Originally published January 14, 2011
At Wednesday's Memorialpalooza rally in Tucson, Barack Obama asked our nation to start speaking "in a way that heals, not a way that wounds." Which is excellent advice, even if many people couldn't hear the president over the chanting crowds, t-shirt vendors, and trumpeting vuvuzelas.
But Hope n' Change got the message loud and clear, and we're putting Mr. Obama's advice into practice immediately.
We won't accuse talk show hosts of murder, nor will we accuse politicians of anti-Semitism when they deny false allegations. We will not suggest that heartless doctors saw the feet off diabetics to make money, nor will we threaten bankers with pitchforks. We won't say that police historically act stupidly.
We won't falsely accuse any news network of saying "wouldn't it be fun to kill people we disagree with?" We will not equate military veterans with terrorists. We will not treat the word "Caucasian" as a synonym for "racist." And we will not disparage America or American values overseas.
Thank you, Mr. Obama. You've opened our eyes.
In fact, it happened right after you left our room.-
We also promise not to do this.-
At this writing, a government shutdown has narrowly been averted with an eleventh hour budget agreement. But the ugly and hate-filled rhetoric from the Left over the past few days has destroyed any pretensions of bipartisanship. Far from using "words that heal," as Obama requested while invoking the death of a murdered child, the Democrats have been attacking cost-cutting Republicans in the most personal and vicious ways imaginable.
Nancy Pelosi declared that Republicans wanted 6 million housebound seniors to go without meals. Harry Reid fumed that Republicans wanted to shut down the government "to keep women from getting cancer screenings." And then Democrat Eleanor Holmes lowered the bar even farther, stating that the Republican effort to reign in spending "is the functional equivalent of bombing innocent civilians."
Clearly, when the Democrats have to make a choice between healing and spending, they're going to go with spending every time.
Even if the money has been gone for a long, long time.
Even if, by creating and nurturing a real "climate of hate," they encourage blood to be spilled.-
Even though a possible government shutdown looms on the horizon, Hope n' Change feels that there is other news which demands our attention. Especially since we need to get this cartoon done on Thursday, and the freakin' politicians aren't going to make up their minds on ANYthing before our professional publishing deadline.
Which is why we turn our laserlike focus on Janet Napolitano's announcement that Homeland Security will now be issuing urgent "Security Advisory Alerts" via Facebook and Twitter.
The plan, which is still being ironed out, has advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side, Janet Napolitano can soon be expected to have about 100 million new "friends" who would really like to be warned if there was a 100-megaton nuclear device about to cause a "secular manmade excavation" in their neighborhood.
Similarly, Facebook games like "Farmville" can subtly start teaching people how to augment their farms with bottled water, freeze-dried food, gold, medical provisions, and enough guns and ammo to shoot their Farmville neighbors who didn't plan ahead.
The new, trendier "Social Disaster System" will also incorporate Twitter, although Ms. Napolitano is still trying to work the bugs out of the system. For instance, with only 140 characters to work with in a "Tweet," we can expect to get messages like:
After a careful examination of all the relevant facts and documents, Homeland Security believes you will die unless your family immediately
Or, problems could arise if Ms. Napolitano hammers out a quick message like this one:
Total Mars Attacks scenario but bastards don't know who they're screwing with. Martians soil themselves hearing my Tiger screams. WINNING!
...but everyone ignores it because they think it's just Charlie Sheen screwing around again.
Still, it's nice to know that if we're using Facebook or Twitter in the future, we don't have to worry about accidentally missing the end of the world.
Hey look! You just got a "poke" from Osama Bin Laden!
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America held its collective breath yesterday as the clock ticked down towards a possible government shutdown. News organizations described the apocalyptic repercussions of 800,000 employees doing even less than usual, including the closing of museums and national monuments, and the nightmarish prospect of Senators being forced to shine their own shoes. Even worse is the possibility that the National Cherry Blossom Festival Parade might be cancelled, presumably because even cherry trees in Washington DC refuse to blossom without a healthy taxpayer subsidy.
Barack Obama, doing his utmost to head off this catastrophe, demanded that Republican and Democrat representatives come to the Whitehouse for an afternoon summit to work out a deal. Of course, Mr. Obama wouldn't personally be in the Whitehouse to help, because he had more urgent business to attend to - specifically, attending a Black activism rally held by Al Sharpton.
When word of this got out, the president hastily called for a meeting later in the evening, at which nothing of any substance was resolved. Still, the fact that Mr. Obama supplied a meeting place, free coffee, and doughnuts was a very meaningful gesture.
And Hope n' Change thinks you all know exactly what that gesture was.
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On Monday, the alleged Barack Hussein Obama officially announced that he's kicking off his reelection campaign for 2012 by asking volunteers to help raise one billion dollars with which he can run ads about his fiscal responsibility and the glorious new era of bipartisanship that he brought to Washington.
Then on Tuesday, Candidate Obama followed up by refusing to negotiate needed budget cuts with Republicans and prepared to shut down the government by Friday because (oops!) the supermajority of Democrats didn't bother to create an operating budget for 2011 when they were in charge.
The possible shutdown of the federal government, which is largely and accurately seen as a crass and sleazy Democrat ploy to make "extremist" cost-cutting Republicans look bad, has been greeted by the American people with a wide gamut of emotions ranging from elation to giddy elation.
And why not? At a time when our country faces crippling and job-killing debt, Barack Obama and the Democrats continue playing financial games with our nation's future. For instance, they claim they're willing to okay $73 billion in budget cuts...but $40 billion of "cuts" are from programs which have never even been passed and so, technically, don't even exist. And as John Boehner points out, the other $33 billion in "cuts" the Democrats want to take credit for haven't been officially offered and, even if they were, amount to "smoke and mirrors" rather than actual cuts.
So we say let the government shut down for awhile. Let the Democrats take a long, deep breath and think about what they're trying to do to America...and let Barack Obama consider how his reelection bid will be affected by his unwillingness or inability to show fiscal responsibility when our country needs it most.
And eventually, when those on the Left are feeling like grown-ups again, they can go back to work.
Paul Ryan will have everything ready and waiting for them.
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Following the alleged burning of a copy of the Koran by half-wit, inbred, attention-seeking Florida pastor Terry Jones, riots swept through Afghanistan in which huge mobs of peace-loving Muslims killed 30 people, injured over 150 more, with the numbers expected to rise.
Hope n' Change wants to be very, very clear: Terry Jones is an idiot, a zealot and a provocateur. None of which we actually need these days to keep the world from becoming boring.
But he didn't kill anyone.
And if the media and government want to insist "he should have known better," they can only do so by simultaneously conceding that there is a greater and more volatile danger to the West from the Islamic world in general than we're being told. "Religion of Peace" and "huge, murderous mobs" are just not phrases that can logically coexist.
Of course, when insanity characterizes both sides of any issue, we can rely on our government to immediately intercede with insanity of its own. In this case, Senator Lindsey Graham (best known for his beloved starring role in the TV sitcom "NewsRadio") has come forward to suggest that this might be a good time to amend the First Amendment to make it a crime to burn a Koran (although burning American flags and urinating on images of Jesus are still okay...and in fact are eligible for generous government funding).
After which, if it will help keep the peace, we suppose it could be made a crime to utter any criticism of Islam in America. Or for women to show their hair in public. Or their faces. Or to give a child a sexually ambiguous name like "Lindsey."
In the end, it's not impossible to keep "the religion of peace" from turning violent. It's as easy as letting them (or helping them) burn our Constitution. --
Conservatives who still haven't removed the clothespins from their noses after being forced to vote for John McCain are now falling into states of catatonic depression over the prospect of Donald Trump running for the Republican presidential nomination.
Trump, an occasional billionaire and fulltime reality TV star, believes himself to be qualified for the job of president owing to the fact that he has an actual birth certificate and a distinctive hairstyle which, while looking absolutely ridiculous, is at least more convincing than Barack Obama's alleged christianity.
All of which makes Hope n' Change feel nostalgic for the old days in which candidates had things like political experience, knowledge, integrity, a history of public service, and the seriousness of purpose to realize that becoming President of the United States carries much more responsibility than winning "American Idol."
The Presidency must be more than a popularity contest, and must be somehow separated from America's increasingly sophomoric obsession with celebrity (not to mention the public's inability to differentiate between celebrity, infamy, and notoriety - Charlie Sheen for VP, anyone?).
The mere possibility of another presidential election with no worthy contender on either side is enough to make our hair stand on end.
And no comb-over can hide it.-
Hair-raising, yes. "Raising the bar," no.
Originally published June 17, 2009
Nobody likes a buttinsky, so our President is doing his best to avoid "meddling" in any situation which doesn't increase his personal power. Plus, after just excusing a Black Panther for intimidating white voters with a nightstick, he doesn't want to look like a hypocrite just because a few Iranian voters get beaten. Or worse.
Update 4/3/2011
This week, Barack Obama made a speech (following his Brazilian vacation) explaining that he committed the U.S. military to operations in Libya because America is a beacon of freedom, a light of hope, and a friend to all who battle in liberty's name. In fact, it was such a rousing speech that it would be easy to almost forget that this is the same man who sat around with a thumb up his ass when faced with a similar (but vastly more important) scenario in Iran almost two years ago.
Without American support...or even encouragement...the protestors in Iran soon lost their bloody struggle. And today, Iran continues to be one of the most dangerous countries in the world.
But who knows - maybe this new and improved, guns a-blazin', freedom loving, manly man of an alleged president will kick Iran's butt next time he gets a chance!
As long as it isn't, you know, "meddling."
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