Update......

My devoted fans, all four of you, have noted I have been missing from the blogosphere for a while.  I have fallen into that dreaded writer’s block that has me with no motivation.  Normally, when people like Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry are running for President, I am invigorated, but the idea of any of the neo-fascist, Right-wing, Conservative faction of the Republican Party actually getting elected has been too depressing for words.  In what sane world are any of these wing nuts viable candidates for the Presidency?

Having monitored the various complaints regarding them, I have noted their replies to these various complaints.  Mostly, it is them saying, "Well Obama...(fill in the blank with some sort Conservative obfuscation)."  I abhor the idea that when confronted with a negative statement about you, your position or a statement, instead of defending it, these morons prefer to attack the opposition.  The really sad thing is people are buying into it.  In what world is the correct response to "You are a bad person!" "Well, I am not as bad as him!"  Have we been reduced to choosing the lesser of the evils?  The idea has just depressed me beyond belief.

My response to this lowering of expectations has been to throw myself into reading books on economic theory. Yes, economic theory.  I have managed to lay my hands on the collected works of Paul Krugman, economist, blogger, NY Times columnist and liberal.  He is a Professor of Economics at Princeton (the alma mater of my Father and Uncle, so I may be biased).  Oh, and he received the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2008.  Not too shabby, really...I should have this kind of cred.

I shall return to the blogosphere, hopefully knowing the different views of John Maynard Keynes, Milton Friedman, Arthur Laffer and William Phillips and my new hero, Paul Krugman.  Stand-by to be bored out of your gourds with my views and insights on the economy, and why I believe we are probably headed into another recession...and yes, I blame it on the Conservatives in Congress.

Casey Anthony...It Could Have Been Worse...She Could Have Gone Home!!!

Okay, I guess, since I have been listening to it in my office for days now, I shall weigh in on the Casey Anthony Case.  God help me!  Allow me to address the issues of how she was prejudged first, and then describe how she could have been even better off (like she would have walked out of the courtroom when they said “not guilty” better) had she followed a couple of basic rules.

Casey Anthony got a fair trial by all accounts that I have read and seen.  Twelve jurors heard every shred of legally admissible evidence presented by the prosecution and found her not guilty.  Clearly she was tried in the press and by the public well before any evidence was presented.  Not surprisingly, an almost mob mentality started to take over.  She was presumed guilty from the outset for any number of reasons not relevant to whether she did or did not kill her daughter.  Among these is the fact that she did not behave “appropriately” during the period that her daughter was “missing” and presumably dead.  She partied until the wee hours of the morning with friends.  Prior to Caylee going missing Casey is alleged to have brought her toddler daughter to nightclubs with her.  Caylee slept in the car while her mother danced the night away.

Casey Anthony is alleged to have practiced bisexuality, engaging in lesbian affairs and been indiscriminant in her sexual liaisons with both men and women and combinations of the two.  How much more titillating can you get?  By the same token, what in the world does it have to do with her guilt or innocence?  I will acknowledge and admit to having had a pretty wild past.  I shall not titillate you with the details, but let us say has a certain X-rated quality to it.  Does this make me a killer or a premeditated murderer?  I would like to think not, but who am I?

No one will ever describe Casey Anthony as a nominee for Mother of the Year, for the above reasons, but the fact that that you suck as a mom does not make you a killer either, in most cases.  In this case the prosecution failed in their duty to prove, beyond and to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt, whether Casey Anthony killed her daughter.  In fact, they failed on even a more basic level. 

Given as true every single fact brought out at the trial, the prosecution failed to prove that the theory presented by the defense could not have been true.  In other words, the prosecution was not able to prove the death could not have occurred in a way consistent with Casey Anthony’s innocence.  The way the laws of the United States are designed to be interpreted, if you can come up with a scenario that is consistent with all the facts and is also consistent with the Defendant being not guilty, you have to find her not guilty, because it could have happened that way.  It is hard to put into words, but if a man comes in from outside and he is soaking wet, there are many ways he could have gotten that way.  It could be raining, he could have walked through the sprinkler, or he could have been in the shower with the woman next door.  Until you can rule out all the other explanations, in a court, you have to go with the explanation that is consistent with not guilty.

Quite frankly, I am rather proud that the jury did not succumb to what was incredible public and media pressure to convict the woman.  They have said, since the verdict, that they did not say she did not do it, but that the prosecution did not prove the case sufficiently to find her guilty, much less make a sentencing decision.  The jury system is specifically designed to act as a check on the prosecutor and, in combination with the burden of proof and the limitations placed on the prosecution as the representative of the government, they hold the government to a very high standard of proof, and so they should. 

We come from a history of abuses by a tyrannical government.  Each and every day we see other governments abuse the human rights of their citizens in kangaroo courts in which the deck is clearly stacked in favor of the government.  We live in a country that tries to make it as difficult as possible to convict an innocent person.  In spite of this fact, since 1973, 138 men have been released from death rows in 26 states based on the grounds that they did not commit the crime for which they were sentenced. 

Unfortunately, we no longer live in a society that believes that it is better to let ten guilty persons go free than convict one innocent person.  We now believe that the one innocent person needs to take one for the team so those ten go to prison and we feel safer.  I would argue that you will feel perfectly fine with this until it is you or your son or daughter that randomly gets selected to be the one that takes one for the team.   It is much easier to allow some other not guilty person go to prison than you and yours.

The other thing that could have made a bunch of people just roll their eyes is if Casey Anthony had walked out of the courtroom a free woman on Tuesday.  This could have happened and let me tell you how.

In my wallet, I carry a card on which is written the following:

Dear Law Enforcement Officer:

Several years ago, the Supreme Court of the United States decided that law enforcement agents were justified and authorized to lie to suspects and potential suspects during questioning.  As a result, nothing the police say can be relied upon as correct or accurate.  Accordingly, I have made the decision not to provide any information to, nor communicate with any law enforcement officer or agent without my attorney present.  Please consider this an invocation of my rights under the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States.  I refuse to discuss any matter of any kind or nature with you.   Further, the Supreme Court of the United States has upheld the right of citizens of the United States not to be required to produce identification upon the demand of a law enforcement officer.  My named is William A Miller and my date of birth is MM/DD/YYYY.  This is sufficient information to adequately identify me.  The name of my attorney is XXXXXX X. XXXXXX and his phone number is XXX-XXX-XXXX.  Please contact him regarding any request for information.

I have done nothing wrong and do not wish to engage in any conversation of any kind with you for any reason.  This is a formal request that I not be detained any further, that I be allowed to leave immediately and that any and all property, papers and/or possessions be returned to me immediately.  Should you refuse to allow me to go about my business, I consider myself to be under arrest and reiterate my invocation of my Constitutional Rights.  I request that you allow me to immediately contact my attorney.  Should I answer any questions, I do so only as a result of acquiescence to and fear of your authority as an armed law enforcement officer.

If you are on my property without a Warrant, I request that you leave immediately, as I consider you to be committing the crime of Trespass after Warning in violation of Chapter 810, F.S.  This document constitutes an official notification which is required to be retained in your law enforcement records in this case.  DESTRUCTION OF THIS NOTICE IS A THIRD DEGREE FELONY UNDER FLORIDA STATUTE 918.13(a).

PLEASE GOVERN YOURSELF ACCORDINGLY.

/s/

May 5, 2002

When Casey Anthony was initially questioned regarding the whereabouts of her daughter, she merely had to invoke her right to remain silent under the Fifth Amendment and let her attorney do the talking for her.  She would not have been in a position to give the police false information as she would not have spoken to them, except, presumably, through her attorney.  Thus, no felony counts of providing the police with false information.  She would have walked out of the courtroom when she was found not guilty of the murder.

The police read you your rights when you are questioned, after you have been taken into custody.  In part they will tell you, “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”  The ONLY thing that cannot be used against you is your invocation of your right against self-incrimination or right to counsel.  So, the government, in this case, was in the position of “if we can’t get you one way, we’ll get you anther.”  As my friend and Attorney Dean L. Willbur, Jr. says (and has on t-shirts, as a matter of fact), “Keep your mouth shut and you won’t get caught!”  This is true for both criminals and fish.

Faith and Politics....A Dangerous Mix

Faith, as I was taught, is having no rational, provable, empirical proof or reason for believing in something.  The myriad of religions in the world are the example of believing based on faith alone. 

There is no empirical way to prove the existence of God.  Yes, we occasionally have the individual that sees the Virgin Mary in a taco shell or Dorito™ or something, and believes it to be some sort of Devine intervention, but if you boil it down, it is all faith.  It is also a matter of faith as to the Divinity of known persons, like the Prophet Mohammed or the belief that God speaks through anyone specific, like the Pope.  

I happen to believe in God, but I also recognize that it is faith and not an empirical fact.  I believe what I believe because I believe it and take God as a matter of faith.  While I believe in the Bible, I do not have absolute faith in it as some do.  I do have faith that the Bible provides us with some accurate accounts, in the Old and New Testaments, on which we can base our belief in God and Jesus Christ, but I am not one to be absolutely certain.  There are things that I question.  I also recognize that others are clearly more devout believers in their versions of faith than I, and I accept that one of us might be wrong, and this is where things can get a bit sticky.

There was a great scene that in the television series “West Wing” in which fictional President, Jebediah Bartlett spots a radio call-in show host called “Dr. Laura Jacobs” (I suspect she was a fictionalized version of the Conservative radio talk-show host “Dr. Laura Schlessinger”).  The President asks her for her qualifications to offer advice to listeners that call in to her show and she informs the President that she has a PhD in English Literature.  He also asks her to answer several questions after she confirms that the [Christian] Bible holds that homosexuality is an abomination (Leviticus 18:22).  The soliloquy by the President goes as follows:

“I wanted to ask you a couple of questions while I had you here. I'm interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. She's a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleared the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be? While thinking about that, can I ask another? My Chief of Staff Leo McGarry insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or is it okay to call the police? Here's one that's really important 'cause we've got a lot of sports fans in this town: Touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean. Leviticus 11:7. If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point? Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads? Think about those questions, would you?”

The point is that Christian faith follows the teaching of the Bible and the Bible must be read with, for lack of a better term, some discretion, as indicated by the questions asked by the fictional President of the United States.  I think most documents of faith must be read with discretion.  The Koran, The Torah, even the different versions of the Christian Bible must be read with an understanding that they are historical and come from a different time.  While it may once have been acceptable to sell one’s daughter into slavery, or stone a man for planting two different crop side-by-side, not so much anymore, and it must be adapted to modern times.  You kinda have to cherry pick for the applicable stuff.

Documents like the Bible must be viewed from the perspective that they are books of faith and, if you believe in them, fine, but there are those that have opposing viewpoints and do not have the faith in them that some do.  I do not expect to ever change the beliefs of a person that says, “The Bible says it.  I believe it, and that’s it.”  It is faith and you can’t really argue about someone’s faith, especially with such a strongly held belief.  However, when someone starts to use faith as a logical argument for passing laws that affect everyone, whether they have the same beliefs or not, that is a serious problem. 

There are those among us that use their faith as a basis for all of their decisions.  This is a wonderful thing for them, but please note, I said for them.  If they wish to practice their faith in a manner that guides everything they think, say or do, I will defend their right in our country to practice that faith, to a point.  However, when their faith begins to impact me, my rights, my freedoms or my actions, or is illegal, we are going to have a problem.  We are going to have a problem if there is an impact on the rights of others as well.   There is even a problem with the “illegal” part of my argument.

 There are those, contrary to what they would tell you, or have you believe, that think this is an almost purely Christian nation and, while I agree this country is a predominantly Christian nation.  They want to adopt Christianity as a defacto official religion in this country.  They want to make sure that it is Christian Law that has the power in this country and that all decisions are made based on Christian morality and ethics.  The most extreme example of this is ever-increasing number of Conservatives and Conservative Politicians who have stated that they openly disapprove and would fight against Sharia Law becoming a basis for any law in this land and even view it as unacceptable as a code of personal conduct as well.  Like most religious laws, there are good points and bad points, just like the Bible and Christian Law.  I do not believe that either should be the basis for the law of this secular society, as all religion and religious law has its problems.  The Conservatives of this country are now engaged in a latter-day Holy Crusade by other (political) means, and that scares the Hell out of me.

People have lost sight of the fact that the United States in not, in fact, a country of only majority rule alone.  We are country of minority rights as well.  Conservatives are incredible in their ability to drone on about what the Founding Fathers wrote in the Constitution.  The strict constructionists and literalists would have us believe that anything not written, word-for-word, within the four corners of The Constitution does not and should not exist in law.  However, The Founding Fathers wrote the first ten amendments to The Constitution which was referred to as a “Bill of Rights” by no less than Thomas Jefferson.  He was, in fact, extremely surprised that The Constitution was originally adopted by The First Constitutional Convention with no Bill of Rights.  Interestingly, the proscription against the establishment of religion and the exercise thereof, is the very first line of the First Amendment.  It is, in fact, the very beginning of the Bill of Rights.

There are Conservatives that are quick to point out that Thomas Jefferson was not present at The First Constitutional Convention (He was Minister to France from 1885 to 1789).  However, the fact that he was not present actually works out better for us students of history, as Jefferson’s input to the content of The Constitution is all in writing.  In his correspondence to members of the convention he was vehement in his belief that there be a “wall of separation” between church and state, and this belief was maintained after the ratification of The Constitution.  Thomas Jefferson wrote, in a letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper on February 10, 1814, “Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.”  He went into greater detail in his letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802 in which he said,

“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. [Congress thus inhibited from acts respecting religion, and the Executive authorized (sic) only to execute their acts, I have refrained from prescribing even those occasional performances of devotion, practiced indeed by the Executive of another nation as the legal head of its church, but subject here, as religious exercises only to the voluntary regulations and discipline of each respective sect.]* Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

*The bracketed section is not contained in the letter as posted, but is contained in the original draft kept by Jefferson and contained in the National Archives.

We are a secular nation, not a religious nation.  Those who profess the belief that we are a Christian nation, conveniently ignore those parts of The Constitution, the Bible and history that are inconsistent with those beliefs.  This kind of intellectual dishonesty makes them true believers and that kind of faith makes them very dangerous.

Conservative vs Liberal...Force vs Argument...

Today, on Twitter, a woman who is an acknowledged Conservative Republican tweeted that she was in an elevator and a Liberal called her “the enemy”.  Her response was to remind the person offering this description that many Conservatives “pack heat” in what can only be characterized as a not-so-veiled threat.

 I consider this interaction between a Liberal and Conservative to be quite enlightening of the different ways in which the two groups think, or don’t think, as the case may be.  Liberals have gotten to the point where they no longer perceive Conservatives as "loyal opposition".  They perceive them as "The Enemy."  I will not necessarily condone this, but it does point out that our polarized politics has reduced many of us to the perception of the us vs. them mentality, Liberal and Conservative alike.  It is a view by both sides that the system is a zero-sum game, that is for every victory, there must be a corresponding defeat by the "other side". If you have it, you must have taken it from me.  My objection to Conservatives however is the length to which they have taken this way of thinking.

Conservatives are forever citing the Second Amendment as one of the freedoms that they hold near and dear.  Unfortunately, they apparently do not hold the First Amendment in the same high regard, especially when it is someone offering a difference of opinion with their particular viewpoint.  It is seemingly all right for them to cite their own First Amendment protections whenever someone exercises it, but when a Liberal does, not so much.

 Now before someone gets all technical on me, I know that the First Amendment only protects a person’s speech against government infringement.  If it protected us against infringement by anyone, then an employee of Coca Cola could not be fired for going on television for endorsing Pepsi.  Let me assure you that Coke can and probably will terminate the employment of their employee for doing such a thing, and they are within their rights to do so.  However, the government cannot make a law that infringes  any citizen’s right to endorse Coke over Pepsi or Pepsi over Coke.  The Constitution is intended to protect us from our government, not each other.  Okay, civics class is over, now back to our regularly scheduled blog.

 Conservatives seem to have this predisposition to the use of force and/or violence as a mechanism to achieve their wants, needs, goals and desires a lot quicker than Liberals.  In the thinking of the Right, might really does make right and to the victor go the spoils.  Thus, they have a tendency to go to the force option faster.  This is true in many different circumstances.  In the example at hand, a woman, identified as the enemy, immediately raises the specter that those that identify her as such had better watch out.  Because, as a Conservative, she might be exercising her Second Amendment Right and be carrying a gun; she implies she might be willing to use it against someone that disagrees with her point of view in a manner objectionable to her.  Personally, having seen my share of death, destruction, violence and mayhem by my fellow man against my fellow man, I tend to go with the sticks and stones option first, possibly followed by a stern sticking out of my tongue or raspberry.  To go directly to the “be careful, I might have a gun” option first is, pardon the pun, overkill.

 As I said, there are many different examples of this kind of behavior within the ranks of Conservatism.  Sharron Anlge, of Nevada called for “Second Amendment remedies” to what she perceived as the takeover of the U.S. Senate by the Left.  While discussing these so-called Second Amendment remedies, she said, “I’ll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out.”  While I may think she is a complete nutball; folks she was an elected member of the Nevada Assembly from 1999 to 2007 and a Teapublican candidate for Harry Reid’s Senate seat in 2010.  If you can’t beat ‘em, kill ‘em?”  Sarah Palin, the darling of the Right Wing said, “Don’t retreat, reload.”  Uh, she was a candidate for Vice President of the United States.

The other thinking that runs through Conservative America is the concept of picking up their ball and going home.  When a state does this, it is called secession.  The Governor of Texas jumped on board this bandwagon and called for secession based on the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution.  The Supreme Court in, coincidentally, Texas vs. White (1868) declared secession to be impossible and illegal.  Thus, the only way to do it would be armed insurrection.  Now the last time I checked, armed insurrection against the government of the United States was treason, but because of the way they think, the Conservatives don’t seem to have a problem with resorting to “the nuclear option” right off the bat.

 The Conservatives have become the bullies of politics.  They use force to get what they want and to stop anyone that has the temerity to disagree with them.  Much like the school yard bully, they make you afraid to disagree because you might get beaten up, or, in the case of our elevator woman, might get shot.

The Liberals/Democrats Eat Their Young….Once Again

Once again, the Democrats (I shall use the term Liberal interchangeably) have demonstrated the self-destructive capacity to figuratively eat their own young.  Representative Anthony Weiner of New York was basically forced to resign.  He lost the support of his Liberal colleagues and was going to be the subject of a long, personally destructive and embarrassing investigation.  He  was also going to be stripped of his committee assignments, all at the hands of his own Party. 

Weiner was arguably one of the brightest rising stars in the Democratic Party.  He was young, bright, charismatic, and was a firebrand with regard to Liberal issues.  Very clearly, he was destined to be great and do great things, which makes it all the more tragic that he has been forced to resign.  A bright, and possibly the brightest, light in the Democratic Party has been extinguished, and we broke the bulb ourselves, in the interest of intellectual honesty, and the appearance of impropriety.  Unfortunately, the negative consequences of this action far outweigh either the benefits or the offense, not to mention the fact that the opposition would never have committed themselves to this kind of destruction simply because it might be the right thing to do.

I cannot state it any better than the comment made by “DLW” regarding my previous post entitled, “Scandal….The Zombie Cat of Politics”.  He points out that individuals who may have perfectly dreadful decision-making skills in their personal lives can be extraordinary decision-makers in their professional lives.  I would only add that most of us tend to lead compartmentalized lives.  We try to neatly divide our lives into manageable parts that we can handle.  It is seemingly easier to manage life one compartment at a time, and I can tell you, from exquisitely painful experience, that sometimes, one compartment can bleed over into another; try running a business and getting divorced sometime.  However, for the most part, we do manage to keep the compartments separate.

History has shown us that this separation is entirely possible as great Presidents have had less-than-stellar personal lives.  We of course know of Bill Clinton.  He got impeached for what I refer to as “the BJ heard round the world.”  Once of our most revered Presidents, John F. Kennedy, can hardly be held up as an example of chaste behavior.  If you go back to the Founding Fathers of this great country, we have now nearly confirmed that Thomas Jefferson fathered children by his slave, Sally Hemings.  It was used by political opponents of the time against Jefferson.    So peccadilloes are nothing new in politics.  Now, however, in spite of the fact that he wrote The Declaration of Independence, contributed in large part to writing The Constitution of the United States, was the first Secretary of State and the Third President of the United States, under the circumstances, we would humiliate him, force him to resign or impeach him for lying about it (Jefferson did deny it, by the way).

I think that the Democrats can take a lesson from the Republicans on this one.  Senator David Vitter remains in office, blocking every single Liberal effort in the Senate at every opportunity, by the way, after being found to be utilizing the services of prostitutes.  Republican Senator Larry Craig of Idaho managed to stay in office after trying to pick up a man, who happened to be a police officer, in a Minneapolis Airport restroom; the infamous foot-tapping incident.  Let us forget for the moment the continuing hypocrisy displayed by the Right Wingers, the fact that they display this kind of party unity, loyalty and take care of one another, has placed them in a position to remain the disloyal opposition and thwart every effort to change the politics of our federal government.  They manage to remain in a position to be hypocritical by being, well, hypocritical.  Maybe it is time for liberals to be more consistent, and a little less intellectually honest.  This is politics you know, and we all know how to tell a politician is lying, right?

Anthony Weiner was sacrificed, unnecessarily in my opinion, on the altar of intellectual honesty, in the philosophical interests of morality.  Us Liberals seem to have this enduring dedication to near chastity as it relates to politicians, and we expect to them to fess up the minute they are confronted.  I am not sure there is a man or woman on the planet that, upon being first confronted with some sort of extra-marital, sexual indiscretion, whether it be in the virtual world and ether of the internet or real life, will not try to deny the accusation; it is human nature.  Apparently, it is the nature of Liberals to eat our own young, even the best and the brightest among us.

Scandal...The Zombie Cat of Politics

As I am so fond of pointing out, you can find incredibly smart things in, of all places, the movies. In this case, I refer to the Movie, "Dave" in which a guy who is a look-alike for the President takes over his job after the real President has a debilitating stroke (I recommend the movie, by the way). Anyway, Dave, as President, addresses a joint session of Congress and says, about scandal, "... once people start talking about scandal it’s hard for them to talk about anything else. So fine. Let’s talk about it." Truer words have never been spoken. As much as I hate to admit it, I think we are stuck with this scandal for a while; the Congressional investigations, the elections, what have you.

One of the most unfortunate things from which the American public suffers is an incredibly short political memory. A politician can do just about anything and, if he/she manages to weather the political storm for 6 months, they are pretty much home free; unless the scandal rises from the dead like the dreaded zombie. If there is an election and the opposition can manage to bring the allegation or charge to the forefront, then they can succeed in resetting the clock on the memory. The scandal rises from the grave and has new life, a lot like the career.

An excellent example of refreshing the political memory is the Willie Horton television ad in the 1988 presidential election. It refreshed in the eyes of the public the perception that Michael Dukakis was soft on crime recounting the release of a man with a life sentence on weekend passes during Dukakis' term of office as Governor. There are all kinds of arguments that it was not his personal responsibility, but it is an example of how a scandal can rise from the dead.

Representative Anthony Weiner may have such a zombie on his hands, assuming he can get through the six month period. Regardless of your political ideology, can you imagine how many times we are going to have to watch, over, and over, and over, the video of the teary-eyed Weiner apologizing (over and over and over) and accepting "full responsibility" (over and over and over)? I am already queasy at the prospect. This is going to be a zombie cat, and God knows how many lives this beast has.

In a fairly recent development, the scandal was actually turned into a television series. I refer to "The Good Wife." This show stars Julianna Marquiles and Chris North who are the husband and wife Florrick in the show. He had an affair, with a prostitute (or maybe more than one), got caught and was removed from his office as the Cook County, Illinois State Attorney. Is anyone thinking Eliot Spitzer at this point? In the show, former State Attorney Florrick is also arrested and jailed by his successor, something with which Eliot did not have to deal. The point is that this political scandal not only has risen from the dead, but has become King of the Zombies, with an eternal afterlife. Talk about adding insult to injury or rubbing salt in the wound...wow!

Well, I am not looking forward to the reruns on this particular issue and I am most certainly not looking forward to the eternal rise of the King of the Zombie Cats!

AAAAARRRGGGGHHHH !...

The disloyal opposition, the Right Wing, have a number of interesting characteristics.  One of these is that they treat words much like a soldier treats bullets.  A soldier, in a firefight, is pretty much winning right up until his gun goes click, click, click instead of bang, bang, bang.  The Right argues in much the same manner.  They treat words like bullets.  As long as they are talking, they feel like they are winning.  The easiest way to win an argument is never shut up long enough to let the other side speak.  We have seen this in action in various forms.  The filibuster in an environment of no cloture, Rush Limbaugh shouting down, well, almost everybody and Fox News taking the path of representing as the truth the Right Wing perspective on all issues.

Of course, they also tend to make fundamental promises they are not going to keep.  This is much akin to Charlie Brown and Lucy.  Year after year, Lucy promised not to yank the football out from in front of him; and like the people of this country, he believed her, only to have the ball pulled away as he sailed through the air, screaming that phrase, “AAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGHHHHH!!”  Even so, year after year, he believed her and followed even the most tenuous logic, he trusted her.

I wonder if the American People can be fooled as long as Charlie Brown was?  God, I hope not.