Palpitations...And No Pride To Speak Of.

To Everything There Is A Season...

I had something else in mind in my dealing with this subject again—this indelicate matter of loose and insensitive words about the spectre of assassination that hovers over the Presidential campaign of Barack Obama.

The focus was going to be on the macabre little bit of snuff humor snarked out at an NRA convention late last week by the alleged GOP wordsmith par excellence, Mike Huckabee. It was to be a rumination on comedy and how said craft is really best left to the professionals. There was going to be a tie-in of Randi Rhodes' odious statements while amateurishly prowling a stand-up stage in San Francisco. There was to be a treatise on the meaning of words and context, and how professionals whose stocks in trade are words should know better.

It was going to be titled “Comedy Is Not Pretty”, borrowing from the old Steve Martin-ism. I even had a plan to explain in detail why playing around with that subject (assassination of Blacks who would dare ascend to power) is a dangerous game when you consider recent (in my lifetime) American history and its sorry record of using violence to silence Black folks who are on the verge of making a difference.

And yes...I was going to refer to the piece written here post-the sea-changing Iowa Democratic primary results, “Pride and Palpitations”, where I opined how on that politically startling night, my thoughts and the thoughts of many African Americans turned to fearful musings on the safety of the then-nascent candidate Barack Obama.

The plan was to have a little bit fun at ol' Huckabee's expense while highlighting the serious nature of his gallows humor over the subject that is discussed in hushed tones 'round the Beltway and in the pundit circles. But...today intruded. There will be little whimsy here as today's unfortunate verbal diarrhea spew just crowds humor into a corner and then kicks at it with hob-nailed boots.

In fact, let's go back a few months ago to the aforementioned “Pride” piece for a little foreshadowing on today's “events” shall we?

Let's go there...

I watched the end of Obama's speech—still sniper-checking a bit, and silently imploring him to “move around a little...make it difficult for 'em”. But then, it was done. The crowd roared, he hugged Michelle, confetti fell, and I imagine upstairs in their suite McFadden and Whitehead's “Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now” was heard at least once.

I relaxed for the first time in many minutes, finishing my drink and looking at the post-speech coverage of Olbermann trying not to laugh at the shit-scared White man writ large, Chris Matthews sitting next to him, all darting eyes and afraid of what is on the horizon. My wife rolled over and said simply “Whew! He made it. Thank God. Mmmmmkay, g'night.”

Which was the signal for me to leave for the front room.

And as I walked there, I reviewed my emotions of the night. Shock. Disbelief. Pride...and then muscle-tensing fear when I realized where this was all headed...now. I sat down to watch the continuing coverage and saw the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson review Obama's speech glowingly, and then...he cited the feeling he had when watching the hopeful, ”new day” swelling of popularity when Bobby Kennedy was running, and he was almost aglow when he mentioned that campaign. But then, he brought it down a bit in the next breath—quickly, and probably because he'd just thought of exactly what I'd thought right after he mentioned it.

Namely, how RFK's campaign tragically ended. (New 5/23/08 emphasis, mine—LM)

Now, let me close by saying that I don't mean to be a killjoy about what last night may have meant. In spite of my having not formally chosen a candidate I really feel strongly positive about, I'll be damned if I didn't feel something soul-deep special when they announced that Obama had won Iowa handily, and at that moment he geared up to speak, things did seem for a time like the climax to a crazy, pre-waking lottery-hit dream. I felt deliriously good about progressives in general when they gave the voting numbers for the caucus—Dems doubling the turnout damn near from '04, and tripling the GOP's mouth breathers in-state.

But I want you to understand what that nervousness and yes, I'll say it—fear was about as Barack Obama thanked his supporters and urged them onward. I don't know if you'll ever really understand it and why it comes so quickly to the fore for Black folks. I guess, you need only to look at not distant, but recent American history and how deadly cruel it has been to Black people on the cusp of busting a door wide open. In my lifetime, Malcolm X was cut down. Medgar Evers was blown away. Martin Luther King's flame was sniper's bullet snuffed. Never mind all the back-room, black-bag shit the U.S. government ran on folks who stood tough locally like Chicago's Fred Hampton and others.

We have developed an unfortunate Pavlovian response to the repeated sight of our best and brightest being blown away like so many dandelion bits in the wind.

We have our moments of pride, and then...then, those uncontrollable palpitations. Worrying about when the ax will fall. Or the grenade. Or the bullet's sharp crack, the diving security and guests, and the inevitable cut to a shocked newsroom.

Dave Chappelle used to have segment on his show featuring Paul Mooney called “Ask a Black Dude”. Well, I won't wait for you to ask, I'm just telling you what goes on. What went on...in my house, and I would assume hundreds of thousands of households like mine, where recent history's bloody spectre hovers in a tattered 60's sack-cut suit and skinny tie. He hovers and points at today's goings on.

“There”, he moans. “There,” as his dusty hand notes the television and all the happiness on the screen. He doesn't smile. he doesn't blink. He just says “There,” as he crooks a bony finger. And up Black America's collective spine, goes his chill.

He was there in Iowa too. I know Barack and Michelle saw him. But maybe the kids didn't. And I'm guessing that Barack and Michelle fought like hell to push him out of sight eventually.

Dropped balloons and confetti on him. Drowned his “There.” out with McFadden and Whitehead, or Curtis' “Move On Up” or some such blaring counter to that hollow moan.

I hope to God they did. 'Cause that'll make them the lucky ones. Unlike the rest of us.

There were a few pats on the back for that post—and more than a few “How dare you mention so horrible a thing and taint so glorious a moment!” comments here and at other sites that linked to it.

Why indeed, would I dare resurrect history's “bloody spectre” of the coward's ultimate weapon against upsetting change—cold blooded murder? Because you will note in the original piece, I was dealing with an emotional response—one keyed into my African American DNA almost as deeply as my shade of brown or kink in hair. Belittle it if you wish (and you'd be a snake to do so, but hey...), that response, that reaction...that fear is well founded. In my lifetime, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and Fred Hampton were all snuffed out like candles a hurricane has touched, just at the moments they were on the verges of coming into their own as leaders—as human beings—bent on contributing to the world in ways beyond what they had been. It isn't a thing to be joked about by insensitive people playing to crowds stocked with people who would have no problem with murderous violence as a solution to politics that perturb them. Mike Huckabee's groan-inducing, anti-comedy stylings before the blunderbuss bunch was sickening. The sort of thing that were I to cross paths with him, I'd have to fight spitting on him.

Why? Well, let's ask a different question and a more probing one—“Why the goof about Obama in particular getting shot? A man who was a thousand miles away—literally and position-wise from that assemblage of over-compensating man-children?

Because the idea of Obama's physical safety's being in jeopardy is NOT just something Black folk who've been around a while talk about. You can bet your bottom dollar that it's something folks in the beltway set and media chattering classes discuss sotto vocé behind closed doors, because of the obvious similarities in tensions and personalities to America's last time of great upheaval when you consider the historical perspective. What Huckabee did however had as much to do with an earnest discussion of the situation as a visit to a brothel has to do with a search for true and everlasting love. He was bringing an ugly tale, not discussed flippantly among decent folk, and tried to make a crowd-pleasing joke about it...and in so doing bombed like the Bikini Atoll, circa 1945. The “joke“ (while giving a speech before the NRA, Huckabee and the assembled heard a loud noise from backstage, prompting Huckabee to crack wise that the loud bang was Barack Obama diving to the floor because of a brandished weapon) was in exceptionally poor taste, considering a.) the reactionary “Yahoo element” he was playing to (and who he felt comfortable enough with to chuckle about that with), and b.) because of the known-to-everyone brutal and frightening history of what he was joking about could NEVER BE FUNNY coming from the likes of him. It was a thunderclap and lightning strike into an oil refinery level of “gaffe”, and in spite of his apology, the idea that he would joke thusly gave us all a peek into the soul of this so-called “Man of God”—where we found spiders, vermin and a dank, rotten sociopathic core.

And let's be clear—joking about this country's recent history of “quick-lynching” Black folks who scan as being “on the move” is just that—sociopathic behavior. It's not a taboo subject to discuss...but again, as with everything, context IS everything. When I wrote about it here in February, it was in terms of an emotional response to eerily familiar visuals and an equally eerie vibe about the personalities involved. It was a gut reading., based on a community's collective pain. And it was painful to lay out there—but, it was cathartic in a way. A release of demons that haunted me and so many others. That's what that discussion was about. A sharing, and a release. Nothing more to it.

Which leads us to Senator Clinton's little discussion before the Sioux Falls Argus Leader editorial board from yesterday.

Here's the video of that, via TPM:



Now, aside from the extreme, poor-mouth exaggeration and favor-currying spin of her “People have been trying to push me out of this since Iowa” schtick, there is the truly disturbing self-aggrandizement that's got tongues a' wagging—namely her invocation of the tragic and abrupt ending of Robert F. Kennedy's 1968 primary run late in the campaign season as a reasoning for the dogged continuance of her own campaign here some forty years later.

It's not the first time she's mounted that ghost horse of a reason—on at least two other occasions in recent months, she's re-conjured that awful time, albeit in less gut-punch wording—as a reason for the campaign to push into the summer.

But timing and context is everything. Keith Olbermann noted last night that in the previous incantations of this mantra, the language was softened—the campaign's sudden end noted, without the hard word “assassination” being thrown out there. At those times, the election math was ugly, but nowhere near as dire as now. Again, context is everything. Things one may say while sitting in a coffee shop sipping away while nibbling biscotti, are going to come out and probably scan one way. They may be frank. Perhaps off-the-cuff. But even with that, there may be a veneer of earnestness in a more relaxed atmosphere allows for a generous reading and granting of a benefit of the doubt. But the things that same person may say while hanging on for dear life from a steep cliff by a small branch over the side, are probably going to sound more than a bit different. The language may be ramped up because of the emotion of the moment. Impending doom is a powerful catalyst. People have been known to move two-ton cars with their bare hands to save a life, or cut off their own trapped limb to escape a certain death. Desperation is a metamorphic force. And, I said this about it too:

“Desperation is the flashing, trembling hand that snatches away the veil of false propriety.”

Desperation.

If you think for so much as a second that Senator Clinton's campaign is NOT in a desperation mode, you either can't do math, or still wait for reindeer hoofbeats on your roof on Christmas Eve. You've heard the delegate news, and hear of the daily padding of super-delegates onto the Obama side of the ledger, lead-bricking the scale further his way. You've also heard the reasoning mounted (occasionally by her own campaign staff) that her side is holding out for “something big and unexpected to happen” to blunt the Obama momentum that'd allow her to swoop in and claim the nomination.

I want you to roll that last statement around in your head for a second, and then roll around yesterday's words from the Senator again.

And one more time, please.

Now, this isn't a Huckabee situation, where he's making a malicious joke about tragedy. For all his supposed affability, he was reveling in being a mean-spirited, hollow-hearted jerk. Sen. Clinton's comment was something else. Not outright malice in an open hoping for tragedy that would allow her to claim a long-sought prize, but an unveiling of an indisputable, craven opportunism that does little else but lower her. When it is known that you're basically waiting around for trouble to befall your opponent and you then speak of the worst of the worst possible scenarios occurring—a tragedy so freighted with historical baggage that you would benefit from—I. Do. Not. Care. How. You. Slice. It...

That's abominable.

Don't spin me with after-the-fact ass-covering about how it was “about the month and calendar”, and not the incident itself. The assassination of RFK—which I am old enough to remember it's soul-numbing effect so close on the heels of MLK's murder—isn't about a Goddamned date. It's about one of the nails in the casket of hope. It's about a reaction to in-country upheaval. It's a major signpost along a highway of evil, America-altering deeds. And don't piss on our legs and tell us it's morning dew with the canard about this being about duty and safeguarding the party should unforseen problems arise. This isn't 1865 when news sometimes took weeks or months to reach people and quick decisions in tragic times were truly difficult. This isn't even 1968, when as far as we'd come, it was still difficult to turn on a dime when problems arose. It's the height of disingenuousness to play as some final bulwark against democracy's fall when one is being so obviously self-serving. Where was Senator Clinton in the real fight for democracy during the 2000 recount? Or the recent FISA battles for Americans rights to privacy? Where pray tell was she in these fights that did not serve to directly benefit her? Now we're supposed to take at face value a faux-courageous stand as the super-ultra-mega country-saving fallback should things fall apart in a primary election? A primary election she's fought tooth, nail and molecule for?

People who support Senator Clinton have of late taken Keith Olbermann to task for his hard words toward her when she has transgressed. I've noted his hard line too, and as a regular viewer, I remember when it came into stark relief. It was when she began playing the “fear card” in the Bushian manner as a reason to consider her for the office of Commander-In-Chief. It unleashed something in him, and rightfully so. For the better part of six years we have all railed against the flashing of that card by President Bush, Vice-President Cheney and their various mindless talking-head minions as a way of cowing and bending the populace to their self-benefiting way of thinking. To see Hillary Clinton resort to that same awful manipulation is borderline heart-breaking, and indisputably maddening. It set Olbermann off—and a large swath of people who otherwise respected her. Include me in that group who the “fear card” antagonizes.

This “Remembering what happened to RFK is why you shouldn't look past me” talking point is more “fear card” playing. And the extra-juicy tossing about of the “assassination” language is just jaw-droppingly insensitive, considering again the particulars involved. Add in the supremely weak defense in her “apology” and by her supporters about the statement being more about the Kennedys than an unnamed other candidate and we descend lower still. You would think that the Kennedy family probably has enough heartache on their collective plates right now with the sad anniversaries of RFK's murder and JFK Jr.'s untimely death looming, and the real-time pain from the dire prognosis of the family's patriarch Sen. Ted Kennedy that second-hand flogging of the family's tragic history wouldn't be something to worry about from a friend. But sure as hell, it unfortunately is. And it's a disgusting and insulting dodge from what the words were really about...

...Vulture politics.

Spare me the talk about fatigue. I've let slide other ill-formed and ill-thought out statements that offended before. Same with the debilitating rigors of “the trail”—both candidates are busting their asses, and it seems that the one who'll supposedly be ready for the all-important “3 a.m. call” is the one constantly goofing up because of a lack of rest. I have been fair, and forgiving about a lot here, but this is a line-step I will not forgive. Senator Clinton has spent the better part of two decades as a player on the world stage, and is no neophyte in the talking point game. You want to say that message command and control has broken down as the campaign is floundering? Okay. Say it. Let the distracted surrogates take the heat for their verbal gaffes. But these words still came from her mouth. Her mind. The mouth and mind of the person trying to get elected president, and no one else. A smart person. A savvy person. A person who should know better and I think did. Desperate times call for desperate measure, and the inside voice that roars within but common sense suppresses got free and said its piece for all to hear. I don't think for a second that her words were a call to the lunatic / hyper-activist fringe to “clear the way” for her.

What it was, was an ugly play for votes based on an appeal to people's darkest internal fears about America's shameful legacy of political violence. And using the obvious target—Obama—as a stalking horse for stoking that fear is such a prestige diminishing act that I almost pity her as much as I'm incensed at her over it.

Almost.

I wrote on the subject based on emotion. She conjured the subject based on raw opportunism. If you can see the difference between the two, you can understand the anger and disgust she's rightfully engendered. While politics isn't “beanbag”, it shouldn't be the ear scene in “Reservoir Dogs” either, especially if you want to call yourself a progressive. “To everything there is a season”, the Bible says. This was NOT the season for those words. She rubbed raw a scar on our collective soul as Americans that hasn't yet healed—and she didn't do it to inform or examine. She did it to justify her present personal ambition.

“To justify her present personal ambition.”

As “off-the-chain” as this world is these days, the last thing needed is people we supposedly trust to be level-headed to dump gasoline over the fires of crazy—especially if it has nothing to do with principle or belief, and everything to do with furthering their own selfish desires. This campaign is ending on a wave of sludge-topped ugliness and it is frankly depressing. Its “bitter end” has been written about here twice in recent days. And every time I think a few days have gone by where we might see a glimmer of a light of decency at the end of the tunnel, a side valve opens up and in pours more festering sewage.

This was sewage.

No. Let me re-phrase that. It was not sewage. It was just plain, old shit.

Senator Clinton knew what it was when she haltingly said it, and even moreso in her ashen-faced faux-apology, delivered ironically in the liquor aisle of a South Dakota store. MSNBC analyst Chuck Todd noted her demeanor as she spoke, saying:

“She looked pained, like someone who realized she may have just destroyed all the goodwill she spent so long trying to build up.”

He was right. And here's a picture from moments after her “thousand-yard-stare” mea culpa-lite:




















(AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

It's quite telling, really. Almost funereal, and rightfully so. In battling so hard to stave off an ending she had every right within reason as a candidate to delay, she may well have hastened it with her own unthinking, selfish and frankly ghoulish words. That sad picture looks an awful lot like one of a person with palpitations...and no pride left to speak of.

There's more...

The Crazy Old Man In The Broken-Down House

First Ridicule. Then Pity. And Then, You Can't Wait For Someone To Come Take Him Away.

As a teenager growing up in Southeast Queens, I encountered a phenomenon that every kid at some point has probably experienced.

That “phenomenon” is that of The Neighborhood Kook.

It's a guy—almost always a guy—who regularly and sometimes entertainingly acts out in embarassingly nutty ways. Our neighborhood kook was a gentleman I shall refer to as “Mr. R”.

Now, “Mr. R” was something of a neighborhood legend. At one time he was supposedly “something” I guess. But by the time I'd moved there in 1975 he'd already become “something else”. Disheveled, with what hair he had matted down in a greasy comb-over, he'd come out onto the steps of his ramshackle home—similar to others in the block, but now festooned with all manner of aftermarket, and post-whack out add-ons. Strange small structures cobbled out of particle board and that odd wood amalgam that looks like slabs of lumber yard head-cheese now jutted from various outer walls of the house. The driveway was lined with large rocks gotten from...God only knows where you get large Flintstionian rocks in Jamaica, Queens. Odd hubcaps and trash lids were affixed to those outer walls as well, and the garage looked like one of those freak-show photos of a man with 200 cigarettes crammed in his mouth, as it was fairly stuffed to overflowing with pipes, long strips of stainless steel and planks of wet, bowing lumber. His car was a vintage Chevy El Camino, with the back truckbed painfully weighted down with what was either a huge, green diesel engine, or a massive old printing press—I never got close enough to the house to see which.

Probably because of “Mr. R” himself. To this day, (And he's still alive, living there and freaking out a third generation of neighbors) I don't know, and apparently nobody knows just what his mental issue is, but whatever it is—it was a doozy. You'd walk by his house and see him there on the sun-scorched remnant of his lawn as he was blow-torching a shiny new trash can into pieces of bent steel for God-knows-what, and he'd see you passing by and grunt.

“Hurnnnnngh-Hurnnngh!”

And you'd just say “Hey, Mr. R.” and keep the hell on walking—because you never knew what would come next. It could be either a primal howl that Yellowstone Coyotes could hear, or he'd scuttle over to a scraggly azalea and dig out some bits of plumbing and start chucking it in your direction. Never strong enough to hit you, but disturbing nonetheless. Sometimes, he'd simply pace from one end of his block to another in his prerequisite stained overalls (guess what with—ecccccch!) and work shirt, muttering, moaning, throwing his hands in the air and occasionally looking heavenward. Sometimes he'd dash half the block, run across the street and just kick a particular neighbor's fence, growl and run back to his yard to putter, grunt and throw things again.

You never knew with him.

And as the years went by, he got worse and worse. Odd new protrusions sprouted from his roof—a mini “Watts Towers” of shaped chicken wire and traffic cones he'd pinch from road crews along Hollis Avenue. His hygeine worsened. You smelled him long before you saw him. And many a middle of the night was perforated with one of his ungodly howls that sounded like a wolf caught in a bear trap on one end while being eaten by the bear at the other. He'd effectively gone from chuckle-worthy eccentric, to flat-out worrisome crazy. He capped this off one day as me and my friends played baseball down in the wide intersection at the head of his block. My friend Darryl had just blasted a long drive well down to the next corner and was tearing around the bases as we all whooped and hollered, windmilling our arms to signal “Everybody score!”. In all the hoopla, we didn't see Mr. R creep up near the bushes at the corner near home plate, but in a flash—and it almost was a literal flash—he rushed out from behind the bushes, clad only in a dingy button-down shirt that was wide open, black socks and underwear that looked like C/W. McCall's “Convoy” had skidded up the back of, and grabbed the bat Darryl had just swung and suddenly screamed and swung it for all he was worth at the stop sign on the corner—three times.

“Bwooooonnnnng! Blaaaannnnnng! Pwhaaaaammmmmm!”

And then he ran away, back past the bushes to his ramshackle house as quickly as he'd come.

We all stood there, open-mouthed as he scuttled back home, arms waving and soiled underwear flashing. And then we looked at that stop sign—still shaking from his blows and listened to itys “whoo-whoo-whoo-whoo-whoo” tuning-fork sound for a good twenty seconds before we wordlessly stopped our game and I guess telepathically said to each other “He. Has. Totally. Lost. It. Wow.”. And one of us actually did—intoning ruefully, “That shit was crazy”, and we went our separate ways.

I hadn't thought of the loopy Mr. R for many years—until this past week, when President Bush decided to do his own executive branch equivalent of Mr. R's half-naked, stop sign-walloping during his trip to Israel, and then some. He stood there, at the Knesset and with the 7 1/2 years of a skidmark of his presidency showing for all to see, effectively lost what cookies he had left.

In his speech, Bush said, “As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, ‘all of this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

CNN’s Ed Henry reported that, while “President Bush never uttered the words Barack Obama,” his White House sources tell him it was clearly intended to be a partisan shot:

White House aides are acknowledging that this was a reference to the fact that Sen. Obama and other Democrats have publicly said that it would be ok for the U.S. President to meet with leaders like the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.

Now, never mind the fact that the little coward ran halfway across the globe to take a shot at a possible successor who forgot more things last week than the President has in his head at this writing, and let's look past the sadness of his clumsily injecting himself into a campaign and really, a world event cycle that has brusquely moved past him—only he hasn't caught on yet. Let's instead peruse the 200-proof crazy he was peddling that day—as Israel, the country he was in—celebrated it's 60th anniversary of existence.

One: The stumblebum-grade invoking of Godwin's Law in his making a direct comparison of Barack Obama to the Nazi-appeasing windmills in his mind. Does this man not know the difference between talking and appeasing? Talking is what Jimmy Carter did with Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin. It's what Bill Clinton did with Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin when the Oslo Accords were formulated. It's also what Bush himself has done in dealing with North Korea insofar as negotiating over their amassing a nuclear arsenal. Of course, appeasing is when you give somebody something in the hopes that they will not do something else. Like perhaps, sending a nation like Korea 500,000 metric tons of grain in the hopes of I dunno...gaining a favorable negotiating position? How soon we forget...or perhaps, didn't really even know jack about from jump. But it's that panicky-assed dog-whistling of “He's like the guys who enabled the Nazis...wink-wink, nudge-nudge, know what I mean? What's that thing you guys like to say? Oh yeah...Oy vey! 'Snicker-snicker!” that simply screamed “Are you...crazy?” to almost everyone who heard it—except for the polarizing doofuses who couldn't help but chime in alá The Three Stooges' “Hello” harmonics on this dumb bleat. Yes, you, Senators McCain and Lieberman. In the end it was as much a whackdoodle non-sequitir as one of Mr. R's insane puttering grunts. “Hurnnnnngh-Hurnnngh!”, and meant just as much to anyone with a shred of sanity. But let's look closer at that inability to discern facts that he should know, as we probe the stygian depths of this ocean of crazy.

Two: The mayfly's grasp of history the man has. The senator who uttered that 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler' statement was one of his own—a Republican, and a fairly prominent one of the time—one William Borah of Idaho. Bush witlessly peddled this tripe, injecting U.S. politics into a nation's celebration as he ham-fistedly tried to help the man he's ostensibly trying to get elected, John McCain. Except, he was apparently spiking his cups of Kedem™ with grain alcohol and ground-up goofballs and either didn't realize, or went totally off script and didn't remember that Senator McCain is painfully on-record talking about talking with Hamas in the same terms Senator Obama has:

"They're the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another. And I understand why this administration and previous administrations had such antipathy towards Hamas because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice.

But it's a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that."

Be it mid-20th century American history, or a statement made as recently as a year ago, the surest sign of a person who's—I'll say it, lost their bearings is an inability to grasp the nature of, or the “time-stamp” of the events occurring around him. To go before hundreds of people and babble like Professor Irwin Corey about the world and what's happened in it as if he was some sort of authority is what the flour sack-clad lunatic who prowls the afternoon “B” Train does. And no one listens to him, but him. But here is the sadly revealing thing about Bush's gossamer grasp on the facts about “appeasement” through history...

What was it that Sly Stone used to sing? “It's a family aff-air

George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany. The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.

His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.

The evidence has also prompted one former US Nazi war crimes prosecutor to argue that the late senator's action should have been grounds for prosecution for giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

Yes. Grandpa Prescott Bush, Senator from the state of Connecticut, who surely bounced little “W” on his double-dealing knee had a bevy of sweet, little back-room deals with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party that lined his pockets as folks around the way would say “something lovely, son”. Even had his firm's assets snatched by the gub-mint because it undermined the war effort. A sitting U. S. Senator. Not the one that Bush railed about there at the Knesset, but actually someone who was much, much worse. I'll use the word that Dubya himself likes to toss around like Kennebunkport horseshoes—traitor. Thinking about this, the image that comes to mind is an unnerving one one from the film “Citizen Kane” where during the newsreel on the life of the just-passed mogul Kane, we see him in a series of “clips” with other powerful men of his time as a voice-over sonorously regales us.






Scene from Citizen Kane—Adolf Hitler at far left, Sen. Prescott Bush Charles Foster Kane chillin' with him at right.

(Kane again appears with Teddy Roosevelt) ...“No public man whom Kane himself did not support or denounce—often support... (Kane is pictured with a preening Hitler on a balcony)...then denounce.”

Your own flesh and blood, Dubya. Your esteemed grandfather. Cutting deals with Nazi Germany. Not even for a negotiated peace. But for the almighty, handed-down-to-generations-afterward dollar. And you rail at someone else for daring to say they'll talk? When the public record is so clear on grandpapa's death-enabling perfidy? Rant on, crazy man. Rant on.

And if you can imagine it—it gets worse. You see, merely a day or so before his manic yowling at the Knesset, he sat down for an interview with Politico.com and deigned to share with said interviewer and an anxious public the depths of his personal sacrifice for the war he pushed down the throats of 300 million Americans and 25 million Iraqis—From Countdown With Keith Olbermann:

Then came Mr. Bush‘s final blow to our nation‘s solar plexus, his last re-opening of our common wounds, his last remark that makes the rest of us question not merely his leadership or his judgment but his very suitably to remain in office.

“Mr. President,” he was asked, “you haven‘t been golfing in recent years. Is that related to Iraq?”

“Yes,” began perhaps the most startling reply of this nightmarish blight on our lives as Americans, on our history.

“It really is. I don‘t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the Commander-in-Chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be as—to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.”

Golf. He sat there and proudly let us know that his sacrifice was his letting go of his piss-poor golf game—and even that was a fabrication of an addled mind as the time frame he gave for riding away in a golf-cart for the last time from his beloved game is at odds with the historical video evidence. He was apparently hacking about roughs and sand traps for months after his trumpeted August “retirement from the game”. But the key thing here is his utterly twisted sense of priorities and propriety. Said with all the conviction and cold-eyed crazy of a Charlie Manson in one of his kooky televised interviews.

“And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.”

As does pretty much anything he's done since committing hundreds of thousands of American soldiers lives and futures to a horrifically evil war. Be it clearing brush, spastically shaking his ass on the one-and-three to ceremonial African music, or worst of all—joking about the reason he sent the soldiers off to war at a champagne and caviar dinner. Maybe some day he''ll return to his beloved game—albeit one or two steps removed. Some soldier back from two—maybe three tours in Iraq, will stand on a course at the tee. Unsteadily though, as he'll be balancing on one flesh and blood leg, pocked with shrapnel, and a titanium prosthetic from his stumped other knee down. His depth perception'll be off. His replacement left eye is a glass ornament that handles images as a marble would—simply reflecting them.

But he'll try to reclaim his life by doing something he used to love when he was whole. That soldier'll rock his weight back a little and address the ball...and then visualize something to give him focus. He'll see a face on the ball. The face of a man who supposedly sacrificed important something for him. The hands'll go back as the good eye flashes hot. Somehow, the titanium leg handles the weight shift and the one eye works like stereo instead of mono—and the ball will rocket off the club like old times. Maybe further. “Boom!” He'll mash every one off the tee...visualizing all the way. Seeing that man's smirking face as he swings. That out-of-his-mind man who's so far around the bend that the damned curve isn't even visible any more.

That crazy, old man in the broken-down house. A tumble-down White House of his own wrecking over 7 1/2 ruinous years. Ranting at whoever happens past. A world passing him by now, and driving him dottier by the day. He rattles sabres made of mop handles and occasionally rushes out into the street to scream and bang on street signs.

“Bwooooonnnnng! Blaaaannnnnng! Pwhaaaaammmmmm! Nazis! Appeaser! Myyyyyyy Warrrrrrrr-time Sac-ri-fiiiiiiiiiice!”

Old “Mr. R” is still there down the block from my childhood home, but the years have not been kind. And sooner, rather than later...he'll be gone. We can see it coming. Our own collective kooky “Mr. B” of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue'll be gone soon too..

Again...sooner rather than later.

It was my colleague Hubris Sonic who noted:

249 days to go. Honestly, I think these next months will be some of the most dangerous under this administration as the frat boy comes to realize, more and more, that his days in the limelight are rapidly waning.

And we'll also see some of the most embarrassing, unbalanced skid mark-flouting and primal screaming you've ever seen in a chief executive on the way out, too.

But then, he's been grunting unintelligibly since day one, hasn't he? “Hurrrrnnngh!

There's more...

I Believe The Term Is, “Sweat Like A Pig”?

“Hello Karl-O...”

I'm no behavioral scientist, but after we dealt with the tale of Karl Rove's uh...“people's” seeming over-reaction to “60 Minutes' airing of an interview with Don Siegelman—a.k.a. someone who is rapidly earning the moniker of “The Wrong Man To Have Fucked With”, it would appear that our favorite porcine protagonist appears to be getting a bit hotter under his wattle-spilled collar.

Via Crooks and Liars and Dan Abrams' “Verdict”:

So what happens when a journalist actually does his/her job and exposes corruption at the highest levels of our government? They get complaint letters from the criminals they exposed. Abrams detailed tonight that he received a 5-page letter from Rove complaining about the great reporting he’s been doing on the political prosecution of Don Siegelman.

“Today the House Judiciary Committee asked Rove to testify under oath about the case. But just last week, we asked Rove‘s attorney, Robert Luskin, in an E-mail whether Rove would testify if subpoenaed by congress. His attorney said, quote, 'Sure. Although it seems to me that the question is somewhat offensive. It assumes he has something to hide even though Gov. Siegelman‘s uncorroborated assertions aside, there is literally no credible evidence whatsoever to substantiate his charges.'

Now under pressure from congress, Luskin has completely backtracked, telling roll call, quote, 'Whether, when and about what a former White House official will testify is not for me or my client to decide but is part of an ongoing negotiation between the White House and congress over executive privilege issues.'

Since Rove has said he had no conversations with the White House about it, what is the executive privilege here? Rove also sent me an angry five-page letter yesterday suggesting all sorts of questions he thinks I could have and should have asked various guests in the program including the former governor himself.

But he only suggested questions, no answers. We‘ll probably talk more about that letter later and I‘ll be responding to Mr. Rove.

Mr. Rove, this is your opportunity to answer under oath many of the questions you suggest I should have asked. Your attorney had said in no uncertain terms you would testify. We have the E-mail. And since you seemed determine to get to the truth, I would think you would embrace this opportunity to testify to congress.

We are not going to let this story die. A jury found Don Siegelman guilty. But if his prosecution was driven by partisans after him because he was a Democrat, in this case needs to be revisited, and an appellate court has ruled it will be.

Counsel Robert Luskin's letter to Abrams on behalf of Rove—a five-page jobbie(!)—absolutely reeks of the same panicky over-reaction shown in the nutty string pulling that got Siegelman's damning “60 Minutes” interview blanked in half of Alabama. Seems pretty bent out of shape over things Abrams didn't actually say in his report. Oopsie! For all the bluster about the cool and calm and confidence of Rove, one cannot help but notice a strange hypersensitivity on this particular issue. There's an over-compensation at play here and a sloppy one at that. Blackouts? Five-page letters to a program that half the “Countdown” audience tunes out of?? Hmmmm...

Why, if I didn't know better, I'd be tempted to say that in Rove's supposed “post”-political career (Yes, I put “post” in scare-quotes. I'd take note of the decidedly Rovian ad-pushes in the still crimson-necktied North Carolina and other potential swing states. It's almost as if his team is trying to get their shots in now—peculiarly early—for some reason. Maybe someone's worried that there may be more pressing fish to fry come general-election crunch-time), hastened by an oddly-timed resignation and a lame-duck administration that inspires outright derision and not a worry of retribution, there may be actual concern about the freshly emboldened people out gunning for him.

You see...when you “ratfuck” enough people for a long enough time, the odds are that at some point, the law of averages will out, and you yourself may feel the not-so-gentle-probings of rodentis phallicus. Siegelman's down for the “slam-bam” and has no interest in lube or sweet talk. It would appear that others aren't terribly concerned with the mess that is sloppy seconds either. Via Newsweek:

The trial of Chicago developer and political fixer Antoin “Tony” Rezko has been closely watched for any mention of the defendant's onetime friend, Barack Obama. But last week, prosecutors threw a curveball, telling the judge that one of their witnesses is prepared to raise the name of another prominent Washington hand: Karl Rive. Former Illinois state official Ali Ata is expected to testify about a conversation he had with Rezko in which the developer alleged Rove was "working with" a top Illinois Republican to remove the Chicago U.S. attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald.

The allegation, which Rove denies, quickly reverberated in Washington. Democrats in Congress now want to question Ata. They believe he can help buttress their theory that Rove played a key role in discussions that led to the firings of U.S. attorneys at the Justice Department in 2006. The House Judiciary Committee "intends to investigate the facts and circumstances alleged in this testimony," panel chairman Rep. John Conyers of Michigan said in a statement to NEWSWEEK.

Investigators are intrigued by the timing of the alleged conversation about Fitzgerald. According to the Rezko prosecutors, it took place in November 2004—weeks after Fitzgerald had subpoenaed Rove to testify for the third time in another matter he was aggressively investigating, the Valerie Plame CIA leak case. A source familiar with Ata's testimony (who asked not to be identified talking about sensitive matters) said that Ata was meeting regularly with Rezko that fall. The two men shared a concern about Fitzgerald's ongoing probe of Illinois public officials. In one of those conversations, the developer allegedly told Ata that Bob Kjellander, a prominent GOP state lobbyist, was talking to Rove about getting rid of Fitzgerald. The reason: to "get a new U.S. attorney" who would not pursue the Illinois corruption probe, the source said. Ata, who has pleaded guilty to corruption-related charges and is now cooperating with the Feds, has no evidence that the conversation took place other than what Rezko allegedly told him, the source says.

Intrigung...to say the least. But Rove according to the article denies the allegation whole-heartedly. Until that is, his all-over-the-place ass-coverer lawyer Luskin decided that statement should be...well, qualified just a bit. The categorical denial shifted to that old standby of soap-opera amnesia victims and pressured White House hacks “I don't recall” when it came down to GOP bigwig Kjellander's pressing him on Fitzgerald's removal.

And then, Luskin tried to hop into the DeLorean yet again, to go back in time and “fix” things...

I (Paul Kiel of TPM—ed. note) spoke to Luskin just now, and he said that his statement ought to be qualified a bit: his statement on Kgellander stands as is, he said, but during the independent counsel investigation, he said, Rove was "frequently" approached about canning Fitzgerald: "a number of people approached Karl and suggested that Fitzgerald be removed because of the alleged politicization of the investigation, but he never took any follow-up steps except to say that I can't talk about that. He didn't want to do anything seen as compromising Fitzgerald's independence." Those approaches, Luskin said, came during fundraisers or other political events "in an unsolicited way.... Karl simply never responded and did not take any action."

That is an awful lot of frantic ass-covering isn't it? Like a butt-nekkid Charles Barkley trying to stitch a pair of bermudas from a single square of Charmin. It's interesting to note that this was supposed to be Rove's freeing “cool-out” time where he could lay back without having to deal with the day-to-days of shtupping two other government branches in the pooper and instead freelance as an as-needed, Ratfucker Emeritus—doing the neccessary odd bit of craven evil to minimize Democratic gains this election cycle and to steal votes at the presidential-level wherever possible. Having to deal with pesky, subpoena-level shit like this was not part of the game plan. And it resurrects all sorts of ugliness, like the U/S. Attorneys scandal, and the specter of GOP criminality as we enter the stretch run of election season.

It's a perfect storm of distraction for the GOP's one-time ace (remember “The Math?”) message master and vote rainmaker. And from the looks of his clunky and ham-fisted responses to these things, they may wind up as more than just “distractions”. Yes, Luskin will do his lawyerly best to stall, dodge and clog up the works to try and keep Rove's incendiary hands off any Bibles between now and January 20th 2009, but I think people tend to get a liitle bolder when they feel a bully can't hurt 'em any more.

I think you'll hear Rove's name come up in a few more stories in ways that'll put him even more on the defensive as the months trundle on. Whether there'll be enough dimes dropped to maka a dollar remains to be seen. But a simple law of science is that oil and water do not mix—and a once-greasy,impossible to catch pig is now starting to sweat a little. Sweat's mostly water last time I checked.

Catch a piggie by the toe...if he hollers, don't let him go...

There's more...

“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.”

Corpse & garbage in the streets of Adhamiya. photo via Iraq Today. Click for LARGE size.

2008: A Year in Limbo

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand...

....And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

-- William Butler Yeats, "The Second Coming" (1921)

Sara Robinson has written a series at Orcinus you should read.

2008: A Year in Limbo

Part I: A Year in Limbo
Part II: Hold on Tight to Your Dream
Part III: Where There Is No Vision, The People Perish
Part IV: On Denial, Collapse, and the Laws of Physics
Part V: Which Rough Beast? -- A Conclusion

Go. Read now.

There's more...

Pride and Palpitations

Obama Iowa Victory photo via CBS News

(Special thanks to Hubris Sonic for his stellar blow-by-blow coverage last night)

Oh, let's see.

It was around eleven p.m. last night when we did “the TV switch” here at “Stately LM Manor”. A little ritual (that we are not alone in participating in, I'm sure) consisting of me shifting my television viewing from the the big-screen, back bedroom TV to the smaller one in the living room as my wife moves from the living room to said back bedroom to go to sleep. Having finished her little bout of compulsive document shredding for the week—a lingering post-identity theft symptom—she was good and tired, and I could have the living room back to myself to absorb the Iowa caucus results with the shredder's annoying din now done.

I snapped my laptop shut and quickly folded the little ash tray table for the switcheroo...and looked at the big TV for a moment. I'd been back there in that room for over an hour by myself and had in-a-not-inside-voice mused aloud “Holy shit.” when they called the caucus for Barack Obama.

Actually, I'd said “Holy shit.” a few times as I'd risen from the bed and paced the room, hands on hips, absorbing the on-screen reactions to Obama's surprising (for me, at least) win. I was fairly drowning in phrases like “sea change”, “end of an era”, “turning of the page”, and most notably...“historic moment”. I soon realized that I'd been repeatedly stopping to look at the TV with a “Did I really just see what I just saw?” look reminiscent of the fellow at the far right on Earth, Wind & Fire's “That's The Way Of The World” album cover shown below.

(My exact “Obama Won?” pose, to a “T” by EWF's Ralph Johnson—minus the embroidered elephant bells and “Bikini Atoll” 'Fro, of course.)

I made my way down the hall and passed the yawning wife and my stepson who was also re-locating for his final 10 minutes of TV as well. I'd heard him whooping it up a bit earlier from the front room when they'd announced Obama's win. Couple of clench-teethed “Yes!”-es too. And as it's a quiet block, I could have sworn I heard a few whoops from neighboring houses at that moment too, but for all I know, it could have been someone cheering hapless Knick coach Isiah Thomas' being felled by a brick chucked from The Garden's nosebleed blue seats. It's hard to tell.

What I could tell though is that something was up.

When I settled into the living room, the television was on MSNBC as it was when I'd left it earlier. My wife and stepson had been watching the coverage too—which considering the unremitting awfulness of their television tastes kind of struck me.

I was standing there alá Ralph Johnson again when they said that Obama would be speaking shortly, and proceeded to set myself up with a drinky so I could help myself soak all of this in, when I heard my wife call out “He's coming on now! He's coming to the stage!”

“Whaaat?”

“Obama! He's coming to the stage in a minute!”

“Okay! Thanks!”, I said. “Hmmm. She's watching the coverage back there too?”

“No!” she replied. “Come watch it back here with us, so we can see it as a family! Come on! Come on!”

“What the fuck?”, I thought, channeling the afro-ed EWF-er's body language again. “Since when do we pull the 'Temptations are on Sullivan!—Let's watch Black people on TV as a family!” thing?

I hustled up and slipper-shuffled quickly to the back bedroom to watch.

Now, you must understand something about Mrs. LM. She's a bit of a “Sleep Nazi”. When it's beddy-bye time for her, it's usually clock-perfect. 11 p.m. Must have the comfy jammies. Needs her little white ankle socks. TV...off! Lights in the hall...off! (She hates light sneaking under the door crack) And with that, she's a closed book for the night. (with...exceptions, that is.) All of this happens in about ninety seconds.

But last night, she'd been back there with my stepson for about fifteen minutes watching TV, and when I got there, there she lay, all bundled up, peering out of the blankets at the TV like a cat swaddled in a basket of just-dried, still-toasty towels. Her eyes twinkled there in the dark. My stepson sat cross-legged on the rug, hunched forward anxiously, as if awaiting a replay of LeBron's sick dunk of the night.

It wasn't basketball, or an umpteenth viewing of a “Golden Girls” episode they were riveted to, though. Obama's win, and what it meant had them utterly transfixed. And as Chris Matthews anxiously brayed and be-sptttled his co-host Keith Olbermann with pre-speech hype, I could feel my heart beginning to race. There was the faintest tingle of...something. I stood there again, EWF-style, taking in the pre-moment, moving from “WTF?” to an open-mouthed “Wow.” at what I was seeing.

And then, suddenly Matthews honked out a “Here he is!” and it was on. There was raucous cheering, the family mounting the dais, the girls—Hey! Whaddya know? Obama's daughters had just had their hair “did”. Michelle Obama corralled the girls and for the first time—and you can call me a lout—I noticed Ms. Obama's body. I'd only seen head shots and waist-ups before this moment. Um...was it wrong for me to think “Okay...first potential First Lady I've ever seen myself wanting to step to.”? Yes, it probably was, but hey—a historic night is a historic night. Barack was now on the stage, helping Michelle gather the daughters and then glad-handing a few people on the stage with him as the crowd exploded with cheers.

Goose-pimples. Yep. Had 'em. I'm watching him make his way to the podium, and my mind flashes back to 1988 when Jesse Jackson ran for President. I remember a Time or Newsweek cover with a presidential-looking painting of Jesse standing there with his arms folded with a wry smile on his face, under the 120 point headline “Jesse?”, as if the magazine was itself saying “Holy Shit! Is it possible...?”

But what I'm looking at here is different than the '88 election. Jesse had done surprisingly well, considering. But pulling off the Iowa shit that Obama did last night? A state with a 2.3% Black population and a 94% white majority? Oh, no. This was some “next-level” stuff I was watching. It took an eternity for Obama to get to the mic to speak, and in that eternity, I felt the muscles in my neck tense up. The stepson wrapped his hand about his legs and bored in to the screen. And once Obama started talking, after about fifteen seconds, my wife suddenly flipped over towards the wall, covering her head and saying through the muffled blankets...

“I can't watch!”

And in that moment, she verbalized exactly what was on my mind, and I dare say what was on the minds of a considerable majority of the African Americans watching him call down verbal thunder in those minutes.

We...were afraid.

I found myself not unconsciously scanning the roaring crowd, praying to not see a weapon pop above the throng and point at him. I couldn't stop myself. When the camera lingered on him too long during stretches of the speech, I averted my eyes for a few seconds, fearful that I might catch a tragic moment playing out in horrific real-time. I'd look back again a second or two later.

I found I couldn't really absorb or analyze the speech as I'd have liked. I was too busy checking out cameras in the crowd held aloft, and wondering about security. “Jesus, he gets so many people at his events! How the fuck is he gonna secure the venues? Ohhhhh man...”

“Honey,” I implored. “C'mon, you asked me to watch it with you. You gotta watch it.” I said this just as much to convince myself as her.

“It's-it's okay. I'll just listen.”

The phone rang, jarringly.

“Hello?”, I ask.

“You watching this?”, my friend “D” asked quietly.

“Yeah.”

“You think he's wearin' a vest?

A long beat from me. “Well...I'm sure he's got Secret Service protection.”

“Is he wearin' a vest to protect himself against those motherfuckers?“

“Well, if he didn't before tonight, he will be by tomorrow”, I replied.

“This is fucking insane.” he added. “He won Iowa. Iowa? Do you know how that's gonna shake certain people up?”

“D” was speaking the gut-wrenching unspoken truth—almost in a whisper. I don't know why.

“Can we just enjoy this for tonight? Just soak it in for a min-”

“I can't enjoy this shit!”, he said cutting me off. “I'm scanning the crowd for grenade-tossers and shit. You saw the Bhutto video. I can't get that shit outta my mind. There's a lotta nuts in this country, and a lotta guns, and—”

“I know, I know! Just...lemme delude myself for a few minutes and watch this thing and think positive thoughts, okay?”

“Okay.”, he said. “But you know he's gonna wake up tomorrow and say 'Ho-leeeee shit...”

“I'm sayin' it now”, I said. The call ended. Obama was still speaking, rolling now in seminary-style up-and-down waves. Pause. Set the jaw. Yeah, Malcolm X, Billy Graham, Adam Clayton Powell...MLK speechifying one-oh-fucking-one..

Phone rings again. Don't know who—the cordless with the display is up front.

“Where is his security! Why are so many people surrounding him? Are they crazy?”

It was Mama.

“Sigh!” “I just don't know, Mama. I'm guessing...no...I'm praying they have it all under control. He looks pretty confident up there, like he knows everything's well in hand. I don't think his wife would let him be up there if there was a serious risk.”

“Well,” she said, “remember, the man who cradled Malcolm's head in his arms at the Audubon was a FBI undercover working right next to Malcolm...and he didn't even know it.”

Mom was all of 21 when Malcolm was killed uptown. She and my dad knew him well. This was resonating deeply in her, and I could hear the upset in her voice. We lived around the corner on 115th Street from the Mosque they fire-bombed in “retaliation” the next day. Ascendant Black men at rostrums was going to hit my mom funny no matter what. And she was not wrong for the trepidation she felt.

“Are any Black people watching this tonight just enjoying the history of all this? Or are they all as nervous as we are?”, I asked her.

“I'm sure some of a certain age are just eating it up fine”, she said. “But I imagine even they'll start to think on it when the day hits 'em cold. It's not paranoia, son. You know that. It's reality. I swear I wish it wasn't, but it is.”.

We finished our call and I watched the end of Obama's speech—still sniper-checking a bit, and silently imploring him to “move around a little...make it difficult for 'em”. But then, it was done. The crowd roared, he hugged Michelle, confetti fell, and I imagine upstairs in their suite McFadden and Whitehead's “Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now” was heard at least once.

I relaxed for the first time in many minutes, finishing my drink and looking at the post-speech coverage of Olbermann trying not to laugh at the shit-scared White man writ large, Chris Matthews sitting next to him, all darting eyes and afraid of what is on the horizon. My wife rolled over and said simply “Whew! He made it. Thank God. Mmmmmkay, g'night.”

Which was the signal for me to leave for the front room.

And as I walked there, I reviewed my emotions of the night. Shock. Disbelief. Pride...and then muscle-tensing fear when I realized where this was all headed...now. I sat down to watch the continuing coverage and saw the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson review Obama's speech glowingly, and then...he cited the feeling he had when watching the hopeful, ”new day” swelling of popularity when Bobby Kennedy was running, and he was almost aglow when he mentioned that campaign. But then, he brought it down a bit in the next breath—quickly, and probably because he'd just thought of exactly what I'd thought right after he mentioned it.

Namely, how RFK's campaign tragically ended.

Now, let me close by saying that I don't mean to be a killjoy about what last night may have meant. In spite of my having not formally chosen a candidate I really feel strongly positive about, I'll be damned if I didn't feel something soul-deep special when they announced that Obama had won Iowa handily, and at that moment he geared up to speak, things did seem for a time like the climax to a crazy, pre-waking lottery-hit dream. I felt deliriously good about progressives in general when they gave the voting numbers for the caucus—Dems doubling the turnout damn near from '04, and tripling the GOP's mouth breathers in-state.

But I want you to understand what that nervousness and yes, I'll say it—fear was about as Barack Obama thanked his supporters and urged them onward. I don't know if you'll ever really understand it and why it comes so quickly to the fore for Black folks. I guess, you need only to look at not distant, but recent American history and how deadly cruel it has been to Black people on the cusp of busting a door wide open. In my lifetime, Malcolm X was cut down. Medgar Evers was blown away. Martin Luther King's flame was sniper's bullet snuffed. Never mind all the back-room, black-bag shit the U.S. government ran on folks who stood tough locally like Chicago's Fred Hampton and others.

We have developed an unfortunate Pavlovian response to the repeated sight of our best and brightest being blown away like so many dandelion bits in the wind.

We have our moments of pride, and then...then, those uncontrollable palpitations. Worrying about when the ax will fall. Or the grenade. Or the bullet's sharp crack, the diving security and guests, and the inevitable cut to a shocked newsroom.

Dave Chappelle used to have segment on his show featuring Paul Mooney called “Ask a Black Dude”. Well, I won't wait for you to ask, I'm just telling you what goes on. What went on...in my house, and I would assume hundreds of thousands of households like mine, where recent history's bloody spectre hovers in a tattered 60's sack-cut suit and skinny tie. He hovers and points at today's goings on.

“There”, he moans. “There,” as his dusty hand notes the television and all the happiness on the screen. He doesn't smile. he doesn't blink. He just says “There,” as he crooks a bony finger. And up Black America's collective spine, goes his chill.

He was there in Iowa too. I know Barack and Michelle saw him. But maybe the kids didn't. And I'm guessing that Barack and Michelle fought like hell to push him out of sight eventually.

Dropped balloons and confetti on him. Drowned his “There.” out with McFadden and Whitehead, or Curtis' “Move On Up” or some such blaring counter to that hollow moan.

I hope to God they did. 'Cause that'll make them the lucky ones. Unlike the rest of us.

There's more...

Yippee-Ki-Yay-Motherfucker.

What's that old Tom Petty song again? Oh yeah—Free-fallin'!

Too many lead weights in a fella's pockets makes it awfully hard for him to not fall the hell down.

And our dear friend Rudolph's got more lead weights on him than anybody we know. Thus...a yippee-ki-yay-motherfucker moment—via TPM:

In a sign that his campaign in New Hampshire could be flagging, Rudy Giuliani has been significantly scaling back his ad buys in the state. Records show that numerous ad buys in the Boston TV stations have either been cut by more than half, or cancelled entirely.

The campaign has kept up its buys in the much cheaper WMUR in Manchester, where Rudy has a strong base of support thanks in part to the mayor's endorsement — so Rudy might be going trying for a decent second or third through a strong, concentrated showing there. And the campaign is shifting its resources to Florida, where Rudy is also sinking fast.

As Giuliani plummets to the ghetto of single digit-ville support in Iowa, backslides to third place in South Carolina (where he led until a week or so ago) and now has fallen behind in Florida, in spite of heavily-touted northeastern “snowbird” support, there are many out there who seem surprised at his seemingly sudden “Man Who Fell To Earth” routine.

If you read this blog, you shouldn't be amongst that group. Giuliani's over-stuffed American Touristers full of campaign-killing dirty-dealing were going to be a huge problem for him the moment the press' equivalent of airport X-rays got through looking at him even a little bit. And a mere hard week's worth of digging on their parts was that little bit—albeit way too much for Rudy's glass Xmas ornament-tough campaign to handle.

He is merely the most morally and ethically compromised candidate of ALL of the GOP's choices—and that's one hell of a thing when you consider how damaaged they all are. Giuliani was living on borrowed time to begin with. In choosing between the lessers, Beelzebub, Mephistopheles, Lucifer, and The Anti-Christ, Giuliani's P.R. savvy Satan got a bit of a free ride for a while. But as the saying goes, “The devil is in the details.“. Rudy's details, oozing from within, and showing on his very skin like sweat are slimy and putrid indeed.

And no matter how tough, or how hardcore you may appear , no one wants to be around you when you sweat and smell.

Even the odious-himself Bill Kristol can't stand Rudy's ammonia-strong funk:

“What's the agenda for the Giuliani presidency? So I think he made it all about himself, about his record, but when you make it about yourself, it's also about other aspects of your past—and that stuff's emerged that much more, and I think a lot of Republicans look up and say 'Look he's a good mayor, he did well on 9-11, but why should we make him President?”

When FOX News'—“The Official Network of Rudy 'Razor-Lips' Giuliani”—main Sunday pundit puts pennies on Rudy's eyes...kiddies...he's a free-fallin' in a major way.

Is there any lead left in his pencil at all?

Doesn't look very good right now, does it?

Yippee-Ki-Yay-Motherfucker.

There's more...

Plum Scarifyin'!

Make-Up Wiz Tom Savini (Friday The 13th, Dawn Of The Dead, From Dusk Til Dawn) Can NOT Come Close To This Level Of Scary Theatrics.

It's Halloween night.

The daughter is out in her Hayden Pannetierre/Heroes cheerleader costume, replete with fake scars, some “blood” smears, and even a busted “rib” protruding from a rip in the uniform. My fearsome beauty.

Saw a truly fearsome beauty on the 4 Train today, too. A five-foot-eight, Latina and perfect Vampirella look-alike. Had the black leather boots, the red, deep-gorge leotard, upper arm-rings and the dead-on demure white collar. Even twin slim trails of fake blood trailing from either side of her mouth down her swan-like neck. I was head-buried in a copy of GQ when I heard the dude next to me mutter “Hol-eeeeee shit.” Looked up and saw the on-her-way-to-a-party Vampi, took her all in, and I (thinking I was using my “inside” voice) audibly said “Got-damn.” Vampi looked over and I said, trying to save face a bit, “You nailed it. You nailed it.”

“Thank you.” she demurred.

“Make it yourself?”

“Mmmm-hmmmm.”

The “Holy shit” guy next to me goes, “And she sews, too?” He shook his head ruefully and then looked away as if looking over a distant hill. “God, just kill my ass.”

She laughed, I laughed, everybody at our section of the train car laughed. And homegirl was frighteningly beautiful. She was “Vampi” in every way the real Vampi was. Lord.

Dude gets on at Union Square with his date. She's dressed as a spider lady with webs in her hair, spiders on her jacket, and creepy spider rings on her fingers. Dude was in a pinstriped suit, tie, and a pig's snout and matching piggy ears. Sits across from me.

“Capitalist or chauvinist?”, I asked.

“Could go either way, tonight.”, he snorted.

More laughter on the train.

But I have to thank a Group News Blog reader Rosali, for providing us all with a TRUE scare—namely the picture at the top of this post. The creepy, “The Hills Have Eyes” lookin' nut-job in the center of the trio is one Rudolph W. (for What-the-fuck-are-you-wearing?) Giuliani. It's an exceptionally rare snap of him from one of his most stupidly infamous moments as a U.S. attorney. In previous Giuliani posts, I've cited the goofball moment the pic captures. Giuliani, and then NY Senator Alphonse D'Amato (at right) and Judge Benjamin Baer (at left—dressed as...JOSPEHINE THE PLUMBER?) dolled up in “undercover” gear for a buy-and-bust sting operation to show how easy it was to buy crack in new York at the time. Now, one would be inclined to say that Rudy and company had already hit a DEA evidence locker and sampled the goods to have had the nerve to put on these ridiculous get-ups, but thanks to Rosali, the way is pointed to some fun commentary on it:

“Wearing a Hell's Angels black leather vest with patches that read "Dirty Thirty" and "Filthy Few," the future mayor purchased two vials for $20. Apparently, New York crack dealers were sampling their own product. Giuliani's casual-Friday trousers and gold belt buckle make him look more like a man who wants to sell homeowners insurance than a drug addict. And the post-cataract-surgery glasses aren't very menacing, either.”

It's easy to find pics of ol' razor lips all dragged-out in sequins and Dame Edna gear. He wants people to see the over-the-top ridiculous images of him. But most pictorial evidence of this little bed-shit of a publicity stunt has been pretty much flushed down the memory hole. You can't find the old footage of the day's events anymore...and stills were impossible to come by for quite a while. It was an embarassment for the venomous little martinet. We clowned him on it in town—BIG TIME. But in spite of his best efforts to wish this bit of costumed stupid away, here it is again, and here it shall remain—until I incorporate it into a fine Rudy video you'll soon be seeing. (Insert pig-man's “snort” here.)

And ironically, as Halloween's fog and apparitions swirl about us, Rudy's seeing a few “haints” dancing in the tree shadows as well. His recent ad about the perils of “socialized medicine” where he self-servingly kvetched about his own battle with prostate cancer and how were he in Europe his survival odds would have been less than here (would that it were so—I'd gladly pay for him to do the empirical testing of the theory) got eviscerated so fast, it woke up in a bathtub full of ice with an ugly belly scar, goin' “Wha hoppen?”:

“I had prostate cancer, five, six years ago. My chance of surviving prostate cancer, and thank God I was cured of it, in the United States: 82 percent. My chances of surviving prostate cancer in England: only 44 percent under socialized medicine.”

Giuliani’s ad is full of misleading right-wing claims that overhype the broken U.S. health care system. A look at his “facts”:

—Giuliani cites inaccurate statistics. While the rate for men with prostate cancer is slightly higher in the United States, the five-year survival rate in England is actually 74.4 percent according to the Office of National Statistics in Britain.

—Giuliani relies on unsourced figures from a right-wing think tank. Giuliani’s campaign confirmed that it obtained its faulty numbers from an article entitled “The Ugly Truth About Canadian Health Care” in the right-wing quarterly magazine City Journal, which is an arm of the conservative Manhattan Institute. As MSNBC notes, the author of the “Ugly Truth” article provided no sources for his “facts.” The Manhattan Institute receives funding from multiple pharmaceutical companies.

—Giuliani uses a weak measurement of comparison. Cancer experts note that mortality rates, which “show the number of people who actually die from the disease,” may be better measurements than five-year survival rates. Under this comparison, the two countries are even closer: “Age-standardized prostate cancer mortality rates are 15.4 per 100,000 people in the United Kingdom and 12.0 per 100,000 in the United States, according to the American Cancer Society.”

The New York Times joined in on the rusty butter knife guting of the bullshit ad as well, leaving Sun King Rudy's lying satellites around him to mewl when grilled about whether they'd continue with the lying about the issue, “Yes. We will.”

Somewhere, my buddy in the pig snout snorts out a laugh again.

And to make matters worse, the talkative Joe Biden chucked a cynaide-dipped shuriken at The Rudester in the Democratic debate the other night. Right at Rudy's pasty nads.

“And the irony is, Rudy Giuliani, probably the most underqualified man since George Bush to seek the presidency, is here talking about any of the people here. Rudy Giuliani... I mean, think about it! Rudy Giuliani. There's only three things he mentions in a sentence -- a noun, a verb, and 9/11. There's nothing else! There's nothing else! And I mean this sincerely.”

It was a pretty vicious laugh line—and it wounded Rudy badly. You know it did, because Biden isn't even a contender, and Rudy couldn't ignore the jagged-shoveled dig . His communication director responded with a statement that had all the humor of a mass grave being found in the backyard of an orphanage, and then Rudy tried to quip his way out of it with lame-ass plagiarism jokes that Johnny Carson rejected in '87. He came off looking like the poor clown standing on the playground after a snap-master has torn his face off with a brutal line as everybody's still going “Oooooooooooohhhhhh!”—and he sweats, stammers and can only go, “Well...well, your mama!”

As we used to also say on the playground after such a weak comeback, “Ah-Doyyyyyyyyyyyyy!”

Look at that lame-fuck tool in the center of that above pic one more time.

That's the GOP frontrunner. That's who Chris Matthews is gleefully “South Park” ball-washing every damned day.

Yeah, that was a chill that just went up your spine, people. Happy Halloween!

You've done better costumes than the pictured last-minute, hamper-raid abomination. I know you have.

So out with it! Tell us about your best Halloween costume/costume story. It's gotta be better than getting clowned as a half-assed Josephine the Plumber, a dime-store Lt. Hunter of Hill Street Blues, and a Cinderfella-era Jerry Lewis/Eric Von Zipper mash-up. It's just gotta!

There's more...

Maori Haka

Male Teenagers, Young Adults, & Protracted Teenagers Engage In Overt Sexual Displays In Order To Compensate... For Not Knowing, Especially Sexually

Sara Robinson addresses this in her article The Real Deal versus PoserWorld.

LowerManhattanite hits at it in Do NOT Mess With An Original Gangsta.

Hubris Sonic makes the point clear and all you need do is look at the pictures in Blackwaters' Mercenary Navy?. He spells it out explicitly in Putin tells Cheney to go fuck himself, so if you didn't get the point already or if the Red Sox pitching Curt Shilling in Game Six has you drinking heavily, there's still hope.

Because here it is yet again. (The full article is an absolute must read.)

Orcinus (Sara Robinson)

Which brings me around to my point, which is that the over-the-top behavior around masculine gender roles Digby and Dave are noticing is pretty classic early primary behavior, too. The games boys play at this age often involve extreme masculine archetypes -- cowboys, cops, soldiers, sports heroes, spacemen, and so on. (It's interesting that Little Boots has, at one time or another, tried to cast himself in all of these roles -- and that the male Kewl Kids just swooned over it, every time. Remember the fuss over Jet Pilot Action Figure Bush's "package"? Damn fool didn't loosen his straps before getting out of the jet. Nobody else on the deck had his crotch trussed up like a Christmas goose; and to them, he looked like a rookie idiot. But Chris Matthews practically had an orgasm on-air while watching him prance and strut.) The fact that so many mainstream and conservative media guys are suckered by this posturing shows that they don't really have a clue about what a Real Man looks like -- though, somewhere deep down inside, they're pretty sure they don't qualify. That's why they're so easily wowed by men who can put on the costume and make it look good.

But they're even more easily cowed by men who can actually fill the boots. John