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
