I'd like to think that Jesse Helms was crippled with dementia, perhaps drooling on himself, when, in a sudden moment of crystal-clear lucidity, he saw a headline, or caught some cable news, and it became knowledge to him, that the country is on the verge of electing an African-American president and, BOOM!, his brain explodes, oxygen shuts down, and he's gone.
Now, it would have been infinitely better, if he lasted until Election Night, so nice it would be, after his life-long record of vile hate, that the last thing Jesse Helms learned, was that Barack Obama is to be the next President of the United States.
Yes, that would be so nice ...
Bonus "Ding Dong, The Racist Senator Is Dead" Riffs
Jesus, the founding fathers, they couldn't have just been rolling in their graves, they had to be trying to climb out of them, to stop the insulting, insane decision (by who?) to have the Worst, Court-Appointed President (h/t Barry Crimmins) in the country's history speaking at the home of one of the writers of the Constitution, Thomas Jefferson.
This isn't comical irony, in the least.
It is outrageously, and hideously insulting.
Now, unless the Bush Grindhouse pulled rank, and placed the guy that has done nothing but piss on the Constitution there, whoever runs the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, the organization that controls Jefferson's place, should be fired.
A Karen Silkwood-type scrubbing and shower can't wash this one away.
I write as a Virginian, the father of four graduates of Mr. Jefferson's university and of another who is an alumnus of the university Mr. Jefferson himself attended.
I have just spoken with Emily of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation to register our family's dismay that President George W. Bush has been invited to speak at Monticello on July 4th. I cannot imagine a greater insult to Mr. Jefferson, who played such a huge role in securing for us the freedoms we enjoy as citizens of this great Commonwealth and country. George W. Bush at Monticello? Desecration of what until now has been hallowed ground.
Emily explained that the Foundation had decided that it could invite the office of the president, without appearing to invite the present incumbent. That distinction is one worthy of the lawyers whom the Bush administration hired to justify torture, ignoring the dictum of another Virginian, Patrick Henry, that practices like the rack and screw must be left behind in the Old World.
Those who invited the president to Charlottesville to help celebrate the Declaration of Independence, which asserted basic freedoms that Mr. Bush has now curtailed, dishonor Mr. Jefferson in a most offensive way, scandalize our children and grandchildren, and desecrate Monticello itself.
A shameful day for the Commonwealth.
Raymond L. McGovern Arlington, Virginia
*** Ray McGovern, Co-Founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, spent 27 years in the CIA with duties including presentation of presidential daily brief
Now, I don't want to give you an "I-Told-You-So", but in our July 4th Garlictorial last year, we called for, since the 110th Congress wasn't (and still isn't) doing their duties, to place The Commander Guy under Citizen's Arrest, and we laid out all the benefits one could get from performing such patriotic services.
Alas, it still remains an uncompleted task.
If someone had undertaken this action, it could have saved the Thomas Jefferson Foundation the embarrassment, and stain that will live on them for scores-of-years to come.
Doesn't anybody in Washington D.C. understand the concept of "Lame Duck President"?
Why on earth would anyone give him something to do (let alone an appearance in a celebration of the Declaration of Independence)?
The concept of "Lame Duck President", and especially this lamest one, should be that he is left to sulk and suck in his nest of bile, until they have to scrape the crap off him on the morning of January 20th, and make him slink out the rear door.
Considering his record, his caretaking of the Office of the President, even that would be too generous.
...no country can be well governed unless its citizens as a body keep religiously before their minds that they are the guardians of the law and that the law officers are only the machinery for its execution, nothing more.
March in a parade of flags ... Wave a flag ... Oou-and-Ahh over firework displays of flags ...
Have Flag/Am Patriotic
Well, we don't need to discourse on what a flag is (Barry Crimmins has a "Holiday Salute" today).
Or, that, while everyone has unfurled their flags over the past seven years, the Bush Grindhouse has waived goodbye to the rule of law, and our civil liberties
Jane Hamsher, over on Firedoglake, has a good civic exercise, very much in the spirit of the above-mentioned Twain quote, you can engage in today;
"But Christy was dogged, and thanks to her efforts (and those of our fabulous readers) we now have almost 40 events set up across the country where you can join together with fellow like-minded FISA buffs and tell your member of Congress in person exactly what you think of the upcoming capitulation they plan."
SAMPLE QUESTIONS
* The Senate will soon be considering immunity for companies that helped President Bush illegally spy on Americans. Do you think the President should be able to collude with corporations to cover-up his crimes—does our constitution allow the president to be above the law?
* Will you join Senators Feingold and Dodd in standing up for our constitution by filibustering any legislation that lets president Bush and the phone companies off the hook for wiretapping American citizens without a warrant?
* Alternative phrasing of the second bullet: We need you to show backbone and not help Bush's cover-up. If these lawsuits get thrown out of court, Americans may never know how far Bush went in breaking the law by spying on innocent Americans. Will you join Senator Russ Feingold's filibuster of any bill that gives retroactive immunity to phone companies that helped Bush break the law and spy on Americans?
Now, with or without a flag in your hand, how much more can you be a good American patriot, then by holding your elected representative accountable for the welfare of our country?
Gov. Charlie Crist, single for nearly three decades, on Thursday morning became engaged to his girlfriend of nine months, Carole Rome.
"She's special in every way. She's brilliant, beautiful and sweet. I'm very, very lucky," Crist told the St. Petersburg Times in an exclusive interview
The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of “coercive management techniques” for possible use on prisoners, including “sleep deprivation,” “prolonged constraint,” and “exposure.”
What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners.
The recycled chart is the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency.
You think they would have been more discreet ... More hip ...
Like, if they going to go Chinese with the torture, they'd just have them brush their teeth with Chinese-made toothpaste, or, perhaps, put some Chinese-made toys in their mouths.
Or, since they were going global with the torture techniques, they beat them with one of Tom Friedman's books (hardcover, of course).
Just when you think the Bush Grindhouse couldn't go any lower ...
As we run out the clock, on the lamest - ever - court-appointed President (h/t Barry Crimmins), there's going to be a veritable roto-league of legacy wrap-ups.
Well ... Actually ... They'll all look more like a criminal rap sheet.
Narrowing down the Bush administration's various debacles to a mere 10 was no easy feat. In fact, I expect that many people will express dismay that their least favorite moment was left off the list. "How could commuting Scooter Libby's sentence not even make the top 10??!!" I can hear some of you shrieking already. Well, I'll tell you. Essentially, I tried to rate each Bush disaster by two main criteria: its body count and its damage to the country's reputation. So while Bush's awkward groping of German Chancellor Angela Merkel may be personally humiliating to everyone, it doesn't have the same heft as, say, the Iraq War.
Between yesterday, and this morning, a handful of storylines have broken, that is going to generate forceful spinning, counter-spinning and blowback, likely enough to jar the needles on the Fujita and Saffir-Simpson scales.
Exhibit A - McCain's War Record/Qualifications for President
And, if you have been paying attention, Little Billy Kristol has already predicted that the Bush Grindhouse will let the bombs fly, especially if it looks like Obama is going to take the election.
This drum has been beating for some time now .... If you have to go with one, or the other, bet on The Commander Guy donning the flightsuit again, and after they transform Tehran into the Flintstones' Bedrock City, another 'Mission Accomplished before passing on the baton (and if Stumblin Bumblin John McCain does manage to win, or steal, the election, then no baton passing, the bombs will keep dropping).
Exhibit C - My Sister/My Daughter ... We're Hunting OBL/We're Not Hunting OBL ...
The NYT kicks the dust up today, with their "Amid Policy Disputes, Qaeda Grows in Pakistan", detailing how the military has been set to rush through Afghanastan and into Pakistan to go get - now some 7-years after-the-fact - Osama bin Laden, and other top Al-Qaeda chieftains ...
But, the Big Cheeses in Washington won't pull the trigger.
The Garlic speculates Vegas will post this one as a "Pick'em"
So, with the Lapel Pin orgy-of-a-holiday approaching, July 4th, expect the jingoistic fur to be flying, spinning and counter-spinning, and every tiny iota of it making it's way, blaringly so, at times, into your news.
If you need a "pick-me-up" today, we got one for you.
It peels back the curtain for a glimpse, a fleeting glimpse, of the Washington insiders, the Tim Russert/Golden Calf worship, Sally Quinn, the always-apocalyptic Bill Donohue, Jon "Jesus Saves, And I Write About It" Meacham, and more.
The tempest in a chalice began when Quinn, co-creator of the Washington Post's On Faith website (an accident waiting to happen), paid memorial tribute to Tim Russert and went a bit overboard with the best of intentions, telling her readers...
At Tim's funeral mass...communion was offered. I had only taken communion once in my life, at an evangelical church. It was soon after I had started "On Faith"; and I wanted to see what it was like. Oddly I had a slightly nauseated sensation after I took it, knowing that in some way it represented the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Last Wednesday I was determined to take it for Tim, transubstantiation notwithstanding. I'm so glad I did. It made me feel closer to him. And it was worth it just to imagine how he would have loved it.
Out, as-soon-as-possible, with the softball questions.
They need to lower their sights, and go with Whiffleball queries ...
Now, there's no guarantee that Stumblin' Bumblin' John still won't go down on three strikes, but they, at least, may be able to slow down the hemorrhaging of headlines like this;
Senator John McCain said he can't remember the last time he pumped gasoline or the cost of a gallon of a gas in an interview with the Orange County Register earlier this week.
The OC Register's Martin Wisckol asked McCain when he had last pumped his own gas, to which McCain replied:
"Oh, I don’t remember. Now there’s Secret Service protection. But I’ve done it for many, many years. I don’t recall and frankly, I don’t see how it matters," McCain said.
"I don't see how it matters"?
It's only that the cost of gasoline is in the news, oh, about 23.5-hours of the day!
And if the media (in particular, the clowns on the cable news programs) isn't lathering on the sad-sack stories, people making choices between filling the tank, or filling their medical prescriptions, or forced to dine on cat food, you have the other screaming heads, complete with their Rudy Valle megaphones, painting a gruesome future, with gas at $12-$15 before you can say "before your can say".
Last year we drove across the country. We switched on the driving...every half-mile...We had one cassette tape to listen to on the entire trip...I don't remember what it was ..."
Why wasn't McCain's Mini-Me there, to whisper in his year "About four-bucks-a-gallon"?
I mean, if they are going to let him take softball questions, geez, you gotta have some back-up, some help, a designated question-answerer, to stay in the ball lingo.
This is, yet, another breakdown in keeping Stumblin' Bumblin' John's incompetence under wraps.
The kicker is McCain really has been confused. Whether he’s 72 or 22 is irrelevant — he’s been consistently wrong about Iraq, demonstrating time and again that he just doesn’t understand the basics.
* McCain has been confused about how many U.S. troops are in Iraq.
* McCain has been confused about whether the U.S. can maintain a long-term presence in Iraq.
* McCain has been confused about the source of violence in Iraq.
* McCain has been confused about Iran’s relationship with al Qaeda.
* McCain has been confused about the difference between Sunni and Shi’ia.
* McCain has been confused about Gen. Petraeus’ responsibilities in Iraq.
* McCain has been confused about what transpired during the Maliki government’s recent offensive in Basra.
* McCain has been confused about Gen. Petraeus’ ability to travel around Baghdad “in a non-armed Humvee.”
* McCain has been so confused about Iraq, in November 2006, he couldn’t even do a live interview about the war without reading prepared notes on national television.
So what can we expect ... How will this one be mopped up?
Or, ... Oh God, I don't even want to think about it, especially with the flag-waving, apple pie of holidays coming up, July 4th ... The photo-op.
Stumblin' Bumblin' John, all decked out in a retro attendants' uniform, complete with pointy boat hat, pumping gas at some middle-of-the-country gas station, waxing on for the cameras, about his energy policy...
Naturally, it would be "invited guests" only, coming in to fill up ...
Can't take any chances, that someone would pull in and actually ask him a softball question ...
Numerous references (nervously) made about it being "live" ... Not one, not two, but four musical features (two artists - Billy Preston and Janis Ian - with two sets each) ... A short 'Weekend Update' (and "Generalissimo Franco is still dead" hadn't hit yet) ... The Not Ready For Prime Time Players ... And, of course, the, now legendary, debut of Andy Kaufman, and the hilarious "Mighty Mouse" routine ...
I can remember, very well, those first two years of SNL ... Wherever you were, whatever you were doing on a Saturday night, you made your plans to be at, or near, a televison by 11:30PM ...
But we digress ...
Nick Zaino, otherwise known as The Optimistic Curmudgeon, has, in his last two posts, provided encores of interviews he conducted with George Carlin;
J. Thomas Duffy created and lauched 'The Garlic in 2005.
Mr. Duffy is an accomplished writer, with experience as a newspaper reporter, radio writer, comedy and stand-up writer, the author of three children's books (unpublished, so far) and, and, through a good number of his writing experience, actually received payment for it.
Mr. Duffy is also a Contributing Editor on the blog, 'The Reaction' and a Contributing Writer to the blog 'The Moderate Voice.
In his spare time, Mr. Duffy likes to promulgate that is actually the dog salivating that caused Pavlov to ring the bell.
