Drophead Trolley Car by Bob Patterson
This convertible street car was seen in San Francisco this week
The St. Patrick's Day weekend of 2013 is the perfect time for a pundit with Irish heritage to score a scoop from the grounds of the Amalgamated Conspiracy Theory Factory. After spotting some white smoke coming from the chimney for the ACTF conference center, we learned that they have determined that JEB Bush is the front runner for becoming the 2016 Republican Party's Presidential nominee.
Folks who believe that the Bush Dynasty brand had been
irrevocably damaged by the Dubya term in the White House haven't been paying
attention to the fact that President Obama has retroactively approved George W.
Bush's war crimes, profligate spending, torture and executions without a trail
and therefore has granted Dubya and the Republican Party full unconditional
absolution which, in turn, provides a level playing field for JEB to make an
unfettered run for his party's nomination.
The stealth magnanimous gesture by President Obama has rendered the 2016 election to the tabla rosa level as far as the list of issues is concerned and that will give the Republicans the option (which they always covet greatly) of framing the debate by virtue of the fact that the lame duck incumbent will be ignored by the media as far as picking the election issues is concerned.
If the media fawn over the Republican frontrunner for the
next three and a half years, and he also happens to be a member of the Bush
family, there should not be any residual bad karma attached to the name by the
time the unhackable electronic voting machines produce the new President via
unverifiable results. (Does using the
phrases "Bush family" and "unhackable electronic voting machines" and the words
karma and unverifiable in the same sentence offend conservatives? Happy St.
Patrick's Day!)
Isn't it so convenient that the election of the new Pope is diverting attention away from the rapidly approaching debt ceiling deadline? Next week, won't March Madness be the next diversion?
America's
voters are being conditioned to rely on one Democrat's quote balanced by a
Republican's sound byte as qualifying as a legitimate example of the
fulfillment of the free press' mission of providing the facts that the voters
will need to make an informed choice at the polls.
The skeptics who think that citizen journalists will get access to the inner workings of a particular politician's strategic planning may not be aware of the possibility of the existence in the mainstream media of some good old fashioned horse trading in the guise of providing scoops and "exclusive" interviews as payment for unquestioningly participating in a bucket brigade style propaganda machine.
If (subjunctive mood) media stars are obliged to provide
glowing reports on a politicians work in return for some puny scoops, how can a
citizen journalist possibly get access to the politicians?
Are any of he media stars confronting Republicans and asking if they are participating in a de facto sit down strike?
Are any of Britain's
top star journalists asking questions about the Queen's health? Are they hacking her e-mails?
Will any media star ask Pope Frank about his program for handling the priests caught with their hand in the cookie jar (so to speak as it were).
Will interviews with starving families that end in crying
provide anything other than propaganda value?
If the XL Pipeline is a ticking toxic time bomb, will the media play their cheerleader role if polls show that voters don't believe the hogwash propaganda about jobs and energy independence?
If the voters of California
are indifferent, at best, to the need for a bullet train, why are politicians,
coping with austerity budgets, continuing to authorize funds for this
boondoggle? Didn't St.
Ronald Reagan explain that forty years ago when the governor with White House
aspirations said: "If you've seen one
redwood tree; you've seen them all."
Will any of journalism's super stars have the chutzpah to ask question about the fact that tax payers' money will have to be used to cover the shortfall of funds necessary for the rich boys to hold the boating races on San Francisco Bay later this year?
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