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Out of Touch By BOB HERBERT
Published: May 1, 2009
The incredibly clueless stewards of the incredibly shrinking Republican
Party would do well to recall that it was supposedly Abe Lincoln, a
Republican, who said that you can't fool all the people all the time.
Readers'
Most of us aren't old enough to remember the Great Depression.
But "The Grapes of Wrath," stark photographs of pathetically poor folk with life's spark absent from their eyes, and Dust Bowl accounts somberly related by Grandpa have given us grim insight into how hard times were for so many back then.
The elders of my family talked about it often while I was growing up.
What I recall most vividly from those retellings is the contemptuous sneering over Republican President Herbert Hoover's response to the staggering calamity unleashed after Wall Street's 1929 crash.
The impoverished masses were expected to sell apples on street corners to survive!
Under left-wing leadership, the American people angrily rejected such absurdity, mustering sufficient militancy to force FDR's enactment of the broadly beneficial New Deal. They also organized the great industrial unions that gave ordinary citizens the means to attain prosperity and protection on a nationwide scale.
Ever since, conservative Republicans have reached deeply into their rotting bag of depravity to constantly come up with increasingly more selfish schemes to try to undo whatever gains workers have won through necessary, arduous struggle.
One particularly vile effort was "Reaganomics," so destructively thrust upon us during the awful '80s.
Prior to that period, the only poverty I'd ever experienced was in the early '60s, when Eastern mining companies abruptly quit Upper Michigan's once-booming Gogebic Iron Range. Everyone was suddenly jobless, Dad included.
We received welfare assistance for several months, manifested most notably by cans of Kennedy-era USDA mystery meat on Mom's pantry shelves. Our local economy eventually rebounded, but not soon enough to erase my lingering memory of that meat's "unique" taste.
The Reagan recession, though, was much harsher. It affected many millions more.
What's worse, it was deliberately contrived, to break the back of union power and thereby transfer American societal wealth to corporate/financial coffers to a degree that made storied sea piracy seem ethical and paltry in comparison.
Members of my extended family and I were unemployed for an excruciatingly long while. The same could be said for most everyone we knew. Packages of generic macaroni and cheese were supermarket shoppers' first pick, and easily half the passengers on our city buses were down-and-out souls either going to or coming from selling their blood plasma, out of desperate need.
Meanwhile, this country's upper crust -- the primary Republican constituency -- flourished like a fattening pig.
Huge tax breaks for the wealthy, coupled with deregulation of all institutions having direct bearing on the quality of our lives, and our very safety, became the American norm.
Most of us finally went back to work, but at jobs that generally paid much less than those we'd held earlier. Former auto makers became hamburger flippers at fast-food joints.
Rapacious class warfare conducted against America's wage-earning majority -- an open plunder thinly disguised by "trickle down" balderdash -- became thoroughly institutionalized.
Along with all this came the rapid growth of deep, ultimately insoluble contradictions that, in the final quarter of 2008, would make a very compelling case for Karl Marx's famous quote that "capitalists are their own gravediggers."
The entire system collapsed, most spectacularly in its finance sector, but chiefly because American labor had been exploited for so long that workers could no longer afford to buy back what they themselves produced. "Consumer confidence" understandably eroded, and store shelves gathered dust in the uneasy months before their final going-out-of business sales.
Giving Marx credit again where it's definitely due, here is the long-predicted "overproduction crisis" for which private-profit capitalism simply has no solution.
Into this impending catastrophe came Barack Obama, a decent man with ultimate loyalties lying with the common people, by whose status he knows that America's societal health must be measured. Not by how flush and plush things might be with a tiny, superrich minority.
So Obama and the Democrats sought to advance a "stimulus package" to "jump-start" the failing economy.
Never mind that it was too little, too late, or that probably nothing can be done, now, to slow our greased-skid slide to disaster.
Republicans resisted this good-faith effort with all the typical, pro-plutocracy nonsense they could shamefully muster. They wanted even more tax advantages and subsidies for business interests, coupled with demands for less regulation, forgetting that the Bernie Madoff rip-off and the current peanut-butter salmonella scare are two salient examples of deregulation's abject bankruptcy.
Cancer-stricken Ted Kennedy had to return to Washington, since his vote was needed by the Democrats to prevent a Republican senatorial filibuster.
All this completely wrong-headed obstructionism occurred as the unemployment rate soared to record levels and mass hardship was becoming epidemic. Elkhart, Indiana will soon be Everytown, USA.
It happened shortly after one of our community's television stations ran a sobering piece on area homelessness, featuring a man who lived in a scrap-built shelter in the woods, when the wind chill routinely exceeded 30 below!
Where is the "Christianity" of those who greedily devote all their efforts to preserving their privileged, luxurious status, derived by a parasitic sucking of working-class lifeblood?
What manner of "human" can see profit and suffering before him, know that relentless pursuit of the former inevitably causes the latter, and still blithely seek more profit, at the painful expense of public welfare and the common good?
Before our sofas and televisions become evicted furniture out on the sidewalks, we need to rise from our torpor and fight back, like our forebears did in the Rebel '30s, using exactly the same tactics.
Get mad as hell. Unite, organize.
This is our country, and we can't allow traitors loyal only to The Almighty Dollar to destroy America.
_______
About author
Dennis Rahkonen, from Superior, Wisconsin, has been writing progressive commentary with a Heartland perspective for various outlets since the Sixties.
Recent Republican losses in Pennsylvania have been spurred by defections from among the party's more affluent and better-educated voters.
One of the strongest recent currents in Pennsylvania politics has been a shift of registered voters from Republican to Democrat. A new survey suggests that this change has been led disproportionately by some of the GOP's more upscale members, estranged by the Bush administration and the unpopular war in Iraq.
Muhlenberg College's Institute of Public Opinion looked at a sample of the hundreds of thousands of former Republicans who have swelled the ranks of Democrats over the last two federal election cycles.
In May 2006, just months before an election in which the GOP lost four House seats along with Rick Santorum's Senate seat, Democrats held a registration lead of roughly 550,000. By last November, as President Barack Obama was carrying the state by the widest margin of any White House contender in decades, the Democratic advantage had grown to 1.2 million voters.
The Democratic registration tide was swelled by the unprecedented grass-roots organization put together by the Obama campaign. But the Muhlenberg findings suggest that it also reflected a longer-term reaction against Republican policies.
A majority, 53 percent, of those who left the GOP had been members of the party for at least 20 years. Most described themselves as moderate, 37 percent, or liberal, 27 percent -- an obvious contrast to a party overwhelmingly composed of voters who describe themselves as conservative.
A strong majority of the switchers, 67 percent, also described themselves as in favor of abortion rights.
They also were more likely to characterize their decision to leave the GOP as the result of changes in the party's positions, rather than changes in their own political views -- 37 percent to 21 percent. By a wide margin, 67 percent, the respondents cited former President Bush as a "very important" catalyst for their decision to leave the party. Fifty-four percent cited the Iraq war. When asked to agree or disagree with a series of statements about the GOP, 53 percent said the party had "become too extreme in its positions."
Forty-six percent said they were closer to the Democratic Party on taxes, and 38 percent said they were closer to the Democratic Party's position on issues such as gay marriage and abortion and roughly a third agreed with the statement, "The influence of the religious right on the Republican Party's social positions led me to leave the party."
Of those who made that ideological journey, 25 percent said their incomes exceeded $100,000 and another 26 percent said they made between $60,000 and $100,000. Just 26 percent said they made less than $40,000.
Twenty-four percent said they had a graduate degree, 25 percent had graduated from college, and another 29 percent said they had at least some post-high school education.
Chris Borick, the Muhlenberg political scientist who directed the survey, said that, "Among the troubling signs [for the state GOP] is that you're losing pretty long-term loyal Republicans. They're suburban, like those around Philadelphia. They're better educated, wealthier individuals.''
Only 22 percent of the former Republicans said they were likely to change their registration again in the next five years. But Mr. Borick pointed out that some of the bigger influences prompting the shifts -- the Iraq war and the Bush presidency -- now present lower profiles on the political horizon.
"That poses some opportunities," he said. But he added that, for many of the former party members, "There are more systemic issues -- a lot of these people are the moderates and the more liberal Republicans."
James O'Toole can be reached at jotoole@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1562.
First published on February 7, 2009 at 12:00 am
Pretty good..equal opportunity offenders...offendee's? Ya...
Public financing., and free ad's on TV/radio: Noone should have 2 buy that expensive time. It only fills the coffers of the already rich owners of the copr media. They are our public airwaves, and they should also be held accountable for the content of said airwaves. The duopoly the 2 party system operates under is a sham. And there are many more of those from Wall St/--to Madison Ave, to D.C. and back through the pentagon, defense contractors. Ok--enjoy please!!
----- Original Message -----
From: Richard Miller Sent: Monday, December 08, 2008 10:46 AM
The following is a quick, even bi-partisan, read on just about all the people responsible for the current status of our once-great country. If there ever was a time to cultivate voter disgust with both parties, it was 2008.
Dick Miller
Mayor of Greenville, PA
(724) 588-0360
rhmiller@keystoneresearch.net
Wanna quick bi-partisan read on why we're where we are today and who bears a lot of the responsibility? Here's something for everybody, Democrats & Republicans alike from writer Ben Cohen. And it's worth reading both lists!
On Monday of last week, I published an article '10 Republicans Who Should Go Away'. For some reason, the article went down a storm and received well over 100,000 hits. Reading the comments and emails I received was probably more fun than writing the article (which I enjoyed immensely), but I was a little taken aback at the debate I seemed to have sparked off. A host of conservative bloggers were up in arms, raging about liberal 'hate' I was spewing, and the temerity I was showing for insulting their idols. Neal Boortz called me a 'Moonbat', and Michelle Malkin fans left comments on my site accusing me of being a 'liberal terrorist' and a 'communist'. I did however, receive some intelligent emails asking why I was only focusing on Republicans.
The Democrats have in some ways, been worse than the Republicans. As a party, they've stood idly by as the Bush Administration has literally ransacked the country, trashing the constitution and driving the national debt into unchartered territory.
So in order to show the Right that progressives are not reflexive liberals, I thought I would pen an article listing the top 10 Democrats who should go away. And by 'go away', I don't mean censor, or prevent from speaking. I'm asking that they do it themselves - shut up for the good of the country. Here they are (in no particular order):
1. Joe Lieberman
Lieberman is not a Democrat in any real sense of the word - he is a foreign policy hawk and a fiscal conservative, remaining liberal on only a few token issues (abortion, gay rights etc). Lieberman was a vociferous supporter of the War in Iraq, threatening Democrats if they didn't support it and hyping up the non-existent threat from Iran (a country that spends the same amount in a year on its military as the U.S does in a week in Iraq). Lieberman is the quintessential corporate shill, selling his soul to the pharmaceutical companies and defense contractors while painting himself as a 'moral' Democrat, mostly because he doesn't cheat on his wife (see his outrage over Monica Lewinsky) and believes in blowing up Arabs whenever possible. Supporting John McCain was one thing, but breaking a pledge not to go negative on Obama was completely unforgivable. The only reason Joe is still a Democrat is because his party is almost as spineless as him, and won't throw him out for fear of appearing too liberal.
2. Mark Penn
It's hard to find a kind word about Mark Penn, CEO of PR company Burson-Marsteller and chief strategist of Hillary Clinton's campaign. Penn is about as greedy as they come in the modern era of political hackery and corporate corruption, and Penn has his fat little fingers in about as many dodgy pies as humanly possible. Burson Marsteller has represented stellar companies like Black Water and Countrywide, and lobbied hard for Free Trade agreements that have wrecked the lives of millions of poor people. While Hillary Clinton went on an anti NAFTA campaigning jaunt throughout the Mid West, Penn was busy promoting a free trade agreement between the U.S and Columbia at the behest of leading human right's violator and president of Columbia, Alvaro Uribe. So corrupt was Pen, that he had to resign from Clinton's campaign (never known for its purity), and publicly apologize for the clear conflict of interest. In terms of strategy, Penn exemplifies the slash and burn politics of Karl Rove, using anything and everything to win. He wanted to use Obama's foreign upbringingduring the primary, focusing on his lack of 'American values'. He wrote in a strategy paper:
All of these articles about his boyhood in Indonesia and his life in Hawaii are geared towards showing his background is diverse, multicultural and putting that in a new light.....
It also exposes a very strong weakness for him—his roots to basic American values and culture are at best limited. I cannot imagine America electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values.
We've not heard much from Penn in the political arena since, and hopefully it will stay that way. He'll no doubt continue to destroy the lives of poor people in the corporate world, but his stock as a political consultant was damaged badly after the Clinton debacle. Penn is not obsolete, but with operatives like David Axelrod and David Plouffe taking center stage, his days are seriously numbered.
3. Harry Reid
When Reid the Democrats took power in 2006, they were elected by war weary citizens that were fed up with President Bush and the Neo Conservatives. Despite his position as Senate Majority Leader, Reid failed spectacularly to reduce war funding or establish a firm time timetables for troop removal from Iraq. Reid showed the cojones of a neutered kitten, and has spent the last two years backing down to the Bush Administration instead of doing what he was put in power to do: stand up, and stop the war. When the effort to put timetables for withdrawal in the war funding bill failed to override Bush' veto, Reid and other members of Congressional leadership caved and gave Bush all the money he asked for in the first place. Amazingly, Reid didn't even push for a compromise. Should Obama follow a more centrist agenda than he promised during his campaign, you can bet Reid won't do anything to hold him accountable.
4. Nancy Pelosi
Nancy Pelosi finds herself on this list for many of the sames reasons as Harry Reid. Failing to enact a serious time tables for withdrawal from Iraq, as well as repeated caving to the Bush Administration's war efforts, Pelosi also refused to seriously consider impeaching President Bush. Pelosi argued her role as Speaker of the House was to "try to bring a much divided country together," and that "impeachment would be divisive.". She believed that Congressional Leaders would not be able to further their Democratic agenda in the midst of an impeachment process, regardless of the overwhelming evidence that serious crimes had been committed. Representative Dennis Kucinich introduced 35 articles of impeachment that asserted directly that impeachable offenses (crimes) had been committed. These crimes include taking a nation to war based on lies, the deaths of a million Iraqis (constituting a war crime), illegal wiretapping, rendition, torture, and illegal detention. If impeachment can't take place because it's politically inconvenient,it begs the question as to whether or not the Legislative Branch still serves as a check and balance on the Executive Branch. According to Pelosi it can't, and as a consequence, her name will go down as one of the most ineffective Speakers in history.
5. Chris Matthews
Chris Matthews seems like a genuinely nice guy. He loves politics, and he loves his job, but for all the wrong reasons. Matthews knee slapping, frat boy journalism has contributed massively to the dumbing down of politics in America. The title of one segment in his show is called 'The Politics Fix', which really says it all. For Matthews, political issues are to be consumed like cups coffee, quenching an addiction rather than enlightening our intellect. Discussions often look like public masturbation as 'experts' of various sorts are invited to pontificate on inane subjects they've specialized in. In a panel discussion, here's what Matthews had to say about President Bush's 'Mission Accomplished' speech back in 2003:
"We're proud of our president. Americans love having a guy as president, a guy who has a little swagger, who's physical, who's not a complicated guy like Clinton or even like Dukakis or Mondale, all those guys, McGovern. They want a guy who's president. Women like a guy who's president."
Most disturbingly, Matthew's analysis of the war consisted of how it rated with undersexed housewives:
"Check it out. The women like this war," he said with a straight face. "I think we like having a hero as our president. It's simple. We're not like the Brits. We don't want an indoor prime minister type, or the Danes or the Dutch or the Italians, or a [Russian Federation President Vladimir] Putin. Can you imagine Putin getting elected here? We want a guy as president."
Thanks Chris. Don't worry about the thousands of innocent lives lost in the invasion, the enormous waste of tax payers money and monumentally catastrophic consequences for the region. Matthews is capable of real journalism when he wants to, and is apparently looking to run for the Senate in 2010 as a Democrat. Let's hope he grows up by then and takes it seriously.
6. Rep John Dingell
The long-serving Michigan congressman has been this single biggest road block to better fuel emissions standards, and to all other forms of regulation on the automakers. Though generally a progressive Democrat, his intransigence in terms of fuel emissions standards is completely intolerable. Not only are GM, Ford, and Chrysler his three biggest campaign donors, his wife Debbie Dingell is GM's chief lobbyist. He has been one of the primary behind-the-scenes players in Detroit's downfall, shielding the automakers from all of the disastrous failures of the last 20 years and helping them resist true innovation and progress. Thomas Friedman, strangely, had some pretty harsh words for Dingell in a recent NYT op-ed:
The blame for this travesty not only belongs to the auto executives, but must be shared equally with the entire Michigan delegation in the House and Senate, virtually all of whom, year after year, voted however the Detroit automakers and unions instructed them to vote. That shielded General Motors, Ford and Chrysler from environmental concerns, mileage concerns and the full impact of global competition that could have forced Detroit to adapt long ago.
Indeed, if and when they do have to bury Detroit, I hope that all the current and past representatives and senators from Michigan have to serve as pallbearers. And no one has earned the "honor" of chief pallbearer more than the Michigan Representative John Dingell, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee who is more responsible for protecting Detroit to death than any single legislator.
There is some good news on the Dingell front though. Since he just lost the Chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee to the Mustache of Justice, (otherwise known as Henry Waxman), we might already be rid of him. But its still a little early to throw the party.
7. Robert Rubin
No one has done more to create, and less to help alleviate, the current financial crisis than the former Secretary of the Treasury, and current CitiGroup Chairman. His deregulatory stance, and refusal to regulate derivatives as Secretary of the Treasurary laid the groundwork for the Bush abdication of financial regulation. An October 9th article from the NY Times points out that in 1997, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, headed by Brooksley Born, invited comments on how to best oversee certain deriviatives:
"Ms. Born was concerned that unfettered, opaque trading could "threaten our regulated markets or, indeed, our economy without any federal agency knowing about it," she said in Congressional testimony. She called for greater disclosure of trades and reserves to cushion against losses.
Ms. Born's views incited fierce opposition from Mr. Greenspan and Robert E. Rubin, the Treasury secretary then. Treasury lawyers concluded that merely discussing new rules threatened the derivatives market. Mr. Greenspan warned that too many rules would damage Wall Street, prompting traders to take their business overseas."
Months later, Ms. Born resigned and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission was stripped of its authority to regulate derivatives. Recently Mr. Rubin still failed to recognize his own culpability in the matter, saying "All of the forces in the system were arrayed against it...The industry certainly didn't want any increase in these requirements. There was no potential for mobilizing public opinion."
It must have been great to grow up in Bob Rubin's house, where as long a you wanted to do something and really, really didn't want rules, it would be okay. Unlimited candy for the kids? No problem! Ruined teeth and attention deficit disorder? Well, they didn't want to be regulated, so not my fault! How on earth he managed to end up as an adviser to Obama is anyone's guess, as Rubin is lucky he is not in jail.
8. Steny Hoyer (D-MD)-
Majority Leader Hoyer is a perfect example of the old saying "with friends like these, who needs enemies." In pursuit of nothing but his own aggrandizement, Mr. Hoyer led the charge to capitulate our Constitutional rights to the whims of the Bush Administration. Hoyer led the negotiations for the Telecom immunity bill, in which he judiciously negotiated away our rights as free citizens. As the eloquent and thorough Gleen Greenwald pointed out:
"It's bad enough watching the likes of Steny Hoyer, Rahm Emanuel and a disturbingly disoriented Nancy Pelosi eviscerate the Fourth Amendment, exempt their largest corporate contributors from the rule of law, and endorse the most radical aspects of the Bush lawbreaking regime. But it's downright pathetic to see them try to depict their behavior as some sort of bipartisan "compromise" whereby they won meaningful concessions...GOP House Whip Roy Blunt derided the telecom amnesty provision as nothing more than a "formality" which would inevitably lead to the immediate and automatic dismissal of all lawsuits against the telecoms, while Sen. Kit Bond taunted the Democrats for giving away even more than they had to in order to get a deal: "I think the White House got a better deal than they even had hoped to get."
In true Democrat style, Hoyer told us he was negotiating on our behalf, then actually gave Bush more authority than he had even wanted. He also unrepentantly (and unsurprisingly) voted for the Iraq War authorization. Thanks a bunch, Steny.
9. Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton may have pulled it out at the last minute for Obama, but his behavior during the primary was completely unforgivable. Racist innuendo, temper tantrums and outright lying, Clinton degraded himself to the point where close friends had to intervene through the prime time news. To boot, Clinton presided over huge deregulation of the financial sector, and helped ram through the disastrous NAFTA while in office. He then supported President Bush in the lead up to the War in Iraq (then had the gall to question Obama's policy judgment). Clinton is great at rallying Democrats, but represents virtually nothing they stand for. His slippery 'Third Way' politics consists mostly of extreme right wing economic policy packaged in left wing rhetoric, something we are hopefully moving away from. Sorry Bill, but you have to go.
10. Joe Lieberman
Yes, Joe Leiberman is such a dick head, he's on the list twice. Joe, please stop pretending you are a Democrat. The party has suffered enough humiliation over the past 8 years without you rubbing their faces in it. The peverse pleasure Lieberman seemed to be taking for trashing his party, smearing Obama and cheerleading the opposition should have been enough for any serious Democrat. Yet Lieberman got away with it and ended up keeping his position in the party - showing that no matter how pissed off the country is, the Democrats will work extremely hard to piss them off even more.
With a new political era looming, veterans of the old political arena will scramble to redefine themselves in order to make a living. Politicians, media commentators and analysts may be ill equipped to deal with the changing electorate, increased power of the blogosphere and massive discontent with the status quo. Who will survive in the modern epoch? Here are 10 who should really think about calling it quits:
1. William Kristol
There's no need to go on about how wrong Bill Kristol has been on just about everything, and what a spineless shrimp of a man he is. Just read this quote from an article he penned on the eve before the war in Iraq:
We are tempted to comment, in these last days before the war, on the U.N., and the French, and the Democrats. But the war itself will clarify who was right and who was wrong about weapons of mass destruction. It will reveal the aspirations of the people of Iraq, and expose the truth about Saddam's regime. It will produce whatever effects it will produce on neighboring countries and on the broader war on terror. We would note now that even the threat of war against Saddam seems to be encouraging stirrings toward political reform in Iran and Saudi Arabia, and a measure of cooperation in the war against al Qaeda from other governments in the region. It turns out it really is better to be respected and feared than to be thought to share, with exquisite sensitivity, other people's pain. History and reality are about to weigh in, and we are inclined simply to let them render their verdicts.
Case closed.
2. Sarah Palin
Former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin is the poster child of vacuous Republican imagery - hollow, loud and crass with no discernable talents other than an ability to attract stupid middle American house wives. Palin exploded onto the scene as John McCain's campaign started to wither, only for the 'Hockey Mom' to be exposed as a know nothing fraud. Claiming that Russia's visibility to Alaskans gave her foreign policy credentials and using sentences that even 'Dubya' would cringe at sealed her fate, plummeting McCain's campaign into the unelectable abyss. Unfortunately, Palin is doing the rounds on the media circuit, pumping her stardom for all its worth and priming herself for a run in 2012. The last thing America needs is another Bush style Republican, and Palin would represent that, but much, much worse.
3. Michelle Malkin
The Asian, female version of Bill O'Reilly, Malkin makes a living spouting hatred and idiocy to Fox News viewers. Malkin wrote a book called: In Defense of Internment: The Case for 'Racial Profiling' in World War II and the War on Terror. The book essentially defends the internment of Japanese Americans during World War Two and argues for more racial profiling of Arabs, which would be a bit like a Jew making the case for the holocaust in the name of German unity (OK, maybe not, but you get the point). Malkin's offensive views have earned her a spot on Andrew Sullivan's blog, where people can win 'Malkin Awards' for bigotry, prejudice or downright meanness. Malkin's crusade against liberals, gays and minorities means she will have a spot on Fox for the foreseeable future. As Matt Taibbi writes:
I’ll say this about Michelle Malkin: she has a future in this business. I see her replacing Ann Coulter in that right-wing dipshit hierarchy. The last few times I’ve seen Coulter on TV, I haven’t been able to take my eyes off her Adam’s apple. By 2012 she’s going to be doing ping-pong ball acts at drag clubs in Reno. Malkin, though, she’s hardworking, dumb, and shameless, just like Sarah Palin, who I think has a big future four years from now. So get ready for more of this stuff. It’s only just started and they’ve got four long years of target practice coming.
4. Dick Morris
A former Clinton political consultant turned Fox News 'Analyst', Morris made his living selling political imagery to ailing politicians, using his skills in lying, cheating and distortion to their maximum capacity. Morris backed John McCain for President, and was seen salivating over Sarah Palin on a regular basis, unable to disguise his creepy obsession with the 44 year old hot mom of many. Morris does his best to cozy up to his corporate pay masters in the Murdoch empire, and regularly publishes idiotic books like 'Condi vs Hillary- The next great Presidential race' (great call Dick). Thankfully, Dinosaurs like Morris are becoming irrelevant in the new political era, mostly because his lies are so egregious they are damaging to his party. While defending Morris from his jeering audience, John Stewart deftly put it "In fairness, Dick Morris is a lying sack of Shit".
5. Dick Cheney
The 'Dark Prince' of the Republican party, Cheney's obsession with American military prowess and fanatical dedication to the oil industry has made him the focal point of most liberal's rage. Cheney exists to service the needs of the rich and powerful, and is unafraid to put other people's lives at risk to ensure corporate profits and American hegemony. Cheney has always remained largely behind the scenes due to a distinct lack of personality and aura of extreme evil, but wields his influence expertly with his nuanced understanding of the dark arts of politics. Cheney is the epitome of a political hack, a gutless grey blob of a man with a record of detached violence and personal greed. We won't see much of him after next January, and hopefully someone will have the decency to arrest him should he venture out of the United States.
6. Mitt Romney
Mitt Romney's speech at the Republican Convention this year said it all about the Mormon multi millionaire. Having lost the primary to John McCain (despite spending $47 million dollars of his own money) Romney tried to suck up to the base and pitch himself for 2012 with one of the worst speeches in history. Incredibly, Romney tried to claim liberals were responsible for the awful mess his party made, saying Washington was 'too liberal', and that "We need change all right. Change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington". Here's the transcript of the awful debacle (try not to laugh too hard). Romney clearly wants to run in 2012, but he had better start believing his own bullshit before he tries to sell it again.
7. Alan Greenspan
Former head of the Federal Reserve, 'St Alan' presided over the whole scale deregulation of the financial industry, and has his grubby paws all over the tragic state of the economy. Greenspan's pathetic appearance at a congressional hearing in 2008 had him basically admit his philosophy was wrong:
I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interest of organisations, specifically banks, is such that they were best capable of protecting shareholders and equity in the firms ... I discovered a flaw in the model that I perceived is the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works.
Very good of him to admit, but try telling that to the millions of people losing their jobs and homes. Thankfully, Greenspan is retired so won't be able to do any more damage.
8. Bill O'Reilly
Bill O'Reilly isn't a hack, or even a Republican. He is just an asshole. His show continues to dominate the airwaves where he essentially shouts at liberals and ignores his guests. God knows why he is successful, but I suspect it is partially because of people's obsession with train wrecks. Liberals enrage O'Reilly to the point where he could easily suffer a heart attack or physically assault one of them on his show. O'Reilly is no fool, just blinded by emotional retardation and a complex about his middle class upbringing (O'Reilly's entire persona is that of a working man - something not supported by facts). He shows no sign of slowing down, but as a part of the minority in the near future, his voice won't be anywhere near as important.
9. Sean Hannity
Fox News presenter Sean Hannity is the quintessential hack - no brain, just a vacant space in his head for GOP talking points. Hannity is a smooth presenter, articulate and emotive, the perfect frontman for the bankrupt ideology he is paid to promote. Hannity has gone from dreadful to absolutely nauseating since Palin ignited his loins, gushing over the re emergence of brainless conservatism and filling his head with dreams of a conservative comeback in 2012. The visible anguish Hannity now shows after the Democratic victory is a joy to watch, clearly karmic pay back for the years of gloating over the sorry state of Democrats. Hannity was sick to his stomach after Obama was elected, and may develop some serious ulcers over the next four years. However, luckily for him, he may get treatment for free if Obama institutes universal health care.
10.George Bush
I've saved the best for last. The 'Decider' will go down as the worst President in the history of the United States, and as Chris Rock put it "Bush is not just the worst ever president of the USA, he’s the worst ever president, period. Of anything." It's hard to top the hyperbole commentators have used in describing just how bad Bush really was, because there aren't really words to do it justice. Bush has presided over monumental fuck up after monumental fuck up, groping his way through the president with the finesse of a 800lb gorilla. I tried to come up with a list of accomplishments he has achieved, and came up with the following:
1. He has increased financial support to Africa to alleviate AIDs and poverty.
2. ............
Uh, that's it.
He has presided over two disastrous wars, an increase in poverty at home, an increase in wealth inequality, an increase in the number of people without health care, a crisis in public education, the break down of national infrastructure, the literal drowning of a city, the use of torture as official policy, the biggest financial crisis in 80 years, and the irreversible decline of America's prestige abroad. Here is something to think about. Every ex President (aside from Ronald Reagan who had alzheimers) has a role to play in public life after office. They give advice, do lecture tours, write books, sit on boards of huge companies and head non-profit organizations. How many people do you think will be itching to receive advice from W? How many companies would have him on their board? Who would buy his autobiography? Who would pay to hear him speak? No one. And that pretty much sums it up.
much like Prez. Clinton's term...he tried to have more even handed wealth
distribution, instead of the 2nd gilded age of robber barons we have today. But--it seems the right does not like sharing much. I thought they were compassionate conservatives?
