In light of the downgrade of the U.S. credit rating by Standard and Poor's, we must be careful, as John McCain said on Meet the Press Sunday, not to kill the messenger, no matter how much the bumbling, dishonest fools may deserve it. Despite the other major rating companies maintaining of our credit rating, the reasons for our downgrade, however unfair, are painfully accurate.
Senator McCain's blaming it on President Obama's lack of a plan for attacking the deficit is, of course a diversionary tactic. To maintain the support of mentally questionable right wing zealots in his state, he must ignore the true facts. These are the same sort of foaming at the mouth extremists who have hijacked the Republican Congress. The difference is that McCain's supporters cannot be blamed for their mental problems, and more importantly, even for their ignorance. Once elected to public office, however, electees do have some obligation to the public, not just to the pompous and shortsighted ogres who have paid for their election. The problem seems to be that in so many cases, the ogres have supported these candidates specifically for their lack of education, lack of intellect, lack of conscience and, most of all, the pride they take in all of their deficiencies.
The U.S. Congress, last week, became a circus, replete with the most phenomenal freak show on earth, featuring Grover Norquist, a politically retarded individual -- the ringmaster -- convincing hundreds of Congresspeople to sign a pledge not to raise taxes even if the survival of the entire nation were at stake. Imagine a political party of mostly intelligent members electing a virtually brain-dead, intellectually dysfunctional leader and following him like lemmings over a cliff! Who would ever believe it?
What's that you say? It's happened before? You say it happened 10 years ago and again six years ago? I can't believe it! Where was I? Where were the American people? Oh, you mean George W. Bush. No, compared to Nordquist, he was a genius! Despite starting two useless wars, lowering taxes so they couldn't be paid for, financing both wars by looting and virtually destroying the Social Security System and not to mention throwing the national and global economies into utter chaos, the man still kept his country's credit rating intact. Even more intriguing, he even helped various intellectually and politically retarded freaks of nature such as Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, most of Fox News and the Koch brothers advance the notion that President Obama had caused all of these disasters before he had even been inaugurated! No, it took Norquist and a massive campaign against human logic to kill the very goose that laid the golden egg!
In their eternal quest for the return of the feudal system, these mindless zombies, educated in their kitchens, bathrooms and prayer meetings, talked to G-d and their inner selves and came up with the perfect economic solution: destroy everything and start all over again! What better way is there to shrink government than to destroy it? Wisconsin and Texas governors already want to secede from the union and the oppressive restrictions of that stupid Constitution, with Michigan, Florida and so many other Republican Governors to follow.
Hording money for private benefactors, starting feudal wars to fill military coffers -- these are the proper functions of government! How many Republicans complained, Mr. Norquist, when taxes, in past years, were raised to finance the 20-fold increase in military spending? Worse yet, how many Republicans complained when literally trillions of dollars were diverted from the military to privateers at 10 times the cost to our government?
Even Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde John McCain didn't seem to mind that military casualties were left uncared for even after being wounded due to inferior armor and their own government's failure to protect them. He failed to complain when Israeli anti missile devices for tanks were disdained for a contract with Raytheon who has yet to produce them 10 years later. Shame on you, Mr. McCain. Are you a Republican war hero or an American war hero? Even heroes can forget their identities, I guess.
All this is enabled by a more intellectual, but equally mentally ill Democratic Party that keeps choosing as its leader in Congress the most skilled, but the most divisive person possible. Nancy Pelosi's single greatest accomplishment was to mismanage a gigantic health-care bill without studying health care. Fiscally irresponsible and forced down the throat of Americans, passed by bullying the Congressional Budget Office into "fixing" the math, the bill put the cart before the horse by largely ignoring current overspending. Virtually ignoring more than $150 billion per year in tribute to both Republican and Democratic lobbies, it has led, as much as anything to the deficit debacle that we are facing today. Worse yet, her constant assault on the moderates so brilliantly elected to Congress under Howard Dean and Rham Emanuel led to most of them being replaced by infantile Tea Baggers. What the heck did her majority in Congress really accomplish anyway? Let us see, shall we?
In addition to a monstrously expensive and fiscally irresponsible health-care plan with precious little attention to cleaning up atrocities in overspending in both Medicare and Medicaid, the Democratic majority failed to address either the deficit or the debt ceiling. With the help of an inexperienced and less-than-competent president, they permitted the expiration of the Bush tax cuts in exchange for relatively unimportant emotional issues like "don't ask, don't tell" and a nuclear treaty, both of which were destined for signing sooner or later anyway.
They insisted that the unemployment insurance extension be continued without taking it from the botched up stimulus money, as if it mattered where it came from as long as it weren't pilfered from more stolen payroll taxes! As for the stimulus package, a cowardly president and his cowardly little majority permitted the scary Republicans to gut one of Larry Summers' only intelligent ideas, by turning $300 billion in infrastructure jobs into $300 billion of tax cuts, good for millions of used cars and stockpiled washing machines, but no new jobs.
So, after overseeing the destruction of the stimulus, Pelosi's majority then oversaw the fatal restoration of the Bush tax cuts, thus driving the final nail in the coffin of their weak-minded president's attempt at any negotiations with the opposition party. More important, their blatant stupidity had actually done the heretofore impossible -- by matching the ignorance and same degree of political retardation achieved by so many members of the Tea Party. In fact, not to be outdone by the fools in the Tea Party, really demented Democratic House members managed to, somehow reappoint Pelosi as their counter-productive leader.
All in all, "it's enough to make a grown man cry," as the old saying goes. The stock market will soon collapse. We have a completely useless war in Afghanistan because all of our intelligent generals seem to have been put out to pasture by the previous administration and the "leftovers" keep us fighting in Afghanistan because they are too incompetent to develop a "policy" anywhere, let alone Pakistan.
For our less than competent president and his less than competent advisers, this useless war is more important than our economy, more important than jobs and most of all, more important than the lives of our soldiers. As I have said many times before, President Obama, next time read two books before you write two books. A few suggestions might include: A History of Afghanistan and L' Exhibition de Monstres (The Freak Show), The Definitive History of the Republican Party of the Twenty First Century.
