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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