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BUCK STOP 1/28/2012 6:56:20 AM
There’s a big difference between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is knowing that the tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting one in a fruit salad.
For example, developments last August caused many Democrats and Republicans we have spoken with have serious doubts about our 44th president. Personally, we have reserved decisions regarding the chief executive’s future until all the markers are in and counted.
While it is true most genuine Americans had great hopes and best wishes for this young junior senator, we were perhaps hasty in hanging our dreams and aspirations on such a creature from the dark lagoon of wishful thinking — especially after eight years of a curiously useless administration that was more befuddling than enlightening.
During the Civil War, we lost nearly 850,000 * Americans, more than in all our other wars combined, including the last and current fiascos. And we even went so far as to canonize Abraham Lincoln, his depression, skull drudgery and ruthless ambition notwithstanding (eventually you will see this in my novel ‘MATE! now under contract to a major publisher.)
Yet, in the Iraq and Afghanistan hostilities, we have seen 5,000+ of our countrymen annihilated because a ship of fools convinced us certain evil dictators had weapons of mass destruction, as well as an insane desire to conquer the spirit and will of their people.
What, in reality, do we truly care about Iraqis and the Afghans (and the Pakistanis, Egyptians and North Koreans, for that matter?) These are mostly fanatic Muslims and Kim Ilms, under the thumbs of uneducated third-world people most of whom can neither read nor write, and who hate us and want to kill us. They are the sort of people who would be happy to see all Americans tossed into the sea of despair and have their bones disintegrated by the acid of what they call infidelity.
There are those who say, come on, you are a Christian or a Jew; you are supposed to be better than them, show some humanity! After all, they are people, too, human beings, and we should care about them!
Yeah, right.
Maybe that is the problem: we are just too damned good for our own damned good. We have been turning the other cheek for so long we have developed a crick in the neck that even a chiropractor cannot adjust—our posture and purpose are frozen.
What do we want of Barack Obama and his ilk, anyway?
Let us start with leadership. Let us start with the Harry Truman Syndrome. Call a spade a spade; let John Boehner and Eric Cantor know we are hamstrung by their do nothing Congress. Tell them to start doing business or get off the pot.
Like Harry preached: The buck stops here!
Of course, 2012 is not 1945, not by a long shot. The Middle Eastern and Asian wackos are not the Japanese or Nazis—who were wacko enough! They were certainly bad people, but the difference between the two is a lot more than sixty-seven years of hatred and mistrust.
What do you think, should we nuke Baghdad and Kabul? Why not Tehran and Pyongyang, too, while we are at it? Why not? Of course, we will not—but that does not necessarily mean we should not.
But what if they retaliate by nuking us? Are you kidding?—they are nuts, but how nuts are they? All we have to do to bring them to their senses is to threaten them (hopefully.)
Mr. Obama has begun to show some gonads and, at last, he seems to be asserting himself. He knows as well as you, it is a lot easier to simply blame the chief executive for all the country’s woes than it is to try and understand what the leader of the free world is up against. Congress will do all it can to make him throw in the towel. Does Congress hate America? No, of course not! But they sure do despise Barack Obama! Why? Guess.
If he would just announce, say the pundits, that he will not seek a second term, Wall Street would rebound with 10,000 points. The problem with the economy and the jobless is he; all our troubles will go away the moment he is no longer president. Right? What do I know? At least, that’s what they say.
Unless . . . unless he takes charge and becomes Harry S Truman. Give them hell, Barack! should become his mantra. Take no prisoners! his battle cry to Congress. Full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes! his modus operandi. Surrender? To the Tea Party? Nuts!
We now have a credit rating of AA+. Ironically, that is identical to China’s. Does that mean they cannot collect on our debt to them? If that is the case, perhaps we should hand off our Chinese notes to the Isle of Man. That tiny lump of sod, population 80,000 is a dot in the Irish Sea, yet it has a credit rating of AAA. Go figure.
President Obama’s State of the Union message was classic—it nearly won me over. But not quite. I want to read and re-read the text to decide if he will either become a spanking brand new Barack Obama, or will I be compelled to stay home and grovel on November 6?
Or can the GOP launch a viable candidate? So far, they have offered no acceptable alternative. Romney, Gingrich, Santorum, Paul? The eventual selection of a certain enlarged ego may be just enough to get me to the polls to vote against him. And the slick and suave millionaire mongoose with the tax dodge mentality is too ludicrous to contemplate.
Even without my support (or opposition,) it is a pretty safe bet the State of the Union speech launched Mr. Obama’s second term. If I had $10,000 I’d call up Mitt Romney and take the action—even though I gave up gambling on sure things years ago.
* Most historians say 618,000 died in the Civil War, but updated census figures now indicate the total was closer to 850,000.
