The Voice of Treason

Number One:

Her husband, Bill, as himself

Number Two:

Her husband, Bill, as former president

Number Three:

Her husband, Bill, back in the White House as First Lady

Number Four:

Her husband, Bill, in the Senate, representing the state of New York

Number Five:

Her husband, Bill, in the Senate, as Majority Leader

“As I walk through
This wicked world
Searchin’ for light in the darkness of insanity

I ask myself
Is all hope lost?
Is there only pain and hatred, and misery?”

Numbers One, Two, Three, Four, Five: What’s So Funny ‘Bout Peace, Love, and Understanding?

“Submitted by Elizabeth Kucinich on Wed, 2006-12-06 21:19. 9-10 Forum
May Peace Prevail On Earth

From a family (grandmother, mother, me and now my husband Dennis) of Librans, the symbol for which is the scales, my mother and I always joked that we spent our lives in constant flux in search of balance but rarely finding it. Librans, in this constant seeking for justice, appreciate fully moments of beauty and opportunity in every experience that allude to balance and justice.”

Dennis is a Libran. Jimmy Carter is a Libran. Libran Democrats make bad presidents and bad former presidents.

“As a member of Congress, I have co-sponsored every piece of major animal protection legislation. In addition, I hold the distinction of being the only vegan in Congress. I made this lifestyle change many years ago, because I consider all life on our Earth to be sacred. As a vegan, I choose not to eat any animals or animal products. I strive to live my life in accordance with my convictions, and any other choice of diet would defy my ideals and, in my judgment, be hypocritical.”

Dennis is a vegan. That, in itself, is not the issue. I can respect a decision like that. And I can’t say being a Mormon shouldn’t disqualify a candidate, then say being a vegan should. But if a candidate has qualms about the animals in our current food processing system, he’s going to have issues with the death penalty for humans.

That makes Dennis a people person. That’s where I have an issue. (I would also like a little more clarification on his statement: “I consider all life on our Earth to be sacred.” Uh…bugs, too? Kucinich, also a Roman Catholic, says he’s “uncomfortable with abortions” and feels “there are too many of them” but his position on the issue is…well, a tad confusing. Again, more clarification, please.)

Still, as a vegan, he would include advocacy of animal rights in his Department of Peace. As in “no more war.” Gee, I love animals, too, but I’ve seen hawks eat doves for breakfast. Literally. Says Kucinich:

“Violence and war are not inevitable. Nonviolence and peace are inevitable.”

Yes, Dennis is a dreamer. And he envisions “free, universal…public education for every child in America.” This, of course, extends to other “freebies” like free college and universal healthcare.

Let’s not mince words. Dennis is a Socialist.

“Whether the weather is cold,
Or whether the weather is hot;
We’ll be together,
No matter the weather,
Whether we like it or not.”

You know, this is just the last freakin’ thing on my list of priorities right now. I’m sure everyone has heard that John McCain and Joe Lieberman have teamed up, in bipartisan fashion, to draft legislation that will address global warming. (The dynamic duo has been at this since - what - 2003?) Well, that’s just swell. Add that to my list of top five reasons not to vote for McCain.

Number One:

Global warming isn’t keeping me up at night. I cannot sign on to a movement that points to global warming for every freaking nature pattern we’re experiencing. I live in the high desert. Drought? That’s global warming. Last summer’s floods? Global warming. Record snowfall? Global warming. Getting the highest heating bill of my life? Global warming. Above average temperature? Global warming. Below average temperature? Global warming. Rain, hail, wind? Global warming. More bugs? Global warming. Fewer bugs? Global warming.

But the polar ice caps are melting you say. Actually, they’ve just shifted and are now in Oswego, New York.

Number Two:

John McCain is most Democrats’ favorite Republican. Enough said.

Number Three:

He’s been sucking up to the (Religious) Right and passing himself off as the “new Reagan.” Damn it all, can’t politicians just be themselves? Can’t he just run as the “old McCain?”

Number Four:

“I’m past my peak
(You’re an early antique)
Look at this physique
(Just hear the old bones creak)
Where there was a glow
(There ain’t a glow no mo’)
Now the wrinkles show
(Where art thou, Romeo?)”

The age factor. Sorry, I hate to say it, but age is going to be a factor here. McCain’s past his prime and his time has simply come and gone.

Number Five:

The trust factor. Republicans still can’t trust him and they sense a Jimmy Carter pettiness and Howard Dean meanness about him. Try as they might, they make lists of what they do like about the guy, but then they remember what they don’t like and they can’t get past it.

He’s like a green tea bag in a cup of tepid water. The 2008 campaign will require enthusiasm teetering on mania. McCain, for me, just cannot inspire that kind of commitment.

The D-List:

Running:
1. Tom Vilsack
2. Joe Biden
3. Barack “Barama” Obama
4. Chris Dodd
5. John Edwards
6. Hillary (and Bill)
7. Bill Richardson
8. Dennis Kucinich

Starting to make noise:
9. Wesley Clark

Waiting to hear something:
10. Algore

Possible add-ons:
11. Howard Dean
12. Nancy “Mee-Mee” Pelosi
13. The Reverend Sharpton

Jumpers:
1. Mark Warner
2. Russ Feingold
3. Tom Daschle
4. Evan Bayh
5. John F. Kerry

The R-List:

Running:
1. Duncan Hunter
2. John McCain
3. Rudy Giuliani
4. Tommy Thompson
5. Mitt Romney
6. Sam Brownback
7. Tom Tancredo
8. Mike Huckabee
9. Ron Paul
10. Jim Gilmore

Waiting to pounce:
11. Newt Gingrich

Running whether we like it or not:
12. George Pataki

There’s been talk, but which party?:
13. Michael Bloomberg

And speculation:
14. Chuck Hagel

Please…not now and not another so soon:
15. George Allen

In the same boat, but not necessarily the Titanic:
16. Jeb Bush
17. Condi Rice

Won’t run if nominated, won’t serve if elected:
1. Richard B. Cheney

Jumpers:
2. Bill Frist
3. Frank Keating

“We have a female Secretary of State. We have a female Speaker of the House. We have a female running for President of the United States who wants to be Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces. Now I think if you can send troops into battle, you can pick up a dinner check.”

– Marc H. Rudov

Rudov, the author of The Man’s No-Nonsense Guide To Women, has determined that Valentine’s Day is “unfair and unbalanced” and he’s got the facts to back that up. We spend 16.9 billion dollars on this “needlessly expensive” holiday that, says Rudov, is “artificial — it’s compulsory.” This is romance?

Worse, he’s cited a recent Lindt & Sprungli survey that reveals a full 70% of men don’t expect a return Valentine’s gift and that 52% of women say men are absolutely correct in not expecting a return present. In other words, this is a holiday that’s “all about the woman.”

Excuse me, but where’s the equality in that?

Rudov points out that women have achieved equality in so many other areas - why isn’t Valentine’s Day reciprocal? If, by 2010, 60% of U.S. wealth will be controlled by women, and if more women than men graduate from college, why can’t they pop for a damned Valentine’s gift?

It’s an opportunity to go to the mall, ladies! Get out there and buy something for the guys! See, this is why I get so frustrated when women starting whining about men and the lack of equality in the world. Equality only works when it’s equal, balanced. I’m certainly hoping that Hillary, a champion of women’s rights (except for those women who were molested by her husband), keeps this in mind and is open to truly “equal” treatment during this campaign.

See, T and I have achieved that balance, that equality. We simply don’t exchange gifts on holidays. As for other areas, I don’t bother to look for equality. For instance, as I type this, T’s outside shoveling several inches of snow. In a few minutes, I’ll be standing at the foot of a ladder looking helpful and he’ll be in our crawlspace investigating a leak. Do I want to be up there? Hell, no.

So where’s the equality in that, you ask? Easy. I was up at three this morning after a nightmare about a cat falling from a bridge into a river. Hoping I could have one quiet day, the phone rang and it was someone calling about my mother, in a wonderfully rich Russian dialect:

“Dere eez rrreevers. Rrreevers of die-yah-rrree-yah!”

T wants no part of this; I want no part of the crawlspace. I call that even-steven.

They quietly enter our neighborhoods on bicycles, wearing crisp white shirts and ties; then crawl through windows and into nurseries - right into sleeping infants’ cribs - to suck the breath from babies’ defenseless little bodies.

If I hear one more person say that they would never vote for a Mormon, my head will explode. When there was so much hubbub about the Iraq Study Group, James Baker was suddenly in the news again, and some were reminded that Baker once advised Republicans against knocking themselves out for the Jewish vote. Why? Because “Jews won’t vote for Republicans anyway.”

Now I happen to know several Jewish Republicans, so they do exist. But having been raised in a Jewish — and heavily Democratic — neighborhood in Chicago, I can’t deny that many more Jews vote for those on the D-List. The most recent case, of course, was in Minnesota, where voters elected the first Muslim to Congress, Keith Ellison (a.k.a. Keith Hakim, Keith X Ellison, and Keith Ellison Muhammad). Jewish organizations came out in strong support of the Democrat, a Muslim who has ties to Louis Farrakhan, instead of the Republican candidate…who was Jewish.

Similarly, in New Jersey, Michael Steele made some progress with black voters, but still lost to a white Democrat. Now that some blacks are wary of Barama, and seem to be supporting instead a white Southerner — as well as the wife of another white Southerner — some people are confused. But blacks have a right to ask: “Why would you assume we’d vote for the black candidate?” Good point. It’s clear why you didn’t vote for Steele - he’s a Republican. But Barama’s a solid liberal. A Democrat. What’s the issue with him?

He’s not a Mormon, is he? The “new” freedom of religion is complicated. Better a Muslim than a Mormon. Bush is a Christian and that’s bad; but Barama’s a Christian and that’s good. Romney’s a Mormon and he’s dead in the water, hasn’t got a prayer, and has lost before he’s begun.

I couldn’t help notice a couple things when Romney formally announced at the Henry Ford Museum. There were Muslims in the crowd. Careful staging? Perhaps. But I doubt that they were from Rent-a-Muslim. Dearborn has a good number of authentics and many of them are supportive of Republicans.

Critics (specifically the National Jewish Democratic Council) were quick to point out that Henry Ford was an anti-Semite. Fine. There were blacks who weren’t happy that Barama chose Springfield because they still have issues with Lincoln. Tell me. Where can a candidate announce his intentions without offending someone somewhere?

For me, there were more good reasons than bad to stage the event at the museum. Romney chose to position himself in front of symbols that represent both America’s past and its future, and that perfectly fit the content of his speech. (And you know I have a soft spot for Ramblers.) I’d written here before about Romney and his dad and the type of politicians I grew up with - sort of a dying breed. While Barama might represent the “new” politics, Romney is an interesting mix of political tradition and innovation that could actually appeal to some people.

His speech (a speech with notes is itself a piece of the past - isn’t he supposed to pretend that this is all spontaneous?) reminded us of our present and future, too, and some of it was downright shocking. Did he actually say “marriage before children?”

If blacks are suspicious of Barama, just as many conservatives are apprehensive about Romney. The criticism itself, though, is suspect. Try saying Barama has no experience, and you’ll hear he’s “fresh,” unspoiled by Washington. Try saying he doesn’t know squat about foreign policy and you’ll hear he lived in Indonesia. Big whoop — Romney lived in France. Are you going to criticize his foreign policy experience? (Of course. But that’s valid. As valid as the critique of Barama.)

The battle over who’s really the next Reagan will be waged and I think it’s safe to say that there will be no winner. There is no new Reagan. And some people are starting to realize it and deal with it. Maybe it’s time for the party to move on, to let go. Maybe it isn’t a Reagan we need. Maybe it’s a Romney. A Giuliani. A Huckabee. A Newt. Can’t we just examine the candidates who are running and evaluate them without the comparison? Do we have to go back and review how Reagan was a “Reagan” conservative because he wasn’t the “perfect” conservative?

So Republicans shouldn’t be disqualified for not being Reagan. Nor should they be disqualified for being Mormon. One would think there are other more important things to consider, but I might just be wrong. Sucking breath from babies, I guess, is no small issue with our current electorate.

I stopped watching music awards shows years ago, so I chose not to watch the Grammys and switched on the British Academy Awards, instead. When I saw a re-cap of the Grammys I was left with the distinct impression that many of those who won big were acknowledging “freedom of speech,” hinting - hell, actually coming out and saying - that they won precisely because of free speech. So, as I’ve long suspected, winning a Grammy these days has very little to do with the quality of an artist’s music. Just one reason I don’t bother tuning in anymore.

The British Academy Awards, on the other hand, had some interesting moments and I have to admit I was a little surprised to see Paul Greengrass win a BAFTA for directing United 93. He humbly accepted the honor, bravely saying:

“Cinema must also deal with the way the world is, and the dangers.”

Whoa — is he talking about terrorism? And an artist’s obligation to be truthful? This is shocking stuff. Shocking, too, is that “hecklers” were tossed out of Barama’s campaign rally over the weekend. Weren’t they exercising their free speech, too?

I actually heard some Democrats - straight-faced all - criticizing John Howard for criticizing Barack Obama. Why, how dare a “foreigner” have an opinion about our politics? Howard has violated the “no-comment” rule! Yet if the Australian PM had criticized a Republican…well, the hypocrisy is just out of control.

Similarly, when Hillary was asked on the campaign trail to admit that her support for the war was a mistake and was practically beseeched to say the m-word, she dodged. George Bush was badgered relentlessly - WHY CAN’T HE JUST ADMIT HE MADE A MISTAKE??? Yet Hillary, for some reason, doesn’t have to admit she’s made any.

John Edwards said the m-word. When is Hillary going to say it?

Yesterday I found myself watching Barama in Springfield; later I was surfing and landed on The Remains of the Day. Hadn’t seen the film in a few years and thought I’d watch it again. It’s interesting to see it so many years after it was made and look at it in the context of today’s political climate. It was all those “well-meaning” people who took the side of the Germans, claiming the rest of the world had treated them too harshly after the first devastating war; why, it just wasn’t fair to sit back and watch them struggle. They needed a helping hand from their friends around the globe. After all, wasn’t peace the goal? Wasn’t peace the thing that everyone - including those poor, suffering Germans - wanted? That Hitler fellow was just trying to set those people back on their feet, that’s all. And if we could just help…wasn’t that the fair and right thing to do? We just need to talk to them. And once they see what fine, well-meaning people we are…

No good deed goes unpunished. History teaches us nothing. It’s deja vu all over again.

At some point during the evening I fell asleep and then awoke to hear my cell phone ringing. I jumped up, and ran towards the phone, expecting it to be a call from the group home. Had my mother fallen out of bed?

I looked to see if I recognized the number. I didn’t. It was past three-thirty and I chose not to answer the phone. I waited. No message. I was now fully awake. I picked up the remote and switched on C-SPAN. I came in somewhere in the middle of the State of the Black Union 2007 - a repeat broadcast of the afternoon session. I immediately got the impression that those on the panel were miffed because Barack Obama had called to apologize for not being there because he had this little thing going on in Springfield earlier that day. You know, the announcement of his presidential campaign? In other words, he dissed the conference.

Lerone Bennett Jr. appeared to be particularly offended at Barama’s choice of settings. Why Springfield? Why the comparison to Lincoln? Abraham Lincoln, Bennett revealed, did not, as previously and erroneously reported, free the slaves. No, instead Abraham Lincoln hated black people. Yes, he hated them and wanted them all rounded up and deported. Starting to sound familiar?

It makes sense I guess. Lincoln was, after all, a Republican. And who is this Obama person really? Who holds his purse strings? Who’s funding this campaign of his? The Jews?

I know it was the middle of the night and I was probably tired, but I was awake enough to know that several people on the panel had stopped making sense. The more they talked the less sense they made. It had all turned into some long stream-of-consciousness madness that was really more like a stream-of-unconsciousness, if you ask me.

And then I remembered what T had once said. That one, or maybe even two whole generations had to die off before we could be free of the albatross of racism around our necks. Or, as Tony Soprano’s dad once said, the “albacore.”

If someone thinks that a Barama presidency could mark the end of this long “Greatest Generation” and “Boomer” cycle, he or she might be tempted for vote for him even if his Liberal Democrat views aren’t entirely agreeable. I mean, is it possible? Could we move on? Could we actually get past all the years of race baiting and tired rhetoric?

Probably not, because a few hours later on 60 Minutes, Barama’s wife explained that because her husband is black, he can get shot at a gas station. Hmmmm. A coworker of mine stopped at a gas station one night on his way home a couple years ago and he was shot and killed and he wasn’t black. What was her point exactly?

I actually have some faith in Gen Xers, but I worry about those after them. We seem to be breeding a whole new generation of well-meaners and do-gooders - the peaceniks who manage to surface throughout history at inopportune moments to complicate matters. Like those well-meaners who thought that King George wasn’t really such a bad fellow…and the Peace Democrats in 1863 who called Lincoln a tyrant and didn’t want freedom, after all, for the “niggers” when they started to suspect that the Union was losing the war. The well-meaning Europeans and Americans in the thirties…the sixties…the seventies…and now.

And speaking of Dennis Kucinich, he and his very young, very pretty, very British wife were on C-SPAN, too, talking about peace. I suspect a few in the crowd in New Hampshire thought he said “impeach.”

To be fair, I don’t think he did, but there were others there, well-meaning all, who did.

During my lifetime, the obsession with Marilyn Monroe was revived every few years, with Marilyn making an appearance in popular culture every decade or so. She was back in the seventies, then she faded; came back again in the eighties, then faded; popped up again in the nineties, then faded. But now the obsession, seemingly fading again, has been revived with the death of another Norma Jean. This time it’s the death of one Vickie Lynn.

The coverage has dominated the news - it’s all Anna Nicole, all the time. Trust me when I say that T is no prude, but recently he complained that he was getting tired of the constant videos on cable news of nubiles rolling around on the ground, pulling at each other’s tube tops, scratching, biting, clawing, kicking.

“Funny you should mention that,” I said. “I was listening to Laura Ingraham and she was complaining about it, too. Her callers are tired of seeing the same videos hour after hour. It’s…I don’t know…tawdry. Unseemly. Creepy.”

No sooner had I said that and Laura was on FNC, chastising Bill O’Reilly for what appears to be an across the board male midlife crisis at FOX News. She may be on to something. Anna Nicole Smith is dead but her image is alive and well, not just on FOX but on every cable news channel. What’s the obsession?

Is this some kind of Greek tragedy? Yet another cautionary tale? Or is it simply an opportunity to grab ratings by showing Anna Nicole Smith’s breasts again and again and again and calling it news?

I sit and watch the former Vickie Lynn Hogan, and see a strange resemblance to Ann-Margret. But Ann-Margret, quite the sex-kitten in her day, made different choices and took an alternate path. Anna Nicole was no Ann-Margret.

It might sound odd, I know, but I just can’t help think of cockroaches. Growing up in those old apartment buildings in Chicago, cockroaches were just inevitable. We lived in one apartment - on the first floor, just above the basement - and I’d ask family members to enter rooms ahead of me and switch on the lights so that I wouldn’t have to see hundreds of roaches - generally the chocolate colored, run-of-the-mill German variety - making a dash for it. (Once that image is in your head, it’s hard to forget.) When we moved across the street to the other side of Sheridan Road, we had an apartment on what was, technically, the fourth or top floor. Roaches rarely made it up that far, but once in a great while one or two would appear in the bathroom. Small ones. Young, able roaches.

My mother would see one happily crawling past her and, without hesitation, she’d squash it with her finger. My first instinct was always to wrap its little mashed corpse in a piece of tissue and dispose of it in some quiet, tasteful way.

“No!,” my mother would bellow. “Don’t you touch that. Just leave it right where it is.”

“But why?”

“It’ll serve as a warning to the others, that’s why!”

And so maybe that’s the whole point of all this coverage of the story of Anna Nicole Smith, formerly Vickie Lynn Hogan. It’s in our faces, hour after hour, day after day, to “serve as a warning to the others.”

(I know they say it might be five weeks or more before they determine the actual cause of her death, but I say - if all she had in the fridge was drugs and Slim-Fast - the poor girl probably starved to death.)

My mother is finally at that stage in her life where she’s falling for no apparent reason. She fell on her face and broke her nose on Christmas night; then, when she was hospitalized a week later for an abdominal infection, she fell repeatedly in the hospital. After she was transferred to a skilled nursing facility she fell again. I got a call last week at midnight, informing me that she was on the floor and they were going to X-ray her. On Saturday, after spending the day moving all her furniture out of her apartment in an assisted living facility into a group home and mine, I got a call from the nursing facility.

“Your mother slipped out of her wheelchair and needs to go to the Emergency Room. We think she’s broken her hip. Where would you like the ambulance to take her?”

Variety is the spice of life, so after an ER visit on Christmas and another on New Year’s Day at one hospital, I figured I’d go with the competition. I needed a change of scenery. After a series of X-rays, it was determined that there were no fractures, but her back was badly strained. She was in pain and tired, but it was a Saturday night and an ambulance to chauffeur her back to her skilled nursing facility would be slow in coming. The time of her discharge was 11:00; at 3:30, there was still no sign of her ambulance.

By now, she and her bed were soaked, and she was shivering. When I told the nurses that she’d be back in a few days with pneumonia, they came back with washcloths and a fresh diaper. By then she was hallucinating, for some reason thinking that her bed had caught fire, and yelled: “How? I don’t smoke!”

Whenever we’re together in a situation like this, I keep talking to keep her focused. I know her sense of humor and she knows mine, but I always suspect that anyone overhearing us talk would think that one or both of us were nuts. At some point she was too tired and disoriented to listen and I was exhausted from moving furniture all day and then jolly-dogging her in the ER for eight hours. Any sense of humor had evaporated.

Happily, an ambulance arrived and I followed it back to the SNF to see that she was tucked in for the night and to hand off her paperwork. It was well past four in the morning when I got stuck in a conversation with a couple staff members. I’d mentioned that I was trying to get her out of the facility and into a group home, and they were thrilled.

“We’ve heard such good things about that place. She’ll be so much better off there! Definitely get her out of here if you can!”

Hmmmm. Anyway, we started talking about the high cost of assisted living and nursing home care, and one of them mentioned that one of their new patients had just come from New York where his monthly expenses in a facility there had been over $12,000 a month.

I smiled. “And that’s why I’m buying a gun.”

“You’re not kidding! None of us are going to be able to afford the care that our parents are getting. They’re the last generation that’ll be able to pay for it.”

“I’ve lined up my spot under the viaduct.”

“Save one for me, will ya? Actually, some people I know have sold everything they own here and they’re buying property in the Dominican Republic. They can get a decent house there for about twenty thousand bucks. They figure they’ll be able to afford getting old there.”

“Interesting. But I’m not up for relocating to the Dominican Republic.”

“We’re gonna have to do something. If we don’t have socialized medicine in this country in the next year, I don’t know what we’ll do.”

The other staff member perked up: “You got that right! We’ve got to have it. There’s no way I’m going to be able to pay for anything the way I get taxed. Did you hear Bush the other night? He said in that speech that he was going to raise taxes again.”

“The State of the Union Address?”

“Yup. They’re taking all my money now for taxes. Paying taxes isn’t even legal — did you know that? Sometimes I’m tempted to just stop paying ‘em. Then what are they going to do?”

By now it was past 4:30 and I was tired, but I’d watched the speech a couple times and had read the text, and the two staff members were telling me about programs he was proposing and tax hikes that I know he never mentioned. I decided my mother wasn’t the only one hallucinating that night.

So here are two more people who insist that socialized medicine will cure all our ills. I thought of my recent experiences with government agencies like Medicare and Social Security on behalf of my mother, and how I had to jump through hoops just to change her address. Several phone calls, various trips to the Social Security office, forms to fill out, forms for her doctor to fill out, and hours and hours of waiting just for someone to type a new address into a computer. And it doesn’t end there. There’s more that needs to be done before the address change is official.

“We just want to be sure that you won’t be using her benefits to pay your expenses.”

“Not to worry,” I assured the woman. “They wouldn’t even cover my vet bills.”

On my last visit to the Social Security office I couldn’t help notice the framed photograph of Dick Cheney on the wall in the lobby. I should have realized then what I was in for. He was looking at me with that funny little smile and twinkle in his eye as if to say:

“You’re in for a real treat.”

I looked at the room full of people, each person clutching a piece of paper with a number on it, hoping they’d be the lucky person whose number would be called next. And I thought of the two staff members at the skilled nursing facility who had complained about government incompetence, crippling taxes, and the dire need for socialized medicine.

Let me get this straight. You think you’re being taxed too much, but you want socialized medicine. Tell me. Who’s going to pay for it? You think the government is incompetent but you have no issue with it taking over your healthcare. You think the government already knows too much about you as it is, and you’ve lost all sense of privacy. But you want them controlling your medical records? Gotcha.

Anyone overhearing us talk that night would have thought that one, two, or all three of us were nuts. I know which two I’d pick.