I guess I owe a 24 years-belated apology to Walter Mondale.
As it transpires, it wasn’t all his fault he got blown out by Ronald Reagan in 1984. Part of the problem was his boneheaded, run off at the mouth vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro.
It only took 48 hours and multiple, abrasive appearances on national tee vee for the Clinton campaign to throw Ms. Ferraro overboard for her repeated racist remarks about Barack Obama.
First Hillary supporter Eliot Spitzer gets caught paying for what Bill used to get for free and now this.
Is the momentum really shifting in Hillary’s direction?
Never mind about doing the time, just don’t do the crime.
Eliot Spitzer was my kind of politician (past tense intentional). He went after corporate criminals, the criminal class everyone else ignores, he vowed to clean up corrupt government. I would have voted for him for president.
That was then. Now his career is over, as it should be. It’s pointless to condemn Larry Craig and David Vitter and Mark Foley unless we’re willing to condemn Eliot Spitzer, so we should.
To excuse the bad behavior of politicians with whom one agrees while condemning that of those with whom we argue is the worst kind of identity politics.
I hope all the above-mentioned offenders can put their lives back together and find a way to contribute to society, but they’re out of politics for life.
The fact that Mr. Spitzer is now revealed as a hypocrite for portraying himself as a straight arrow amke for a good news story, but the transgression is the same, whether you’re Eliot Spitzer claiming to be Mr. Clean or Charlie Wilson, soaking in hot tubs with show girls.
If we’re going to make progress in our politically divided nation, we need to take off our blue- and red-hued glasses and hold all our leaders accountable for their actions.
Last night, a Standard Missile 3 rocket, launched from the USN Lake Erie, an Aegis-class cruiser in the Pacific Ocean west of Hawaii, struck a disabled spy satellite 150 miles over Earth. It is hoped the missile destroyed the satellite (confirmation of a “kill” will be made later today) and saved the planet from peril.
Meanwhile, here on the Earth’s crust, the Environmental Protection Agency – part of the same federal government as Aegis-class cruisers and Standard Missile 3 rockets, only not as glamorous – has a list of 100 industrial facilities that use chemicals hazardous to public health.
The satellite struck by the missile was called USA-193, also known as National Reconnaissance Office launch 21, also known as NROL-21, also known as L-21. It was a spy satellite. I suppose that accounts for all the aliases. It was launched on 14 December 2006 and the NRO won’t say exactly what L-21 was designed to do, but whatever it was, it didn’t do it. Ground control lost contact with L-21 hours after launch. Rumors that L-21 had gone over to the Russians are just that, rumors. (And John McCain’s dealings with that blonde lobbyist chick were strictly above-board.)
That list over at EPA, however, says if there was an accident or terrorist attack at any one of the 100 industrial facilities, the lives one million or more citizens – also known as taxpayers, also known as consumers, also known as the only people keeping our crappy economy afloat – would be in danger.
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Waiting for Godot
Because there’s an energy crisis, we have gone to daylight savings earlier in the year. Because we’ve gone to daylight savings earlier in the year, it was still light when Adrienne and I arrived at the sidewalk in front of the Unitarian Church just before 5 p.m. for the vigil.
How many times have we done this now? I never thought it would go on this long. I’m not much of a patriot, I admit. The vigil is held every evening, but I only show up to commemorate major events, anniversaries and the rounding of yet another thousand American casualties.
There were only two elderly women standing on the curb when we arrived, but people soon arrived from several directions. Placards and banners were pulled from plastic bags. It was like watching a crew of roadies setting up for a concert, all the moves so practiced, so routine. Someone handed me a sign that said, “War is Not the Answer” on one side and “How Many More Lives?” on the other. The edges were encased with heavy packing tape; this was a sign for the long haul.
In Washington, George W. Bush said these five years of war have made the world a better place. No one believes that and few argue with this foolish man anymore or even pay much attention. We’re just waiting for him to go. Iraq is slowly sinking from our national discourse as the economy stalls and the price of gas rises again. It’s become just another ongoing, unpleasant fact of life.
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