bother him until now.

And his explanation better be a damned good one.

Bernardine Dohrn is Ayers wife and fellow Weatherman.  She is the one who read the declaration of war on the United States and, similarly to Ayers, remains unrepentant.  She is a tenured professor of law at Northwestern. 

Chesa Boudin is the biological son of David Gilbert and Kathy Boudin, two members of Weatherman who are currently in prison for murdering two police officers and a security guard during a 1981 armed robbery…well past the expiration date of 1960’s hippie-radical chic.  These were no longer true believers acting from a sense of moral outrage, they were hardened criminals who were motivated by hatred and (gasp) greed.  Ayers and Dohrn raised Boudin and instilled in him a morally obtuse attitude toward the lawlessness of his “four parents” (as he puts it).

I guess anything is fair game in an election, but there’s a point where it stops being legitimate criticism and starts becoming nitpicking.  For example, Hillary Clinton’s recent mailer regarding Obama’s stance on gun ownership.  Here’s a picture of the envelope:

Notice anything wrong?  The bolt is on the wrong side!!!  Also, there are two triggers, which clearly makes this a European model.  The idea that the Clintons would employ the image of a non-existent European rifle on a mailer of theirs is just outrageous and show that they are a bunch of latte-sipping northeasterners!

Now, let me turn the sarcasm switch off.  I am no Hillary Clinton fan and I don’t believe for a minute that she’ll be any less of an anti-gun crusader than D-Ill Senator (her husband signed the Brady bill into law, for Pete’s sake).  However, to take her to task over a flipped image of a rifle is moronic.  It’s like someone griping about a character in a movie giving his phone number as 555-1287.  Wait!  That’s not a real telephone number!  That movie must be made by latte-sipping elitists!  Well, it probably was, but that’s not the point.

If GEICO ran an ad for motorcycle insurance that showed a guy on a Norton Commando with a V-twin engine, would bikers protest that their product was illegitimate because the bike on the ad technically doesn’t exist.  For that matter, why aren’t people across the nation criticizing GEICO for using a talking amphibian.  Everybody knows geckos can’t talk!

I’m sorry, but this is idiocy.  It may be a bit amusing, but to use this as a wedge against Madame Clinton is like a desperation tactic - as if there’s nothing left to criticize her.  Trust me, there’s a ton of stuff.  This needs to be forgotten, simply because it’s completely stupid.

Like I said yesterday, this is a set up.  Jeremiah Wright has been around too long and is too politically savvy to step onto the world stage at this point in the race and make such radical, inflammatory, offensive statements.  Unless, of course, he is tossing a free pitch to D-Ill Senator.

 Yesterday I said that this is the scenario that makes sense to me, and I even crafted a little speech that Obama might give to renounce Reverend Wright.  Well, now, here comes this story on Bloomberg where Barack does just that.  Here’s a snippet from my post:

…I have been appalled.  In all the years I sat in the pew, I never heard anything as extreme as the statements Rev. Wright has averred this week.  Had I been witness to such language and beliefs, I never would have associated myself nor my family with this man.  I am here to formally renounce Reverend Wright’s statements…

Now, compare them to these Obama quotes from the Bloomberg story:

…The person I saw yesterday was not the person I had come to know over 20 years…

…I may not know him as well as I thought….

…Obviously whatever relationship that I had with Reverend Wright has changed as a consequence of this…

…[Wright’s statements] offend me, they rightly offend all Americans and they should be denounced and that’s what I’m doing very clearly and unequivocally today…

It’s as if he peeked at my post (which I know he didn’t, because nobody reads this except me).  Still, that doesn’t lessen the fact that I nailed him before he got a chance to go on the record and express his concern. 

This is a major gamble, but if it works, you can bet that Obama and Wright will be sipping Dom Perignon in the Oval Office next January, toasting their collusion and planning things I don’t even want to think about.  I just hope the Americans who were stupid enough to be duped by D-Ill Senator the first go round have wised up.

Fool me once, shame on both of you.  Fool me twice, shame on all of us.

There is no way a man who has displayed political savvy for so long can be this ignorant.  This is nothing short of a public lynching.  Jeremiah Wright is killing Barack Obama. 

Or is he?

According to numerous sources, Wright has been instrumental in the Chicago Politburo for a number of years, and even though Chicago is like a completely different planet, politics is politics.  Wright has to know that walking on the most public of stages and metaphorically wiping his behind with the American flag is like sticking the knife in D-Ill Senator’s back and twisting it.

Et tu, Jeremiah?  Et tu?

Either Wright is taking payola from the Clintons (a scenario that is so corrupt, yet so probable, that I’m scared to even entertain it) or he is lobbing a king-sized duck of a pitch at Barack, who is dug in at the plate and preparing to slam it out of the park.

Do not be surprised if everyone’s all American senator steps up to the podium after Wright has finished defecating on the country and says the following (or something similar):

My fellow Americans.  Like you, I have been listening with rapt attention to the recent speeches given by my former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.  And like you, I have been appalled.  In all the years I sat in the pew, I never heard anything as extreme as the statements Rev. Wright has averred this week.  Had I been witness to such language and beliefs, I never would have associated myself nor my family with this man.  I am here to formally renounce Reverend Wright’s statements blah blah blah hope blah blah blah real change etc.

Forgive my cynicism, but it’s the only explanation that makes any sense to me.  I just can’t buy the fact that the good Rev, if he really wants Obama to be president, would go off on the nutball tangents that he has been.  He has to know that this garbage doesn’t play in Peoria.  Heck, it doesn’t even really play in Chicago.  If Obama were running for Berkeley city council, I could see this tactic, but I’m just not convinced that these people are this stupid.  I think they’re way smarter than this.

Of course, if Rev. Wright actually does believe all this stuff, then his level of delusion is such that maybe he’s oblivious to the fallout.  That’s plausible as well.

Quick, what’s the difference between 1992 and 2008?  If you said 16 years, then you’re technically correct, but that’s not what I’m going for.  I’m more interested in the state of race relations between those years, and the way people react.

To listen to the despicable opportunists like Al Sharpton, we’re far worse off.  In his eyes there are racists behind every tree and a rebirth of the Klan is just around the corner.  But looking obejctively at these years, there are major differences.  Let’s review a few, shall we?

• A black man is far closer to the presidency than ever before in history
• There are at least two black billionaires (Oprah and BET’s Robert Johnson)
• The number of black elected officials has increase dramatically
• A strong black middle class has emerged and wealthy black people are no longer uncommon

But to me, the most notable thing is that, unlike 1992, Los Angeles and other major cities aren’t burning after the recent acquittal of the police in the shooting death of Sean Bell.  Granted, people are upset and outraged, but when the Rodney King police were let go, several cities around America saw lawlessness and outright anarchy as angry protesters became rioters.  Today, the outrage is much more controlled.  There are protests, but there are not riots.

I’m sure Fat Albert will be the first one to claim credit for that, but he has done nothing but help himself.  One reason is because we don’t have video of the shooting like with the King beating, but another is that black America is better off, more educated, more media savvy, more sophisticated.  They know that the riots did nothing but make them look like a bunch of hoodlums and that the retaliatory OJ Simpson acquittal was wrong on all levels. 

I don’t know what happened with Sean Bell.  I have no idea why police would fire so many rounds into even the most dangerous criminal, let alone a partying groom-to-be, but I do know that when people get into a courtroom and hear evidence, they take it seriously.  As I understand it, a couple of the cops were black, too, so it’s hard to place the race card here, although Fat Albert is doing his damnedest to.  After the Imus flap and his despicable treatment of the innocent young men on the Duke lacrosse team, I’m hoping people have just decided to shut him out.  And when blacks stop listening to self promoting liars like Sharpton, we’ll know things have REALLY changed.

Tattoos are stupid.

That is the first line of a piece I wrote some time ago (under the pseudonym JethroCola) for the Encyclopedia of Stupid.  I just don’t understand why anyone would want to mark their skin permanently.  One reason the Nazis tattooed those in the concentration camps is because it dehumanized them, making them like cattle.  There was no need to worry about the permanence of the tattoo because, as the Reich saw it, permanent for those people was a very short time.  Today, Holocaust survivors proudly display their tattoos as a symbol of defiance and triumph, not because tattoos are all dope and the shiz nit.  But they never chose to be inked and most would probably opt against it, no matter the design.

Ah, forget that, because today nothing says “LOOK AT ME!!!!” like a tattoo, except maybe a girdle of dynamite and a thumb plunger, and if the youth of today crave anything, it’s attention, even if it comes at the expense of their epidermis.  You just want to grab these twenty-somethings and shake them, screaming, “That design is there FOREVER!”  Not that it would do any good, because for them it’s all about right now and stylin’ for your peeps (I know that slang is horribly dated, but I refuse to be hip).  It will only be when today’s young adult becomes tomorrow’s 37-year-old divorced office benefits administrator that reality will pop up in her face like a Bouncin’ Betty.  For that will be when she realizes how absolutely idiotic the floral pattern just north of her rectal cavity looks, and that all the Olay Regenerist at the corner Walgreen’s ain’t gonna make a dent in removing it.

But as bad as that may be, there are worse tattoos in this world.  Like, for example, the guy who got a Zune tattoo or the guy who actually inked his bicep with a picture of Tay Zonday.  If you don’t believe me, then click on the links and behold the manifestation of an insane desire to be noticed by strangers. 

How far will one take it?  Take a gander at this:

Yes, that is a guy getting Barack Obama’s mug indelibly stenciled on his left wrist.

I realize there is a large contingent of people who swoon at the mere mention of D-Ill Senator, but come on!  The guy hasn’t even won the Democrat nomination yet!  Even if he does and even if he becomes President, what if he then does something that you find morally repugnant?  What if he enacts policies that plunge the US (and, by extension, the Western world) into a dramatic economic depression?  Heck, what if he gets caught flashing people at the Iwo Jima Memorial?  This guy could do a million things that may change your feelings of infatuation overnight.  Regardless, you’re still going to have to see his face every time you eat, wipe your nose, or relieve yourself at the office urinal.

Seeing this got me to wondering if the other candidates have such devoted lifetime disciples.  I did a search and came up empty on Hillary and McCain, but guess what candidate’s insane horde was all too ready to permanently mark up their bodies for him?

Big Surprise.

The more I watch D-Ill Senator, the more amazed I am at the ease with which a large number of people are easily sucked into believing things that are either total nonsense or platitudinal hogwash surrounded by a Saran-wrap-thin veneer of style and sophistry.  I’ve often wondered about such things.  For instance, you read a story about normal, intelligent people who are seduced by a slick talker, and before you know it, they’re convinced that a spaceship is hiding behind an approaching comet and that only by killing themselves will they be welcome aboard.  Or you hear about very successful people with the world at their feet who go to a meeting and come out convinced that an intergalactic dicatator flew trillions of aliens to Earth in DC-9 aircraft and blew them up by placing atomic bombs in volcanoes.

Now, I’m not suggesting that Senator Obama is a cult leader, but the effect he seems to have on hundreds of thousands of apparently malleable people is not unlike that which, if twisted, can lead to convincing people to shave their heads and play tambourines on street corners for money.  But I still don’t get it.  I really don’t understand why intelligent, sane people are so easy to manipulate.  Unless, of course, they want to be manipulated.  After all, it’s much easier if someone does your thinking for you.  Just ask those students who willingly sign up for William Ayers’ classes.

I’m not saying that I’m immune to slick talk and faux sincerity, but I’ve always had a pretty good proboscis when came to detecting cattle-borne fecal matter (I’m saying it that way in case my mom ever reads this).  I remember thinking how outrageous such a thing was when I read this cartoon in the July, 1978 issue of MAD Magazine, as part of an larger piece entitled, You Can Never Escape From Stress:

Boy, was I wrong!  Tom Koch, the writer of the piece was far more in tune with the attitudes of the American people than my pre-pubescent self was.  All you have to do is replace Idi Amin with Barack Obama and you have what is actually happening today in the USA.  In fact, there are a good number of people who would find an Obama version of the above campaign poster (drawn by Jack Davis) to be brilliantly motivating.  (Most of those who would are akin to the guy in the Sergio Aragonés “Drawn Out Drama” depicted above the main panel, which is why I left it in there).  It’s almost as if Mr. Koch had a time machine that gave him a quick glimpse of the character of the Obama campaign, particularly given that he also included this panel:

Sounds exactly like the Obama campaign and the race hustlers who are in full mobilization to take extreme issue with anything anyone says that criticizes D-Ill Senator.  They’ve even cowed John McCain into turning on his own party when the North Carolina GOP ran an ad full of true statements about Obama and his pastor, Jeremiah Wright.  You know, the guy who stood at the front of a Chicago church for years, convincing normal, sane people that the CIA invented AIDS for the express purpose of killing blacks and that he, as a humble servant of God, deserves a multi-million dollar house in an all-white neighborhood (paid for by them)…

Who would have thought that MAD was so sane?

The best part about all the hoopla surrounding the Democrat race is that it completely overshadowed the idiocy of Earth Day.  I only heard of couple of things, like the DOT announcing new mileage standards for vehicles and President Bush planting a tree in New Orleans, because that’s what the Crescent City needs.

I wish Bush would show some backbone and forego this hippie symbolism.  He should have refused to plant a tree, and when reporters questioned him on it, he could’ve borrowed a line from the media’s favorite candidate: 

“The truth is that right after the 2004 election I planted a tree.  Shortly after the election, particularly because as we’re talking about Earth Day, that became a substitute for I think true conservation, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our natural resources.  I decided I won’t plant a single tree. Instead, I’m going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testament to my environmentalism.”

I would love to hear Bush mock the Ill Senator that way, but it ain’t happening.  Anyway, at least the fisticuffs between the two evils of the Democratic party kept us from being pummeled by pompous “activists”, filled with sanctimony and ever at the ready to point the finger and blame the average American for murdering polar bears.  That doesn’t mean that the dim bulbs (pun intended) of Hollywood weren’t up to their usual antics in an effort to absolve the guilt they feel for heating their swimming pools and driving their Maseratis.

Here’s a list of activities in which celebrities engaged to celebrate Earth Day, according to CBS.  See if you can guess which one is fake.

1. Salma Hayek and Jake Gyllenhaal took a trip to the Arctic Circle

2. Britney Spears auctioned off an outfit she wore on a How I Met Your Mother guest spot

3. Mick Jagger paid $2000 for a five-course meal

4. Chevy Chase and Zach Braff encouraged people to make one million phone calls to the Capitol

5. Seth Rogen drove a bio-fueled Porsche from San Francisco to Los Angeles

6. Daryl Hannah ate vegetables she grew herself at her two houses in Colorado and Malibu

7. Leonardo DiCaprio bought a “green” condo in New York which overlooks the Hudson River and Central Park

The answer is 5.  I have no idea what Seth Rogen did for Earth Day.  He probably smoked organic dope or something, but you have to admit that what I said he did was no less loony than the other crap celebrities are pulling to ease their self-indulgent consciences.

As for me, I worked, because I can’t afford to take a day off for some self-aggrandizing symbolic gesture that accomplishes absolutely nothing, save making me look good.  If Hollywood’s about anything at all, it’s looking good, so it doesn’t surprise me in the least that they pulled all these stunts.  You’ll notice not one of them directly cut back on their consumption.  That would take actual sacrifice, something celebrities will not do unless it’s for a short amount of time and there’s a limousine on the other end to rush them to a spa to recover.

I don’t know about you, but I’m glad I don’t have to hear anymore gum flapping about Pennsylvania’s blue-collar Democratic voters and who they’ll choose for President.  Not that I have anything against Pennsylvania, but 6 weeks between primaries is far too long when you’ve got a race that’s as visible as the one between Madame Clinton and the Ill Senator.  It appears Hillary pulled off a double-digit win (just barely), besting Obama by 10 points, but she still didn’t gain much ground on him. 

All those political nerds who live to crunch numbers are saying that the chances of Madame Clinton catching Obama in elected delegates is a statistical impossibility, meaning that it comes down to three ways for Hillary to grab the nomination:

• She convinces a good majority of the super delegates that she is the more electable candidate
• Obama makes a major blunder that causes him to fall out of favor
• Obama winds up on a bench in Fort Marcy Park with a gun in his hand and a torn up suicide note

The second option is looking more likely, as the Ill Senator’s teflon coating has begun to peel off.  The more an objective observer looks at him and his “solutions”, the more he comes to the conclusion that this guy is nothing more than a slick talking politician who is riding his image (and a considerable amount of latent white guilt) to the farthest extent possible.  His recent gaffes, like his revealing comments in San Francisco, have damaged him in the public eye despite what all these, “Oh, Obama is black?  I didn’t notice his skin color!” pundits who want to tiptoe around race unless it suits the black candidate are saying. 

This actually gives Hillary ammunition for the first option, because it’s becoming eminently clear that Obama is going to be much easier for McCain to beat.  He overwhelmingly wins black voters…

A quick aside:  Why is it that when blacks vote for a black candidate, they’re showing support for one of their own, but when whites vote for a white candidate, we get discussions of racism and tired old Klan comments?  Even Michael Steele, a man for whom I have great admiration, brought up the spectre of the Klan when Brit Hume asked him about race last night on FOX.  This double standard of blacks can rally around their race but white who do are racist is really getting stale.

…and ill-informed college students, but can’t lure the meat and potatoes Democrats who would just as soon vote for McCain.  Black voters are going to vote for the Democrat anyway and all these energized youngsters will be MIA at the polls come November.  They’ll show up at a rally where Dave Matthews is playing, but if MTV is showing a marathon of “The Hills” on election day, their behinds will be planted on the couch.  I think it was James Carville who said (paraphrase) that there’s a term for the candidate who depends on the youth vote:  the loser.  The bottom line is that Hillary is bringing home the votes moreso than Obama and his appeal, which was based on charm and novelty, has passed its expiration date.

This is actually all playing out very well for McCain, because it looks as if the likely Democratic nominee is continuing to lose steam, but because of the DNC rules and his race (again, the supers don’t want to be seen as disenfrenchising the whitest black man in their party), the stronger candidate can’t catch him, so don’t rule out the third scenario.  It’s not like it hasn’t happened before.