I toldja so, Obama

Elderly man trips on electrical cord
falls on sofa. Sofa tips over trapping him.
He survives two days on whiskey.

Well, President Obama, I toldja so. I knew that your attempt at bipartisanship, however commendable in principle, would not be reciprocated by the Republicans and would be largely a waste of precious time. If you truly wish to accomplish anything you will just have to proceed a without them (except, perhaps, for a precious few). By refusing to sign on to your stimulus package, unless you agree to their demands that you include the very same tax breaks they already employed to bring our economy to its current state of pathology, they have maneuvered you into a no-win situation. If you refuse to include their idiotic demands and ultimately fail, they will say that is why you failed. If you do include their demands and succeed they will claim that is why you have succeeded. Of course if you include their demands and still fail they will claim you just didn’t do it right, or you didn’t include all of their demands, or you didn’t do it when the wind was from the north, or it’s all Bill Clinton’s fault. In any case please, sir, pay no attention to these 20th century nitwits, they will stop at nothing to bring you down, something they learned from their guru, Karl Rove. And just look where it’s got him – begging you for help. Is there anyone who believes Rove should not be compelled to testify under oath, except, of course, for Republicans, who know they are guilty and fear being found out? Used to having their way, and having simple one track minds, they will never agree to anything you wish to do without dragging their feet, obfuscating, and delaying until they make your life miserable. You said it yourself, “I won.” You don’t need any Republican support and it is not worth your while to try to appease them in any way. Do the right thing, spare any that are relatively innocent, and prosecute those guilty of collaborating in war and other crimes. You are obliged by our Constitution to do just that, and you must do it even though I know that because of your other problems you would rather not.

And another thing, President Obama, as much as I admire you, and as hard as I worked to get you elected, and as pleased as I am by what you have done in one short week in office, there are a couple of things I think you may have all wrong. First, Afghanistan. We have nothing to gain in Afghanistan and everything to lose. If you do not graciously get our troops out of that (sort of) country soon, and especially if you send more troops, it will become your Vietnam. There is nothing we can “win” there and a great deal to lose. Similarly, I am very upset with what I take to be your uncritical support for Israel no matter how despicably they act. I see that you have signed some agreement to prevent Hamas from receiving any arms. Are you also going to cut off arms to Israel? Not that it would make much difference at this point, as they are already heavily armed with U.S. gifts of money and hardware. Do you intend to just stand by and observe their attempted genocide of the Palestinians? Do you acknowledge that Palestinians are human and deserve to be treated fairly? Or do you subscribe to that peculiar American view that fair is fair, but not when it comes to the Palestinians? I see that today you held out a sort of olive branch to Muslims. I think that is great. But do you believe they should have anything to say about the Israeli/Palestinian problem? And how about Iran? Do you think the Iranians have any national interest in what goes on amongst their neighbors, or are they merely sponsors of terrorists like Hamas and Hezbollah? Should Hamas and Hezbollah have anything to say about what happens to the Palestinians? Is Abbas alone to speak for the Palestinians? I think it is wonderful that you wish to bring about a solution to the Israeli/Palestinian problem, and that you have appointed the very capable Mitchell as an envoy. I do wish you success and I sincerely hope you will constantly keep in mind that Palestinians are humans and deserve to be treated as such.

LKBIQ:
I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.
Oscar Wilde

TILT:
Grizzly bears can run up to 40 miles an hour. They run slower downhill than uphill.



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