It must suck to be the Shrub

Last week there was some online video showing George Bush at the end of the G8 meeting being dissed by everyone. Well, that's how it looked. You know, there was that end-of-game handshaking line and everybody shook everybody else's hand except W's. Not one person shook his hand and it seemed to me that no one would even make eye contact. I thought it must be wishful thinking on my part, until I saw this picture of the Shrub at the end of some heavy duty PR tour of Peru, standing alone in his poncho looking forlorn and forgotten. For a moment I felt some sympathy for the little guy, until I remembered just how little sympathy he had/has for me and my kind, the vanishing and vanquished middle class.

Barak Obama talks economic recovery as Dubya pardons a turkey. I suppose it's always the same for a lame duck president, and Georgie boy is the lamest duck ever, but couldn't he have found the time to utter one more of his platitudes about how he's working for our economic relief? We wouldn't have believed him, but it would have sounded as if he knew what was happening and was concerned.

I'm sure that in time the picture of George in a flight suit strutting before a Mission Accomplished banner will be replaced by something more dignified. I mean, he did get some things right, just not during Katrina or in Iraq or during our rapid decline to third world status. He could, I suppose, save his legacy by funding transit projects already approved by Congress. He could release those fund for the green-jobs program to insulate public buildings. But he won't do either I suppose because strutting around in a flight suit is the best George could do as president. I guess we can't expect more of him now.

So while Barak Obama holds press conferences and creates a recovery program for the nation, George, who could stimulate the economy now by providing jobs--and green jobs at that--stands around looking uncomfortably out of place on the world stage and pardons turkeys.

Nuts anyone?

Pity poor Jessie Jackson who was caught saying out loud what he really thinks when it comes to Barak Obama.  Nothing is more galling to Jessie Jackson that Obama's success. According to Jessie Jackson, white people are racist until they can prove otherwise. Only he can determine who is and who is not a racist, what is and what is not racist. Along comes Obama who claims that some of the problems are self-inflicted, who challenges people to take responsibility for their own actions, and who acknowledges the existence of racism but does not accept it as the reason form people's failure. Jackson has been nipping at Obama's heels for some time. And while he could never say it, no one hopes for an Obama loss as much as Jackson because it will be an affirmation that the old extortionist ways are best. 

Obama-rama

I have a problem with Barak Obama, and it has nothing to do with his African father or his Caucasian grandmother. My problem is that since his election to the Senate, Obama has been running for president. He has no senatorial record to attack because he has done little, so, people may begin looking at his record in Illinois, or they will continue to spin their wheels about what his pastor said and what his pastor meant when he said what he said. In the end, the issue of race may trump everything else, you know, the failing economy and the increasingly expensive colonization of Iraq. With his very liberal voting record in Illinois, I, for one, am not convinced that Obama can gain important non-partisan support for issues that will challenge the next administration. I am not moved by Obama's politics of joy. My fear is that Hillary Clinton cannot beat a Republican candidate in the fall and I don't think we can stand four more years with business as usual. Once again, I feel backed into a wall with all the exits blocked. I think we deserve better, but barring a sudden resurrection of Al Gore, I don't know what that could be.