The first George Bush killed his chances at winning more than one term by pouring out of his lips, “watch my lips. no new taxes!.” Then what? Tax Tax Tax of course.

Barack Obama, the anti-war candidate now has three wars going, one past the limits of the war powers act, making it unconstitutional, even according to his own lawyers. So when his lawyers say something he doesn’t agree with, he invokes his law degree and looks for support from other lawyers.

Not a war? Bombing Libya? Defense Secretary Robert Gates obviously thinks otherwise. And is obviously fed up with being thrown into wars he’s expected to clean up following dumb decisions by presidents turning wars into knots impossible to untangle.

The NY Times quotes Gates as saying, “If we were about to be attacked or had been attacked or something happened that threatened a vital U.S. national interest, I would be the first in line to say, ‘Let’s go,’ ” Mr. Gates said. “I will always be an advocate in terms of wars of necessity. I am just much more cautious on wars of choice.” Most recently, he expressed major reservations about American intervention in Libya.

So what’s next, DaddyO? More pep talks? You’re fast becoming the second Lyndon Johnson. Remember him? The president who took over the Vietnam War, accelerated it, lost it, surrendered and announced he was quitting his job?

Maybe. But only up until the surrender. Getting him out of the white house will take a power wench, or a candidate who can beat him in 2012. And so far the Repubs haven’t a prayer with the current herd of sheep.

Unfortunately, Carl Von Clausewitz was right on when he said, “War is the continuation of politics by other means” –On War (1830)

So he traipses up the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to mingle with the tourists and tell them the really really important stuff: that they couldn’t be there enjoying the monument and His Celebrity if the silly budget deal hadn’t been made. Right at the last hour, as planned, His Celebrity has saved the people again! Speaker Boner (AKA John Boehner)? He had nothing to do with it.

Isn’t he wonderful?! Knows exactly what turns his media people on. Runs out there like it was a spur of the moment thing, when we all know a president goes nowhere without Secret Service planning. But what we all know is meaningless. It’s all about what His Celebrity says, not does.

Brilliant politics. Now if he could just get it through his head that he’s killing America. Spending it out of existence with no regard but a piece of lip service here and there about how we’ve got to get control of the budget. Like his word does everything. Like maybe God, when as they say, he spoke the world into existence.

Maybe that’s it! He wants to be God. Or at least a benevolent dictator who could do every little thing – and big thing – he wants without anybody to hold back his slightest whim. Ultimate power and adulation.

Maybe Glenn Beck was right. Monotonous after a while, but right on his big idea. The idea is to kill the country to take complete control of it? People will follow any hope if they get far enough down in spirit. They did blindly follow Franklin Roosevelt during the misery of the depression, because he could talk good hope. Never pulled America out of the depression until he got America into World War II. But he gave such great speech that the public followed like sheep miserable in herds.

Gasoline prices going out of sight again, unemployment still high, spending totally out of control, and all we get is his words about how we’ve got to do something, while real actions go in the opposite direction. What do you think? Was Glenn Beck right?

Freud was so on when he said, “…we men… find reality generally quite unsatisfactory” – Sigmund Freud, Psychoanalysis (1910)

“News this week of the first departure of a Cabinet secretary from the Obama administration comes amid a wide-ranging effort under the new chief of staff, William M. Daley, to repair badly frayed relations between the White House and the Cabinet.”

In another quote, Daley said he’s heard Cabinet members’ complaints. “You hear the same thing: ‘I don’t think we’re used well. I don’t think we’re consulted enough,’ ”

So it keeps stacking up. He’s a go-it-alone president, do his own thing dictator president. One who decides without the help of the Supreme Court what’s constitutional and what’s not, as in deciding not to enforce the defense of marriage act. And we’re talking about a law passed by Congress and signed by Democrat Bill Clinton.

The would-be-dictator president rolls on until the steam roller hits a wall, then backs off – briefly – until he figures a way around it.

No wonder Patriots have always realized that government is the problem. And not only the problem, but in many ways the worst enemy the American people have.

As Thomas Paine put it, “Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil” –The Rights of Man (1792)

via White House moving to repair troubled relationship with Cabinet.

Huckabee, Romney, Palin, Gingrich, Pawlenty, etc, all bouncing around in a very hollow box will debate, preach, yak, posture, whatever it takes to totally lose support because… because not one of them, nor all of them together, has the charisma of Obama. And the winner is, always was, and always will be the best actor. The guy (get a grip–the term includes girls, just like your waiter/waitress says) who wins is the one that comes across as the best TV actor. The shiniest celebrity on the tube. Before TV pictures took over and killed tons of ugly politicians, it was the best stage and radio actor.

The Kennedy/Nixon thing started it of course. And Kennedy, who never accomplished anything but talk, talk, talk kept the Charisma advantage until he died? No, still has it. Some people still think of him as a great president, but it took ugly old Lyndon Johnson, who could manipulate politicians so well, to get it all done. But Johnson was never a big talent at swaying public opinion.

So it is with the current gang of Republicans. They all have their party appeal, but are totally limited in their public appeal as presidential candidates. They’ll all march along, collect a good deal of money for the fight, get endorsements of some so-called influential members of the party, but fall flat when it comes to capturing the public celebrity worship it takes to become president in a fight with someone who already has it.

Like Bob Dole did his party and himself a great disservice by running against Bill Clinton. Just fumbled along eating Clinton dust. And how did George W. win, when he has the charisma of a lead balloon? Simple. His opponents pulled off the impossible and came off worse in the charisma department.

Yeh, we’ll be hearing all about the issues. Issues will be spurting copiously from the mouths of the TV heads and the talk show yakkers. That’s their job. But in the end, issues will mean nothing. The top celebrity will win. Always has, always will.

What country does that sound like? Could it be the U.S.? The line is taken from a NY times article on Egypt. But it could just as well apply to today’s America.  Politicians – those already elected wouldn’t agree. They’d object to the patronage and bribes part. But that stuff by any other names, such as outlandish contributions, pet local projects that cost billions and government contracts for things we don’t need? What else are they?

The U.S. has been running for years on the same stuff every other corrupt country has been running on. And “change” has just made it worse. Like a debt we can never pay off growing larger for stuff we don’t need. It’s like a couple I know who always talk the woe-is-me talk because of their credit card debt, and say they’re taking steps to reform,  but continue to charge lavish vacations. Like Obama charges lavish vacations. Yeh, we know he pays for his personal accommodations, but Air Force One, his entourage and security runs into millions. And it’s all charged to our national-debt credit card.

Then there are the protest demonstrations in Wisconsin. Are they just a precursor to the demonstrations to come in Washington if we ever really start cutting back the mess that’s been building  for decades? And someday we will have to.  Either when the bill comes due for the Social Security money we’ve been spending by the billions for things other than benefits for the people who are supposed to get it, or the trillions we’ve borrowed from China.

Yeh, it’s coming due in pieces already. But so far we’ve been able to borrow from one credit card to make payments on another while the interest keeps building.

But one day that stops. And the day Washington gets stopped down due to protest crowds like those in Cairo and Madison Wisconsin, look out. One state government can come to a standstill for a while and the rest of the world can live through it. But a really shut-down Washington?

As Thomas Paine said back in 1792, “Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil” –The Rights of Man (1792)

Will the next government that emerges from the tumult in Egypt be Islamic or Islamist? There’s a critical difference, say experts, who caution against knee-jerk fears that Mubarak might be replaced by Islamists — Muslim political extremists.

Inevitably, the government — Hosni Mubarak or anyone else — will be Muslim, as it is now, because Egypt is one of the largest Muslim-majority nations in the world.

More via Mubarak or Muslim Brotherhood not Egypt’s only choice: Experts – Faith & Reason.

The alleged shooter, Jared Loughner, included Hitler’s Mein Kampf on his reading list. In a piece of YouTube junk he writes, yes writes (don’t expect any weird video–It’s just text), “No! I don’t trust in God.” His other rambling thoughts aren’t much different than what anybody dealing with a large segment of the public comes across. But not every rambling results in a shooting spree.

Like in one of our Nashville businesses we deal with aspiring songwriters all over the world. Most of them work at jobs like everybody else and have dreams they’re trying to do something about with their writing. But some have far-out dreams. Like the one who seems to really believe she’s a member of some royal family. Refers to herself with the title HRM.

We hear from her several times a week, telling us about how she’s had songs recorded by major artists, or how she’s been a staff writer of ours for years. She hasn’t accomplished either of course, but she seems to totally believe she has. So far, she’s harmless.

Then there’s the guy who ranted about strange things for months, then one day sent an envelope with an unidentified powder in it. Our person who opened the envelope felt a slight burning sensation, so we called local police, who came over, evacuated not only our building but those on either side of us. Took us all what they considered a safe distance away while a squad of some sort investigated the powder. Found nothing of real danger, so a few hours later everybody got back to work.

What happened to the guy who sent the mysterious envelope? Nothing so far as we know. Just a crank who wants to seem important, but so far seems to be harmless. We don’t open any more envelopes from him. In fact don’t get them since we told him about the “cops” incident. And threatened to send the FBI if we heard from him again.

With all this going on how can anybody determine which kook is dangerous and which is harmless before an Arizona or Fort Hood style incident occurs?

Probably can’t. And the kooks won’t quit if everybody gets more civil, as in members of Congress slamming each other and talk show hosts slamming them all.

We’ve just got to live with it. And some die with it. Then there are those geeks who constantly try to ruin everybody’s computer and make us spend billions on anti-virus programs. What talk-show host sets them off?

With some in the financial world willing to bet on almost anything, it should be no surprise that a few would see the potential to profit from the often contentious and emotional process of ending a marriage.

More via Divorce Costs Financed by Firms – NYTimes.com.

What we have is good news and bad news.  First the good news…it seems that all across the country (with the exception of California) Americans began to realize that the “hope and change” that was being implemented by the Obama administration, was not what they had voted for:  this seemingly steady march toward Euro-socialism is not what made America great.  Socialism has never worked… anywhere at any time.  Free enterprise and personal accountability separated the United States of America from everyone else and the ingenuity and creative power of the people who knew they had a chance to succeed or fail kept the flame glowing.  No one was promised a safety net and Americans accepted the challenge and thrived.

As has been pointed out over and over again this shift in power of more than 60 seats in the House of Representatives is the largest move since 1938.  Why is this important?  Because the HR is the ONLY branch of government that has to stand up to scrutiny and approval every two years… and this year the citizens said loud and clear that their representatives had not been doing the will of the people.  To paraphrase something I read from and Iowan… it’s “We the People”… not… ”We the Congress.”  Arrogance and condescension is being exposed and replaced.

Now… will the new Republican majority do any better?  Time will tell… and if they don’t respond to the will of the people in two years a new group will be given a chance.  I don’t think that America is again going to lapse back into the coma and lack of attention that brought an unprepared and extremist teleprompter reader into the most powerful office in the world. Accountability is the new watch word.

The other good news is that the people of central Florida rose up and overwhelmingly got rid of the vile and vitriolic knucklehead, Alan Grayson.  Arrogant doesn’t begin to describe his total disregard for truth and civility… I’m not sure what word would describe his embarrassing campaign that, apparently, figured that all central Floridians were stupid and gullible… not so, huh Alan!

Now for the bad news… Harry Reid will be back as Senate Majority Leader and is still as misguided as he has been for the last two years.  Also…Barney Frank is back, but luckily this time he will not be chairman of anything and hopefully will not be able to lead us down the road to financial ruin as has been the case for the last four years.

Also, I guess the people of California were too engrossed in whether to legalize pot to really look at the state of their state and elected Barbara Boxer and Jerry Brown.  Unbelievable!  Two tired and worn out free spending liberals leading the weak and clueless.  We can all just wait for the cry to Washington to bail them out.

So there we have it…a chance for a small step back to sanity.  The liberals still control two thirds of the government…but, we can only hope…and prepare for 2012.

It was a Democratic rally without a Democratic politician, featuring instead two political satirists, Mr. Stewart and Mr. Colbert, who used the stage to rib national journalists and fear-mongering politicians, and to fake-fight each other over dueling songs about trains.(NYT)

FINALLY! A Washington Rally that shows it like it really is. A comedy show that would be funny if it weren’t true.

A congressional committee has Colbert actually come before them and testify, and he proceeds to make even bigger fools of them. And who would have thought that possible? They all run around blaming each other for the huge pile of garbage they’ve made of the system, while nobody’s done anything they want to take credit for. Yet they all claim to be fighting for us.

More billions are being spent than ever to get jobs that pay well, but not well enough to get rich… though many of them do by some “miraculous” means. Like Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Harry Reid, ad infinitum. All who make Congress a career can retire early with a stack of bennies that no private job can come close to.

Careers? That’s the objective. Get a seat of power and prestige you hold for life, no matter what the original intent of the founders of this great country. The idea, remember, was that states and districts would send some of their own to represent them in government. But they stay in Washington so long that they lose all touch with what’s really going on back where they once lived.

So who are all those “Fat Cats” Obama is so fond of blaming for everything he is’t blaming on Republicans at the moment? We’ve seen the Fat Cats. And they are the government.

So is it really unusual to see a comedy bunch gathering in the name of what’s real? In Washington? That’s just normal in our government-gone-wild state of the nation.

Sadly.

Thomas Paine had it right: “Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil” –The Rights of Man (1792)

Problem is, we can’t get anywhere close to its best state with a gang that keeps on pulling every trick in and out of the book to get re-elected for life.