Episode 44: On The Trail

Dear Congressperson:
Can you say (or even think), "Windfall Profits Tax"? Or can you possibly, maybe, conceivably, however improbably, decide that the Big Five didn't really need that $18 billion tax break to underwrite domestic oil exploration?

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Whatta Guy
Looking, as ever, like the guy in a 1930s Arrow Shirt ad, Mitt Romney has generously - and humbly - made himself available to be John McCain's running mate.

That would inevitably bring up the issue of Mitt's Mormon religion yet again. Assuming he isn't one of those religionists who cherry-picks the least inconvenient dicta of his faith to observe, here are some of the founding convictions of his church:

In 1827, Joseph Smith announced that he had been visited by an angel. This was in the vicinity of Elmira, in upstate New York. The heavenly visitor identified himself as Moroni and revealed to Smith the existence of gold plates upon which were written the tales of ancient prophets who left Jerusalem in 600 BC and migrated to America. Two magic stones were also to be discovered that would allow the discoverer to translate the symbols on the plates.

Smith said he found and dug up the plates and the stones out back of his farmhouse. That presented a problem: He couldn't show the plates to anyone because they would be struck dead, or so he said he was told. On the other hand, he couldn't write, so he needed to translate the plates to a scribe. The solution was to hang a blanket across a room, Smith dictating on one side, a literate neighbor on the other. Over many weeks, a detailed transcription was thus produced. Upon completion, the gold plates, unseen by anyone but Smith, returned to heaven.

I might mention here that Smith had been convicted of fraud less than two years before his self-investiture as a new prophet. But if you, like Mitt, swallow any of this, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a Book of Mormon for you.

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Jay Leno displayed a picture of McCain and Romney on the Tonight Show the other night and said, "Doesn't it look like the head of Leisure World explaining the benefits of assisted living to the newest resident?"

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That's not the only photo of McCain with a former opponent - see right.

These days, John is on what is being labeled his "biography tour", meant to "re-introduce" himself to the voters. One wonders whether he will remind the electorate that he graduated from the Naval Academy fifth from the bottom of his class.

Or whether he will repeat his admission that he doesn't know much about economics - that is, about the subject that is currently the number one issue of concern to Americans.

Or that "It's not social issues I care about". Or that he "would rather have a clean government than one where quote First Amendment rights are being respected." Or that "The nice thing about Alzheimer's is you get to hide your own Easter eggs."

Or that he has made a habit of firing obscenities at Senate colleagues with whom he disagreed. Or that he once joked that the reason "Chelsea Clinton is so ugly" is "because Janet Reno is her father."

All of which leads to the inevitable conclusions that he is (1) not bright enough to be president, (2) ignorant of key issues, (3) hot-tempered, (4) mean-spirited, and, at 71, (5) far too old.

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I'll Get It!
In Hillary's "red phone" commercial we see parents looking in on their sleeping children late at night, the mood peaceful but ominous. Then the images fade from black and white to full color. An announcer intones "Who do you want answering the phone at the White House at 3am?" and we see Hill reading. In a pantsuit. With jewelry. In full makeup. At 3am.
The woman is a powerhouse.

(Asides: The footage of the sleeping children was originally shot for a railroad company advertisement and one of the children, now a young adult, has declared herself an Obama supporter.)

That's not all. Hillary is courageous under fire. According to her oft-repeated tale of derring-do, she landed at an airport in Bosnia with sniper fire all around. According to her story, delivered with the devil-way-care smile of a grizzled war correspondent, her party had to run bent over to a waiting vehicle, bullets whizzing overhead. Chelsea was with her. And Sinbad and Sheryl Crow.

We now know, of course, that this was a fable. She says she "misspoke". She was too kind in that characterization. What she did was lie! Made it up! The war was over! (She took her daughter with her into a war zone?) And she thought what Clintons and far too many other politicians think - that she wouldn't get caught.

Even if it had happened, being shot at in Bosnia doesn't buttress Clinton's claims of foreign policy expertise. It doesn't even give her street cred. People get fired upon in Tuzla, Beirut, and Detroit. It only makes them victims, not experts in diplomacy or warfare.

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