Wearily, I ponder the question as I look through the assortment of blogs I scan through every day, and with the vague rule of at least a blog entry once a day, and with a few blog topics in my ready to get to eventually (Look for the following in the next couple of days: (1) James Webb, who deserves a follow-up to that hastily jotted down blog entry (2) Entertaining the use of Tactical Nuclear Weapons on Iran, the depressing implications thereof (3) I have an old article on Lyndon LaRoach about how he employs African Americans in his electoral politics.) …

Do I really want to “blog” about Doc Hastings? Once upon a time, my thought on the subject of Doc Hastings was “if not me, who?”, as per the explanation of his peculiar placement in the Republican Machinery. But it is difficult to get too riled up over him — about the most likely thing you can do about him is get a Democratic House Majority in place (battling the famous tightly constructed districting lines), which would, I suppose, lead him to the position of being the Minority Chair of the Ethics Committee, where he can still seek out the (ahem) Rahm Emanuel and Steny Hoyers of the Democratic party over what remains of the Duke Cunninghams of the Republican Party.

The answer to whether I really oughta blog on Doc Hastings is a weary, Sure, I guess. I must take note whenever I see somebody make comments like this:

Now, we need to keep our eye on the ball that is still in the air: the Republican Culture of Corruption, systematically put in place by the worst of the worst, the worst lowlifes to ever stalk the halls of Congress (and K Street): Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff, Rick Santorum, Roy Blunt, John Boehner, Jerry Lewis, Bill Frist, Randy “Duke” Cunningham, Conrad Burns, Richard Pombo, John Doolittle, Deborah Pryce, Bob Ney and, in some ways, worst of all… Doc Hastings.

But… but… Doc is a role-player in the Republican Culture of Corruption. He’s a Utility Infield player. The guy who comes off the bench because he can block a few shots. A “Hands-player” who generally plays on Special Teams, but is called in for the assortment of players who would have the easiest time converting an on-side kick. If he weren’t there, someone would slide into his place. Right?

And the umpteenth hundredth article bemoaning the “Do – Nothing” Ethics Committee under Doc Hastings’s tutelege. It is a bit depressing that a legitimate ethical cloud now hovers over the Democratic co-chair of the Committee — legitimate as opposed to the pointless tact at Jim McDermott.

The guy is so lame and clueless that his official campaign website is crawling with pictures of Dick Cheney.

Dan Quayle used to be deployed for public appearances almost exclusively in heavily Republican rural areas, where he could do little harm nationally and some good for the “base”. Dick Cheney, although in stature at the exact opposite end as Quayle — ie: Dick Cheney is president — , is used the same way. Except that may have been back when Cheney’s approval rating was roughly where Bush’s is today, as opposed to in the teens.

Although Hastings resides in the very heart of the Culture of Corruption, his remote district is so red and so out-of-touch, that almost no one considers him to be vulnerable unless a mega-tsunami of revulsion with the Republican rubber-stamp Congress sweeps virtually the whole pack of them out of power in November. The Democrat who is challenging him in WA-04 is Richard Wright, the kind of good-government type who would give a corrupt sleazebag like Hastings nightmares if he represented a less partisan district.

Out of touch. In a way I don’t know what the phrase “out of touch” means. The nation is a rich tapestry of divergent opinions and geographic divergences. Vermont has a safe Socialist Representative — soon to be a safe Socialist Senator — in place whether the nation moves rightward or leftward in the next several election cycles. The same for most safe Republican districts… including districts even safer than the 4th Congressional District of Washington State. Speaking for “red”, I’ve always wondered about “red”. Somehow or other Jay Inslee slipped through in 1992, and somehow or other Jay Inslee and Rick Locke ended up with near-wins in 1994 and 1996. The Republican that preceeded Inslee was considered a “moderate”. There are always funny streams swarming under the surface of these things, a bit undetectable.

Richard Wright. He a good guy?

Leaving aside Chief Foxworth’s Erotic Porn and the Scandal that has broken out in City Government due to the his sexual dalliances with an employee. Leaving aside Mayor Tom Potter’s eventual response to place him on administrative leave to let the Investigation proceed.

There is something iconic in the photographs that popped up in the Portland Tribune. You have Tom Potter giving that “scratching the chin” look. You have Chief Foxworth with an “Uh Oh” face.

All that is needed is an “Under Fire” graphic to wrap the storyline up in. But perhaps that is the province of television news.

Leaving aside the information being parlayed on the screen, I have to ask this question: What is the point? Somewhere there’s a commitee of “creatives” in the back-room putting together Power Point images. My geography is off, but I do know that the map on the top translucent cube — the one next to what would presumably be data of information such that one would get from the CIA Fact-book — is Iraq. I do not know what nation is on the bottom translucent-cube — Iran, perhaps? Why does it not deserve the tiny, tiny, unreadable images evoking CIA Fact-book information. Meanwhile, the map of the Earth is spread out — in a manner that shows that the map is going away from us in 3 Dimensional Space. And the Bush photo is of the “Bush: Under Fire” variety.

One last image for your consideration, placed in the “Bush: Under Fire” sphere. Maybe you heard about Harry Taylor? The man who was sitting at one of Bush’s “Town Hall Meetings”, those exercises where Bush packs the hall full of his fans, and through both subtle and strong-armed measures shoos most dissidents away, and lets the audience ask him questions. He was eventually called on, and he went through a bit of a diatribe, that to his credit Bush let through while the audience of Bush fans murmured and groaned. I already saw that guy and that event one time… somewhere in my Civics book.

There is something both cool and off-putting about Arthur M. Schlessinger Jr’s “American Presidents” series of books. This is a series of slender volumes, autobiographys of each of the American presidents, all of them highly sympathetic to their topic. (And the nature of these books is that they are side-projects for the authors.)

It works well for the more obscure presidents, who tend to not have books written about them. And some of the authors tabbed to write them are inspired:

William McKinley — Kevin Philips. McKinley is noted for having been at the start of a vast “Republican Majority”, Philips wrote “The Emerging Republican Majority” in 1968.
Warren Harding — John Dean. Scandal-plagued (albeit posthumously) presidency.
John Quincy Adams — Robert Remini. The “foremost Jacksonin historian” — take a detour to the president who preceeded him.
James Monroe — Gary Hart. I’m not entirely sure what the connection between author and subject is, but I’m sure one exists.

On the other hand, the “Sympathetic” nature tends to make you believe that every president in American history is a forgotten fore-runner to some Historical force, an unappreciated genius, and someone you should jab upward on the Historian’s parlor-game of ranking these guys. Except for James Buchanan — who, reading the back-cover, it looks like the author admits his bottom-of-the-bottom ranking is deserved.

Okay. So Virginia has a Democratic Primary race between James Webb and Harris Miller. James Webb is the former Navy secretary under Reagan, and author of several books that any Virginian looking at this race needs to take a close look at. Harris Miller was the head of a computer lobbying organization.

This is a tricky race, and I concede that James Webb is probably going to win the right to take on the noxious Bush-clone George Allen. Bluntly put, once Kaine won the governorship there, the Democratic Party recruited Webb into the race. He has the backing of the, quote-in-quote “Democratic Political Machine”.

But I kind of don’t know what I’m supposed to make of this race. Here is the tricky matter: the book he wrote in 2004 — Born Fighting… I only skimmed through it, but…

… if this was a situation where there was a Democrat being challenged by a committed Republican, liberal bloggers would be throwing up quotes from this book (published in 2004, mind you) demonstrating his “wing-nuttiness”, showing WHY HE MUST BE STOPPED. I note that Webb’s story on why is a Democrat today is that he switched parties while researching for this book (a sort of Scotch-Irish Supremacy tome) impressed with “the Democratic Party’s working class traditions.”

James Webb retorts to Harris’s charge of faux-Democratic credentials that his computer lobbying organization contributed to many a Republican (as lobbying firms frequently do), including Dennis Hastert. This is fair enough. I also note the spectacle of Wesley Clark endorsing Webb. Which strikes me as former Republicans endorsing former Republicans… Webb, mind you, speaking grandiosely still today of the greatness of Ronald Reagan, who — according to his book — is alongside that other Scotch-Irish American Andrew Jackson, his favourite president.

All I am saying to Virginian Democrats is: Let the buyer Beware.

I will move this link from the February sidebar archives over here, because I have had … NOTHING… on Lyndon LaRouche… as of late.

Economics = Science of the Mind
Doubling the Square = Purification Rundown
LaRouche = LRH
Baby Boomers = engrams and Black Thetan Goals
Republicans = Suppressive persons
Cheney = Xenu
British Monarchy = Marcab Confederacy
Schiller Institute = Office of Special Affairs
USA = MEST
Benjamin Franklin = Jack Parsons
Plato = Freud
acapella singing on college campuses = SeaOrg
Socratic method = electropsychometer auditing
mind control = mind control
Executive Information Review = Freedom Magazine
Colonize Mars and build Eurasian Landbridge = transcend time and space as OT
Directed Energy Beam to destroy AIDS sufferers = “curing” homosexuality via Dianetics
Helga-Zepp LaRouche = a robot decked out as a beautiful red-haired girl

Linking current material from the blogosphere, This guy more or less had me until he cited John Kerry as a “far left candidate”. His history is skewed on the matter at hand. I don’t think you can call his followers a member of anything, excepting that they skim what they can from the edges of any “Movement” he aligns himself with.

The fight for the wikipedia continues apace: It seems to me that you are making too much out of the American System inclusion because you are on a crusade to silence anything you THINK is related to Lyndon LaRouche. Just because LaRouche supports the American System or a style of it; does not mean he is its inventor; that he is the only one supporting similar policies (protective tariffs, productive investments by the FED)…in fact numerous persons are supporting this system of economics also called ‘national’ and ‘protective’…including Batra, Dobbs, Buchanan, many members of the US Democratic Party in various ways…Mr. LaRouche was opposed to Judge Alito, and by your reasoning, any inclusion of opposition to Alito would be a LaRouche idea, since he supports that idea..It is a fallacy to attribute the support of the American System only to him; but this is a debate already gone over numerous times with you and you continue to bring it up again and again, in a fanatic attempt to silence views you don’t understand by calling them names or linking them to other persons you oppose politically. I have stated that my edits are sourced and I have provided those sources in numerous instances when you have asked for them. I have tried to work with you civilly – tried to work out disputes between yourself and others and sided with you when you were right – yet you continue to badger me to no end; always in violation of assuming good faith. My inclusions are never without merit; although I am an imperfect human and therefore am bound to make mistakes (like at the US Constitution article); and when I do I move on and admit it. I have answered you on every point of contention here at this article – tried to do a sandbox which you rejected at first only accepting it after I spent the time re-working the article to be more accurate; these types of behaviors are wrong.

STOP. Work with me and not against me. If you wish to challenge my edits, then do so with good faith by asking me here in talk before simple reversion. We have enough history, that you should know that I am more than willing to collaborate with other editors and to change my edits when they need to be changed or where I have made mistakes. I simply do not like being labeled, followed, and put before a ‘court of inquisition’ on every edit I make. I don’t mind your questions, I mind your methods.

But LaRouche invented the Wikipedia anyway, so who are these non-LaRouchites to dictate terms? (One of the more bizarre claims he has made is that… he founded wikipedia. I do not understand that.)

ROBERT NOVAK, CO-HOST: Tonight: President Bush’s summer vacation. Is he taking off too much time? Or can he do his job at his ranch house just as well as at the White House?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You don’t have to be in Washington to work. It’s amazing what can happen with telephones and faxes. […] […] […]

The “Washington Post” calculates that George W. Bush has spent 42 percent of his time as president on vacation or traveling to vacations.

But his aides call his August activity, home to the heartland, with President Bush making side trips. Today, for instance, he did his imitation of Jimmy Carter by helping raise the wooden frame of a Habitat for Humanity house. He also did his imitation of Jerry Ford by accidentally smashing his index finger.

Is it a disgrace for the president to take off so much time? Or is it refreshing for him to spend a vacation in a house he paid for himself instead of following Bill Clinton’s path in mooching off rich liberal friends?

Donna Brazile, Al Gore’s campaign manager, is sitting in for Bill Press on the left. Welcome, Donna.

DONNA BRAZILE, FORMER GORE CAMPAIGN MANAGER: Barbara, the president once again is on the defensive, this time defending his month long vacation, the longest in presidential campaign history.

Let me ask you a question. Recent polls show that 55 percent of the American people believe that the president is spending too much time away from Washington. Is it a bit much? Are you concerned?

BARBARA COMSTOCK, RNC COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: No, not at all because first of all when you’re president you never have a day off.

How many people on vacation get briefings about Iraqi troop movements or Saddam Hussein? I know I don’t when I get those days off. He are in the 21st century, telecommunications age, where wherever the president goes, the Oval Office is with him.

When he’s down there with his aides, he is working on issues, he is going to be traveling to six states, eight or nine cities. Today as we heard, the habitat for humanity, he was meeting there, but he was also meeting with HUD secretary Mel Martinez down there before that working on issues. And the real issue is, let’s look at the record of accomplishment, not how many hours he sits behind a desk. […]

PETER FENN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I’ll talk about the Florida reach count with you, but actually the way I look at this is this is good news and bad news, Bob. The good news for the Democrats is that he’s out of town and he is not causing as much trouble.

The bad news for the country is that he’s disengaged. And that I think is what people are concerned about, is that you have a president here who sometimes appears to not know what’s going on, to have his head in the clouds, and you know, he’s down there trying to talk about the patients bill of rights, and he says, you know, the Ganske somebody or other, somebody or other, somebody or other, you are thinking, oh boy.

So I think the thing that concerns the American people is you’ve gone from a president who knows the facts, who is engaged, who was very effective as president, to someone who they have still real serious questions about. […]

NOVAK: I know, Peter, you don’t understand a lot of things that go on around here, but I want to cite somebody who really knows what Bush is doing down there. Let’s listen to him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BUSH: I’m headed home to the heart land to listen to the American people, and to talk about the values that unite and sustain our country. Members of Congress are going home as well. When we all come back in September, so many accomplishments are within our reach and I look forward the work ahead.

(END VIDEO CLIP) NOVAK: Now, if we can just suspend for just a second all the spin about all the good Democratic issues which I’ve heard a million times, tell me, Peter, what is wrong with the president going home and, as you know, the president of the United States can go anywhere in the world and he’s still the president.

FENN: He is on that wonderful plane, Air Force One. No, I don’t begrudge him a vacation or going home. But I think what you have is, you have, look, you had an article in “The New York Times” right before the election talking about his style as governor.

And it was rather scary to a lot of us because it talked about him coming in at 9:30, 10 o’clock, taking two, three hours for lunch and work outs. Coming back, having a few photo-ops and going home at 5 o’clock.

And that was during the legislative session, that wasn’t in the off time. So I think the American people are a little concerned about a disengaged president. […]

NOVAK: One of my favorite presidents and I think he was a great president was Calvin Coolidge. He really was my kind of president and he slept 13 hours a day. Now, can somebody like you, who wants government to do more and more, think that there’s a lot of us Americans out there who feel happy when the president is sleeping, when he’s taking it easy, when he’s not trying to make our lives better as Bill Clinton did every waking hour? Can you believe that?

FENN: Listen, I hope he can sleep.

NOVAK: But can you understand that?

FENN: I can understand some of that but I think you want an activist president. You want a president who is engaged an inquisitive and knows the details.

NOVAK: Don’t you know that there’s a lot of us who don’t want an activist president?

BRAZILE: Bob, the American people want a president on the job.

The average American spends only 13 days on vacation each year. And yet this president…

NOVAK: They’d like to spend 30, though. [….]

NOVAK: One thing, I hate to ask this question, I really don’t want to ask it, but you forced me into it by saying the president doesn’t work hard. Isn’t it true that when President Bush is in the Oval Office you know he’s working?

FENN: Oh. Is that nasty or what? He could be sleeping. They asked him today did you hear? That was a great line, the guy said are you taking any naps while you’re down here Mr. President?

He said I’m not going to comment on that.

(CROSSTALK) NOVAK: I would rather him be sleeping than doing what Clinton was doing.

BRAZILE: I think he is lifting weights and working on his shoulders. Making sure he’s buffed.

COMSTOCK: If he’s working on that and he’s passing all this legislation, look at that the faith-based initiative that he got through there when he was out putting today the Habitat for Humanity.

(CROSSTALK) FENN: Barbara, where you are right, is the rubber is going to hit the road in September. It is going to hit the road on spending bills. It us going to hit the road on spending bills, it is going to hit the road on this tax cut, which — wait a minute… […]

COMSTOCK: Well you look at all of the polls that the press is putting out and the president’s numbers have been very high. You don’t see the kind of erotic roller coaster that we had with Bill Clinton because this president is disciplined and focused. He is getting the work done that he came in here and said he was going to do. […]

NOVAK: See you can’t understand this, but there’s a lot of us who feel that when the president is relaxing when he’s not working, when he’s sleeping, whether he’s Republican or Democrat that’s a plus for the American people because we want to be left alone.

BRAZILE: I understand, Bob.

NOVAK: We don’t want to be taken care of.

BRAZILE: But we have some pressing needs in this country right now and we need a president who is engaged and on the front lines helping the American people, especially working families.
……………………………………………………..

And the beat goes on. The rubber is going to hit the road in September?

Yes sirrebob, there is a War On Easter going on out there.

Point #1: Bill O’Reilly moves on to his interview with John Meacham and how the Founding Fathers were religious, and how Secularists are assaulting Easter and Christmas.

His opening shot shows Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

I missed those parts of the Bible. How does this work? Jesus is resurrected, and his followers pry the rock from the cave, to see that Jesus’s body is no longer there. Then they see a six foot bunny rabbit. They go ahead and chase the bunny rabbit around. Then they keel over and fall asleep in the meadow, exhausted. Jesus wanders around, trying to find everyone to show that he is there… but alas, everyone is exhausted and asleep from running around with the six foot bunny rabbit. Jesus eyes the six foot bunny rabbit, and scratches his head in confusion.

Point #2: I listened to a bit more of that Christian Radio Paranoia station. I must say that yesterday they had this absolutely hilarious program where… in standard talk radio format, the host has on a guest and they congratulate each other for agreeing with each other. It’s about Science. The guest explains the Biblical Science of, you know, there’s the Great Flood of Noah’s time which explains the Grand Canyon’s existence, and there’s the Rainbow which God created to tell us that he would never destroy all mankind by water again. Scientific Explanations like that. Then, with a straight face, they gave a comment lamenting the lack of Real Science in our public schools.

Anyway, that is beside the point. What I ponder is the conspiracy – mongering about how the Masons created the United States, you see no Christian symbolism throughout Washington, DC, or on our federal money — it’s all masonic symbolism. The upshoot is that the founding fathers are somehow plotting to destroy us all sometime 200 years into the future, and the “New World Order” is this Old World Order established then and there. Because they’re Masons. But, contradicting themselves, I can easily picture the next program as being an assault on “Secularists” about how they’re … waging war on Easter (???) … assaulting … the Founding Fathers, who created… a Christian Nation.

You cannot create a Christian Nation at the same time as you create a Masonic Nation. These two concepts are mutually exclusive and contradictory.

There has never been a time when Bob Seger’s “Her Strut” sounded like a fresh little diddy. I do not understand this song, and it along with 33% of the songs on “Classic Rawk” radio causes me to ponder why these things even exist.

Actually, I now wonder if I’ve misunderstood this song through the years. Here’s how I’ve always heard it:

Ew.
They Love to watch her Strut.
Ew.
They Do Respect her Butt.
They Love to Watch her Strut
Ew. Ew.

But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it actually isn’t “butt”, but instead is “but” — as in “they Do Respect her, BUT they love to watch her Strut.” I will just have to continue to wonder about this until Bob Seger himself decides to chime in and clarify himself.

I do hate this song. The biggest problem is that it evokes something on the order of a bunch of ogling Construction Workers. And the woman they are ogling is not terribly hot. I neither love watching her strut nor do I respect her butt. And her pants are just horrible.

At any rate, in the interest of freshening up songs that I hate that were stale the first time I heard them (if there ever was a first time), I have a few suggestions on how to alter the song.

First, change the “Ew”s to “Ut”s. Because, you see… Ut rhymes with “Strut” “Butt” (or But) and “They’d kill to make the CUT”. Also, “ut” evokes the decidingly unpleasant groin-upward movement that the inflection of “ew” seems to be trying for.

Second, a new line to add to the chorus. “She’d kick them in the Nut.” Because, you see, the song is all about how she’s a tough-ass, (“She’s totally committed To major independence But she’s a lady through and through She gives them quite a battle All that they can handle She’ll bruise some She’ll hurt some too“) but despite that (“But oh, they love to watch her strut“.)

“But… But… nobody kicks you in the ‘nut’. They kick you in the ‘NUTS’.” That would be a good detraction, except this shows just how tough she is. She kicks you in the nut, and stops just short of the other nut, and it hurts all the more.

Okay. Here’s how it works:

Ut.
They Love to watch her Strut.
Ut.
They Do Respect her Butt.
Ut.
She’d kick them in the Nut.
They Love to Watch her Strut.
Ut. Ut.

This will answer once and for all whether it is “but” or “butt”, and while Bob Segar may have wanted the ambiguity I think the character study is improved — her reaction to men respecting her butt a little too much is to kick them in the nut.

Rip that off, send it to Bob Seger, and see if he makes these changes at the next state fair he plays at. Somewhere before he gets to the Raise-the-Roof finale of “Hollywood Nights”.