Last Rock

I think I'm experiencing Olympics withdrawal. Seriously, where do I have to go to find some curling?

Late last week another man with a grievance against the government drove from California to Maryland, took the subway to the Pentagon and opened fire on the guards at the entrance. Fortunately, despite being wounded, both guards were able to return fire, fatally injuring the assailant in the process. For those of you keeping count, that’s two anti-government nut cases attacking federal employees and institutions in three weeks. Fortunately, this time, no one was killed. Although we’re not quite there yet, at what point does this cease to be a collection of random acts of violence and begin to be something we need to pay closer attention to?

Last month, RNC Finance Director Rob Bickhart delivered a PowerPoint presentation to top Republican donors and fundraisers at a party retreat in Florida. Last week, RNC Chairman Michael Steele could be seen on television attempting to distance himself from the contents of that presentation. Why? It seems the presentation detailed, in very simple, straightforward terms, the Republican fundraising strategy for the upcoming midterm elections. “What can you sell when you don’t have the White House, the House or the Senate...” the presentation asks? Simple. Socialism. Create a boogeyman where there isn’t one, and make people afraid of it. You know, sort of like Republicans have done with healthcare reform, financial regulation, climate change, and so on and so on and so forth. Several of the slides went on to depict Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as Scooby Doo, Speaker Pelosi as Cruella DeVille, and the now ubiquitous (courtesy of tea baggers) image of President Obama in whiteface as the Joker. What irks me about the last one in particular is that the people carrying these ridiculous signs can’t even get their metaphor correct. The Joker - fictional though he is - is an anarchist, not a socialist. There is a significant difference. In fact, you can’t get much further from socialism than anarchy. I’m don’t know if I should be upset with people for disseminating patently erroneous (and tasteless) criticism, or pitying the fact that they have absolutely no idea what they are talking about yet seem to delight in their ignorance. However, since merely one day after denouncing the afore-mentioned tactics, Steele debuted television commercials promising that donations to the Republican Party would help fund a bulwark against socialism, I’m inclined to go with the former.

I’m not stupid enough to believe this is the first time Politicians will base a political campaign on nothing more than white-knuckled fear. The strategy of terrifying voters into voting a certain way is as old as voting itself. But that is the problem, isn’t it. Particularly at a time when we need frank honest discussion, all we can get from the opposition is unsubstantiated hysteria. Grow up! Let’s pretend we all graduated junior high and debate these things like adults.

In a 180 degree reversal of policy announced earlier this year, the Justice Department appears likely to now try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in military court, instead of federal court in New York City. This decision marks one of the rare moments in which I find myself disappointed with this administration. The difference between the Cheney world view and the Obama world view was that due process and the rule of law are not OBSTRUCTIONS to American tradition and values, but STAPLES of American tradition and values. Unlike Richard Cheney, Barack Obama had enough faith in the American judicial system to actually utilize it to prosecute those who violate our laws, instead of torturing them and sending them to the kangaroo court the original military tribunals, as conceived of by the Bush administration were. Apparently the President has lost some of that faith in the system. Granted, the military tribunal system has been substantially improved since the Supreme Court intervened in the process in 2004. It is no longer the rubber stamp for indefinite detention it was designed to be, and therefore the argument could be made that it is now a viable vehicle with which to try terror suspects. I guess I was just hoping the administration would continue to pursue the right course, and not simply the easy one.

On his program today, Rush Limbaugh threatened to leave the country if healthcare reform is passed and implemented. Leave the country and move to Costa Rica. With their socialized medicine. I’m distraught. I can’t bear the thought of losing him. If the Democratic Party needed any additional incentive to pass the damn bill, now they have it. If only Limbaugh was a man of his word.

Lee Boyd Malvo, the surviving member of the DC sniper duo a letter to one of his victims last week, apologizing for his actions. While I’m sure it’s good to apologize for one’s actions if one truly regrets taking them, I’m never sure how well it goes over with the family of the victim. It’s nice that you’re sorry, but I doesn’t bring their their loved one back.

Finally, a woman in New Zealand sold two ghosts over the internet for $2,000. Apparently, the woman had endured enough of the spirits haunting her home and was somehow able to trap them in a bottle. She then proceeded to put them up for auction, I guess in the hope they would go haunt someone else’s home. The bottle of ghosts sold for two grand, minus an undisclosed “exorcism fee” imposed by the woman, for removing the ghosts, from her own home. Lady, I’ve got some Congressmen in Washington that I need you to sell some legislation to. The incomparable Al Bundy once said that the garage sale - and by extension the auction - is based on the bigger idiot theory. There will always be a bigger idiot willing to buy whatever crap you have to sell. We may have just located the biggest idiot of all.