Mike Gravel Google Watch:  The last time I checked, I was at #10.  Today, I am at #66.  I have no clue what happened — I had sort of imagined my google drop-off to be a bit more gradual than that — barring some deluge of Mike Gravel campaign news, but this ends — ingloriously — any and all mentions of Mike Gravel.  I will now, Soviet-style, pretend like you never existed.  I won’t go so far as the Soviets, sticking potted plants in the place of your names, but I will pretend like I never blogged about you.  If I blog about a presidential debate or forum that you attend, I will pretend like you weren’t there. 

So long, Mike Gravel.  It was fun discussing you.  It was fun researching you.  I trust the end of your presidential campaign will be as insignificant as the rest of your presidential campaign.  To sum up: your tax plan stinks, your national initiative plan isn’t a pancrea to anything, your one world predilications of a bit lofty, your Senate career wasn’t pure, and you campaigned as a hawk in 1968 — which isn’t worth mentioning except that your insistence that anyone who voted for the Iraq War authorization is unqualified for office makes you a hypocrite.

That is all.  Mike Gravel.  Levarg ekim.

 

A few years ago, I thought that Britney Spears was basically doomed.  I pictured her slashing her wrist in half-hearted suicide attempts, demanding attention to stop her, if pressed I would say — only because my frames of references are decidedly minimal — in the corner of a cocaine-flowing party of the stars.
As it turned out, her collapse went more like this:

Britney Spears attempted suicide in rehab last week, according to The News of the World.
The paper claims Britney also wrote devil’s number, 666, on her shaved head and began screaming “I am the Antichrist!” at frightened clinic staff.  […]  The News of the World report claims Britney has also been speaking at length with ex-husband Kevin Federline, telling him she wants to get back together and have another baby.

Which is infinitely more bizarre than I had considered.  (Not that I gave it too much thought.)
All of this is schadenfruede to the public, and I guess I hope everyone is enjoying it.  But the reason her problems were pretty easy to see coming: she was trained to be an under-aged sex symbol — not good for her development — and so enconsed in a type of bubble-gum pop (written by a committee to float sexual innuendoes through the lyrics that amount to “Do Me.”) that she was not likely to be able to make the transition when it is necessary to expand her horizons.

What I am wondering about Britney Spears is this: imagine that she somehow gets into the right light and is semi-reasonable in following career advice and not going off that track.  What advice and trajectory could she be given to have a career of one sort or another?  If it were simply a matter of running through rehab, she would be fine — relatively, but the problem is if she… now has to address her problems in any comeback performance.  Go away for ten years and then try to crack a generation (more or less the ten years younger than I)’s nostalgia?  I once heard someone postulate that a singer or band can continue a successful touring career for the duration of their lives — successful in that they will be booked as large draws at county fairs and medium draws at larger arenas — if they have but two bonafide hits (which the paying public will know and be able to sing along with) — which with some minor songs and with a few covers and perhaps singing one or both twice in their set will allow them the desired time on stage.

I believe Britney Spears has, legitimately, 3 songs that anyone has really hummed to, and under that rubric could pull that off. If she wanted it. And if she could get her head on straight.

Beyond that, her 3 songs (give or take one or two) will be available for commercial use, tv and movie use, and radio play — which means she is set in terms of royalties… as any number of one-hit or popular for a time artists are/were.

… if she wants to screw her head back on.

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr is dead.

I note him as this Historian of a Liberal bent who championed FDR and JFK.  I note him, and his father, for being of that “Adlai Stevenson” Egghead type, the professorial class who were attracted to Stevenson seemingly because they share the same idiosyncrcies with that man (and the same telling head shape).

Yes, there’s the phrase “Vital Center” — a phrase and ideology that blunted anti-communist liberalism from Henry Wallace-types, but could mean practically anything as we navigate toward a center between two anythings.  Hence, Americans for Democratic Action — the organization advocating that cold war liberalism which has a decidedly mixed legacy (one need only look to Vietnam).

But his most endearing legacy, to me, and really I’m conflating Schlesinger Jr and morphing him with his father into one entity (which is just well and good, because he kept a family legacy going) — because I really have only rudimentary knowlege of him anyway…

… and because I gravitate toward these with a certain affinity and a certain queasiness…

commissioning fellow historians to compile those Presidential rankings.  Wherein we can track the bottom feeder from Grant to Harding to Buchanan, and contemplate the meaning behind what this shows regarding our American values.

Item #1:

Legislation authorizing Virginia’s participation in the national commemoration of Abraham Lincoln’s 200th birthday reached the GOP-controlled House of Delegates only to be summarily killed.

That was enough for the House Rules Committee, where Republican leaders get what Republican leaders want. Lincoln was out.
Item #2:

In interviews afterward, some attendees said Mr. Giuliani lost momentum when he heaped lavish praise on Abraham Lincoln. While many conservatives regard the Civil War president as the spiritual founder of the Republican Party, others deeply resent him as a man who ruthlessly suspended constitutional rights and freedoms in order to militarily challenge the South’s belief in its right to secede.  “Rudy thought he was addressing a Republican audience,” said Mike Long, chairman of the New York State Conservative Party. “Mitt understood this is an audience of people who are conservatives first.”

Item #3: 

“Simple restoration of the national holiday to honor the greatest and most unifying figure in our history, George Washington, is surely a matter on which even this polarized nation can agree. And if the Post wants a joint holiday, why not twin Lincoln’s Birthday with that of Dr. King, and call it King Lincoln Day?”

There are more Lincoln Politics swirling around the water right now, which includes a debate over the veracity and actual meaning over an Abraham Lincoln quote being used to suggest Democrats are treasonous and, I guess should be imprisoned (?) (used on the House floor).  And an article in the Nation that I should weigh in with a simple observation about Lincoln’s opposition to the Mexican American War.
I will simply say this, though:  the current Democratic / Republican lines on the electoral map, as semi-cemented in the 2006 mid-terms with parts of the west swinging in the Democrats’ direction — these things sort of fasinate me, as it is a weird 150 year shift of what party controls what regions.  Lincoln Democrats.

“Clinton Lied”.

I can’t tell how the bumper sticker came to be torn from its original bumper sticker “Nobody Died When Clinton Lied” to this new statement, nor if s/he is making a political statement what precisely it is — is it a statement  against Clinton’s campaigns in Iraq, widely accused of “wagging the dog”, or is it a statement against that lie in particular (“I have not had sexual relations with that woman”) or attendent statements through the administration.

Or was it just not fully torn off and is no statement whatever?

“Each of the past eight Republican presidential tickets has had either a George Bush or a Bob Dole.”  I have heard that statement made twice, meant to be indicative of something or other.  The incestuous nature of our politics, perhaps, or that the strings of our nations are controlled by the wardens of the state, or the inability of the nation to reboot our leaders.
But even here, George Bush is an obvious source for conspiratorial rumblings — Mr. CIA Skull and Bones Elitist East Coast Patrican — a political base based on what, exactly? — worm.  But what is Bob Dole’s role in all that?  Between 1944, and 1972, either Thomas Dewey or Richard Nixon were on all but one Republican presidential ticket — 7 out of 8.  Between 1896 and 1944, 9 out of 13 Democratic tickets included either a Bryan or Franklin Roosevelt — or perhaps 11 out of 13 were a Bryan, Wilson, or Roosevelt.  If you view Charles Bryan with a bit of askew, someone pulled in off of his father’s reputation — as did George Bush.

Even better, between 1892 and 1956, the Democratic Party did not have on its presidential ticket an Adlai Stevenson, a Bryan, a Wilson, or Franklin Roosevelt … three times.  That’s three times out of 17 elections.  The Stevenson — Bryan — Wilson — Roosevelt axis had been dictating half of our political spectrum for 64 years, just as the Bush — Dole axis has since 1976.  You will also note that it was Kennedy who broke this powerful political axis, and we all know what happened to Kennedy…

Now figure out how many times a Roosevelt or a Bryan was on the ballot on one of the two major vote-getting presidential tickets between 1896 and 1944.  But I’ve already blown my wad there, because the Stevenson — Bryan — Wilson — Roosevelt Axis I find more amusing.

In 8 years, as Hillary Clinton finishes her second term, we may be wandering into a rejuvenated Jeb Bush administration.  (Mind you, this is something that people are talking about, more so than even the Bush / Dole thing which I’ve heard twice.)  Excuse me, I mean — Jeb! Bush.  Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton, Bush — and this is something that people are gasping in horror in contemplating.  Mind you, perhpas Jeb Bush can be pegged as vice president by Giuliani, be nominated and nearly win in 2012, and then… 2016…  That would keep that Bush / Dole paradigm alive… whatever the heck Bob Dole has to do with anything here.  (There don’t seem to be any more Doles in the offing.)