President Obama To Be Unfairly Yet Inevitably Tarred With Next Crisis

Why, O WHY does this America’s first black president have to get saddled with the next bubble burst?

As you know, our next president will be Barack Obama, who is, among other things, part black. Since he’s super-charismatic and smooth, and he’s got super-great ideas, he will of course be president for 8 years. (With Vice President Winfrey serving at least a term after that).

This is like when Herbert Hoover beat Al Smith in 1928. Al Smith, the first Catholic with a shot at being president, didn’t beat Hoover. When the stock market crashed, Catholics everywhere breathed a huge sigh of relief. If Smith had won, they figured, Catholics would have been blamed for the crash and the Great Depression.

Other presidents are associated with the cataclysmic events that took place during their tenure as president. Jimmy Carter is known for the hostage crisis and the gas crisis. George W. Bush will forever be associated with the events of 9/11. And the tortures inflicted by him on the English sentence. Gerald Ford is associated with the bumping of one’s head. Is that fair? No - lots of people bump their heads, but that’s what they remember him for.

Now, was the depression Hoover’s fault? Maybe, maybe not. The hostage crisis Jimmy Carter’s fault? Maybe, maybe not. At least they had the chance to fix it. At least government had the tools to fix those problems. They may have failed, but they controlled their own destiny. Given the nature of the next crisis, President Obama won’t have that chance. The forces of change that are swirling are totally beyond his, or any government’s control. It ain’t gonna be pretty, it ain’t gonna be his fault, but he’s gonna get stuck with it, and it’s going to suck.

I’m talking of course about the coming cataclysmic shift in men’s shorts. After years of dropping, dropping and dropping, men’s shorts, have become, well, pants. The pendulum is about to lurch back, to a time that was not so easy on the eyes.

Pictured here are a typical pair of men’s shorts in 2008. Much like tapered leg jeans ballooned into bell bottom jeans (we all swore an oath in the 80s we’d never wear them) the shorts will soon snap back to the shorts of the 1980s. It’s been over twenty years. Change is coming like a runaway freight train. Pale hairy men’s thighs. Coming soon to a city street in your community.

Think I’m joking? Here’s Larry and Magic “hanging out.” American icons. Back then these shorts WEREN’T WRONG AT ALL. These guys were COOL. Kids wanted to BE LIKE THEM.

Nobody wanted to be like McEnroe, but my point is look at those freakin' shorts.

Look at the future. Lemmy of Motorhead, the British chain-smoking Ace of Spades, shows you the horror and shame with which President Obama will be saddled.

Why? Sometimes life isn’t fair.

These men are "actors" playing homosexuals in a movie with a plot that required rubber gloves. Not the detail to focus on. The point of this photo is to show what’s going on “out there.” The gay community is getting out front on the shorts thing. Denim. Short. Lots of man leg. This is going to spill over and taint Nancy Pelosi’s reign as first woman Speaker of the House. I could just cry.

Here’s some asshole wearing “modest” short shorts.

This is as good as it will get for President Obama.

What fresh hell is this? I can just hear Dick Cheney laughing at the Democrats. Mocking. Luxuriating in Bermuda shorts or clam diggers. Shooting stuff.

Secretary of Education?

In summary, the life of a public servant is a harsh one. Life is harsh. But it is tragic and unfair that our first black president will be forever associated with god-awful men’s short-shorts. In the face of this crisis, we must all hope that President Obama resists the temptation to invade Iran just to distract the American people and historians everywhere from the unsightly spectacle of men’s upper thighs.

Ralph Nader, It's Time to Man Up and Stop Whining

Ralph Nader recently sat for an interview in the Wall Street Journal Weekend edition, May 31, 2008, by Tunku Varadarajan. I'd link it, but the WSJ is a pay site.

Let me first say that I think Ralph Nader has been a great American. Every society needs people standing on the fringes, hurling Molotov cocktails at the establishment, and letting those in power know they are there, and are watching. Nader went one step further. Rather than sit at his dining room table and type some lame blog, Nader went out and railed for change, and created change.

Nader of course ran for President in 2000 as the Green Party' nominee, ran again on his own in 2004 and is running again in 2008. In each of those runs, Nader has presented a lot of great positions, many of which, if adopted as policy, would make the world a better place. I'm glad that someone like Nader is pushing the envelope, and hopefully people will take a look at some of the things he's saying.

But here's the thing, and the reason I am writing: in the interview, Nader complains about being saddled with Al Gore's failure to be sworn in as President. He correctly points out that if Gore had carried Tennessee or performed more ably in Florida, the Green party would not have been a factor. I'll go farther and say that if Gore had been truer to himself, not run so distantly from Clinton, not chosen Lieberman as a running mate, he would have won. Coming off the eight years of prosperity of the Clinton years, the race should not have even been close.

But Ralph, in addition to all of those things, your candidacy caused the result. Yes, all of those things above are true were factors and these: Katherine Harris, Jeb Bush, five Republican Supreme Court justices, all of that. But so too, was your candidacy. It's time for you to pull up your socks and take a cold hard look at the fact that you took votes from Gore, causing, along with MYRIAD failures by the Democrats and aggressive manipulation by the Republicans, George W. Bush to become President. Despite everything else you have stood for all these years, and despite all the good intentions you may have had, your legacy will be, in part, that you participated in electing Bush and were a precipitating cause for Iraq, the Katrina response, No Child Left Behind, the Patriot Act, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzalez, Alito, Roberts, etc.

Why not just be a man and own it? Rather than whining about how Laurence Tribe blames you for the 2000 election and sniveling about all the reasons why it was everyone else's fault and not yours, why not just say it? "Yes, I took votes from Al Gore. I ran a third party campaign on the left, and that's what third-party campaigns typically do. They take votes away on the far right or far left, with the hope of pulling the political discourse in their direction." Would that be so hard? I don't know if you feel this way but you could even go on to say that "I regret that George W. Bush became President, but I still believe in the platform and the message and I think getting those things out was important."

And Ralph, you could certainly go on to point out that "It sure as HELL wasn't my fault he got elected the second time." No one could blame you for pointing that out.

I just can't take it anymore. I can't listen to Ralph Nader whine about how this wasn't his fault. It of course was not entirely his fault. But Ralph, we EXPECTED the Republicans to do all the things that they did, so stop being surprised that liberals are more hurt and angry by your role.

For more from Ralph see www.VoteNader.org.