More political incorrectness

There is a lot of stuff going on in town right now about the budget cuts to our regional school district. I know that many schools are going through budget cuts but I guess ours is more drastic than most of the other districts in this state (at least according to the newspaper). Additionally we're already one of the lowest districts when it comes to money spent per pupil so basically we're getting really screwed here.

Of course the typical discussions are going on around town about cutting teachers and programs. They are trying to re-open discussions with the teachers' union in order to get some relief on salaries and there is talk that high school sports will become completely self-funding. In other words, parents will have to pay $500 per sport per child if they want to participate in any sport. Additionally stuff like Yearbook will be cut because they can't pay the teacher's a stipend to act as an advisor. That of course is one that is near and dear to my heart but oh well. Maybe a parent will step up and volunteer. After all, that's what I do for the elementary school.

But I digress.

There are two major things that bug me about this whole process and this is where I get into the "politically incorrect" part of my rant.

1) Spanish Immersion class. Right now we have one class per grade level that is a "Spanish immersion" class meaning that they teach everything in Spanish and the kids - who are all English speaking students - will learn to speak Spanish fluently. There is discussion that this program may be cut to save money and I have to say, I full agree with that, although if I stated it publicly around town I'd probably be tarred and feathered. I think instead of putting a ton of money into teaching 25 kids from each grade how to speak Spanish fluently they should instead have ALL the kids in English speaking classes and have ALL the kids taught Spanish as a separate class like gym, music, art, and technology. All our kids are going to need to speak Spanish at some point so why don't we teach all of them now? And if the kids rotated through the classroom like they do with music, art, etc. we'd only have to supply one room in the school with Spanish materials, text books, etc. instead of five. Oh look, I just saved money and now ALL the kids will be able to talk to over 50% of the population that I can't talk to because I never learned Spanish.

2) Special Education. No, I am not saying that we should get rid of Special Education. I think it's very important for the kids who legitimately need it. I think what is equally important is a Talented & Gifted program. But while the school district is legally obligated to spend millions and millions and millions of dollars on the SpEd program it's not required to spend a single dime on helping those kids that need help on the other end of the spectrum to fulfill their potential as well. Something else I think needs to be addressed is that it seems like every third kid these days is in SpEd. Seriously. And this is a gripe I have against society as a whole and not just our school district. You can go into any classroom at any grade level and probably half of the class is on an IEP (Individualized Education Plan) which means they require additional, personalized help to learn because they're considered to be struggling or disadvantaged in one way or another. Once again, my talented and gifted daughter doesn't get any individualized attention but that's not the point this time. Just like in my rant against ropeless jump ropes last week, I think it's ridiculous that we coddle children so much these days. Yes, I firmly believe that there are children out there with certain learning disabilities that should definitely receive special assistance. I just don't think that society has that many learning disabled children out there. And if we do, maybe we should look into what's in the water because something is seriously wrong.

Maybe every generation says this of the generation coming up behind them, but these kids are being raised to be a bunch of whiny, entitled, self-indulgent babies and God help this country once they're in charge. That is, if they can achieve anything without their Mommies and Daddies to do their work for them.

And now I'll step down off my soap box.

Thank you for listening to the latest episode of "Diane's Politically Incorrect Tirades" presented to you by the Ropeless Jump Ropers of America.

A little political humor

Funny or Die's Presidential Reunion from Will Ferrell

A summary of why the Democrats are in trouble

I am a Democrat through and through but even I can admit we're seriously lacking in party leadership.

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A hollow victory

Tonight I received a mass email forward sent by a Republican friend of Lincoln's. I responded to the forward and we engaged in a bit of back and forth via email. While I enjoyed the mental exercise after two weeks in an illness fog, he didn't put up much of a fight. It wasn't a terribly satisfactory victory.

It started by him forwarding an email about all the reasons why Obama scares the man who originally wrote the email. The email itself is too long - and not worthy - of reposting but here is an excerpt:

• You scare me because after months of exposure, I know nothing about you.
• You scare me because I do not know how you paid for your expensive Ivy League education and your upscale lifestyle and housing with no visible signs of support.
• You scare me because you lack humility and "class", always blaming others.
• You scare me because you did not spend the formative years of youth growing up in America and culturally you are not an American.
• You scare me because the media gives you a free pass on everything you do.
• Finally, you scare me because if you serve a second term I will probably not feel safe in writing a similar letter in 8 years.

Admittedly my first response was quite snotty but I figured I'd exercise my brain a little after that. Here is our interchange. My comment are in blue and his are in red (cute, huh?)

You scare me because you believe this shit.

You will see as time goes by. I respect your opinion.

I'm sorry, I should have said "You scare me because you forward on fear tactics and hate mongering with untrue "facts" and false information. That would have been more polite.

I am trying to save the lemmings from the pied piper. Better to be cautious then drink it all in without question.

I fully agree. As long as the lemmings don't just start following a different pied piper. Drinking it all in without question goes both ways. The letter was meant to inflame, cause fear, and raise the ire of people who may be too lazy to do their own research It provided no facts, no back up documentation, and provided no outlet for gaining knowledge. I'm not saying some of the information below might not be true. Just that the guy's tactic is the cowards way to fight the battle - much less the war - he's trying to wage on that which he does not agree.

Well Obama scares me for all the same reasons.

Which is why both sides should take a step back, take a deep breath, and start looking at the facts and not the sound bites. I'm sure if you truly had all the facts in front of you there may be some things that you agree with on the "Obama" side. I'm a Democrat but there are certainly times that I concede - albeit grudgingly sometimes - that they're wrong and the Republicans are right (no pun intended). Today's society is all about filling the time on 24-hour news channels and bringing in the ad dollars. Sensationalism is a great way to make money but not a great way to run a country. If the American people give into that the country is then, in fact, run by the media and not the elected politicians. "For the people, by the people" then becomes "for the money, by the media". I don't care who is in power, that's not how I want my country run.

No response from him after that. Can you see why that wasn't a very satisfactory exchange?

Now, here is how I would like to respond to the selection from the original email above.

CAUTION: contains lots of snottiness and plenty of sarcasm.

• You scare me because after months of exposure, I know nothing about you. (Feel free to pick up a newspaper, a magazine, browse a few non-partisan websites, read an auto-biography....really, anything that gets your head out of your ass.)
• You scare me because I do not know how you paid for your expensive Ivy League education and your upscale lifestyle and housing with no visible signs of support. (He probably took out student loans like other hard-working college kids, he was a lawyer and had a job, and failing all that, he was married to a woman who made almost $300,000 a year. If that's your idea of "no visible signs of support" then I'd love to see what your salary is, Sir. Wiping your ass with dollar bills must get tiresome after awhile. Does it chafe?)
• You scare me because you lack humility and "class", always blaming others. (I prefer to think of it as confidence, "lacking in 'class" is a distinction typically made by a person who feels he is above others in society and therefore not worthy of the term himself, and depending on what he's blaming on others (something the person purposely left out of the email), some of that shit is the mess George W. Bush left behind and rightfully should be blamed on others.)
• You scare me because you did not spend the formative years of youth growing up in America and culturally you are not an American. (This one is a loaded accusation. Is he trying, like many have, to give the impression that Obama is a Muslim - which he is not - and therefore a terrorist threat? Putting aside that obvious racism (religious-ism?) ask yourself how the question would be different if the President was the son of a military man (such as John McCain) and had spent his "formative years" living on an air force base in Germany or Guam or Japan. Would that make him less American? I don't know if John McCain lived overseas during his "formative years" but if he had I'm sure the same author would be touting that as a "multi-culturalism experience" and not a threat to the United States. Hypocrisy is a wonder part of American culture so congratulations to you, Sir.)
• You scare me because the media gives you a free pass on everything you do. (I'm sorry. I didn't realize that Fox News, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh had gone off the air. How did I miss that memo?)
• Finally, you scare me because if you serve a second term I will probably not feel safe in writing a similar letter in 8 years. (A strong, emotional closing to clinch the fear factor. Well done. Who knows, you could be right. But I would worry less about that and more about the fact that courtesy of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney your phone may be tapped right now by right of the Patriot Act. Maybe you should go check that out and stop writing these transparently ill-researched, intentionally inflammatory emails. As a matter of fact, 'Big Brother' might be looking over your shoulder right now. You better watch out.....big bad Obama has access to that shit now.)

And now I'll be stepping down off my soapbox. Unfortunately it wasn't the brain work-out I was hoping for. I didn't even break a sweat.

Good for him for calling Cheney on his bullshit

From CNN.com today:

(CNN) - White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs fired back Thursday at the latest criticisms from Dick Cheney, and suggested the Bush administration did not send U.S. troops into foreign conflicts responsibly.

"What Vice President Cheney calls 'dithering,' President Obama calls his solemn responsibility to the men and women in uniform and to the American public," Gibbs said. "I think we've all seen what happens when someone doesn't take that responsibility seriously."

Gibbs' comments come a day after the former vice president issued a blistering a wide-ranging critique of the Obama administration's foreign policy, saying Obama appears "afraid to make a decision" when it comes to troop levels in Afghanistan, and the president's indecision is "hurt[ing] our allies and emboldening our adversaries."

In his comments Thursday, Gibbs said the delay over a troop decision in Afghanistan is largely due to the fact the Bush administration did not adequately assess the conditions in the country ahead of sending troops there.

"I think it is a curious comment," Gibbs also said, "I think it is pretty safe to say that the vice president was for seven years not focused on Afghanistan. Even more curious given the fact that an increase in troops sat on desks in this White House including the vice president's for more than eight months - a resource request filled by President Obama in March."

"I find it interesting that he's blaming us for something that he didn't see fit to do over, best I can tell, seven years of a war in Afghanistan," he added.

California Protection of Marriage Act

Okay, this is pretty funny. Not so much the message itself but the fact that I could see this actually becoming an accidental law. How often have you gone into a voting booth and not completely understood what you were voting for? I think a number of people who voted "No" on Prop 8 probably thought that by voting "Yes" they were actually supporting gay marriage. It's just in the wording. This PSA is on the internet and I guess some guy is trying to get the signatures necessary to put the Protection of Marriage Act on the California ballot. Given the outcry over Prop 8 I could totally see a bunch of idiots voting for this law without reading the fine print. So what is the Protection of Marriage Act? It outlaws divorce, of course.

Do not adjust your screen. This post is in fact leaning to the right.

As I've declared many times on this blog, I am a Democrat. My husband has a tendency to lean a little more in the other direction. There is one rant, however, that I go off on every so often where Lincoln waits for me to finish before chuckling to himself as I wrap up by saying "Yes, I know that is a bit of Reagan-era trickle down economics but I don't care."

If you earn your money, you should have the right to spend it however you want. That's not to say that I think the wealthy shouldn't be taxed more. I definitely think they should. I mean, if you can drop a down payment on a Porsche you should chip in a little more than the single mom working three jobs and still barely putting food on the table. I'm just saying....

But that's not the point of this post.

I absolutely hate when people say "I can't believe they spent so much money on that!"

For example:

I can't believe those celebrities spent $1 million dollars on their wedding! Don't they know there are homeless people in Los Angeles that could have used that money?

OR

I can't believe the President went on vacation at Martha's Vineyard when I don't have a job. Not everyone gets to take a vacation this summer thanks to this mess of an economy.

OR

I can't believe she spent $1200 on a washing machine! Doesn't she know that some mothers have to go to the laundry mat with their 3 children in tow?

Let's just take a look at these situations one by one, shall we?

You're right. That celebrity could have run to Las Vegas and eloped therefore freeing up that $1 million dollars to be donated to charity OR they could have done exactly what they did and put $1 million dollars into the event planning industry thereby helping the businesses of florists, caterers, security companies, wedding planners, and limo drivers and the hundreds of employees that count on them for their jobs. Better that than them snorting it up their nose in a drug fueled binge on the flight to Vegas.

Yes, the President of the United States went on vacation where he paid for his vacation rental with his own money. He earned it. His wife earned it. They worked hard for their money before he became President and they work hard for it now. Let them spend the damn money -once again - helping shore up the financials of the person who rented the house to them as well as many of the businesses on the Vineyard that benefited from the First Family taking a vacation in their town. What would you rather he do with the money, mail it to you so that you can go on vacation yourself? If you deserve a vacation you will have earned your own damn money.

As you can tell by the "Blogs I Love to Read" on the side of this page, I read Heather Armstrong's blog at http://www.dooce.com/ and also follow her on Twitter where she has well over a million followers. She recently purchased a washing machine for $1200 and it didn't work. She got into a battle with the manufacturer because she was having trouble getting it fixed. People called her a bully for publicly pressuring a company to make right on a brand new piece of equipment that didn't work. God forbid she spent money "frivolously" AND expect it work. The horror! A local appliance company volunteered to give her a free machine (she's a bit of a celebrity in the mommy blogger world) and she in turn donated that machine to a women's shelter because she could afford to buy her own machine. Wasn't that nice of her? No. It wasn't enough for the angry masses. They were appalled that she would have bought a $1200 machine in the first place when there are people out there that can't afford a washing machine at all. But she can people!!! Let her spend her damn money on whatever she wants. Isn't everyone screaming these days that sales are dragging and bringing down our economy? If she wants to but money into the economy let her! Or your (admittedly stereotypical) unemployed ass sitting at home spending WAY too much time meddling in the lives of others will never find a job in this current economy.

And now I'm going to step down off of my soapbox and move it back firmly to the left after one final thought.

If Brad Pitt wants to build a habitat for his kids' gerbils I am sure that those in the pet, building materials, and animal waste removal industries don't mind that he dropped $80,000 on such a stupid thing. It's not like if he didn't build the gerbil habitat he was going to send the money to you anyway - so shut up and quit your bitching.

Politics and children - a serious note

I would just like to state for the record, that despite my joking about the brainwashing being complete when it comes to my children and raising them to be Democrats, that we also had a talk last night about listening to both sides. That ignoring the opposing side completely and not being willing to listen to both sides openly is actually only making a mockery of the very foundation upon which our country is built. You may not always agree with the other side of a political argument but you should always be willing to listen.

The brainwashing is complete

I listened to President Obama's speech on healthcare last week but didn't get a chance to watch it on television until tonight. While we were watching it I was commenting on the fact that sometimes the Democrats are the only ones standing up and sometimes both Democrats and Republicans stand up to cheer for something when the President says something they all agree with. I don't remember what was the point that the President made that preceded this conversation....

Me: Ah...both the Democrats and the Republicans are standing up for that one. Good.

Hannah: What does that mean? That the Republicans aren't dumb?

Apparently the brainwashing is complete.

Discussing politics the responsible way

Me: I just spent an hour writing a long, inarticulate blog posting about politics and then I scrapped it. I then spent another half hour writing a long rant about politics using swear words, capital letters and lots of exclamation points. In other words, I took the high road.

Lincoln: I'm proud of you.

We need a little movie magic

Politics are really starting to disgust me. No one is listening to the other side anymore and everyone would rather shout sound bites and tweet at each other via Twitter than actually get anything done. Politicians tiptoe around each other because God forbid the other side get something they can run on the opposing side's networks on a 24/7 news cycle.

President Obama gave a fairly fiery speech over Labor Day weekend to a union crowd. I didn't watch it but I heard Newt Gringrich talking about it yesterday. He said that it wasn't appropriate for a President to be giving a speech like that anymore now that he isn't a candidate and that the President needs to present a speech that caters to both sides of the aisle before praising Obama's speech to students yesterday for doing just that. (Ironic, really, since the Republicans were screaming that the speech to students would indoctrinate our children to the President's socialist plan to bring down our country.)

Well tonight the President is going to address a joint session of Congress in hopes of getting the health care plan moving. I don't know what he's going to say. I don't even know what I think he's going to say since all the networks, blogs, and newspapers are constantly saying something different but I just hope he says something.

We don't need any more of this wishy-washy political caution. This country needs someone to come in and say, to BOTH sides of the political aisle, "Listen up! You guys are the political leaders of this country. You have been voted into office to help the people of this country. You are not here to cater to lobbyists who line your pockets. You are here for the people who have no voice. You are here for the people that do have a voice. You are here to serve EVERYONE so shut the fuck up and stop acting like children. " And then he needs to lock them in the capitol and take away their blackberries and their computers and their cell phones and tell them no one is allowed to come out until SOMETHING has been accomplished. I don't care what. I don't care which side "wins". Just fucking do something and stop all this "he said / she said / death panels / socialist agenda" crap. They all need to get their heads out of their asses and their hands out of the pockets of whoever pays the most money to buy their vote and get back to RUNNING THE DAMN COUNTRY!!!!!!!

Can you tell I'm fired up about this?

Anyway, here is a cinematic version of what we need from Obama's speech tonight. Someone who is sick of the media spin and the critics coming at him over pointless trivia and not even bothering to debate policy.

Update: email conversation between myself and the principal

HER RESPONSE:

Hi Diane,

Thank you for your email. At the elementary level, we will implementing the regular curriculum on September 8th. My understanding is that courses that address current events, at the secondary level, will be more apt to show the president's speech on Tuesday. I intend to view the speech and incorporate the message of setting goals and hard work in my "assemblies" with the students on Thursday.

Mrs. S.

MY RESPONSE:

Thank you for your response. I'm disappointed that you're not showing it to at least the older grades because last year the kids were actively engaged in the presidential election - including a mock election and writing essays on what they would do as President - and I think this would be a good opportunity for them to see more about the presidency and its impact on America at a level that they could understand. I fully intend to watch this with Hannah at home on YouTube but unfortunately the content of this message won't be reaching the students at Memorial who might need this most. If parents fail their students the school should be there to fill in the gap. I fear that in this incidence both the parents and school may be failing our children.

I realize that this issue is a landmine of political sensitivity since so many parents are objecting to its content based merely on the messenger and not the message itself, and that there really hasn't been time to get the approval of the parents, but I think that the video should be given, at bare minimum, review and consideration to be aired for the children at a later date with the grade appropriate discussion.

diane

President Obama's planned speech to children on 9/8

I will refrain from a long, long, LONG posting regarding the stupidity, hatred, bigotry, partisanship, ass-stupid logic of those opposing President Obama's speech to the country's youth about HARD WORK, RESPONSIBILITY, AND STAYING IN SCHOOL and merely post a copy of my email to the school principal to speak for me.

Has a decision been made whether or not Memorial will air this speech? I, for one, am in total favor of it and I really hope you guys do it. To not air it is teaching children to fear that with which they don't agree and that with enough uproar anyone can have their voice silenced. If the President of the United States can be silenced on a topic as innocuous as hard work, responsibility, and being encouraged to stay in school then what hope do our children have to stand up for what they believe in and make their voices heard?

Death

I fear death.

Over the last few days I have been trying to compose a blog posting in my head regarding the passing of Senator Kennedy but haven't known how to start. I have talked with Lincoln about the fact that, love him or hate him, one of the greatest senators of our time has died. And with it a political era that will never return. In today's coverage of politics 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year we expect our politicians to be perfect. In a time where you can email your senator or pick up a phone and call, or heck, send them a tweet via Twitter, you expect them to be everything you're looking for and have no flaws. And even when they're "perfect" via political standards the press, and the public at large, will pick apart their personal lives. Heck, when I watch political speeches these days I don't watch them for their content. I don't watch them and wait for the next "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." I watch them and try to anticipate what nit picky little thing the press, on both sides of the political spectrum, will pick up on and turn into the next great debate. Take for example the fact that Michelle Obama wore shorts on their family trip to the Grand Canyon. THE HORROR! Wearing shorts in Arizona in August? Who does that sort of thing? Our democracy will come crashing down!

During the funeral mass Vicki Kennedy was shaking the hands of all the dignitaries and leaning in to kiss them on the cheek. When she came to Michelle Obama they both went in the same direction creating an awkward moment. My first thought was "Oh no! Who broke protocol? Is this the story that FOX News will run for the next 6 months?"

But I digress.....

We expect our politicians to be perfect. And when they're not we move them out of office as quickly as possible. If there is a hint of something bad the politician quickly stands at a podium, usually with his stoic wife by his side, confesses his transgressions, announces his resignation, and moves off into oblivion. Ted Kennedy never did that.

He wasn't flawless by any stretch of the imagination. Nor were his brothers. Marital affairs, alcohol, criminal activity (whether you believe in their connections to the mob, Ted's actions at Chappaquiddick, or any other charge filed against them and their family), and God knows what else, but overall they did a lot of good for this country.

Historians always say that in this day and age Franklin Delano Roosevelt would never have been elected president because he was in a wheelchair. That didn't make him any less of a great politician. Ted Kennedy, by today's standards, should have been run out of Washington D.C. on a rail, but our country would have been worse off for it. His work on civil rights, women's rights, the rights of the poor, and the rights of the sick may never have happened. Every person receiving minimum wage or taking leave through the Family Medical Leave Act or protected in their work place through OSHA would be worse off if Ted Kennedy had been required to live up to 2009 political standards throughout his 47+ year career in the U.S. Senate. A politician of his stature and tenure will never again live in the U.S. Senate thanks to our current political, and more importantly, media based society.

I watched the funeral coverage. It was quite moving. Listening to Ted Kennedy Jr. eulogize his father just about broke my heart. Patrick's was less heart-wrenching but most likely only because I had already cried my eyes out. I broke down again when they exited the church and Caroline Kennedy was walking beside the casket of her uncle. If Ted Kennedy was the patriarch of the family then Caroline Kennedy was the symbol of loss for me. Despite my being born almost 14 years later I can perfectly picture her and JFK Jr. standing at their father's funeral. She lost her mother and then her brother and I remember thinking "How does she bear to be the last remaining survivor of her family?"

The funeral coverage yesterday was very moving. Obviously every movement of the family's day was documented in minute detail but I thought it incredibly poetic, and incredibly moving, that in the most private of moments yesterday, those rare and few moments before the casket of your loved one is put into the ground forever and the last tangible symbol of their existence, the casket, is forever placed out of view, the greatest technology and media advances could not take away that private moment. The Kennedy family had obviously allowed the media to be part of the ceremony but due to delays and the setting sun that no one can control, the Kennedy clan was given a moment of visual privacy that was unexpected but entirely deserved. We as a country may have been able to hear everything (and even that was questionable at times when the provided microphone didn't work) but every television channel that I turned to was thwarted by the oncoming darkness and able to show only symbolic footage of the bugler standing in front of a beautifully lit building in Arlington Cemetery or that of the Washington Monument. For once Vicki Kennedy and the rest of the Kennedy clan did not have the eyes of the world on them during their moment of grief. For a family that lived, and grieved, entirely in the public eye, it was fitting that they get that moment of privacy even when living in the least private era of our country's history.

But once again I digress.....

This post wasn't supposed to be about Ted Kennedy. It started out with the phrase "I fear death" and it was watching those people mourning Ted Kennedy that my writer's block finally broke free.

I fear death.

Not mine. Once I'm gone, I'm gone. I don't expect to be floating on the other side mourning my own loss. I fear the death of my children. The death of my husband. The death of my parents and sister. I fear that I am not strong enough to handle it. In the situation of my own death I fear only the grieving of my husband, children, and family. I don't want them to feel the way that I will when they pass. Watching the funeral coverage of Ted Kennedy I couldn't help but be amazed whenever they showed Vicki Kennedy. To grieve with the whole world watching would be my worst nightmare. And I'm sure, despite her incredible stoicism in front of the cameras, that every private moment she had was racked with horror and grief at the passing of her beloved husband.

I haven't had much loss in my family,thank God. My Grandpa Benson passed away a few years ago and that was incredibly sad but not entirely unexpected. My Grandma Lentz passed away last September and, once again, that was incredibly sad but not entirely unexpected. But last November my Uncle Linus passed away and that was horrible. It was unexpected, heart-wrenching, unexplainable, and everything else that I can't put into words right now. There was much debate whether or not I would go back for his funeral and I did a long blog post on the reasons why I needed to be there. I fear death. I fear handling death. I fear dealing with death. I fear the emotions that will overwhelm me with death. I fear the impact my death will have on Lincoln and my children.

And that's what it all comes down to. Days of wrestling with what to write about how the death of a senator from Massachusetts will impact the political world as we know it and it all comes down to watching his family grieve and realizing that more than anything else in this world I fear death. But, with the exception of how it will affect Lincoln and the kids, just not my own.

I fear death.

Wow....and this from my secretly Republican leaning husband

Tonight Lincoln and I were watching an NBC News Special on Obama and the following conversation took place.

Lincoln: What happened to W? Did they kill him off?

Me: laughing

Lincoln: Seriously, I mean I don't pay much attention to the news but I haven't heard anything about him since he left office.

Me: I think he said something about "The new President deserves my silence."

Lincoln: America deserves his silence.

Rove vs. Carville

Last night I attended an event at a local performing arts center.  It was part of the "2009 Speaker Series: Live and Uncensored" and last night's event had Karl Rove and James Carville debating each other with Charlie Rose moderating.  It was pretty interesting.

Karl Rove obviously has a lot more riding on things since he's fresh off of 8 years playing the role of political mastermind.  He was full of facts and figures and had statistics coming out of his ears until my eyes glazed over and I was about to start begging for charts and diagrams to help me keep them straight.  He is clearly still in the mindset of trying to defend George Bush's presidency while also trying to control what happens in the future to the Republican party.  He was defensive, over-bearing, and surprisingly convincing at times.  It was interesting to watch him in action and realize just how he controlled so much of the political scene over the last decade or so.  He can take any statistic or fact and turn it around to make it sound exactly the way he wants it to.  There were times last night where I thought to myself "Hmmm....good point....Hey!  Wait a second!"  He is a total master of the spin.

James Carville was very entertaining.  He, of course, was the guy that ran Bill Clinton's campaign and obviously is a bit more distanced from the process than Karl Rove.  He was entertaining and full of zippy one-lines but definitely had less overall substance last night.  And part of that comes from the fact that he was not trying to defend the least popular president in (recent) history. He just sort of let Karl ramble on and on and then he'd throw out something like "Keep talking Karl.  It won't change anything." and "Facts are facts.  They speak for themselves."  He didn't fight back much but he also didn't need to.  Karl was digging a big enough hole on his own.

The political make-up of the crowd was pretty surprising to me.  It seemed to be about 60/40 when it came to Democrats and Republicans.  Massachusetts is such a liberal state that I thought it would have leaned more left but it was fairly balanced (or as balanced as Massachusetts gets).  You could tell that Karl Rove hadn't spent a lot of time in Massachusetts or done much research on our political issues.  During an election it would be pretty much a waste of time and money for a Republican so why would he have?  He offered up "No Child Left Behind" as one of Bush's biggest successes while in office and that's a pretty hot topic here in Massachusetts on both sides of the aisle.  It was probably the only time that nearly the ENTIRE crowd loudly booed him.  Otherwise it was pretty evenly split.

All in all it was an entertaining show.  I have to say, my favorite part was when Karl Rove was complaining that Charlie Rose kept interrupting him (Karl does ramble....a LOT).

Karl Rove: Stop interrupting me.  You don't interrupt James!

Charlie Rose: He doesn't whine!

Classic!

And this guy wants to get back into a power position?

Jon Stewart: You're using socialism as an adjective?

Newt Gringrich: No, I'm using it as a descriptor.

I don't have the greatest grasp of grammar but isn't that pretty much what an adjective is?

A Presidential place to rest my head

This morning I've been emailing back and forth with the hotel where we're staying when we're back in Decorah this summer.  I had called them about my confirmation and realized that they had us down for a different room then I had originally requested.  After getting everything straightened out we're now in the room I thought I had reserved back in February.  When the GM wrote me back she told me they now call that the "Obama Suite" since that is the room he stayed at when he was in Decorah.  

I wonder if he ate at Mabe's too?  Georgie would probably know the answer to that one.  Rachel, you'll have to look into that and let me know.

Why is the rest of the country always trying to steal our holidays

Back in 2001 George W. Bush tried (I'm not sure if he was successful or not....which is probably my answer) to make 9/11 Patriot's Day. He was obviously ignoring the fact that Maine and Massachusetts already celebrate Patriot's Day on the 3rd Monday of April. Now the Conservatives are trying to take over the Boston Tea Party by having people hold "Tea Parties" today to protest what the government is doing with our tax dollars.

I would be more upset by it except I can't help but laugh every time a serious TV commentator encourages people to tea bag the government. They are encouraging people to send tea bags to the government as a form of protest. For those of you that don't get the joke (those few readers that I might have that are pure of mind and body) you can click here to get the Urban Dictionary definition of what sexual act the conservative movement is encouraging Americans to do today. Technincally tea bagging is actually illegal in many states....including Washington D.C. You also have to wonder why no young intern bothered to tell the executives what it meant before letting it go on air. Ahh.....good times.

Anyway....back to my original point.....HANDS OFF OUR MASSACHUSETTS HISTORY AND HOLIDAYS!!!

Pirates? Seriously?

Me: You know, in George W.'s presidency he had to deal with dictators and terrorists. Obama has pirates. You have to wonder if someone walked into the room and said "Sir, we have a situation. There are pirates" and he just raised his eyebrows and said "Pirates? Seriously?"

Lincoln: Yeah, what is this? The 18th century? What's next....rickets?