Two Joes?

It’s nine o’clock on Friday morning and I think Joe Scarborough is about to confirm what the Smoking Jacket has pretended to know all along, Joe Liebermouse, or “Poor Loserman” as Joe likes to call him, will be McSame’s first choice for number two. And while I would like to have the luxury of waiting till eleven this morning to hear it from the candidate his own dang self before I start crowing in print, I can’t because we’ll be gone for ten days.

The Smoking Jacket is taking the show on the road. Maine for Joodster’s birthday bash, then down to Maryland for Hannah Medd’s fantasmagorical wedding and then heading up to Susannah Foo’s in Philly for some long sought after cuisine d’ Chinoise. Back via east Manhattan for the perfect bagle with Vic and Robin, before heading up to No Stamfo to scare the grandchildren.

Last night’s speech by that O’bama feller who thinks he would like to be the next commander in chief got glowing reviews from even Republican pundits like the estimable Mike Murphy. Peggy Noonan, who must write her own intros when she graces the news sets with her presence, thought it was flat and no one will remember anything but the pretentious set and that he didn’t soar. I have never liked this woman so I was thrilled when Andrea Mitchell, who was sitting next to Peggy, said in her demur way, that she disagreed thoroughly and thought it hit the mark. Egg on Peg’s puss is just as much fun for me as watching the guessing game galumph on toward eleven o’clock. This famous former speech writer for Reagan couldn’t even bring herself to pronounce “Barack” the way he does. She says BARE-uck, like the building soldiers sleep in. I wonder if she says CHEE-nee unlike the rest of the world, save the world class mispronouncer, Chris Mathews, and me.

New Prediction. The rascally Gustav is going to make it all the way to St. Paul next week where he will huff and puff and blow the stadium roof off the way Lieberman would have done with his own soaring rhetoric if they didn’t have to cancel.

Catch you on the flip side of Labor Day.

Hitch slap

Never mind every thing else, over 1 million deaths have been attributed to the war in Iraq so far. And the best that can be said is that we got rid of an awful unlawful dictator. There is no argument to the contrary that anyone can make that would convince me that that as Americans we must also bear some of this shame.

Christopher Hitchens has written eloquently (and when does he not?) about the solid reasons for taking out the Butcher of Baghdad, the man famous for gassing his own people, conducting a losing eight year war with Iran, torturing, murdering and every other thing that he has been rightly accused of.

There are over a million reasons why we should not have invaded, unprovoked, a sovereign nation no matter the desire to right wrongs and vanquish evil. If we are to stick by America even when it makes bad decisions we have to be careful to not blithely dismiss the consequences with alternative logic that wipes out the rule of, in this case, international law.

And if you buy the argument that some good has come out of our nation building, can you agree to the price paid thus far, over 4,100 dead Americans? More than 16,000 severely wounded, including those who will never recover from traumatic brain injury or grow back missing limbs or see again. It would be unseemly to talk about the financial cost when we consider this tragedy but there is a sobering clock on www.zFacts.com.

There are no figures for the Iraqi wounded but one can extrapolate and wonder how many of them went into the dead column for lack of adequate hospitals, electricity, clean water or even ambulances to get them to an emergency facility.

Hitch is pleased with the success of the “surge” and how it has in part helped to reduce violence and make some neighborhoods somewhat safer. But it has taken seven years and the bloody toll above just to reach this fragile state. In his self serving sado-cynicism he does not write about the costs of war although he did write about one moving memory of going out to visit the family of some young lieutenant who was killed and had mentioned the author in emails to them.

We all agree that Sadam was insane psycopath but not all of us felt he had to go. After all it was none of our business unless it turned out that we had proof positive, before invading, that the foul son-of-a-bitch had WMD. But we were told by world experts who had been vetted and trusted before, that there was no evidence to conclude what the Cheney-Bush axis wanted so much to believe so that W could take revenge on “the guy who tried to kill my dad.”

Oh my dad! How in the name of all the Allahs everywhere could we have been led into this behemoth blunder by such an ignorant little shit? It was up to him. The president cannot be superseded when he says “no.” They could have come to the very brink with tanks and troops locked and loaded and at the very last minute he could have said “wait.”

Was it possible that he thought maybe only a couple hundred Americans would have to get killed so that he could show his dad how tough he is? Having never gotten too close to military combat he likely didn’t calculate the number of wounded and the devastation to all the families. Maybe he thought that paltry loss was absorbable. Maybe he just didn’t do all the thinking that needed to be done before he said, “getter done!”

It will stay with me all my days that this country elected a known bozo, unqualified to lead a brownie troop, because he seemed like “a guy you could have a beer with” (not withstanding that he is what is known in AA as a “dry drunk”). Soon he will scoot out the back door, leaving all his messes, and the only thing I can hope for is that he lives to a 113 with a viciously vivid memory that will remind him every day of the unhealable suffering he has caused to so many innocent people. Hitch can go on living as long as he wants. It’s still a thoughtful provocative read.

Midst the midden

In the dung heap of choices for the vice presidency the most obvious choice is none of the above. I like Joe Biden’s chances and except for his mouth, he is eminently qualified. Forget about the fact that he has emphatically declared, “I’ve been on the Hill since I was 29 years old. I don’t think I want to start working for somebody else now.” His glib jib and prominently displayed hauteur often gets him in trouble but I like that especially as entertainment over the next eight years. His foreign relations chops are worthy and at 62 he still cleans up pretty good for funeral duty.

Evan Bayh is too wimpy. Tim Kaine is better for the party where he is and too white bread to get people excited. Richardson would be excellent but I think the clingers to religion and guns, you know, the “hard working, blue collar Catholics” who love Hillary, will be slightly to moderately uneasy with two “persons of color” at the top of the ticket. Never mind that they both have white American born mothers, “I know what I see with mah own damn eyes.”

Which brings us to Hillary who we love to pillory. Too bad, she would ordinarily be the best choice but for all the baggage she brings. Most notably, the Slickster, who couldn’t keep his bulbous proboscis in line with the best interest of her campaign. That race was so close that you could say that this or that tilted to the big O, but what really stands out as I look back to almost a year ago, was the eponymously named Willy jumping in where he was not needed thinking that people didn’t remember him for his lack of a strong connection to the truth. In my view, she seals the deal for the Obambians but when you include the whole family package (whaddup with Chelsea introducing her mom and WJC getting a speaking spot too?) then, it will just be too much for people. They probably would win but a lot of people at the top of the campaign would have every right to be pissed after all they have put into the effort. It’s a tough call but I think I’d take her, with some very strict rules for her laddie, up front and in writing.

Liebermouse for Vice President, again? There’s a reason that Joe has been seen in so many scenes with McCain. It’s a kind of subtle polling to see how people react to them. There doesn’t seem to be any republican outcry and it wouldn’t surprise me to see him get picked. The idea, of course, is to reach across partisanship and bring in somebody who jumped from his own party because he lost his primary battle in his home state for the Senate. He was too pro war and held other conservative views so they voted the bum out. Bolting Joe knows better and not taking no for an answer he became an “independent” who has voted reliably with the other side since getting reelected.

Charlie Christ should be right up there in McCain’s choices. Hell, the guy got married to improve his chances and maybe to squash rumors that he was too much of a man’s man. Tim Pawlenty is said to be very “attractive” as a possible but if you’re not sure who he is, than you are with the majority of voters. It doesn’t make any difference who he is or how good he might be, ya gotta have more name recognition than this guy has. Tom Ridge might get past the pro abortion/anti life tag but how many of us know him as the first and fleetest head of the failed home land security tax soaker upper. He might bring Pennsylvania but he might bring a shit storm of criticism for yet another gargantuan failure of the Bush administration. He jumped ship on that, so they wanted to bring in Bernard Kerick. Oy vey!

The thing I don’t quite get is why Lindsay Graham is not at the top of the short list. There’s a soldier with like mindedness of the candidate who is willing to say whatever the day’s talking points are and with a straight face. A frequent guest on the Sunday morning shows, he can come across as thoughtful and believable. As a Light Col. in the air force he is said to be a good call for the national security issue. But that is Mc’s strength, so maybe he get’s sacrificed for someone who can bring a needed state, or a youthful look, or economic strength, even though he might be the best guy to serve with die alte.
I’m going with Liebermouse.

Pong Yang ping pongers

The South Korean Ryu Seung Min kicked the ass of Austria’s Chen Weixing in a brutal(ly) boring battle for king of pong. I’m trying to decide if this is more entertaining that watching a 20 year old Belarusian put 444 pounds above his head without, literally, busting a gut. Yee hah! SK just won, bronze. This is so not the table tennis that we used to while away many teenage hours with. It looks like they serve with their cheek. The table is the size of a pop tart and now, unbelievably, they are playing doubles.

The whole Olympics hype has pretty much ruined the spectacle for me. It’s become too political and the gamesmanship is more about cheating that being the fastest. Not that many have been kicked out but one of them who did was someone who shoots at targets. Why does he need to get cranked up on steroids? Well, of course, he doesn’t. He needs to crank down so he takes something for that but he won’t be taking home the medal he won.

And whaddup with the Chinese sending in kindergarteners and pretending they are sixteen but there doesn’t seem to be a big whup about it because the hosts are a little huffy over any hint of impropriety on their watch? Though I haven’t watched that much besides really cool stuff like sailing and Siamese beach volley ball, I have caught a lot of highlights on the news and so I actually know who Michael Phelps is and the other swimmer, Lezak (sp?) who saved Phelps from only a tie with Mark Spitz.

With the medal count 79 for the US and 77 for China you would think that would spell second place but the Chinoise have more gold, 18 more. What is not known in this equation is how to weight the value of the individual sport. Surely, tiddly winks does not have the heft of putting a record smashing 569 pounds over your own head. And Shawn Johnson’s gold can’t compare to ladies archery or dancing in a swimming pool. So if the Sino set says “but we have more points because our golds are worth more than your collective silvers and bronzes,” we can counter by pulling our troops out of Iraq and lining them up on the Siberian border. Let the games end!

One creepy crap shoot

What the hell was President Saakakashvili thinking to go poking the Bear with such a sharp stick? Strong leadership is important and the ideal of democracy is a good thing but why push it when you are pretty sure that the consequences will be tragic.

Russians are notorious for their bullying and land grabbing. Think of the wholly unsuccessful attempt to protect the commie population in Afghanistan against the mujahedeen. Hard to pick a favorite in that one but I think most of us wanted to see the 3CP get the short end. War-crossed Chechnya is a federal subject of Russia that has been fighting them since the USSR broke up in 1991. This murderous and wasteful conflict actually goes back 80 plus years. They’re still fighting.

Those of us of a certain age remember the early TV footage of war when Khrushchev sent tanks into Hungary to put down that revolution. The tanks reappeared in 1968 when Alexander Dubcek had to get slapped around by the Kremlin for trying a similar stunt in what is now the Czech Republic. The heinous aftermath of these “conflicts” has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths, even more wounded, orphans and homelessness. It’s insane.

It boggles to think that Saakashvili thought he could pull this off and it makes it a little unbelievable that he would think that the west and particularly the US would come to his aid. It would be a bad idea even if we weren’t stretched so thin militarily. We shouldn’t go to war just because we can. There are strategic interests but that is true else where and many of us think that phrase is just code for “blood for oil.” When I read in the Times that neo-cons think that “promoting democracy is the paramount goal” I think of how hideously wrong they were on invading Iraq. In the same article I read McCain saying good things about his “friends” the Georgians (he nominated President Saakashvili for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 – good call) even though it seems that they have pushed Putin to what most observers would conclude was an obvious and avoidable outcome. And I do mean Putin. Nobody thinks Medvedev thinks for the country.

It isn’t clear who fired the first shot when “fighting broke out in South Ossetia” but Tom Ordeman Jr. of Spero News has this analysis:

“Fighting broke out earlier this week between the Georgian military and South Ossetia's rebel forces. Despite an initial ceasefire agreement, fighting flared back up, eventually resulting in Georgian forces shooting down two Russian aircraft. (Guardian, Times). The Russian military responded by sending tanks into South Ossetia and bombing Georgian air bases. The Russian incursion has allegedly escalated to air attacks on Russian cities outside South Ossetia. How this incident will end, and what its impact will be, is anyone's guess.”

But by the time the Migs got shot down, they had already taken out an Israeli made (un-manned) drone belonging to the peace loving Georgians.

I guess, since no one got killed, I wouldn’t have shot down the Russian Migs even for that. On the other hand, nice shooting! You’d think the Russkies would have planes that a little country like Georgia couldn’t blow out of the sky. O well, more boys being boys with big toys. What fun is it to have all this cool stuff to shoot if you don’t get to squeeze the trigger?

Now they have called a truce after Russia has decimated the Georgians' military, killed a couple of thousand citizens and soldiers, and ruined ancient architecture and modern infrastructure. BarackO said yesterday, “there is no possible justification for these attacks.” He’s wrong. The justification is to send a clear message from Moscow not to mess with us. It does remind one of the adage, “If he takes a knife to a fight, you take a gun.”

The Russians are not going to take any guff from US or our allies and they feel provoked by the Bush policy of cozying up to one of its neighbors, who just happen to have a lot of oil being pumped across its borders. McCain’s bluster about kicking the Rooshians out of the G8 makes about as much sense as a “gas holiday.” I wish he would take a holiday from gassing on about how he “knows” that every American is a Georgian. That’s more than a little over the top. It has a Howard Dean in Iowa eeriness to it.

This thing will blow over because it’s stupid and we need Russian oil and, thankfully, civilians don’t give two shits about all this macho posturing. But look at the mess that is left behind. Two thousand dead “bred of an airy word … A plague a’ both your houses.”

Ken Doll gets screwed by Lisa Druck, returning the favor

Ya gotta love MoDo. In her Sunday column she eviscerates the one term senator, no term vice president, and no term president with the same kind of fervor she used to favor Bubba with. I believe this story has legs. Bony, hairy ones with scabs on the knees. I just caught part of Edwards' interview with Bob Woodruff that was at the end of a news clip with him saying something along the lines of, “…you can be 99% good but it’s that other part that will get you.”

Was part of the 99% where he was so sold on himself that he had to put his family through the cruel strains of a national campaign—again—because he really had more to offer than some of the more serious and tested candidates? Riding a bus through Iowa and New Hampshire in the winter, three towns in a day, and then jumping on a plane to get to the next venue is the kind of torture that these guys (and one gal) put themselves and their “loved ones” through on purpose and I got to say, it doesn’t seem like a good thing to do.

The truth for me is that I never liked him, even before I knew that he paid $400 for a hair cut and you gotta see this to understand why.

When he admits that he was/is full of himself you know that he’s telling the truth for a change. All that stuff about how he was going to eradicate poverty starting “right now,” as he stated in some snake water neighborhood in New Orleans with a bunch of bought-off kids for props behind him. They probably would have demanded more if they knew how long it would take him to pimp his ‘do’ before the video began to roll.

I remember covering him last fall in Conway when he suddenly changed the meeting place to the Salyards building which only held 200 because that kind of a piddly crowd would make him look like the loser that he is if they carried on with plans to use the cavernous new High School gym. They hadn’t got the fire department permits they needed and didn’t make the necessary accommodations for possible emergency evacuation and so when I left, as soon as I could, there were about fifty people standing outside in the rain waiting for others to leave so they could get in. For what?

I wonder if the water these ego maniacs drink is also laced with Viagra. Probably only Mike Gravel has no sexual scandal attached to him in this last go around. Even the diminutive alien look a like Kucinich is on his third wife (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Perhaps the whole business of running is just a ploy for getting laid. We used to have a NH congressman who was telling my buddy Jim that he had to go up to tiny little Orford that night to give a speech. “Hard to get laid up in Orford, Jimbo,” says he with a wink, “but not impossible.” Chuckle chuckle.

The lure of the opposite sex is fun. It’s what keeps the human race going and some people are not blessed with the kind of self-discipline that would be helpful when temptation knocks. But this guy was running for POTUS for the love of jaypers. Did he think no one would find out? Had he never heard about FDR and Lucy, Ike and Kay, Jack and his whole pack, the Trickster and Checkers and of course the audacious one from Hope who liked to talk to his friends on the phone in the oval office while not having sexual relations with that 21 year old in the blue dress.

The bigger part of the story is the lying. Not to reporters and us but to his family. Why does he have to go on TV to drag the ugliness right up to their noses? He told them already what happened and had it out of the way, so we are led to believe, he was thinking of them? It is not remotely possible that Edwards went out to LA just a month ago to straighten out some details of an understanding that he had with Druck/Hunter.

And who believes that Andrew Young guy, who supposedly says he is the father, is at all reliable when he takes money that we are asked to believe comes from a private donor to resettle, just like Lisa/Reille did. Young too has a wife and kids. I bet the money is somehow being funneled from campaign treasury funds which could lead to criminal charges. Keep it up, boys.

Why should we care? We don’t. It’s just fun.

Busting Cokie's chops

BarackO, the skinny guy, a lightweight? McWrinkly Guy wants to have his own wife enter a topless beauty pageant in front of 50 thousand bikers because she was such a successful cheer leader in high school. But BHO supposedly lacks substance or gravitas of the political kind even though he definitively beat the crack Clinton machine in the primary. Does this feat not demonstrate good organizational skills, discipline, a solid business plan, tenacity and chutzpah? Did anyone put money, back then, on the unknown black guy with the funny name and a grandmother living in Kenya to beat Bubba’s wife, the former two term first lady and 2nd term Senator from New York with a formidable fund raising machine and a world wide face? I think not.

What, anygate, was Barack thinking back then? Maybe to get on the ticket if he finished well enough ahead of Kucinich and Mike Gravel. It’s hard to think now who might have really had a chance in that whole field and yet some in that field are being considered for the skinny guy’s veep. After Iowa, none of the other boys in the race could touch the lad.

So where do the punditocracy get off saying he doesn’t have what it takes and not enough heft. PJ Buchannan keeps saying “he can’t close the deal,” but he broke a bunch of barriers like not giving out “walking around money” in Philly and still winning despite Boo Cannon saying that the young man has a lot to learn if he thinks he’s going up against the old school pols. BarackO has also kept the campaign pretty clean by not initiating negative attack ads but, rather cleverly parrying the funny, if fatuous, kind of ads that Steve “the Bullet” Schmidt keeps lobbing into the cable news types so they won’t have to talk about the economy. And BTW, who you callin’ “stupid”?

The malarkey spewed by both sides that these ads keep the candidate from talking about “the issues” is exactly what they want. The minute either one opens their mouth on any serious subject the other side is researching everything they have said, or anyone else has said, and new ads come out about “flip-flopping,” although that shop worn phrase seems to have lost some of its zing of late.

I can’t help thinking that the “white haired dude” is going to be thinking fondly of his former interrogators as he approaches the first debate. And BHO is probably spending his matutinal hour and a half in the gym sharpening his foot work and pounding the light and heavy bags instead of “dunking three shotters,” as the otherwise capable Jonathan Capeheart of the Post would have it. (Even spell-check just asked: how black is Capeheart that he doesn’t know common basket ball terms?)

And now the big O has the audacity to hope he can get away with going to visit his grandmother in Hawaii which he will combine with a family vacay. Cokie Roberts said yesterday, “I know it’s a state and not some exotic foreign place, but…” But what? She thinks he should probably have gone to a more quotidian shore, like “Myrtle Beach in NC.” Cokie, usually pretty astute and thoughtful, wants our boy to try to pull the wool over his future voters eyes by staying in a motel a couple of blocks from the beach (lotta presuming here) and sending out to Dominoes in order to parry the opinion that he is elitist. I say, go back and see some of your old school mates and the grandmother who has to be pretty danged old since he’s 47. It could be the last time.

“See you in Denver, Bitches”

Bill Clinton can’t bring himself to give a one word answer that would effectively give his support to BarackO as the candidate because he incapable of the short retort or he can’t miss the opportunity to lecture or he wants to keep Kate Snow around long enough to tell her how much he admires her hair.

The smartest man in politics (during his presidency) will always be the guy, for me, who wagged his finger in my face and said, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.” I always wondered how many times he rehearsed that line before going on TV. How big was the focus group that he tried out the many versions till he got it just wrong.

Bubba the dubba for ever after and now he has proved himself to be just that through his shabby performance in Peoria when he was supposedly stumping for his wife but really just trying to find out how many different American towns he could get laid in, in a row.

What ever the Slickster is up to this time doesn’t really matter. The Clintons will do their thing at the Denver debacle for the putative purpose of advancing the Mrs. to her next step in the great power grab. Many of us old cynics think that she could even be hoping for a BarackO loss so that she will only be 64 when the next presidential bid comes her way.

Could that be why Bill had to defer to the letter of the Constitution to define who is qualified to be president of these United States? Some pundit reminded him that the Constitution is very clear about those qualifications, which are: you need to be at least 35 years of age and born in the US. And even that last can be tricky as we know that Admiral McCain’s son, Johnny, was born in Panama which we don’t even have a lease on any more.

More on the non-buy ad wars—Paris’s ad attacking McCain was pretty cute, “I’ll see you in Denver, Bitches.” But the real good that came out of it was her mentioning Rihanna for her possible veep choice which sent me to YouTube and I wouldn’t blame anyone for doing the same.

Alas, the Olympics are here and my Morning Joe won’t be the same although this morning I did get to see the US defeat the Japanese yet again, with a one-nil victory in soccer.

It's an ad ad world

All week long the blatherers, who I spend many happy hours with each day, have examined with their proctoscopes the television ads mostly of the McCain stripe. Only one of them pointed out that no money is being spent on airing these ads. There is no need when the carnival barkers are doing all that can be done to keep this the story. They are even asking each other: What does BarackO have to do to get the conversation back to the issues? They can’t. BHO gave a speech in Lansing that I saw some of and the crowd seemed to love. Only one person this morning referred to it but he too said it was very good. The Today show had not a peep, presumably because they spent so much time covering the heavy rains in Texas that might happen later on today.

Harold Ford Jr. doesn’t think that the McCain ads rise to the level of the smut leveled at him. But I think that anyone familiar with both ads will gratuitously make the connection back to the very successful “Harold, call me” ads because of a black candidate and white chicks. The ad itself doesn’t suggest sexual tension unless you’re Bob Herbert at the Times who saw phallic symbols in the form of the Washington monument and Berlin’s Victory tower which he misidentified as the tower of Pisa even though it was not leaning.

When you realize that no space is wasted on these very expensive productions you would have to be pretty naïve to think that the window pane/white cross behind almost President Huckabee last C’mas wasn’t intentional.

Ford, a popular Congressman even as his father had been, was ahead in his Senatorial bid when the ad struck and made national attention because it was playing on the fears of black men and white women cavorting. He lost. The effect of the ad is unquantifiable but the sniggering class all believe that it was dirty pool and that it speaks to a belief in the lowness of the common voter by the McCain camp. It also speaks to the fact that they know they’ve got nothin’ and this is the only way they have to make sure they don’t get stuck trying to defend their positions on “the issues.”

Harold Ford said he didn’t think these ads were as nasty as they could be and he thinks that’s because McCain himself (not the guy who says “I approve this ad”) really would rather they not have to go there. They all know it betrays a meanness and lack of a higher purpose, but they all know it works.

I agree with Ford that all this will be water over the dam when we witness the first debate. It is worth remembering that Reagan was behind till the first debate and then never looked back.

Margie and the new toilet

County Commissioners met without Marge Webster who was absent due to an eye ache which is exactly what she gives me. This spurious biz of her taking every available trip to any conference that she remotely qualifies for is no closer to being resolved than it was when it first came up almost a year ago.

Here’s what she has in common with the new $2,500 stainless steel toilet that has to be replaced in the County lock-up. They both have cheaper alternatives. The shiny toilets are of a one piece welded design that come in (and I shit you not) lefty or righty models. Please allow 8 – 12 weeks for delivery. Marge, who is more likely to spew crap than flush it, is also too damned expensive.

On her most recent trip she is reported to have received a “prestigious award.” For what, no one seems to know. My guess is that she was so honored because she managed to bilk this cash-strapped County for every nickel she could scrounge from it. She once snapped at me during the time we were all ranking on the Sheriff for spending $2,300 of the tax payer’s money on civilian suits and ties, “It’s his money. He can do what he wants with it.” I reported that and referred to her as a “barmy budgeteeer” who felt the taxes that you pay becomes her personal travel fund. A few more unkind cuts and she got to my boss who told me to back off and when I didn’t I got canned. So yeah, the sight of her makes me pretend to barf but the real reason that we all need to stay on this subject is because she will continue to spend like the proverbial drunken sailor on leave.

The Daily reported her saying “On the next trip I will leave the county credit card at home.” THE NEXT TRIP? She only has four more months in office. What the darn heck could she possibly learn on yet another one of these ginned up junkets? I read in the Independent – Marge had sent in a press release – that the award she got was for “excellence.” Dudn’t get any simpler than that.

Marge is a bully and appears to be no more competent than the other two but just smart enough and with enough brass to make them knuckle under and even lie to the public about what actually goes on. She’s got the Chairman “approving” her trip after she came back and since Olkkola voted against, it was only Marge’s approving her own trip that made it pass. Sorenson keeps saying he doesn’t know how all this works and it's confusing which is malarkey. There was a rule. She broke it. The other two did nothing. It’s that simple. What is to stop her from doing it again?

The Daily reported that the weekly meeting after she got back was a brouhaha and all the attendees I talked to agreed. Nate was able to get a couple of stories about it but the Independent stuffed Ashely’s well-told retelling of the event on page 11. Having seen a colleague get the axe for failing to defer to Margie, it was probably the safe place for it. The publisher of that paper has shown his willingness to do Marge’s bidding before; why take a chance?

And the blundering nincompoopery never fails to be the central theme of these meetings where nothing seems to get resolved. Yet they are always using the pretext of trying to save the county money by squabbling over the cost of toilets or the price to charge for hay bales. They seem not to have any sort of long range plan. Each Wednesday, after the 15 minute public session, they come in and interview department heads, ask a few questions to imitate paying attention and then move on.

Lately there have been more people showing up to these meetings because some of them are running for the two available commissioners spots. We will surely be rid of the Barge come ’09 and I hope the thoughtful and diligent Henry Spencer will get to take her place, but the other two running would be little improvement on what we have now.

It is worth mentioning that having covered for years these kinds of meetings it is a wonder that anyone volunteers for the position. And yet people pay out of their pocket to get elected and when they do, they find it is difficult to form a consensus with people until you have worked with them for a while and by that time there is rampant cronyism, back room bargaining, unethical behavior, manipulation of the rules, temper tantrums and the usual kind of behavior that one can expect from pubescent sixth graders. Olkkie, last week, yelled at one of the regulars, “Don’t squint at me.” Jesus H. Christ! Even if you are genuinely upset, is it too much to ask to remember that you are an elected official at a public meeting and there are reporters in the room? And so it goes, as Kurt Vonnegut used to say.