I agree, give the man a chance

My mother, who never asks me for anything, wanted me to put this article where all the world could see it. God bless her, my mom thinks I’m a lot more popular and better-connected than I actually am. Google Analytics say that a humorously low number of people actually read my site, so I’m not sure this will do any good, but here you go, Mom.

For those of you who aren’t interested enough to click on the link:

America – He’s Your President for Goodness Sake!

By William Thomas
Posted: Friday, October 1st, 2010

There was a time not so long ago when Americans, regardless of their political stripes, rallied round their president. Once elected, the man who won the White House was no longer viewed as a republican or democrat, but the President of the United States. The oath of office was taken, the wagons were circled around the country’s borders and it was America versus the rest of the world with the president of all the people at the helm.

Suddenly President Barack Obama, with the potential to become an exceptional president has become the glaring exception to that unwritten, patriotic rule.

Four days before President Obama’s inauguration, before he officially took charge of the American government, Rush Limbaugh boasted publicly that he hoped the president would fail. Of course, when the president fails the country flounders. Wishing harm upon your country in order to further your own narrow political views is selfish, sinister and a tad treasonous as well.

Subsequently, during his State of the Union address, which is pretty much a pep rally for America, an unknown congressional representative from South Carolina, later identified as Joe Wilson, stopped the show when he called the President of the United States a liar. The president showed great restraint in ignoring this unprecedented insult and carried on with his speech. Speaker Nancy Pelosi was so stunned by the slur, she forgot to jump to her feet while clapping wildly, 30 or 40 times after that.

Last spring, President Obama took his wife Michelle to see a play in New York City and republicans attacked him over the cost of security for the excursion. The president can’t take his wife out to dinner and a show without being scrutinized by the political opposition? As history has proven, a president in a theatre without adequate security is a tragically bad idea.

Remember: “Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?”

At some point, the treatment of President Obama went from offensive to ugly and then to downright dangerous.

The health-care debate, which looked more like extreme fighting in a mud pit than a national dialogue, revealed a very vulgar side of America. President Obama’s face appeared on protest signs white-faced and blood-mouthed in a satanic clown image. In other tasteless portrayals, people who disagreed with his position distorted his face to look like Hitler complete with mustache and swastika.

Odd, that burning the flag makes Americans crazy, but depicting the president as a clown and a maniacal fascist is accepted as part of the new rude America.

Maligning the image of the leader of the free world is one thing, putting the president’s life in peril is quite another. More than once, men with guns were videotaped at the health-care rallies where the president spoke. Again, history shows that letting men with guns get within range of a president has not served America well in the past.

And still the “birthers” are out there claiming Barack Obama was not born in the United States, although public documentation proves otherwise. Hawaii is definitely part of the United States, but the Panama Canal Zone where his electoral opponent Senator John McCain was born? Nobody’s sure.

Last month, a 44-year-old woman in Buffalo was quite taken by President Obama when she met him in a chicken wing restaurant called Duff’s. Did she say something about a pleasure and an honour to meet the man or utter encouraging words for the difficult job he is doing? No. Quote: “You’re a hottie with a smokin’ little body.”

Lady, that was the President of the United States you were addressing, not one of the Jonas Brothers! He’s your president for goodness sakes, not the guy driving the Zamboni at “Monster Trucks On Ice.” Maybe next it’ll be, “Take Your President To A Topless Bar Day.”

In President Barack Obama, Americans have a charismatic leader with a good and honest heart. Unlike his predecessor, he’s a very intelligent leader. And unlike that president’s predecessor, he’s a highly moral man.

In President Obama, Americans have the real deal, the whole package and a leader that citizens of almost every country around the world look to with great envy. Given the opportunity, Canadians would trade our leader, hell, most of our leaders for Obama in a heartbeat.

What America has in Obama is a head of state with vitality and insight and youth. Think about it, Barack Obama is a young Nelson Mandela. Mandela was the face of change and charity for all of Africa but he was too old to make it happen. The great things Obama might do for America and the world could go on for decades after he’s out of office.

America, you know not what you have.

The man is being challenged unfairly, characterized with vulgarity and treated with the kind of deep disrespect to which no previous president was subjected. It’s like the day after electing the first black man to be president, thereby electrifying the world with hope and joy, Americans sobered up and decided the bad old days were better.

President Obama may fail but it will not be a Richard Nixon default fraught with larceny and lies. President Obama, given a fair chance, will surely succeed but his triumph will never come with a Bill Clinton caveat – “if only he’d got control of that zipper.”

Please. Give the man a fair, fighting chance. This incivility toward the leader who won over Americans and gave hope to billions of people around the world that their lives could be enhanced by his example, just naturally has to stop.

Believe me, when Americans drive by the White House and see a sign on the lawn that reads: “No shirt. No shoes. No service,” they’ll realize this new national rudeness has gone way, way too far.

Sigh

I would like one day to be a juror, but am terrified of the people who end up on jury duty. Being around people that dumb can’t be good for you.

Same story, different aims

It’s amazing that Fox News has any quotation marks left, as they’ve used what seems like a week’s worth in this article about the Justice Department’s lawsuit against the state of Arizona.

Also, the Washington Posts’s take.

For Pete’s sake

Silly senators. The Supreme Court justice nomination process generally goes better when the substance of your criticism is about the person being confirmed. Jeez.

Because I’m so big on apologies

Joe Barton would like to apologize. Since, you know, the GOP made him apologize for the apology that he issued to BP.

Remember kids: pandering will only get you so far.

Fingers crossed

It’s not much to go on, but I read a couple of articles today that mentioned that the NJ budget that gets passed may scale back on the proposed cuts to the state’s libraries. I’m not sure how much of a reprieve they’re talking about, but I’m cautiously optimistic.

You were born in Puerto Rico. Your existence is invalid.

“Y is a fact, [so] your x is invalid,” is only funny when y = something silly and x = your argument. Then we’re talking about the meme most likely to crack me up. Infinitely less hilarious is when y = you were born in Puerto Rico and x = your birth certificate. Then we’re talking about millions of people being utterly screwed.

The problem is that Puerto Rican birth certificates are somehow extra ripe for being spoofed, forged, and otherwise used for nefarious purposes. The US State Department and Department of Homeland Security estimate that around 40% of forged US passports were obtained using birth certificates from Puerto Rico. That’s obviously a very serious and scary thing. The government’s solution, though, seems particularly ham-fisted: they’re simply going to invalidate any Puerto Rican birth certificate issued before July 1, 2010.

From my reading of the article, it seems that a large part of the problem is the way that birth certificates are passed along to and for in Puerto Rican society. From the end of the article:

Only 45,622 children were born in Puerto Rico in 2008, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. But more than 860,000 certified copies of birth certificates were issued by the Puerto Rican Office of Vital Statistics the same year, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

That is an insane discrepancy between people born and birth certificate copies issued. Over the course of a lifetime, so many people in Puerto Rico request extra copies of their own and their children’s birth certificates, and really have no idea where the extras are now. Of course unscrupulous people are using Puerto Rican birth certificates; well-meaning citizens have made things easy for them by having so many extra copies of real birth certificates floating around. If that doesn’t change, will the goverment’s new measures make any difference in the long run?

Sarah+Michele 4eva!

I feel like the universe should probably have imploded upon the recent convergence of Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann upon the unsuspecting voters of Minnesota. I think they violated natural laws about how many concurrent examples you could have of 10 pounds of crazy fitting into a five pound bag. The woman at the end of that article is wrong, though: I’m not threatened by the fact that Palin and Bachmann are successful women. My lack of respect for them stems from the fact that they say crazy and dangerous things which, sadly, is exactly why many people love them. Their sex isn’t of any interest to me, and jeebus knows there are more than enough loony toons male politicians out there.

I’m upset with The Wall Street Journal for taking my favorite imaginary band name (Bachmann-Palin Overdrive) and making it into the headline for a rather run-of-the-mill story. Fools! You need to save that kind of awesomeness for your A-material. No wonder print journalism is dying. Also, I’m not sure whether the idea of Palin-Bachmann 2010 is more amusing, or more frightening than just about everything else ever. It’s a thin line, folks. (Although I already know what should obviously be their theme song.)

I think that somebody could make a reality show of these two saying “Alaska” and “Minnesota” non-stop. I’d DVR the crap out of that program. Oh dear god, the accents! If these two had to exist and come from anywhere, I’m happy that it’s states with such interesting-sounding names. And then Tina Fey and her Mini-Me could spend hours and hours mocking them on SNL. I’d watch that, too.

I so often enjoy the world in my head much more than the one that I’m physically inhabiting.

Let it go, you lost

Dear Bob McDonnell,

If you would stop bending over backwards to commemorate a violent, racist legacy that has been tirelessly whitewashed (yeah, I said it) and romanticized, you wouldn’t have to apologize for omitting any related mention of slavery.

You’re welcome.

**

I googled Confederacy links to include in this post, but many of them made me want to vomit, weep, or perhaps vomit while weeping, so I’ll just skip those today.

Please help keep me in books and yarn* – Permanent for now

I know that this isn’t about me at all, but I feel that a little selfishness is allowed, as I will be directly affected if Governor Christie’s proposed budget is passed. As it stands, this budget would cut 74% of New Jersey library funding. By any accounting, that is an insane amount of money, even though the $10 million in library programs cut from the Governor’s budget represents little more than $1 per person in state funds.

What you can do:

• Become a NJ library champion
• Become a BCCLS (Bergen County) library champion
• Contact your legislators online (scroll down)
• Send a letter to your legislators Related: Find out who your legislators are
• Who doesn’t like a good rally? Join the May 6 rally for libraries in sexy Trenton, NJ
• Join the “Save New Jersey Libraries” Facebook Group. This is one of the most visible and least useful ways to support something, so make sure you do at least one or two of the other things, as well.

* Those are my vices, although I will admit that they’re not nearly as exciting as hookers and blow.