Due Credit

This blog has been sharply critical of both Hillary and Bill Clinton during the primaries, and justifiably so. That being said, they both came up huge this week, stepping up for Obama with every indication of genuine enthusiasm, putting the greater good above their personal disappointments, and both deserve even more praise.

Maturity Watch

I thought the voting age was eighteen.

Allegedly thousands of Hillary Clinton supporters are still threatening to cut off their noses to spite their faces and not vote for Barack Obama in November’s election. Women who six months ago described themselves as part of Hillary’s cadre of political realists, dismissing Obama’s candidacy as pie in the sky, are now whining about party favoritism (though Clinton supporters played a large role in originally denying representation to the Florida and Michigan delegations), sexism (though Hillary herself was happy to play the victim for much of the campaign, and Geraldine Ferraro et al didn’t mind dropping a racial reminder or three), or whatever else they can think of to “prove” their candidate got jobbed.

As a free service, The Home Office is happy to say what Hillary Clinton would probably like to say and Barack Obama can’t say:

Grow the fuck up. If you’d shown ten percent of the passion for caucuses you’ve shown for whining, Hillary Clinton would be the nominee. You want to point fingers, look in a mirror.

The Beijing Olymics are Over

NBC can take its tongue out of China's ass now.

Hypocrisy Watch

This just in via Paul Krugman's blog, forwarding Glenn Greenwald's commentary.

The gist of Krugman's comment is that Republicans are hypocrites for using Kerry's rich wife against him while attacking Democrats for bringing up McCain's rich wife. I realize Krugman is a Princeton economist, but he's missing the point.

McCain believes you're not rich until you make $5 million a year; using current Republican standards, you're not a gigolo unless your rich, younger wife is worth more than $500 million. Teresa Heinz checked in at about $700 million; Cindy McCain has to get by on $100 million. It's that simple.

Damn ivory tower academics.

Better to Remain Silent and..

Composer Peter Breiner is upset that the Beijing Olympics are allegedly using his orchestrations of national anthems without obtaining the rights from him. Have you heard the version of the "Star-Spangled Banner" they're using? I have, several tmes, and I don't think I'd be drawing attention to myself over it.

Two Faces of a Candidate

Let's start with the disclaimer: I voted for John McCain in 2000. Twice. I crossed over and voted in the Virginia Republican primary, then wrote him in for the general election. I read his biography and loved it. I'm too cynical to get into hero worship, but he was as close as anyone, right up there with Chuck Yeager and John Glenn. It pains me to oppose his candidacy as strongly as I have come to, but the man whose honor I once considered unquestionable isn't running in 2008.

I would gladly pay $1,000 to the charity of the moderator's choice if someone had the nerve to ask him, politely, to describe why the treatment he received in North Vietnam was torture, when the exact same acts performed by the CIA against terrorists is not.

For a well reasoned and concise comparison, click here.

One Bite at a Time

The Home Office is pleased to announce the launch of a new blog, One Bite at a Time. I'll still be here with the usual cast of correspondents and public miscreants, ranting into the ether about whatever hair has wriggled up my butt on a given day. One Bite at a Time will be devoted to writing-relating postings: ruminations, trying things out, working out how best to proceed, and, hopefully, sharing some ideas that have worked for me with other writers. Some of you who read this blog will care more than others.

(If you care at all, which should not be assumed. I occasionally rant about why anyone should care about what [fill in the celebrity/pundit/public figure of your choice] thinks about anything. Why you should care about what an employee of a small contracting company currently working at [government agency redacted] says is a question I wrestle with regularly. Of course, I eventually come down on the side of blathering onward. Get over it.)

I hope anyone who writes, enjoys writing, or has an interest in writers stops by One Bite at a Time for a visit. Leave a comment. Argue. Tell me I'm full of crap. Even better, tell me something don't know.

Coffee Break's Over, Back on My Head

Wow. That was fun.

The Sole Heir and I got back from our third Home Office Western Tour late Saturday night. This is Wednesday, and I have enough of my life put back together to start writing again.

The trip was a success by any measure. A three-day drive to Colorado (the Crazy Like Me Correspondent flew ahead) to visit the Sibling Correspondent and his family at The Home Office West. Relaxing in the pool and hot tub—he has his own little resort there, clean towels and everything; you just have to make your own bed—cooking out, seeing the mountains, getting corny Western-style sepia-tone pictures taken, letting the stress and East Coast Overload fall from us like snow off of a roof on the first warm day of spring.

Craze flew home on Sunday and the Sole Heir and I drove northwest, into Wyoming. The next five days were a fantasy vacation: Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks, then driving along the Yellowstone River through Montana. (The Yellowstone is the most beautiful little river you'll ever see, which is saying something, since we saw the Wind River, too.) Little Bighorn Battlefield was much more moving than we anticipated, and the Story Pines Inn was a beautiful little gem the GPS needed a dirt road to get to. Devils Tower, Deadwood and Lead (motorcycle week at nearby Sturgis; bummer). Surrounded by burros and buffalo at Custer SD State Park. The Badlands. A drive-by of the Spam Museum. (Honest to God. We were too early to go in. We got pictures.) Wisconsin frozen custard at The Dells and Italian beefs at Portillo's. Miniature golf on the course where I taught her to play when she was three. (She routinely kicks my ass now.) Glen's frozen custard in Cheswick PA, where I learned to love it. An hour with the Ancestral Correspondents. Then home.

The statistics: 5,186.2 miles driven through fourteen states. Perfect weather, except for about twenty minutes driving through Indiana, when it rained so hard I couldn't see a hundred feet and The Sole Heir kept giggling about how she quit driving just in time. We saw prairie dogs, gophers, a golden eagle (up close), two bald eagles in flight, grizzly bears and wolves (albeit in a preserve), deer and antelope (just hanging out, not playing), the aforementioned rowdy burros, and well over five hundred buffalo, a couple as close as ten feet away. We saw hot springs and mountains covered with snow in August, which might not mean much to a Sherpa but is unheard of in Maryland. We stayed in three towns with combined populations of less than 2500, and ate a meal in the Two Bit Saloon.

And now we're back. The bills will trickle in, and they'll actually be fun to pay, because every one is a memory. By Monday afternoon I wasn't stiff anymore. Back at work two days now, still mellow, a little confused as to why everyone else thinks some of these things are so important.

Ready to go again.

A Brief Hiatus

The Home Office is suspending regular operations for two weeks to make a fact-finding journey with the Sole Heir to the home of the Sibling Correspondent in Colorado, aka The Home Office West. Craze will meet us there, arriving by air a day ahead of us, as we drive through Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas.

The trip home will consist of a minor detour through Wyoming (Shoshone National Forest, Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks), Montana (Yellowstone River, Little Big Horn), Wyoming again (Devil's Tower), South Dakota (Deadwood, possibly Mount Rushmore, the Badlands), before heading back through Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois (again), Indiana (again), Ohio (again), Pennsylvania (again), and home to Maryland (finally).

So enjoy the time off. I'll be back, fingers well rested, with a new blog to add to The Home Office's expanding media empire. Rupert Murdoch quakes as you read this.

Giving Credit Where It's Due

I don’t know why President Bush is getting so much flak over his comments about the current financial situation. Let’s face it, as much as he’s been abused in this blog, I’ll give props where they’re due: If there’s anything about which he has detailed knowledge, it’s getting drunk and hangovers.

An American Nuremberg?

This is from Dan Froomkin’s “White House Watch” column on Washingtonpost.com:

Charlie Savage writes in the New York Times: "Felons are asking President Bush for pardons and commutations at historic levels as he nears his final months in office, a time when many other presidents have granted a flurry of clemency requests."

But my ears really pricked up when Savage raised this question: "Will Mr. Bush grant pre-emptive pardons to officials involved in controversial counterterrorism programs?

"Such a pardon would reduce the risk that a future administration might undertake a criminal investigation of operatives or policy makers involved in programs that administration lawyers have said were legal but that critics say violated laws regarding torture and surveillance.

"Some legal analysts said Mr. Bush might be reluctant to issue such pardons because they could be construed as an implicit admission of guilt. But several members of the conservative legal community in Washington said in interviews that they hoped Mr. Bush would issue such pardons -- whether or not anyone made a specific request for one. They said people who carried out the president's orders should not be exposed even to the risk of an investigation and expensive legal bills.

"'The president should pre-empt any long-term investigations,' said Victoria Toensing, who was a Justice Department counterterrorism official in the Reagan administration. 'If we don't protect these people who are proceeding in good faith, no one will ever take chances.'"

Overuse has rendered the four-letter N word unusable for referring to anyone but Hitler, but doesn’t Toensing’s argument sound a lot like pardoning people for “only following orders?” Haven’t we heard that somewhere before?

No, I Didn't Make This Up

Maybe he's a better candidate for the Darwin Awards than an academic enrichment camp.

HAGERSTOWN, Md. (AP) -- A 10-year-old boy attending an academic enrichment camp at Hagerstown Community College was injured when he stuck a paper clip into a live electrical socket.

State police say the student at the College for Kids program was flown to Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. on Thursday with burned hands.

College spokeswoman Beth Stull says the boy's action during a computer class was independent of what he was doing in class.

Stull says officials would look into the incident. She says officials discussed the incident with other students and a letter is being sent home to parents.

250

This is my 250th blog post, submitted as proof there is way too much shit on the Internet.

Proud to be an American

Cindy McCain took Michelle Obama to task a couple of weeks ago over Ms. Obama's now-infamous comment, "for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country." Ms. McCain, it turns out, "always [has] been and will always be extremely proud of my country." Today must have been a particularly heart-bursting day for Cindy, as the following events were reported:

The new FISA bill passed, with immunity to telecommunications companies for the warrantless searches they performed on George W. Bush's and Alberto Gonzalez's say-so. Not only have new frontiers in warrantless surveillance been opened, there is no recourse for anyone who had their phones or emails illegally captured. Not that it mattered. In a classically Bushian Catch-22, previous suits were denied because no one could prove they'd been harmed; the personal communications illegally obtained are classified, and not available to the plaintiff. Democrats rolled over for what presidential candidate Barack Obama called a compromise; it was, if you consider it a compromise to re-position yourself so your new prison friend, Bubba the Shower Freak, doesn't have to lean over too much.

In other news, we learned the office of Vice President Dick "Prince of Darkness" Cheney excised several pages from the Congressional testimony of Centers for Disease Control Director Julie Gerberding that indicated the CDC considers climate change a serious public health concern. This, in turn, affected EPA policy that depended on the CDC's conclusions. Even that wasn't enough; the White House refused to open the email that contained the finding that would have required the EPA to take action, apparently using the principle, "If we didn't read it, it didn’t happen." This is not unlike a child plugging his ears and chanting, "lalalalalalalalalalala" when Mom tells him it's time for a bath. (The shunned email was actually reported last week, but it relevant to this story, and we should all be damned proud of it, too.)

It's not just politicians we can be proud of. The workers' paradise of Communist China raised wages to almost a buck an hour last year, and made it harder for employers to cheat people out of it. American companies doing business in China warned them against such rash actions; the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai straight-out opposed them. Now much of that business has moved to Vietnam, where the Communist government knows how to treat business, primarily by refusing to coddle its workers like those touchy-feely Chinese. Vietnam was chosen over Thailand, where wages are similar, because "Communism means more stability." As the Washington Post's Harold Meyerson points out, we have 58,000 names on a wall downtown, each one representing someone who died to keep Vietnam from becoming Communist. Our failure made their sacrifices no less significant. Only a bottom-line mentality at all costs can do that.

The presidential campaign promises to keep us bursting with pride, no matter who wins. Barack Obama and John McCain brought their kneepads with them to yesterday's separate appearances before the League of United Latin American Citizens. It was like a limbo contest for groveling: how low can you go? Obama won, mainly because he had too big a lead from his previous statement that, while immigrants should learn to speak English, we should learn to speak Spanish. He went on to say we should all learn to speak several languages; that's what the campaign will point out. It's disingenuous; his intended audience stopped listening after "make sure your child can speak Spanish."

There is a lot of good in this country. The blind fealty to the divine rights and infallibility of Americans that began with the Reagan Administration does those good things no honor through its avoidance of admitting anything less than noble. Anyone who can look you in the eye and claim to be unreservedly proud of everything done in the United States, or in its name, has a curious definition of "pride," and is someone on whom you should never turn your back.

A Brief Obituary

A woman to whom I was once married—not the Sole Heir’s mother—once thought living in North Carolina would be splendid. Beaches, beautiful mountains, nice weather, fully-realized but not-too-urban cities, not as pricey as the Washington area. A good deal all around, she thought.

“I wouldn’t live there if they paid me,” I said.

She asked why.

“Because over half the people who live there keep sending Jesse Helms to the Senate.”

And that encompasses my thoughts on his passing.

Timing Is Everything

The Home Office has been hard on the federal government over the past few years. In the interests of fair play, it's time to point out one thing the Feds got right: Monday holidays.

I used to make fun of the official federal holidays, especially the ones they made up just so they always fall on a Monday: Martin Luther King Day, Presidents' Day, (the moving of) Memorial Day and Columbus Day. (Labor Day was always on a Monday, so it didn't count.) "Let the holiday be on the day it commemorates," I used to think. "January 15, May 31, October 12, whatever."

This year my favorite federal holiday, Independence Day, fell on a Friday and showed me the error of my ways. "A three-day weekend is a three-day weekend," I used to think. "It doesn't matter whether the short work week falls before or after the holiday."

Dumb ass.

Mondays are much better. It was nice to have last Friday off, plopped into my schedule much like the rain that fell off and on throughout the day. Saturday was Saturday, and the Sunday routine stayed the same. Translated: back to work tomorrow.

If the holiday fell on Monday, the weekend would go on as usual, except when I got ready for bed on Sunday night, there would be no need to set the alarm; a bonus extension of the weekend was at hand. Sweet. Even better, the upcoming workweek was only four days. With the Friday holiday, we're staring at coming right back into a regular week. (True, last week was short, but that was last week; what have you done for me lately?)

So here's a big thank you to Congress for promoting the idea of Monday holidays. Yes, it was quite a few Congresses ago, and the current Congress has done little to recommend itself to anyone other than narcoleptics. Still, it's only fair to show appreciation where it's due. Granted, Monday holidays don’t quite tip the scales when balanced against the Iraq war, torture, the erosion of civil liberties, no energy policy, an unfair tax structure, faulty levees, and the failure to provide any meaningful oversight to banks and lenders that prompted the current economic downturn, but that's me: Mr. Glass Is Half Full, the eternal optimist.

Hell Hath No Fury

It's rare to write about two perspectives of an issue and be right both times. It's happened here exactly once in three years. (That's a much better record than Robert Novak, who hasn't been right about even one side of an issue in fifty years.) Still, it's kind of fun.

Word got out a couple of years ago that Christie Brinkley was getting divorced for the fourth time. (That's as many as I have, squared.) Considering she's Christie Brinkley, I figured it must be her; any man worth being called one would fight like a rabid wolverine with a toothache to keep that deal alive.

Word came out a couple of weeks later that it was, in fact, her husband who lit the fuse, by sleeping with a nineteen-year-old coworker. Christie received the apology she was due; The Home Office is nothing if not even handed, especially to world-acknowledged Fabulous Babes.

Now we find out Christie has demanded a fully public divorce trial to air all the dirty laundry. The affair, hubby's $3,000 a month internet porn habit, everything. Maybe she deserves a more blame than we thought for all those divorces. There are kids involved here. This guy's already been humiliated worse than Larry Craig, at least in the eyes of men: he burned an unlimited season's pass to Christie Land. (This essay is living proof; I can't bring myself to type his name.) There's nothing worse she can do to him without exposing a lot of dirty undergarments adolescent boys don't need to have traced back to their own family.

Talk about a woman scorned; if she really wanted to hurt the guy, make the judge order him to look at albums of her pictures once a week. Remind him there was a time when he could exercise his Christie Brinkley fantasies and not have to worry about getting the pages stuck together. If she wants to publicly humiliate him, write a book when the kids are out of college, after he thinks it's blown over. Vengeance is a dish best served cold, and, unlike broccoli, kids can do without it.

Breaking the Code

Yesterday the head honcho at [government agency redacted] where I'm currently under contract released the typical political appointee message for a national holiday. It ended with the obligatory paean to the military:

And I also hope you’ll remember all the men and women who have sacrificed in so many different ways to build our nation, especially including those who have given or risked their lives in the armed services.

Nice, but unremarkable. Why did it irritate me so much yesterday? We've heard these on every remotely applicable occasion, since September 11, 2001. What was different this time?

I've broken the code.

Asking people to remember those who serve in the uniformed services always leaves out one part: so I don't have to. Veterans never say shit like that. Their phrasing is more to the point. None of this And I hope you'll remember… Could it be any more mealy mouthed? If it wouldn't be too much trouble? If you think of it? Don’t put yourself out, but…

Too many people praise the military now as sops to their own nascent consciences about who serves and who doesn't. Let's call a spade a spade. Just once I'd like to see someone come clean and send out one of these:

And I want to praise all those brave men and women who allow our government to place them in harm's way so I –or my kid—can pursue an MBA (or play college sports or get likkered up on weekends or work the commodities markets). Thank God we'll always have people like that. It's hard enough making the decision to send them without having to worry about going ourselves.

One last thing. Today, of all days, take a look at the paraphrase on the masthead above. The next time you're debating someone about FISA and warrants and torture and freedom, remember Benjamin Franklin said all we really need to know about the topic two hundred plus years ago: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

Happy Independence Day, and many more, for as long as we deserve them.

And They Say There's Justice

I’m depressed. Marian Hossa has left town.

For those who are not devoted puckheads, Hossa is a world-class right winger. (Hockey player, dumb ass. Grover Norquist or Karl Rove could leave town in a pine box and I’d dance like the best man at a Greek wedding.) Picked up late last season by Pittsburgh’s Penguins, he has gone to join the team that beat them in the Stanley Cup finals, the Detroit Red Wings.

It was always at least even money Hossa would leave after the season, but Detroit? He got within one game of carving his name in the cup with Pittsburgh last month; I guess seeing the Wings skate around with it made him think he could get it done there next year. Here’s a news flash: you could have got it done in Pittsburgh next year, Marian, and you wouldn’t have to live in Detroit.

The salaries were about the same, except Pittsburgh’s was for five years, and Detroit’s for just one. Taking a one-year deal with Detroit is easy to understand; pledging to spend more than one year of your life in Detroit is crazy talk, $7 million a year, or not. I’m sure Pittsburgh would have offered him a shorter deal; they thought they were doing the chump a favor.

Hossa came to the Burgh with the reputation of disappearing during the playoffs. The Pens worked with him, put him on Sidney Crosby’s line, did everything but put Kolache on his pillow at night, to help him overcome his history as a choker, and it worked. What thanks did we get? He blew town like hovno through a husa.

This is how Detroit operates; it’s a parasite. Called itself the “Arsenal of Democracy” during World War II, because it manufactured tanks and trucks and planes. Manufacturing jobs on an assembly line. Tighten this rivet. Balance a tire. Line up an engine mount. Like building one of those particle board desks you can buy at Target.

It was harder? They used steel, you say? Where did the steel come from? It came from a smaller city with broader shoulders, where brave men slaked the thirst of ravenous molds with white-hot rivers of molten steel. Detroit built its reputation on the backs of Pittsburgh’s labor. It got Grosse Pointe and Greenfield Village; we got pollution. And how do they repay us? Taking Marian Hossa.

Bastards.

Family Feud

It’s probably inevitable for the candidates’ families to get more air time this presidential cycle than ever before. Twenty-four hour cable news needs material to chew up round the clock, preferably something that doesn’t require any investigation or nuanced thought. Off the cuff comments by wives, politically peripheral to the campaign, are now fair game, if only because we’re down to two candidates and Barack Obama and John McCain have to sleep sometime.

Michelle Obama took her lumps in February’s run-up to the Wisconsin primary, after saying, “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I'm really proud of my country.” That’s not exactly what she meant, it was timed and phrased badly, and she was promptly taken to task for three reasons: she deserved it (she should be more aware of her comments if she’s going to be First Lady, which she is); talk show hosts need things to talk about (see above), and conservatives still can’t understand that Barack Obama can’t have a wacky Christian minister and be a Muslim. Someone in that family has to be less than an upstanding American; that day it was Michelle.

This week Cindy “The Only Person With a Face Stiffer Than Mine is Joan Rivers” McCain stepped in. Appearing on ABC’s Good Morning America, she had a chance to take a shot and did, saying, ”Everyone has their own experience. I don’t know why she said what she said — all that I know is I’ve always been proud of my country.”

Mrs. McCain apparently believes in taking everything a public figure says literally, which must lead to some entertaining moments parsing her husband’s comments at the end of a busy day. Since The Home Office believes in allowing everyone to set their own standards of evaluation, let’s see if Mrs. McCain’s statement holds water.

Is she proud of slavery? Jim Crow? (Better than slavery, but still…) How about our treatment of the Indians? Closer to home, what about veterans? (No one should have been surprised by the Walter Reed disclosures. The lowest moment of Bob Dole’s distinguished career of public service came when he turned into Claude Rains, shocked—shocked!—over the conditions at veterans hospitals. I could have told him that twenty-five years ago.) Is she proud of McCarthyism? Torture? How about spiriting people away so others can do our torture for us, allowing us to claim we have clean hands?

America is no worse than any other country when the sum totals are weighed together, and better than many. Everyone—nations, individuals, you, and certainly me—does things in the heat of the moment, when blood is up and dangers may seem greater than they really are. We understand it, make amends as best we can, and move on. For her to say she’s always proud of this country is one of three things: disingenuous; indicative of a disturbing lack of real world knowledge; or allowing us a glimpse at the more sinister aspects of her character, where all of the above are okay with her.