Olive_oyl

Popeye

We grew up watching Popeye and Brutus fight. They always found something to fight about. Usually it was over Olive Oyl. Today it’s crude and her name is spelled differently. The National Intelligence Estimate just released has suggested that the Iraq War has made things “worse,” not better in the “war on terror.” The timing of this announcement seems to be consistent with our leadership’s learning curve and can be compared with our government’s response to Hurricane Katrina which was a national catastrophe. Our jaws all dropped and we stood open-mouthed (Democrat, Republican, and Independent) when the President congratulated his FEMA director with “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job,” when we all knew he wasn’t. That will always be way up there (for me) with the “I didn’t have sex with that woman” quote. We are watching history be written by nit-wits.

The Hurricane did more than just reveal that the Emperor had no clothes, it also made it clear that many living inside the Forbidden City didn’t have much going on “upstairs” either. But I digress, back to the war- When the Secretary of Defense ridiculed the news media for showing the same guy “stealing” the same vase a hundred times a day on CNN, we could see that the U.S. did not have a handle for what would prove to be a very heavy suitcase. Baghdad went berserk, but our leaders said “Not to worry,” oppressed people were just “venting.” Venting? Mt. St. Helen was just venting, Vesuvius was just venting, Kilauea is venting. Baghdad was erupting.

Who is in charge? Not there, here? I am not going to pull a Hugo Chavez (who, by the way, is an “idiot”) and call people names (smile). However we need someone with common sense to report to the Warden’s Office or the Principle’s office (depending on how cynical you are) “on the double.” We are watching all our factories close and jobs go to China, and listen to the “experts” explain how this is a “good” thing. We are digging a deficit which is a hole so deep our grandchildren will come out the other end speaking Chinese We are frisking little old ladies in airports and confiscating tubs of Preparation H, while a million people with hemorrhoids are sitting on un-inspected suitcases stored below that could be filled with bombs.

Fat cats and lobbyists are schmoozing, drinking cocktails and commiserating on the poop deck of a ship of state going nowhere. We poor folks are down here in steerage. By the way the “poop deck” has nothing to do with poop, and those in “steerage” never get to steer. Go figure. That’s why I joined the Army instead of the Navy. I could never remember which was port and which was starboard- I was not bilingual.

The President of Afghanistan was just quoted in the New York Times saying that his unstable country would have been better off if we had given the 300 billion dollars to him instead of to Halliburton (okay, not exactly in those words). He was saying the Iraq War did not help his country. Well, it sure has not helped ours! I could think of a lot of things to do with 300 Billion dollars personally. After I paid off my mortgage and up-graded my fifteen year old automobile there would still be enough left over for everyone. I would not build a bridge to nowhere in Alaska, but perhaps some neighborhood health clinics in impoverished inner cities. Now if that is too “liberal” for you, how about securing our borders and filling in all those tunnels leading here from Mexico and Canada used by drug smugglers. Maybe turning some vacant industrial sites in Lansing and Flint into greenhouses would be a good idea. There, our rocket scientists might be able to figure out what to do with acre after ache of uneaten spinach. Perhaps it could be converted to an alternative fuel source and allow us to issue a second Declaration of Independence, or how about a 300 billion dollar pizza pie delivered by UPS (What can Brown do for you?) with a spinach salad on the side. Then we could say “Brownie, your doing a heck of a job.” -id