Who controls the British Crown?
Who keeps the metric system down?
We do, we do.
Who keeps Atlantis off the maps?
Who keeps the Martians under wraps?
We do, we do.
Who holds back the electric car?
Who makes Steve Guttenberg a star?
We do, we do.
Who robs cave fish of their sight?
Who rigs every Oscar night?
We do, we do!

Norman Podhoretz, from the first generation of neo-conservatives (when the term literally referred to what the prefix “neo” suggests) author of the oh-so-prescient 1980 book The Present Danger regarding the rapidly deteroiating American military and the mighty and rapidly building Soviet military, was on Chris Matthew’s Hardball a couple months or so ago.

I digress on that point about his oh-so-prescient book, though. Y’see, the line of thinking with regards to the Soviet threat is that Reagan’s rapid expanse of the military budget (after Carter’s late-term military expansion, but forget that ever happened), most notably his “Star Wars” Defense Shield budget priority, forced the Soviet Union to expand its military budget and bankrupt itself. (Which, inadvertedly, feeds into my general take on the Cold War: it was a contest to see which side could bankrupt itself first, and in the end we simply traded a Vietnam for an Afghanistan.)

But, back to Podhoretz. I wish I could find some trasncripts quickly and search for exact quotes, but his comment left a sour taste in my mouth. To paraphrase: it is the job of the Democratic leadership to keep their rank and file from thinking of George W. Bush as an extreme president (se– he’s really aligned with the great majority of the country), and they have failed to do so.

Or, to put another way: a top-down approach to politics. The Political Parties are in charge of regulating the thought patterns of those that are, nominally or less nominally, aligned with whichever political party.

OK.

BTW: Podhertz’s newest book is Bush Country. Place it alongside The Present Danger, I guess it belongs on the bookshelf before it when you alphabetize the titles.

Looking over my stats, I see the following as search engine keyphrases:

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skull

The chattering classes are being absurd again.

CNN radio news break Friday or Saturday night. Mentioned Hillary Clinton as being there “if Kerry is significantly behind come August.”

What is it with the media’s obsession with Hillary Clinton’s political ambitions — none of which every quite match reality?

We also have been entreated with the “prospect” of John McCain being asked to be Kerry’s running mate. Absurd on the face of it. Indeed there it was last night: a soundbyte from McCain about how absurd that question was, asked in all seriousness by some member of the chattering class.

8 more months of this…

From the US Code, Title 4, Chapter 1, Sec. 8 (g): The flag should never have placed upon it, nor on any part of it, nor attached to it any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature. )

But… you know: if the president can do it, so can everyone, right?

I hang my signed flag PROUDLY!

Speaking of coups (and I was just a few days ago…):

Supposedly, FDR was slated to be the victim of a coup. but the would-be puppet-leader of the new regime shot it down (Smedley Butler). And he supposedly later shared the details to the forerunner of the House UnAmerican Activities Committee.

A bit too convenient, perhaps. But throw it in the “hm” category.

(list created, probably on election eve 2000):

It was a stupid presidential campaign. Here’s the Top 12 Moments from it anyway.

12. I’ll think of a #12 later. Maybe any of Nader’s corporate-parody ads.

11. The inane meme that “Gore invented the Internet”.

10. I meet my local Heuristic Mantic Mystic at a local Gore rally.

9. Bush wonders if global warming even exists. And other great Bush gaffs.

8. The Republicans release a pro-Nader advertisement, showing Nader dumping on Gore. Nader- advocates are annoyed because it doesn’t show the next part of the speech: Nader dumping on Bush.

7. Bill Clinton marches through a narrow and winding hallway to the pulpit to speak at the Democratic convention. (Also note the Esquire magazine cover.)

6. John Hagelin supporters march out of the Pat Bucchannan proceedings. In one building, Hagelin is announced as the winner of the Reform party candidacy. In the other, Buchannan is announced as the winner of the Reform party candidacy.

5. Gary Bauer accidentally falls while flipping a pancake in some midwestern state.

4. Browne’s campaign spot, showing a wrecking ball run down the IRS building, asking the question “Can America survive no IRS?”, and showing some business-guys’ celebrations -fists clenched in the air and ties flying upward. Amusing.

3. Alan Keyes mosh-pits to the music of Rage Against the Machine. A Must!

2. Dan Savage licks Gary Bauer’s doorknobs. Or something to that effect.

1. George Bush calls a NY Times (or was it Washington Post) reporter an asshole. Cheney agrees.

I edited the “Recommended Reading” category down a ways on the sidebar.

Deleted the Pinkwater book Picture of Morty and Ray. I do recommend little book — a delightful smograsboard of cultural references, bemusing insults, and quirky pictures. But it has nothing to do with electoral politics. So I replaced it with the only Pinkwater book I can think of that deals in some way with the world of politics: Young Adults…

All three novellas that make up the book feature references to electoral politics. First we see the outcast psuedo-intellectual Dada Ducks of Himmler High School (ahem) oh-so-ironically bring to power a hitofore unremarkable dullard (exposing the sham of the school’s Student Body elections in the process), who immediately surrounds himself with a gestapo-like group of kids adorned in silly Donald Duck sailor outfits, eliminates the arts (or whatever it is that the Dada Ducks practice), and throw their power toward the persecution of the Dada Ducks (the manifestation of which is… I won’t divulge, but I will point out that it is rather silly)…

The next novella opens up with this cold rumination of who the power elite are… which is a similar sentiment to that which pretty much all of human civilization had after World War II, when looking back at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Holocaust (or, if you will, the rather silly fate that greeted the Dada Ducks at the end of the first novella).

And the third novella? The Dada Ducks in College? Note who the ASB officials are in their university… so much overlap exists between the Student Body Government and the Campus Crusade for Christ that eventually the two bodies simply… merge together into one rather vindictive, and hypocritical, force of power. (What is Pinkwater saying here?)

I also replaced Walter Karp’s book Indespensible Enemies: the Politics of Misrule in America with his Liberty Under Siege: American Politics 1976-1988. I have not read the former; I have read the latter — which has a gripping narrative. They seem to share pretty similar theses. I can pretty easily quote sections of Liberty Under Siege, change a few names of some of the actors, and we’d have current commentary on the politics of the present day… history truly does regurgitate itself forward.

And I added Michael Moore’s first book, simply a written catalouge of the best of his first network tv show, Adventures in a TV Nation. Moore has since devolved into a bit of a self-parody and charicature of himself. Dude, Where’s My Country? is decent enough I suppose — though probably unremarkable in the current glut of anti-Bush books; Stupid White Men is a stupid book not worth reading.

I’ll add books of relevance as they come to me. Suggestions welcome, I suppose.