The GOP Don't Know & Bush Don't Care

You remember the old joke about the frustrated professor who asks a student: “Are you ignorant or indifferent?” The response: “I don’t know and I don’t care.”

Which brings us to the GOP and the Bush Administration. Two events earlier this week confirmed that like the hapless student, they are ignorant and indifferent. (I say “this week.” I’m not sure how that makes this week different from any other. So just humor me and buy the premise.)

Let’s start with the GOP’s newly unveiled slogan, shall we? As we all know, the operative political buzz phrase for 2008 is “change.” Every Democratic candidate has been claiming he or she is the candidate of change. Makes sense. Things suck and the public figures change would be for the better. The GOP may have taken a peek at what they’ve accomplished over the past seven years and agree with the Dems’ assessment. So they decided to incorporate “change” into a new GOP slogan.

Unfortunately, the good “change” catchphrases have already been used by their opponents, so they came up with the wishy-washy “The change you deserve.” Like most catchphrases and ad slogans, it doesn’t actually say anything. I mean, what is the ‘change you deserve?” Logically, it might mean a new party running the show, but that’s probably not the GOP’s intent.

What the GOP may not have known is their new slogan isn’t so new. It’s being used to advertise a prescription drug called Effexor. I can tell you after a dozen years of satisfied personal use, Effexor is a highly effective mood enhancer. (“Mood enhancer” is a euphemism for “anti-depressant.”)

How good is Effexor? Ever since I started taking it I’ve been nothing but sunshine and lollypops. Not a cynical thought has crossed my mind. People are constantly admonishing me to stop being such a durn Pollyanna. “John,” they admonish, “You’re much too happy. Cheer down, will you?”

Did the GOP rip off Effexor’s slogan for it’s Ironic context? Naaah. Those humorless bozos wouldn’t appreciate Irony if it bit them on their lead-bottom asses. So let’s just call it incompetence, and move on.

This brings us to the “I don’t care” portion of our program. George W. Bush just told the country he gave up playing golf in 2003 because of the war in Iraq. Not to give him time to serve in it—we already know where Bush stands regarding personal combat—but out of respect for those serving there. Of course if he’d bothered to ask, those serving there might have voted for him still playing golf but stopping the war.

Forget the political implications for a moment. Only a pinhead like Dubya would try to convince people giving up golf is a sacrifice. Every year millions of Americans give up golf voluntarily because they suck at it and want to stop the bleeding. Others stop because it’s too expensive. Some military men have been forced to stop because they’re in Iraq or Afghanistan. Other soldiers stopped playing because they’re currently dead.

Of all the outrageous lies, prevarications and exaggerations Bush has foisted on this country, this ranks up at the top with Saddam bought Yellowcake and domestic spying is good for Democracy. Golf, as it has done for so many other golfers, help detach Bush to lie real good.

So Bush is a liar and an idiot, but he’s no fool. Since his popularity is already mucking around in Whale poop at the bottom of the ocean, one can only assume that he just doesn’t care anymore.

And that’s no lie.

Numbed Down as Well as Dumbed Down?

Is irony dead?

Or did I just imagine George W. Bush lectured the Myanmar Junta how to properly run their disaster?

Sure, those Myanmaniacs have gotten some 50,000-100,000 citizens killed with the help of a Typhoon--and Bush’s work in New Orleans pales in comparison--but doesn’t anyone get the essential absurdity of it all?

What does Bush want from Myanmar, a country he calls Burma in that cute way he still calls the Democratic Party the "Democrat Party"? Does he want Flyover rights? Does he Jones for a new photo op of him gazing longingly down from 35,000 feet over a tragedy he couldn’t be bothered to drop in on?

Or is Dubya hoping for a Burmese ice license, the better to load up and ship hundreds of tons of frozen water where it isn’t needed while ignoring where it is needed? (For this tragedy, may we suggest sending the ice to Iceland?)

Could Bush be looking for a new parking lot for the tens of thousands of trailers which never reached the people they were intended for?

Or maybe Bush just wants to don his Mr. Snugglecrotch flight suit again, land on a carrier and declare another Mission Accomplished?

And while the body count in Myanmar and N.O. don’t match up, let us not misunderestimate Bush’s Skilz as a Master of Disaster. Throw in the grotesquerie that is Iraq and Bush's body count rises significantly. Tote up dead Americans in Iraq and New Orleans plus dead Iraqis and it will likely sweep past the Burma Shave body count.

Yeah, I get it. The dudes running Myanmar are worse people than Bush, Cheney and Rummy combined. Certainly we can all agree Americans are generous to a fault when it comes to responding to international disasters. But if Dubya appointed “Heckuva Job” Brownie to run the show, would that shock us? Or are we Americans numbed down as well as dumbed down?

And another thing: What’s with Bush sending the Missus out as his Point Man? You don’t suppose he saw how Clinton put his Little Woman onstage to try to continue his dynasty and so Bush thought...Oh, dear God, NOOOOOOOOOO!

Old People have Sex; Tell Oprah

Let me start by noting I have nothing against good cosmetic surgery. Facelifts have been with us for a long time. So has Barbara Walters. It appears the twain have met.

Barbara is a legend. She is the Cal Ripken, Jr. of female TV news personalities. She is head and shoulders above them all, even Oprah, who may be bigger now, but can’t catch her for longevity or trailblazitudeness.

Barbara Walters (l)

How old is La Babs? They say late seventies, and we should all look that good and remain so vital at that age. I doubt, however, we’ll ever know Ms. Walters’ true age for sure without felling her and counting the rings in her legs—and I’m not advocating that--but my guess is she’s actually about 125 years young.

Recently, she appears to have sipped a Jeroboam of bubbly from her own Fountain of Youth. Either that or she’s had some extraordinary work. Babs, you look terrific. Her plastic surgery was so successful she got a frantic call form Priscilla Presley, who asked, “Mmmmm Gffff Mmmjmgh Mgggh?” Huzzah for her Plastique Surgeon. Dude rules.

With the single exception of the experimental Full Body Cap Regis had in December, it’s the finest work I’ve ever seen on a living human. (Full disclosure: After I contracted Bell’s Palsy in 2003, I had plastic surgery on an eye that drooped like dewlaps on a Bloodhound.)

Now the bad news. Apparently, Barbara’s latest rejuvenation has inspired her to announce to the world—maybe as a preemptive pre-outing strike—that she did the nasty last century with a now dead, then married formerly African-American, U.S. American Senator. Not just any dolt, but Sen. Edward Brook of the great State of Massachusetts.

Ooops. This just in! Edward Brook is still alive! No word on whether he wishes he were dead and/or wishes Babs had kept her pie hole closed. (More Full disclosure: To my knowledge, I have never slept with Barbara Walters. Or, for that matter, Edward Brook.)


Fat Chance of getting Babs to shut up about this. She is slated to babble on about her dalliance on—where else—Oprah. As if the meeting of the two Top Doyennes of television femaledum wasn’t enough, she‘ll talk about the affair there, and if time permits, jump on Oprah’s couch.

And this is the gift that keeps on giving. Geraldo has slithered out from the rock under which he hides to announce he really really wanted to nail Babs his own self, and shock of shocks, she turned him down.

Geraldo then theorized in that racially sensitive way he has that the shootdown was due to “Once you’ve been back, you never go back.” Not to be outdone, the current occupant of the Joan Rivers Chair of Cosmetic Reconstruction at UCLA, Cher, announced that she once nailed Tom Cruise. Cruise, of course, also is appearing on Oprah, not to deny dalliances with strange women—he has a enough trouble convincing people he even dallies with Katie--but to claim he’s not really wacky as a Loon. Uh-huh.

Then the new Governor of New York, David Patterson, announced the only reason he released his laundry list of illicit affairs was because he thought someone was about to out him on the matter. I’d love to have been a fly on the wall when he ‘splained that to the Missus.

I know I’m a voice crying in the Wilderness here, but enough, already. I’m no prude. I don’t poopoo Barbara or Cher or the Gov’s dalliances; nor do I condone them. Just, for God’ sake, shut up about it. The world is going to Hell in a Handbasket and when not discussing Obama’s Preacher, all the media can concern itself with is who was porking who decades ago in Senor Village.

I guess insecurity plus the years ticking by are not good for one’s sense of self-esteem, no matter the accomplishment to date or the quality of facial reconstruction. But, sadly, it appears Pallaver, Blather, Gossip and Glop have just become the new Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.