In honor of President Barack Hussein Obama, here’s a column I wrote for Bicycle Retailer & Industry News. And for his predecessor, here’s some advice from Jay of Jay and Silent Bob from “Clerks 2.” The important part comes at 18 seconds in.
Category: Deep political thought
Ho, ho, ho
Feels kind of like Christmas Eve, doesn’t it? What’s that over there under the Tree of Liberty? Why, yes, Virginia (and the other 49 states, too) — it’s a brand-new White House, one without shit all over it! It’s the gift that keeps on giving, when it’s not overrun by rats, roaches and other vermin, and you can open it tomorrow.
You know it’s time for a change when even Oklahoma is fed up with an executive branch besmirched by the sort of vicious dolt it usually sends to Congress. Leonard Nelson, 63, a 23-year military veteran of both the Army and the Navy, voted for Barack Obama’s opponent, Sen. John McCain. “But I’ve come to think the better man won,” he told The New York Times. And indeed he did.
But let’s not kid ourselves. Obama can’t walk on water, nor turn water into wine. If you must have mythology, look to the tale of Sisyphus and hope, as did the outgoing president’s favorite read, Albert Camus, that he will be happy in his ceaseless toil. There are a lot of rocks to roll, and nothing but mountains for miles around.
Greg, honey, is it supposed to be this soft?
Over at Political Animal Hilzoy delivers a farewell dope-slap to the “petulant lazy frat boy” who turned the Oval Office into Omega house — President George W. Marmalard. Examining his 2000 inaugural address, she notes:
He’s a small, small man, who ought to have spent his life in some honorary position without responsibilities at a firm run by one of his father’s friends. Instead, he ruined our country, and several others besides. He wasted eight years in which we could have been shoring up our economy, laying the groundwork for energy independence, making America a fairer and better country, and truly working to help people around the world become more free. Instead, he debased words that ought to mean something: words like honor, decency, freedom, and compassion.
To this day, I do not think he has the slightest conception of the meaning of the words he took in vain.
To repeat an old gag, he’s a man of few words — he only knows a few. Joe Galloway knows a few more, and he uncorks them with a vengeance here.
Meanwhile, it was another excellent day here in Bibleburg, and I enjoyed a third consecutive day on the cyclo-cross bike. This keeps up, it’ll be almost like training, only slower. And the unseasonable weather is supposed to hold, with temps in the 50s —and even the low 60s — forecast throughout the week.
Today’s ride with Dr. Schenkenstein went north into the Air Force Academy and back, and the contrast with Friday’s ride to Fountain was amazing. South of Woodmen the trail is drier than a popcorn fart. North of there it is a gooey, icy mess, with one particularly evil sheet of damp ice curb to curb on the concrete just before the trail turns to dirt.
On the way out, we both walked it. On the way back, I joked that if Dr. Schenkenstein got high enough on the concrete banking of the drainage channel, he could probably ride it. No sooner said than done. Up the wall he went, coming down just short of clearing the ice entirely, but keeping it up nonetheless. Think about going high on the velodrome, but with the high side to your left instead of your right. Pretty friggin’ impressive for a 50-something guy with a $10,000 deductible on his health-insurance policy.
One long-ass week
That’s what we’re looking at here — one long-ass week until Gen. George Armstrong Bush (Texas Air Farce, ret.) returns to shitting in his own nest instead of yours and mine.
I have assiduously avoided reading, listening to or watching any stories about his farewell tour, which has lasted longer than many a banana-republic dictatorship, foreign film or Russian novel. I never cared what he had to say when he was The Decider, and nobody cares what he has to say as the lamest of lame ducks in the history of lame duckdom, our ADHD national media aside. I simply want him gone, long gone, and Darth Cheney with him.
I plan to buy an expensive bottle of French wine soon and store it safely away for the day when I will be able to pull its cork, drink deeply and then piss on both their graves. Houston is too good for the sonofabitch. Let him pedal that Trek of his around the Lake of Fire for eternity, with Beelzebub just seconds back and closing fast.
That said, it will be strange not to loathe and despise the occupant of the Oval Office for the first time in — well, in quite some time. The only president I ever revered was JFK (hey, I was an Irish-American, all of 9 years old when he died, and anyway he boinked Marilyn Monroe). And the only presidential candidates I was ever truly enthusiastic about were Bobby Kennedy and George McGovern, and you will recall how their campaigns ended.
Jimmy Carter I like much better as an ex-president than I did as a president, and I hope the swine who swiped his bicycle gets a tainted rock from his crack dealer and sets his pointy skull ablaze. Bill Clinton seemed even more like a used-car salesman than Nixon did, and so I never voted for him.
In fact, I blame Bubba for the past eight years. If he could’ve just sworn off fat chicks for eight years, we might not be in this fix today, with the Republic in ruins, the economy circling the bowl and just one largely untested skinny dude from Illinois on hand to clean up the wreckage.
More power to his arm. He’ll need it.
Bush-it!
The only thing I want to hear this guy say is, “Adios.”
