THE CLARITY OF A FLORIDA ELECTION RECOUNT

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (5/31/08)

Senator McCain’s thinking is as clear as a Florida election recount. He claims that Senator Obama has no right to question his military and foreign policies because Obama never served in the military. Well, neither did George W. Bush nor Richard Cheney, and he thinks their war is just great. In one fell swoop, he has undercut his own judgment and policies.

I know how he feels. He’s old, as am I, and he often resents the young, as do I, especially when the young are right and I’ve been wrong. It’s hard to give up answers to questions no one is asking. The hymn says in best, “New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth.”

Fresh thinking and fresh ideas always make the old uncomfortable. When I was a young graduate student at the University of Chicago, I mistakenly took a seminar with the great theologian Paul Tillich who was at the end of his career instead of a seminar with an up and coming young theologian. I discovered Tillich was answering questions no one was asking anymore. So it is with McCain.

His mind was shaped by the failures of Vietnam. Military men tend to fight previous wars, not present ones. His economy policies reflect the Reagan era. In brief, he’s out-of-date.

The best military presidents we’ve had are Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt, neither of whom served in the military. Georges Clemenceau said, “War is too serious a matter to be left to military men.”

WHERE IS OUR GOVERNMENT?

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (5/23/08)

Mayor Joe Donaldson has said that he’s not going to turn his back on Representative Rick Renzi. There’s a lot to be said for loyalty. Well and good, so perhaps he can tell us where he is since he hasn’t turned his back on him. Rick seems to have disappeared which is unusual for an innocent man who’s been unjustly accused of having an “itchy palm.”

He claimed he’d hired an attorney to handle his case so that he would be free to serve the people. But how can a congressman serve the people in absentia? Perhaps, by having clandestine meetings with shady characters for land swaps.

And then there’s President Bush. Where’s he been? Well, off begging for oil from his pals in Saudi Arabia who, its turns out, aren’t his pals after all. They can’t even spare a dime for a pal in need. He might try the Russians or Iranians. He’s certainly not getting extra oil from the Iraqis after 3,990 American dead and 3 trillion dollars. He’s said that he sacrifices for his war effort by not playing golf. Is this guy serious? No, he isn’t. He’s a tragic joke. He’s not connected with the real world.

There’s an advantage to politicians in absentia whether they're in hiding or goofing off. They can’t do any harm, a point John McCain made with his claim that only veterans have a right to propose foreign and military policies which would eliminate George W. Bush and Richard Cheney who thought up the war he supports.

JOHN MC CAIN IS AN HONOURABLE MAN

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (5/19/08)

“But Brutus says he was ambitious; / And Brutus is an honourable man.” And so it is with John McCain. He doesn’t even need Shakespeare’s Mark Antony to tell us that he’s an honorable man. He tells us himself that he’s an honorable man. Brutus had just slain Julius Caesar because he claimed Caesar was an ambitious man. McCain claims he’s an honorable man just after five of his aides have left his campaign for conflicts of interest. People, politicians in particular, tend to proclaim their honor after they have been found morally compromised, like itchy fingered. McCain’s aides weren’t just ordinary aides, but lobbyists who peddled corporate and foreign influence to senators. Of course, McCain’s an honorable man. He merely associates with dishonorable men, men who’ve lobbied for Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Myanmar military junta.

In a previous time McCain became an honorable man after behaving dishonorably. ‘Twas l’affaire de le Cinq Keating, an affair in which a morally enfeebled senatorial ethics panel found him guilty of “questionable conduct.” The questionable conduct was a non-too-subtle attempt to pressure federal banking regulators to go easy on his friend, Charles Keating, who was later sent to prison. McCain had accepted $115,000 from Keating and his allies and nine vacations of Keating’s jets gratis. After being found morally wanting, he championed ethics reform.

Senator McCain habitually discovers his honor after having been exposed as dishonorable, honor being a cover for immorality. Richard M. Nixon said it best, “I’m not a crook.”

ON BEGGING FOR OIL

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (5/18/08)

The triumph of the carefully crafted Cheney-Bush oil policy was finally demonsrated in the two trips of President Bush to Saudi Arabia where he begged the oil tyrant for more oil, only to have his supplications discarded. One doubts that Bush has enough wit to know he and the United States were humiliated, especially after we saved the Saudi king’s ass in the First Bush Gulf War.

On Bush’s last return from his obsequious journey to Saudi Arabia he announced that the United States had to rely on itself for its energy, as though he had just had an epiphany. Of course, any damned fool would have known that all along. Self-reliance has always been considered an American cardinal virtue until our politicians and corporate magnates decided that becoming dependent on Arab tyrants was a good thing for corporate profits. The Bush family is chummy with Arab oil tyrants.

Dick Cheney hails from Wyoming where they have oil, coal, and wind. He advocated coal and oil and ignored wind as a part of his energy policy. If there has been one consistent in his energy policy, it has been using up non-renewable sources of energy on the general premise that leaving the earth worse than one has found it is good for corporate profits. Cheney was supposed to be the smart one in the Bush-Cheney team. Not so. Just the greediest.

T. Boone Pickens is right. The Texas oil billionaire and financial scoundrel is putting his money on a Texas wind farm, like two billion dollars.

SINKING SHIPS DESERTING A RAT

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (5/16/08)

“Sinking ships deserting a rat” fits Republican politicians and President Bush. My professor of Greek, Marcus Barth, while I was a graduate student at the University of Chicago was a German speaking Swiss and consistently mangled American idioms. “Sinking ships deserting a rat” was one of his best.

President Bush is a rat for comparing Barack Obama to the craven European politicians who appeased Hitler and the Nazi’s during the 1930’s. A Republican said the other day that the reason Bush is ill-regarded by most Americans is that cannot speak clearly. His fear-mongering was clear in Jerusalem. Apparently, Republican loyalty so obfuscates the mind that it destroys the senses, as in smelling a rat. At first, Bush first came across as a regular guy, then a little slow, next indifferent, and now evil. Worse, Straight Talk McCain has joined Bush's rat race. McCain’s no independent. He’s a Republican and fights dirty.

Now that the Republicans keep losing congressional seats in by-elections the Republican National Committee is advising Republican candidates to avoid connections with Bush. The sinking ships are deserting the rat. Of course, people will remember that for seven years they closely allied themselves to Bush, their present defections compounding their malfeasance with disloyalty.

Now, some Republicans are calling themselves Independents. “Neat trick if you can do it.” Republican politicians are even smirking at themselves, like Jon Kyl, no longer believing their own lies, not even believing that others will believe their lies. Seven years of Rodentia has its prices.

Copyright © Dana Prom Smith 2008

SENATOR MC CAIN AND VETERANS

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (5/7/08)

Politicians talk a lot about supporting the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, but when it comes to delivering on their promises, they often as not fail. Senator John McCain is one of the failures. Following the lead of President Bush and the Bush administration that a new G.I. Bill would be too generous, he opposes a bill in Congress that would pay for the college education of veterans.

In 1944 President Roosevelt signed the original G.I. Bill of Rights that allowed all the veterans of World War II to get educations and training that otherwise they could not have afforded. I was one of them. The bill changed the face of America for the better and was an act of gratitude on the part of the government and the American people.

Senator McCain is continuing the Bush administration’s poverty of gratitude and charity toward the current generation of veterans. For a political candidate who had his education paid for by the Unites States government at the Naval Academy, he is personally no stranger to the government subsidizing education for the benefits it brings to the nation. Also, for a political candidate whose military service is part of his mystique, one wonders why he wants to deprive veterans of the opportunity for an education.

The answer is that he’s a Republican in the Bush mold of “use ‘em up and throw ‘em away.” In contrast to Bush, McCain touts his honor. His opposition to a new G.I. Bill is not honorable.

MORE OF THE SAME-OLD

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (5/5/08)

At first John McCain turned himself from a straight shooter into a George W. Bush wannabe with his stupid remarks about another Hundred Years War and the adoption of Bush’s tax policies of welfare benefits for the rich and famous and the corporations. Now, Hillary Clinton has gotten into the act with promises to obliterate Iran. With her in power she would joyfully “bring on” a Third World Nuclear War. She sounds scarily like Dr. Strangelove redivivus, Dick Cheney.

Of course, she never really repudiated her vote to authorize George and his Neo-conservatives to take on Saddam Hussein. The Republicans have had a sad history intervening in the Middle East. First, Ronald Reagan sent the Marines into Lebanon with the tragic result that most of them were killed in a truck bombing. After lobbing some 18 inch shells into Beirut, we withdrew ignominiously.

Now, it appears that Hillary Clinton has the same world-view. Bomb. Not only bomb, but obliterate. She apparently has no concept that the Russians and the Chinese might have an adverse responce to the obliteration of Iran. The thought of her getting that telephone call at 3 o’clock in the morning is scary, something like Dick Cheney getting it.
Imitating George W. Bush seems to be her idea of success. Dirty tricks and ruthlessness and, now, Armageddon.

When women try to prove their toughness by imitating male brutality, they prove only they’re unfit to govern. They’re supposed to be smarter than male bravado. It isn’t even masculine.

POLITICAL CYNICISM AND OIL TAXES

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (5/1/08)

Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and George W. Bush have proposed a moratorium on the federal gasoline tax during the summer months, a pathetic $30.00 reprieve. They’re not only incompetent but also impotent, being beholden to the oil companies.

The gasoline summertime tax moratorium is akin to the recent giveaway to income taxpayers as a means of stimulating the economy, only it’s more measly. Clinton, McCain, and Bush sound like the French Queen Marie Antoinette before she was beheaded in the French Revolution. On hearing the people had no bread, she said, “Let them eat cake.” Our trio are throwing out bits and pieces of cake believing the citizens are stupid enough to be bought off this summer with crumbs. Cynicism to the max.

When Clinton, McCain, and Bush agree, something is rotten in Washington. What’s rotten is that they created the problem and consequently they’ve no idea how to fix it. The problem is that we rely on unstable, even hostile, nations for our energy, rather than developing our own sources of energy. We have had an administration which has been in the pockets of oil-rich tyrants with either the acquiescence or collusion of the Congress. They’ve spent money to get to the moon and back but haven’t invested the same money and energy in renewable sources of energy.

They’ve been inside the halls of power for so long that they’ve forgotten that the sun and the wind are outside still shining and blowing, just waiting to be harnessed.