SARAH RESIGNS

Most people don’t know this, but Sarah Palin is resigning as Governor of Alaska effective later this month. This news is little known because in front of an audience of dozens, the governor announced the resignation on the eve of the Fourth of July weekend when the media were already preoccupied with the death of Michael Jackson. However, the people who read this blog, all 25 of you, will know, and I hope you will spread the word to the rest of the country.

She is resigning because of apathy, not her own but that of the rest of the country. “It would be apathetic to just hunker down and go with the flow,” she said, but she is not going to do that. She is going to leave office before the end of her term and leave the state in the good hands of Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell. Wow, I don’t know why we didn’t think of that before.

Sarah went on to say that she chooses “to work very hard for fruitfulness and productivity.” It goes without saying that she also chooses to fight for truth, justice, and the American way and all that kind of stuff.

Ultimately Sarah is making this sacrifice for the good of the citizens of Alaska. With only a year and a half to go in her term, she is a lame-duck. We all know that lame-ducks cannot accomplish much. She is not going to be like other lame ducks and become a burden to tax payers. “Many,” she said, "just accept that lame-duck status, hit the road, draw the paycheck and milk it.” But not Sarah. “I’m not putting Alaska through that.”

A lot of people used to think that Sarah Palin is an airhead, but the logic of her resignation announcement should put an end to that kind of talk.

REPUBLICAN GOVERNORS

Where is South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford? He is so tired after trying to refuse money from the federal government for education and economic stimulus that he’s just worn out. So he’s hiking along the Appalachian Trial, communing with nature, and renewing himself spiritually. So what if the state police, the lieutenant governor, and his wife don’t know where he is. He just needed to get away.

No! That’s not it at all. He took a quick trip to Argentina, no doubt on some kind of state business.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney denies that Sanford conferred with him about some good undisclosed locations to go to.

Oh no! He was in Argentina, but instead of state business, it was monkey business! It turns out he was having a little fling with someone he met in Argentina a year ago when he went there on an economic development trip. He is resigning as head of the Republican Governors Association. A few months ago some crazies were talking about Sanford as a Republican candidate for the presidency in the next election. I guess that’s all over now.

Meanwhile Alaska Governor Sarah Palin got some “great news for Alaska.” The Supreme Court said it was okay for an Alaskan gold mine to dump waste into nearby Lower Slate Lake, even though the dumping will kill all the fish in the lake.

Palin is calling on other polluters to dump their crap into Alaska’s lakes. She says the Supreme Court’s ruling is "is a green light for responsible resource development."

NIGHT ON THE TOWN

OMG! President Obama took his wife out on a date for dinner and a Broadway play! To hear Republicans react to it, you would think that he started an illegal war, lied to the American people, squandered a financial surplus and left the country with a huge deficit, hired incompetents for various federal agencies, or something like that.

But no! Instead he took his wife out on a date. How much is that date costing the American people? the Republicans fumed. Why couldn’t he take her out on a date in Washington, D.C., where there would not have been the cost of flying the president and his wife to New York?

Why not, indeed? Well, Mr. Big-Bucks Republican, if you promised to take your sweetie pie to see a Broadway show, would you (and she) be willing to settle for dinner at a local diner and a community theatre production? Why should the president deserve anything less? It’s not like he’s taking golfing trips to Scotland paid for by a since-convicted lobbyist (like a former House Republican).

The expense you seem to be object to is evidently the cost of flying to the Big Apple. Would you have the president book a civilian flight to the city and stand in line to board the flight? Maybe you would prefer that he just stay in the White House and watch a video.

Come on, Republicans. Face it, you don’t have a platform. You just want to go back to the good old days of George W. Bush. How pathetic!

HOPPING MAD

Carl Perrin is hopping mad. First of all, he finds out that he is not going to be named U. S. Senator for New Hampshire. Judd Gregg withdrew his nomination, stating that as a conservative Republican, he couldn’t go along with President Obama’s Democratic plans. Which makes one wonder if Obama wasn’t taking bipartisanship a little too far in considering Gregg for a cabinet position.

Of course there is still that job of Commerce Secretary to fill, and unlike many of Obama’s cabinet nominees, Perrin doesn’t have any unpaid income taxes, as far as he knows. Someone did let him borrow a car recently while his was in the shop, but we don’t think there’s any income tax liability there.

Despite his clean record on taxes, Perrin is realistic enough to recognize that with his academic background, he is probably not a good fit in the Commerce Department. However, he was hoping to get a high-level executive job at a bank or some other financial institution that has been helped with the economic bailout. But now he finds out that, even if he can land such a job, the Obama administration will limit his salary to a half a million dollars a year.

That’s outrageous! How can anyone live on $500,000 a year? The first thing Perrin would have done with his new salary would have been to trade in his 13-year-old Honda for a Mercedes. That would have taken a big chunk out of his salary. Then there are taxes and all that other nickel and dime stuff. Before you know it, all he would have left to live on would be about a third of a million. It’s hardly enough to bother with.

PERRIN FOR NH SENATOR

By the time this is posted President Obama will have nominated NH senator Judd Gregg for the post of Commerce Secretary. Gregg will accept the nomination only if Democratic NH governor John Lynch will promise not to name a new senator who will not “change the makeup of the Senate.” Lynch is expected to name Bonnie Newman to the post. Newman at one time served as Gregg’s chief of staff. Part of the understanding here is that she will not run for the Senate seat in the 2010 election.

The NH governor could just as easily name distinguished educator Dr. Carl Perrin to the seat. In a previous posting we noted Perrin’s deep roots in the Granite State. Also they wouldn’t have to worry about his running for the seat in 2010. Perrin will be only 80 years old in 2010. Depending on how things go in Washington in the next two years, the former English professor could be getting ready for another run for the White House.

WILL PERRIN RETURN TO NATIONAL POLITICS?

New Hampshire senator Judd Gregg is being considered for the position of Secretary of Commerce. We think it would be a good move for many reasons. Gregg played a major part in last year’s banking bailout, so he seems a natural for the position in these troubled economic times. Further, it would be a goodwill gesture toward the Republicans because Gregg is a Republican. However the governor of New Hampshire, John Lynch, is a Democrat. Although Lynch is very independent, it seems unlikely that he would not appoint another Democrat to the position. That would leave the Democrats in a stronger position in the Senate, where they have a majority but not enough members to stifle a filibuster.

The situation leaves Governor Lynch is a precarious position. Whom will he choose to replace Gregg if Gregg in fact becomes Commerce Secretary? Obviously he can’t sell the seat. Rod Blagojevich ruined the chance of any other governor to do that. Nor can he pull a Governor Paterson, who hemmed and hawed and finally appointed Kirsten Gillibrand, a Republican who merely pretended to be a Democrat, so she could pick up a few votes from Democrats who don’t read the newspapers.

Fortunately, there is an easy way out for the New Hampshire governor. Retired English professor, Dr. Carl Perrin, a former presidential candidate, has a strong New Hampshire background. He grew up in the state, graduated from high school in Amherst, NH, holds a BA and an M.Ed. degree from New Hampshire schools. He began his teaching career in Hollis, NH. He even once was a member of the New Hampshire National Guard.

Who could be more natural?

BOOK REVIEW

If you like to read about political idiots, Paul Slanksy’s Idiots, Hypocrites, Demagogues, and More Idiots, published by Bloombury, is the book for you. It skewers both Democrats and Republicans, although the latter, for some reason, have a lot more space devoted to their stupid comments.

Former vice president Dan Quayle is well represented among the first group:

Talking about child-care, he told one audience, “We understand the importance of having the bondage between the parent and the child.”

He told another group, “We’re going to have the best-educated American people in the world.”

He referred to members of Bush’s team who had treated him with contempt during the campaign. Now they would have to deal with him. “I’m the vice president,’ he said. “They know it, and they know that I know it.”

Congresswoman Helen Chenoweth is among the hypocrites represented in the book. After strongly denouncing Bill Clinton for his dalliance with the Lewinsky bimbo, Chenoweth was found to have had an affair with a married man in the 1980s. Her indiscretion, however, occurred, she told reporters, “when I was a private citizen and a single woman.”

Loudmouth Rush Limbaugh frequently attacked drug addicts and called for their imprisonment. In 2003 he admitted that he was addicted to OxyContin.

Dick Cheney referred to water boarding as a “dunk in the water.”

Told to put out a cigar in a restaurant because of federal regulations, Congressman Tom Delay, “I am the federal government.”

I chuckled through most of the book, though sometimes I gasped in horror to realize that these were the people running the country. Some of Nixon’s comments revealed on tape were truly horrifying.

The book costs $14.95. It’s worth every penny. Buy it for yourself. Buy it for you liberal friends for Christmas presents.