Little Laura, Happy at Last?

Recently, a friend concluded an email conversation with:

And what does Laura Bush think of him? Can you imagine being married to a man like that?

Actually, yes I have. More than once I've said to her image on television, "Was the money worth it?"

(Rather than pick one image for this post, I'm linking to BAGnewsNotes with their entry on Laura Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina refugees because these are pictures she would, I assume, have approved. The body language/photo analysis is spot on.)

I have always felt sorry for Laura Bush. Even though I suspect her response would be that I have a lot of nerve.

But this is still America. And I'm allowed.

She was the only child of parents who were in real estate development. This would have meant fusses being made over her, abundant clothes, her own car when she was old enough, and never worrying where the tuition money would come from. As a big reader, I admire and adore librarians, who tend to share my own love of books and learning. It's never going to pay the big bucks, nor would teaching primary school, her other profession. That was a sincere expression of where her priorities would lie; a life of the mind, involved with children and other seekers after art and compassion and goodness.

So I see Laura in 1977, getting married at 31, to the handsome, charming, and quite rich young W. She was undoubtedly looked on as someone who would "settle W down" and her inability to do so must gnaw at her, though it's a foolish aspiration and an impossible task. To create more tensions with her Republican-viewed roles, she needed help to conceive the twins, and it probably pains her to see them making fools of themselves partying in various countries. Of course she loves them. Was it her fault his family spoiled them so, when she wanted them to love books and education? Didn't she try hard to make them appreciate all their nice things?

It probably seemed like a good deal to her once. But if you look at her Panic-On-Thorazine countenance now, I'm sure she's having second, third, and fourth thoughts. Not only, in the words of my friend, is she married to a man like that, she has a mother-in-law like that. (Insider talk has it that George W. is very much like his mother. I shudder.)

I am sure her librarian heart is pained by how her aspirations for a personal life were so cruelly shrunken and hemmed in by the very things she thought would guarantee a good result. She looked past the frat boy shenanigans (marriage will make him grow up) and did not realize how shallow the charm went (he can be so sweet and needy) and discounted his family (I'm marrying him, not his family, we can lead our own lives) until it was way too late.

The money! The people they know! The circles they move in! The clothes, the parties, the fun! The money, so much money... surely it would buy happiness.

She's writing a book, I hear, for several millions. I think leaving the White House will be a watershed moment for her; children grown, First Lady obligations over, and a source of her own income from the book contract, probably for the very first time since the marriage. While not officially separating, I think she will distance herself from whatever Bush will be doing, as her marriage deteriorates into more and more of a caretaker role for a brain-damaged, selfish, and temperamental manchild.

There can be hired minders now, called "aides" and "secretaries" and "staff," and he can clear all the brush, bicycle all the trails, and party in dark dens all he likes. She'll show up for official events, and the rest of the time... she'll go back to being the librarian she must be at heart.

I see her working quietly in charities by donating her name and appearances at events. There will be a circle of her own friends. If there is an affair, it will be very quiet and discreet, covered up by the families involved. Because she will still be in that big money world, but I know she will not be the only refugee from it.

She can find like-minded others there; doing good deeds in fabulous clothes, having fun brunches instead of drunken bashes, popping up with perfect manners when her husband needs her at the photo-op, but no longer pretending to herself it's a real marriage, or a real family.

The girlish dreams of love and art were just that, she tells herself. Everyone compromises. Time for Laura, at last.

Does she have nightmares of the blood and pain and death those around her brought about? Does she wonder if she could have made things, different?

No, I don't think she does. She was "the wife." There to sacrifice, support, suggest, sanction, and smile, smile, smile.

She had nothing to do with policy. Whether it was good or bad was not her call to make.

If W made orphans, her job was to send them food and clothes.

To show she cares.

To look at the pictures from this officially shot and chosen photo-op is to see someone who does care; and is completely helpless to do anything about it. The constraints of her position must seem overwhelming, and she's not the rebellious type.

It must have seemed like a fairy tale ending for Laura the Librarian; swept off her feet by a handsome prince. She took the bargain, she lived up to her end, and if it meant she wound up married to a drunk who loved fart jokes and is already known as the Worst President In Our History Thus Far; well, one thing money does is compensate for a lot of problems that would otherwise be overwhelming. The important thing is that her real friends will be too polite to mention it.

And if nobody talks about it, well, it's not like it really happened, is it?

Don't fall for it.

Look at this number.

$10,318,000,000.00

That's ten billion, three hundred and eighteen million, dollars.

That's how much profit health care insurance companies made in one year, as of the April 17th, 2006 issue of Fortune.

None of that money went to healthcare.

This is always the excuse the Republicans give: "Oh, we can't afford that."

Yet, they can afford wars and Wall Street bailouts. Which are much, much, much more expensive, AND do not create anything in return.

So, don't fall into their frame.

Every penny of profit the insurance company makes from health care is now up for grabs. That is a considerable amount of money, isn't it? And yet, in terms of getting healthcare to people, it's all wasted.

If a parent spends money on drunken expeditions to Vegas, and then claims they can't buy the kids shoes, we call them on it.

We don't need the insurance companies to give us healthcare.

We don't need drunken expeditions to Vegas.

Call them on it.

McCain is the X Million Dollar Man, Only Evil

How much have McCain's surgeries, just in the last eight years, cost?

Find out how much surgery he’s had since 2000, and run him as the X
million dollar man. (I have not had a chance to research it, and we
want it to be accurate.)

How many of us could afford this much treatment of even a deadly disease, such as McCain's?

You know, his health plan would tax any health care benefits people receive from their employers. Ironically, forcing people to drop it would take the burden off of employers, and then they will have to drop it because they can no longer afford coverage without such economies of scale.

Thanks for the tax break, Senator McCain.

And then very few people would have health insurance. Thank you, Senator McCain, whose wife wore an outfit estimated at $300,000 dollars. Admittedly, retail.

But hey, it’s fine to run McCain at this age. Evil geniuses take time to develop that much fine tuned rage and sadism. Don't push them!

He's ready and experienced. And he already has minions.

see Sarah Palin pictures

So be pleased with what our tax dollars have wrought.

The tide, it turns

A liberal pundit soars to a prominent perch - The Boston Globe: "'MSNBC is trying to define a niche for itself as a center for commentary,' said Sid Bedingfield, a former CNN executive who teaches journalism at the University of South Carolina. 'It wants to be the home for liberal and left-wing viewers.'"

Well, hey, that's a home I can feel comfy in. With the advent of Rachel Maddow's new show, there are now two truth-tellers on television.

It's that simple.

Calling them liberal simply points up Stephen Colbert's well known saying, "Reality has a strong liberal bias." It takes a lot of spin, propaganda, and outright lies to keep this lead balloon floating; keeping people thinking Republicans have some kind of solution to the problems they have created.

Supposedly, Will Rogers said, "Stupidity got us into this situation. Why can't it get us out?"

As upset as I get over people coming to conclusions based on scraps of wrong knowledge, I have to admit that our common media outlets simply do not make it easy. On purpose.

As I mentioned in this post, our news outlets don't particularly want us to come away from their program with a set of well-formed, well-informed, outlooks on the issues. They sow confusion, leave important conclusions hanging, and dart in and out of a story until all possible thread is lost.

Watching the television news, without any other context, makes it impossible to figure out what is really going on.

And that is its purpose. The illusion of being informed.

Reaching the Republican Oppressed

I think there's a chunk of the electorate that is waiting to be reached.

The really disaffected Republican voters. Not the ones who whisper to Obama. But the ones on a tier below that. I think of them as the Republican Oppressed.

In many Republican circles, one is the Alpha Dog... or one is nothing. From a community to a workplace to the family, this is simply how they arrange themselves. That leaves a lot of people doing all the grunt work, with little appreciation.

Deep in their hearts, they do think racism is wrong, that women are smart, that their physical problem or sexual orientation shouldn't make them feel less than human. Yet they are stuck in a deep red sea, unable to openly retaliate, dependent on people they secretly resent for treating them this way.

They aren't going to talk on the phone. They aren't going to speak in the street. One would have to reach them with a line in a speech.

Reach these people, the Republican Oppressed, by telling them:

You are not nothing. You matter.

They could nurture in their hearts a way of striking back. A way no one need know about. Alone in the ballot box, it could be their secret.

You are not nothing. You matter.

I think they would vote for someone, anyone, who would tell them that.

You are not nothing. You matter.

There would be an extraordinary psychological pull towards someone saying that to them.

Because no one ever has.

I See Dead People

When I watched the Republican National Convention, what is most striking is what I don't see.

I don't see a packed hall, possibly because Ron Paul pulled 10,000 into his competing rally.

I don't see many non-white faces.

I don't see enthusiasm, except for the images of the dead and the descriptions of torture.

Then there's Sarah Palin. A pick that the Base and some loyal syncophants in the press will love, and will turn off everyone else.

It's been a week now, and while it will take a while for the polls to settle down, interviews with such small town, blue collar voters that might have been persuaded shows that they have not been.

It is premature to pronounce this party down for the count, of course. But it has been traditional for the primary winner to swing wide, having secured their base. Now is the time they reach out to as-yet uncommitted voters.

But the McCain campaign didn't do that. They pulled in, and made a pick that was meant to secure their base.

This is a campaign in trouble.

No matter how they court hernias to spin how this is all "good for Republicans," that's a clear sign of trouble to all savvy watchers.

So now they know they are not fooling insiders. This unmistakable signal of weakness, coupled with denying access to the vice presidential candidate, will increase press hostility.


see Sarah Palin pictures

This is the slow grind of attrition, the horror of being behind. It doesn't matter when the contest is starting out, but scrambling to stop a slow bleed at this point, right after the convention, is a danger sign.

In the 26 states and the District of Columbia where registration data were available, the total number of registered Democrats increased by 214,656, while the number of Republicans fell by 1,407,971.
newsobserver.com | Voters abandon GOP for Dems, 8/5/08

That's some astonishing numbers. It's clear that a lot of people want to be Democrats... and an awful lot of people don't want to be Republicans.

They are ghouls. Make it stop.

At the age of ten, I was subjected to child abuse.

Republicans wouldn't think so. I sat through a two hour evangelical sermon by one of those fire and brimstone speakers who did Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ for the blind.

By the end of it, I was a quivering mass of fear and empathetic pain. It pleased the people who put on the show. They came down to smile upon the children, and told us not to sin anymore.

This is how I felt, watching Fred Thompson, in excruciating detail, outline all the torments and tortures inflicted on John McCain during his captivity as a POW.

In front of the man's mother.

These people are sick. They are twisted worshipers of death who are all too eager to share their joy. I expected the Ronald Reagan tribute. They exhume him every chance they get. But I didn't expect to get all queasy and have an evangelical flashback.

It's them. They love inflicting pain. They really do.

Merciful heaven, they must be stopped.

Fortunately, in the classic "evil sows the seeds of its own destruction" way, they will die of attrition, which is more merciful than anything they have shown their many victims.

A Pew poll released this week showed that by 2007, the number of white evangelical Protestants leaning toward the Republicans was 57 per cent — down from 62 per cent in 2004. The decline of America's religious right

Because, despite the obvious drawbacks of Palin on the ticket, they are going to soldier on. No matter what she will reveal next, it's a good thing.

At last, at long last, I believe they have reached a level where people will be ashamed to vote for them.

And they should be.