Not much gets past the Kooch

oopsy

ENOUGH! Sundays

Tomorrow is the start of the Sunday protests between noon and 1 PM to tell America we’ve had a good goddam ENOUGH! of BushCo. Like Howard Dean said, “We want our country back!”

The idea is to stand in front of a courthouse or someplace like that wearing a t-shirt or a cap or something that says one word: ENOUGH! I have both and will wear the t-shirt. My grandpop is here, so I asked him to come with me and he said he would. He will wear the ENOUGH! cap. My mom put an ENOUGH! bumper sticker on her car, but she has to work, as usual. I ordered her a tote bag, too, but it didn’t come yet.

I’m supposed to bring two people so I asked Michel, but he’s still pissed off I didn’t demonstrate with him on Memorial Day (he’s really pissed off because nobody else was there, either – it was a big bust). I tried to tell Michel it isn’t about a candidate, it’s about saving the country, but he doesn’t get it. He thinks just because Wes Clark, the son, is starting this up, it’s about Wes Clark, the father. Fine. You gotta wonder, though, what’s Michel so afraid of? He keeps yammering about how electable John Edwards so much I’m bored with the very word.

So I’m not sure yet where me and my grandpop will be. My friend Carol will be at her sister’s in Pennsylvania and might go to stand in Harrisburg, so maybe we’ll drive there. We could go to the federal courthouse in Manhattan, too. We’ll see what happens.

I’m for Gay Marriage and my husband is not

So vote for my husband!

Okayyyyy

KO was so polite to the General, not like BO!!

a Gentleman meets a General…

Here is the transcript

Why Wes Clark? Repeal “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”

Just one of many reasons:

Since its implementation in 1993, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” has resulted in the dismissal of more than 11,000 men and women from the armed forces. According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), nearly 800 of those dismissed had skills deemed ‘mission-critical’ by the Department of Defense, including more than 300 language specialists, of which 85 were proficient in Arabic. The cost to U.S. taxpayers for maintaining the ban is estimated at more than $363 million.

A growing number of senior retired military leaders have denounced the ban, including retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John Shalikashvili; Lieutenant General Claudia Kennedy, USA (Ret.); and retired NATO commander General Wesley Clark. According to a December Zogby poll, 73% of service personnel report being comfortable with lesbians and gays. And various public opinion polls show that as many as 8 out of 10 Americans support repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

Earth Times

Be still my heart

I slept late and ran out the door still getting dressed. I hear Wes was on MSNBC this morning as a news analyst! It said so right on the screen! KO, here we come!! woOT!!

No on-the-job training for presidency

Wes was on Fox News Radio yesterday and this Republican guy called in from Arizona:

Alan Colmes: Let’s go to Mike in Tuscon, with General Wesley Clark. Hello Mike.

Mike: General Clark, I think that you are the best candidate in the pack and this is coming from a die-hard conservative. I feel that the Democrats made a big mistake by not making you the leader of the party, the fore-front person. I think you would have won the election, I think you would have had a lot of support from the conservative party with a dynamic running mate.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well Mike, that’s a wonderful comment and I thank you much. If I were to declare, can I just ask you, would you then vote in the Democratic primary?

Mike: Well, I’m registered Republican so there’s nothing I can do to put you in the forefront.

Alan Colmes: Would you change your registration in Arizona? Would you do that?

Mike: I think I would register Independent and just be a free thinker and not be swayed either way. We need a dynamic person along with you to run this country and take over. We would… I think many of us Republicans would support you.

Alan Colmes: Alright Mike, thank you very much. There really is a hunger for leadership. -snip

My uncle in Tom’s River is a Republican and he sez the same thing. He wouldn’t become a Democrat, but he’d become an Independent. He sez both these parties are half dead and somebody should put them out of their misery. He sez the only Republican he’d vote for is Fred Thompson and the only Democrat he’d vote for is Wes Clark. My uncle sez Fred Thompson is the salvation of the Republican Party, if he still gave two shits about the Republican Party, which he don’t. (My mother’s family, except for my Mom, all say “don’t” when they mean “doesn’t.”)

Wes makes an interesting point about nobody comes into the job of president prepared to do it, you know, like trained. It’s something everybody who does it has to grow into. I never thought of it this way.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, let me just tell you what I think the way you have to judge the race is… I know everybody has their litmus tests, you know “I don’t like so-and-so because he’s a Democrat or I don’t like so-and-so because he’s a Republican. I don’t like them because of their view on abortion or gay rights or whatever.’ But here’s the thing. What you’re really looking for in a president is someone who can do the work and grow. This is an incredibly difficult job. Nobody ever comes into that position prepared for it. So you need someone who will redefine print, who can look at a law and understand it, who can listen to briefings and absorb them, who’s willing to get up at 6:30 in the morning and work on his own until 8 or 9 o’clock at night or 10 o’clock at night, who’s willing to do the socializing that’s required, who can travel abroad and know which country he or she is landing in. Somebody who’s got capacity for growth and it’s not just intellectual, it’s emotional.

Alan Colmes: There’s no on-the-job training. I mean, it really is… I guess it is on-the-job training. There’s no real preparation other than being in that job.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: There’s one thing. Within the first year in office, there will be a major problem, a major crisis in foreign affairs. No matter which side’s elected. That’s the way it works in a presidency.

Emotional growth capacity as a job requirement. Something else to think about. Wes never lets my brain get any rest!

transcript and audio

Wes Clark is making me depressed

I been depressed for a while. Wes Clark is making me depressed. I thought I’d protest the war today with my Code Pink friend Michel, who is supporting John Edwards, but then I got this email from Wes.

First he said this:

Whether you are a Democrat, Republican, or of another party or no party at all, we are all still Americans, and on this day, we should solely be focused on honoring those who died in service. We’re also asking that people not protest at Memorial Day events; we have 364 other days to argue policy and politics, but this day belongs to the fallen and their memories.

You know, okay, fine, but shit. Michel was deeply offended, though anything that isn’t lockstep with Edwards deeply offends Michel. I wish I was Michel. I wish I had a candidate in this race, one I could believe in, but I don’t. Even though it angers Michel, I never believe a word John Edwards says. Besides, that IWR he co-sponsored is what got us where we are. I say I could support Al Gore and Michel says I’m perverse. Why do I keep wanting candidates who aren’t running? It’s a fair question.

So I called my Mom upstairs. She always says anybody trying to draft me will have to go through her body first. We talked it over. I thought she would tell me, great, go to New York with Michel, go protest, since she hates this war like the plague. But she said it wasn’t the right day. I should go take my grandfather to the cemeteries, she got called in to work.

That was odd because I never read her this from Wes’s email:

Above all, take a day to learn more about someone who died in defense of America. If you’re at a parade or prayer service and you see a veteran or military family member, ask him or her who they are honoring. Learn more about that hero, so their memory can endure. Too often, we talk about the fallen in terms of numbers. We forget, each of those numbers were real people, with real lives, and real families. The names on the thousands of memorials across America are more than letters etched in stone — they are lives lost with honor. The best way we can honor those who sacrificed their lives is to ensure that the memory of who they were as human beings is never forgotten.

Please, on Memorial Day, do your part to ensure their memory lives on.

So I drove over the bridge to Staten Island. Man, you should have seen all the flags in the cemeteries – we went to four. It does make you think about all the sacrificed lives. They didn’t do it because they liked war, my grandfather said (he was in Vietnam), but because they loved their country. I almost said they went cuz they were drafted, duh, but something stopped me. It wasn’t the guns that went off in the 21 gun salute, either. It was something about honor and tradition and respect. I surprised myself even, but I kept my mouth shut and took my grandpop by the hand. He looked at me like I was crazy and shook it off. Embarrassing? A little, but that’s the kind of guy he is, hard. He loves me, but you’d never know it.

Then we went to the parade and my grandfather marched with his cronies, who look more like aging Hell’s Angels than soldiers, as he does himself. After that, the VFW post to drink beer and eat hot dogs and dance the polka. My cousin wanted to go see his girlfriend and his car’s laid up, so I took him near the bridge and I went back to Jersey.

My grandfather is looking older each year, like anybody, I guess. I have a picture of him from back in the day when he was VVAW like John Kerry. So I asked him what he would think if I protested the war on Memorial Day.

“I’d kick the shit outta you,” he said.

Heh. Just like Wes!

Anti-Poverty and its discontents

The Edwards sure have some bad real estate karma. I probably said that before, this time or this time or maybe this time.

I know it’s hard when the road to your country mcmansion faces an automechanic’s garage and a couple of trailer homes, but it’s the kind of stuff that comes with gentrification. If you don’t want to look at it, you maybe could have built that monstrosity of yours in a rich neighborhood of your peers.

Yeah, I know, the guy’s a Repug and he’s beating you up with a Giuliani 08 sign. The GOP is helping and the right wing bloggers are orgasmic. The guy’s prolly not on his way to the poor house, either. But holy shit, could you be a little smarter about it than to call his property “slummy” when you’re talking to an AP reporter? Or any time.

What are you even doing talking this trash with a reporter? Or anybody. Please begin to realize that everything that happens in your private life does not have to be a burden to the rest of America. That’s what you have a house for, to keep your business in. Surely there is room enough in there.

I’m sick and tired of rich people, I really am. Give your money away to the poor, Mrs. Edwards, and get yourself a nice apartment in town. Yeah, maybe y’all should rent for a while. That might be good. In fact, rent one of those trailer homes across the road. See how the other America lives. Without the photo-op, please, for once. Maybe you can work off some of that karma you’re lugging around. Maybe the primary race can be about the politics instead of about you and your money.

Wes Clark’s ad for Ned Lamont

He tells Lieberman what he thinks of him.