Cheers and Jeers: Monday

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...

On the campaign trail

With the Pennsylvania primary (mercifully) mere hours away, a reminder of what the candidates are enduring, compliments of America: The Book...

Do you like babies? How about veterans? Can you feign interest in old people---and smile while touching them? How are you with handshaking? Back-slapping? Palm-greasing? How do you feel about saying the same thing over and over again? Bus travel? Do you like being vilified on television? What about in print? Your spouse and children---do they enjoy being followed around, maybe having their backgrounds looked into? Chicken---can you stomach copious quantities of it in sterile auditorium-like environments? Finally, do you like all those things enough to put up with them every day for the remainder of your professional life? If you answered "yes" to every one of those questions, congratulations!!! You’re ready to enter the political arena.

And from Dave Barry Hits Below the Beltway:

The problem is that, to become the president, you have to run for president, which in the past few decades has become a brutally degrading experience involving unspeakable depths of pandering and sucking around for votes and money. It's a great big Suck-a-Thon, is what it is. No dignified person would voluntarily submit to it; the people who do submit to it are usually defective to begin with, and come out of the process moderately deranged, if not actively insane. One of these years we're going to elect a president whose first official act will be to launch nuclear strikes against Iowa and New Hampshire. And you wouldn't blame him, if you saw what presidential candidates go through.

But at least the rewards are worth it:

"Being president is like being a jackass in a hailstorm. There's nothing to do but to stand there and take it."   ---Lyndon Johnson

Mornin', bedhead. Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

Cheers and Jeers for Monday, April 21, 2008

Note:  Please remember C&J in your will.  Specifically, your half-eaten roll of Necco Wafers.

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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the Pennsylvania primary: 1
Days 'til Cinco de Mayo: 14
Rank of Iran, China and North Korea among countries that Americans rank as the top three U.S. enemies: 1, 2, 3
(Source: Gallup poll via The Week)
U.S. median salary in 2007: $36,140
Inflation-adjusted decrease from 2006's median income: -0.5%
(Source: Parade)
Drop in the amount of housework done by women between 1976 and 2005: -35%
(Source: TIME)
Last time the BiPM household changed the vacuum cleaner bag: 1987

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Your Monday Texan As A Second Language Lesson

Brought to you by the 2008 Netroots Nation Convention in Austin July 17-21 (to which I believe there's exactly one ticket left, or maybe two):

"Life in Lubbock, Texas, taught me two things: One is that God loves you and you're going to burn in hell.  The other is that sex is the most awful, filthy thing on earth and you should save it for someone you love."
---Butch Hancock

(Translation: Life is weird)

Say the above three times out loud before you go to bed and you'll be fluent in Texan in no time!

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Puppy Pic of the Day: "The daffodil uprising must be subdued!"

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CHEERS to being patriotismier than thou.  Today is Patriots Day, a commemoration of the skirmishes at Lexington and Concord that sparked our War of Independence 233 years ago.  Only two states are flagpinny enough to make Patriots Day an official holiday: Maine and Massachusetts.  Those of you in the other 48 states may continue plotting your jihad against the homeland as usual.

P.S. Once again Stephen Colbert eats our dust as I add flagpinny to the modern American lexicon on behalf of C&J.  We expect to see the word at the next national spelling bee, judges.

CHEERS to Frank Rich.  The New York Times columnist examines the current state of the Democratic primary (including harsh words for Wednesday's debate moderators) and cracks a few skulls:

When a Washington doyenne like Mary Matalin, freighted with jewelry, starts railing about elitists on "Meet the Press," as she did last Sunday, it’s pure farce.  It’s typical of the syndrome that the man who plays a raging populist on CNN, Lou Dobbs, dismissed Mr. Obama last week by saying "we don’t need another Ivy League-educated knucklehead."  Mr. Dobbs must know whereof he speaks, since he’s Harvard ’67.

Please sign my petition to the FCC mandating that any pundit who went to a hoity-toity college or university has to wear their mortarboard while they're on the air.  That'll shut 'em up right quick.  (Tassel goes on the right...right?)

CHEERS to fun with transposition.  Newly-released campaign finance numbers show that Barack Obama has a jaw-dropping $51 million in the bank.  John McCain, by contrast, barely raised enough money to cover the average child's allowance: $15 million (with only $12 million on hand).  Gee, I wonder why Republicans ain't sweet enough on him to donate a few bucks, even though he's been the GOP nominee for months now.  Maybe because he's more "Ick" than "Maver"???  Anyway, to stretch his dollars, the GOP nominee plans to trade in the bus and start traveling on a new mode of transportation: the Schwinn Straight-Talk Bicycle-built-for-30.  Stay alert, pedestrians---if they take a corner too wide you're goin' down.

JEERS to the worst-selling T-shirt in history.  On the front it says:  I WENT TO IRAQ AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER.  And on the back it says:  AND/OR A TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY FROM AN IMPROVISED EXPLOSIVE DEVICE THAT MAY MAKE THE REST OF MY LIFE A LIVING HELL.  And on the sleeve it has just the cutest little Teddy bear.  Can't understand why the inventory's not movin'.

CHEERS to one less role model for children...the evil ones, that is.  This'll disappoint playground bullies everywhere: a bad guy got caught...

Rep. Don Young [R-Alaska] has said he never allowed convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff to be an influential force over him in Congress.
But now a trove of old billing records from two of Abramoff's firms show that his team of lobbyists had more than 120 contacts with Young's personal and committee staffs over 25 months, including at least 10 with Young himself.

The available records cover a single Abramoff client, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory in the Pacific that Young oversaw when he chaired the House Resources Committee from 1995 to 2001.

The records show that one of the looming concerns of Abramoff and his fellow lobbyists at the time was a bill introduced by Young's fellow Alaskan, Sen. Frank Murkowski, to reform labor and immigration practices feeding the island's notorious Chinese-owned sweatshops.  In 2000, Murkowski's bill passed the Senate unanimously, but Young stopped it cold in his committee, refusing to hold even a hearing.

[Sigh]  It's so hard to find competent thieving, conniving, opportunistic, rule-breaking, pork-loving, lapel pin-shunning, human rights-hating obstructionists these days.

CHEERS to wurds.  180 yeers agow tooday, Noah Webster puhbilshed the fuhrst (frist??) Amarrican dikshunery.  It hellpd peeple spull bettor.  (Sorry...every now and then we like to torture our spellchecker.)

JEERS to the only way you can be a tourist in George Bush's Iraq.  Condi Rice flew into Iraq steep, fast and unannounced to avoid real sniper fire (and missiles and god-knows-what the kids are firing from their slingshots these days) on Sunday.  Her feet never touched a public street, she never visited a mosque nor a market, and she was surrounded by an army of eight-foot-tall marines inside a giant green fortress.  Meanwhile, the next time Iran's foreign minister visits, he'll just drive his Dodge Dart across the border and wave to the cheering throngs of well-wishers.  My point: those Darts have really held up over the years.

CHEERS to brave predictions.  The 112th Boston Marathon is today.  As usual, I'll go out on a limb and predict that the winners will be the Kenyans.  Unless the nerd from MIT perfects his rocket shoes in time...and someone can do the impossible by waking him up before noon.

CHEERS to the new kid on the stump.  Imagine: a relative newcomer to high office who offers a platform of hope and change travels around parts of America speaking to throngs of swooning supporters, many of them hurting from the economic collapse.  And even though he has ties to some shady characters, the media fall all over themselves to praise this dynamic leader.  So of course I'm not talking about Barack Obama, but Pope Benedict XVI, who flew back home yesterday after a successful five-day visit here, during which President Bush high-fived him for giving an "awesome speech."  Our lingering thought: I hope somebody remembered to count the silverware before he left.

CHEERS to Queen Elizabeth.  It's her birthday.  No, really, I insist: YOU spank her 82 times.  (And don't forget to give her a pinch to grow an inch.  Then run like hell.)

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One Year Ago in C&J:  April 21, 2007...

CHEERS to the smartest guy in the room.  Guess who's coming to the White House Correspondents Dinner tomorrow night as an invited guest?  Yep...Sanjaya Malakar.  It'll be his first appearance as President Bush's new War Czar.

CHEERS to humpin' like bunnies.  The latest government report shows that abstinence-only education---i.e. "Savin' it!"---is a big fat flop.  So, kids, follow Uncle Bill's reality-based guidelines and you'll be fine: Have fun, love the one you're with, and be safe.  Now here's some porno music to get ya started: Ooh wacka wacka boing boing wacka...

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And just one more...

JEERS to the biggest anti-climax in the world.  Our local "#1" news/talk radio station---which airs the rightest-wingerest blowhards (Rush, O'Reilly, the usual idiots) during the week and balances it with a call-in garden show on Sunday, ran promos several times an hour this weekend promoting a "BIG ANNOUNCEMENT" from Glenn Beck this morning at 10.  (This, by the way, is the same station that tells people who lose their electricity during storms to go to their web site for closings and bulletins.)  The "BIG ANNOUNCEMENT" will probably be an upcoming live Beck broadcast from Portland.  In which case the city will take the usual step of putting up its emergency evacuation signs.

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Oh, and this just in: chicks rule.  Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?

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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"I have never seen Cheers and Jeers so beautiful, and I have season's tickets.  It sure beats sitting in my local church."
---Philip Giordano
4/20/08

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