VAST RIGHT-WING CONSPIRACY?

What in the hell is going on? James Dobson, founder of the conservative Focus on Family, said “I would not vote for John McCain under any circumstances.” Rush Limbaugh said, “If McCain or Huckabee gets the nomination, it will destroy the GOP.” Ann Coulter said that she would vote for Hillary Clinton rather than John McCain. Are all these right wingers suddenly in favor of Hillary, or are they unwilling to forgive McCain for some of his moderate positions on various issues?

Perhaps the strangest semi-endorsement from the right wing for Mrs. Clinton comes from Richard Mellon Scaife. When she referred to a vast right-wing conspiracy during Bill Clinton’s administration, Scaife was the chief money man behind that conspiracy. He donated $1.8 million to the conservative American Spectator magazine to dig up dirt about Bill Clinton. Now Scaife’s paper, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, invites the New York Senator to come for an interview and Scaife sits in on the interview. He came away with a favorable impression of the Democratic candidate, saying that she “exhibited an impressive command of many of today’s most pressing domestic and international issues.” Her answers, “were thoughtful, well-stated and often dead on.” The billionaire agreed with the senator that the federal government had bungled Katrina. They also saw eye to eye on the need to pull our troops out of Iraq.

What are Scaife’s motives in all of this? Does he find her position on issues closer to his own than McCain’s positions? Or is he trying to promote her candidacy because he thinks she would be easier to defeat Barack Obama in the general election?

WHO’S TO BLAME?

What is behind the economic mess that the country is in? Senator John McCain, who admits, “The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should,” placed the blames squarely on the people who “bought homes they couldn’t afford.” He went on to say that federal assistance “must not reward people who were irresponsible at the expense of those who weren’t.”

Wait a minute! Who was responsible? Was it the Wall Street bankers like Bear Stearns whom the federal government is bailing out? Was it Bear Stearns stockholders, like chairman James E. Cayne, the value of whose company shares fell from $1 billion to a mere $61 million? Was it the politicians and lobbyists who tore down much of the regulations covering the finance industry? Was it the poor suckers who bought a home with money lent to him by a banker who supposed to check the buyer’s ability to repay?

The fact is, it doesn’t matter who is to blame. It’s a mess, and it concerns all of us. The problems in the housing/credit market touch every area of business and affect us all. Before it gets any worse, we had better do something about it.

Hillary Clinton compared John McCain to Herbert Hoover, the man who stood by and did nothing while the country slide into the worst depression it has ever seen. Even George Bush has done more than John McCain is willing to do.

ANIMAL RIGHTS

Scientists at the Riken Institute in Tokyo have been training rodents to use tools. Degus, intelligent rodents from Chile, have been trained to reach through a fence and use a small rake to pull food within reach.

Venture capitalist Tobias Zitz is funding a study at UCLA to examine how people can put the little critters to work. “If they can be trained to pull sunflower seeds within reach, they can be trained to do other repetitive job,” the venture capitalist says. “Maybe their movements can be harnessed to create electricity in areas that don’t have electricity.”

Others are not so enthusiastic about putting the little rodents to work. Elsie P. Jordan, of the American Animal Rights Society, says her organization will do everything it can to prevent people from exploiting in the innocent creatures. Hector Sanchez of the AFL, on the other hand, has no objection to putting the degus to work. He just wants to be sure that they are fairly compensated. A branch of the labor union, Sanchez says, is already at work organizing the little animals.

DO REPUBLICANS HAVE A CLUE?

George Bush has been the most clueless president ever. After the UN declared that they had found no weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, George didn’t let facts or logic stand in his way of invading the country. Then nearly five years ago he flew onto the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln to stand in front of a banner that proclaimed “Mission Accomplished.”

We have become so used to Bush’s misstatements that we don’t bother anymore to ask if he is misinformed or lying. We just ignore what he says because for whatever reason, we no longer believe him. Unfortunately George Bush is not the only Republican who doesn’t know what he is talking about. Mike Huckabee, while running for the Republican nomination for president, revealed that he didn’t know where Afghanistan is. This almost five years after the U. S. invaded the country to try to find Osama Bin Laden. Doesn’t the man even read the newspapers?

Huckebee is just a good ole country boy. Maybe he just doesn’t know much about what’s happening outside of Arkansas. But recently John McCain showed a similar lack of awareness of what is going on in the world. McCain has been in Washington since 1977, first as Navy Senate liaison, then as congressman and senator. He is a member of the Senate Armed Forces Committee. But he recently stated that Iran was training members of Al Qaeda and then letting them slip back into Iraq where they could attack coalition forces. Iran is suspected of training Shi’ite militias, and these militias have attacked Iraqi police and military, but they are not Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is Sunni, not Shi’ite. Conflict between the Moslem sects is part of the problem in Iraq.

Senator McCain doesn’t know the difference between these two groups. Yet he is sitting in the Senate and the armed forces committee and making decisions that affect us all. He is running for the presidency and urging that we “stay the course” in Iraq. He wants to continue George Bush’s clueless war policy.

Don’t these people even read a newspaper? They are unaware of things that every citizen should know. It is about time that candidates for public office be required to take a current events test before they are allowed to make decisions for the rest of us.

THE MEANING OF THE WORD 'IS'

At one time I had a picture of Bill Clinton in my home office. I took it down after he lied to the American people about Monica. I didn’t think what Clinton and that bimbo did was any business of the public, but I didn’t like the way he tried to evade by twisting words. That’s when I realized why some people called him “Slick Willy,” and I took down the picture. If I still had the picture on my wall, I would have to tear it down and stamp on it now.

In South Carolina Clinton compared Obama’s primary victory to Jesse Jackson’s. This comparison attempted to diminish the senator’s achievement by evoking a black man who was not popular among whites. Although this was not as overtly racist as Geraldine Ferrara’s comment a month later that Obama would not have the lead in primary votes if he were not an African-American, Clinton’s statement was nevertheless racist. Without saying so, the former president was trying to put in the minds of white voters that here is another man like Jesse Jackson, a man who will blame whites for everything.

On Friday Mr. Clinton said “it would be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country.” Merrill McPeak, a retired Air Force general and co-chair of Obama’s campaign, countered Bill Clinton’s statement by calling Barack Obama, John McCain, and Hillary Clinton as “great patriots who love this country and are devoted to it.”

Unfortunately the general then went on to compare Bill Clinton to Senator Joseph McCarthy, who back in the 1950s “was accusing Americans of being traitors.” A spokesman for Hillary Clinton said that the general’s comments were a “deliberately pathetic misreading of what the president said.”

That is true. Bill Clinton never suggested that Barack Obama was a traitor, but his remarks did suggest that the Illinois senator was not really patriotic, and Clinton’s evasions can’t get around that. There is no way to look at Clinton’s statement and see it as other than a careful parsing of words to question Obama’s patriotism: “It would be great if we had an election year, etc.” The way the statement stands suggests that we might not have two patriotic candidates. Clinton can say he never questioned Obama’s love of country, but the question is there nevertheless. It’s a really sleazy way of doing things.

I no longer have a picture of Bill Clinton, but I am going to the Internet and print one out so I can throw it on the floor and stomp on it.

SHIT OR GET OFF THE POT

Kory McFarren of Ness City, Kansas, has been charged with mistreatment of a dependent adult. McFarren’s girl friend, Pam Babcock, was stuck to the toilet in their trailer (I’m assuming they lived in a trailer). Authorities believe she had been on the pot for about a month. She had been on the throne so long that open sores developed on her legs, which caused her to become attached to the seat.

McFarren brought food and water to Ms. Babcock every day and kept urging her to come out of the bathroom. She kept saying, “maybe tomorrow.” He thought she had been in the bathroom for about two years.

Finally when it reached a point where Pam physically couldn’t get off the pot, he called the local sheriff for help. The sheriff had to remove the seat from the toilet and take her to the hospital with the seat still attached. Then he charged McFarren with mistreatment of a dependent adult.

Clearly the poor woman was not playing with a full deck. And neither was McFarren. If he had chosen her as a girl friend, he was obviously not a rocket scientist either. Look at it from his point of view. She chose not to come out of the bathroom and then not even to get off the pot. He had to work around that. What did he do when he had to use the facilities? It’s not likely that they had a second bath room in their trailer. He brought her food and water and tried to get her to come out of the bathroom. What more could a man with limited intellectual resources do? When he realized that the situation was desperate, he called the sheriff. The sheriff had to use a crow bar to detach the seat. Then he took Ms. Babcock to the hospital and brought charges against McFarren. Some thanks. All this time poor McFarren had to find someplace else to go when he had to take a crap and put up with Pammy refusing to come out of the bathroom. And now the sheriff is blaming him. He probably wishes he had let her stay there.

WE DON’T WANT HIS TYPE IN OUR COUNTRY

British author Sebastian Horsley wrote a memoir entitled “Dandy in the Underworld.” The book tells how he spent about $200,000. on various drugs and a similar amount on more than 1,000 prostitutes. (It makes Eliot Spitzer look like a cheapskate.) Harper Perennial has published Horsley’s book in paperback. He flew to the United States Tuesday for a book party and tour to promote his memoir.

However, the dandy did not get past Newark Liberty International Airport. At the airport customs authorities detained him for eight hours and questioned him about using drugs, consorting with prostitutes, and being a male escort. Then they sent him back to England. A spokeswoman for the New York office of United States Customs and Border Protection said, “travelers who have been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude or admit to previously having a drug addiction are not admissible.”

Rumor now has it that former New Jersey governor James McGreevey, former New York governor Eliot Spitzer, and current New York governor David Paterson will not be permitted to travel to the United Kingdom.

FRIDAY NIGHT SPECIAL

New York governor Eliot Spitzer has sex with a high-priced prostitute. Hey, that’s nothing. What about former New Jersey governor James McGreevey? McGreevey came out of the closet in 2004, telling the world that he was a “gay American,” and resigning his post.

Big deal! Now a former McGreevey aide says Big Jim took part in other unusual sexual practices. Teddy Pedersen, a former driver for McGreevey, used to get together with his boss and Dina Matos McGreevey, both before and after their marriage, for what they called a “Friday Night Special. It started at T.G.I.Friday restaurant and ended at the McGreevey Woodbridge condo for three-way sex.

Pedersen was subpoenaed by Mrs. McGreevey’s in her divorce trial. He told his story to the New York Post because he was tired of Mrs. McGreevey’s playing the victim and calling New York governor Eliot Spitzer a hypocrite when she herself was far from innocent.

MILLION DOLLAR OFFER

Ashley Alexandra Dupre, AKA “Kristen,” came to New York City to pursue a career in music. While waiting for her big break in music, the she followed a different profession, eventually coming in contact with New York governor Eliot Spitzer.

Now the young woman is enjoying her fifteen minutes of fame. Her MySpace page has received millions of hits. Her name was the number one query on Google on March 12. It was number two on Yahoo search. People are selling Ashley Dupre T-shirts. Facebook groups have come out to support her. One says, “I want Ashley Alexandra Dupre in the oval office!” It doesn’t specify just what role Miss Dupre would be expected to play in the oval office.

Now a well-known publisher is offering her a million dollars to pose for his magazine. Larry Flynt, publisher of “Hustler” magazine will pay Ashley a million dollars to pose. "It will be something that will very tastefully done," the publisher said. That goes without saying. We would expect nothing less than good taste from a magazine like “Hustler.”

All that publicity creates golden opportunities for the young woman from New Jersey: a music career perhaps, talk shows, maybe a ghost-written book, politics even. It just goes to show: If you have contacts with powerful men like New York governor Eliot Spitzer, all kinds of doors open for you.

BUSH WILL NOT LET THE WILL OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE STAND IN HIS WAY

Speaking to the National Religious Broadcasters, President Bush said, the troops “are not coming home based upon defeat, or based upon opinion polls, or based upon focus groups, or based upon politics, they're coming home because we're successful." He told cheering supporters, "The decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision early in my presidency. It is the right decision in this point in my presidency, and it will forever be the right decision.”

He is not going to let the November elections influence his actions. “Why should I be influenced by the will of the American people or by common sense?” Mr. Bush asked. “I’ve never let things like that stand in my way before.”

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton said that she and John McCain are ready to be commander in chief , while Barack Obama is not. What kind of a Democrat puts down a fellow Democrat while advancing a Republican contender? Not only was Mrs. Clinton’s comment unfair to Senator Obama, it also overlooked Dr. Carl Perrin. Although Perrin is no longer campaigning, he has not withdrawn from the race. Unlike both Clinton and Obama, Perrin has actual military experience. He was a sergeant in the 31st Infantry Division during the Korean War. He was also a senior patrol leader in his Boy Scout troop. And of course he is president of the Computer Club at his retirement village. Perrin has the kind of executive and leadership experience that none of the other candidates have.

BRIBES

Democrat Carl Perrin tries to present himself as a squeaky-clean candidate, but stories are now surfacing that he collected bribes, hundreds of them in his long career as an English teacher. He never solicited bribes per se, but he talked about chocolate enough that his students knew that it wouldn’t hurt if they brought him a chocolate bar.

“It’s true,” Perrin admits, “students did bring me chocolate, but it was never really a bribe. I never offered to raise a student’s grade if he brought me some chocolate. Of course they knew that chocolate always put me in a good mood, and they wanted me to be in a good mood when I was correcting their papers.”

Perrin insists that students brought him chocolate because they liked him, not because they hoped to bribe him.

WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL?

New York Democratic governor Eliot Spitzer got caught using the services of a high-priced call girl. Spitzer, Mr. Clean, the sheriff of Wall Street, the politician who was going to bring a much-needed dose of ethics to Albany, who as attorney general prosecuted prostitution rings, including a Staten Island ring that resulted in the arrest of 18 people inn 2004—that Eliot Spitzer? Yes, indeed. While in Washington last month he secured the services of a high-priced call girl. Federal investigators have recordings of the governor’s arrangements for the rendezvous. The recordings indicate that he was a return customer.

Well, it could be worse. At least Spitzer was with a call girl. It’s not like some Republican law makers, such as Senator Larry (wide-stance) Craig, who was arrested after an encounter with an undercover male police office in an airport rest room. Or former Florida congressman Mark Foley, who resigned after improper e-mail messages to male teen-age pages became public.

At least Eliot Spitzer’s hank-panky was with women, not men. In the tradition of Bill Clinton, Democrats who get in trouble over sexual impropriety keep it heterosexual.

Of course, except for former New Jersey governor James McGreevey—but let’s not go there.

PERRIN CHARGES SNEAK ATTACK

On the eve of the Ohio and Texas primaries, the vast right/left wing conspiracy unleashed a sneak attack on Democrat Dr. Carl Perrin. “They’ll do anything to stop me,” the candidate said. They know I’m the only Democrat who can look John McCain in the face and say, “Sonny boy, why don’t you leave these things to your elders?”

The attack is particularly insidious. Just a few days ago the public learned that “Surviving with Wolves” by Misha Defonseca, a memoir of surviving the holocaust and being adopted by wolves was fake. Not only was the story patently false, but Defonseca is not even Jewish. Then just a few days later, we learn that “Love and Consequences” by Margaret Jones, a memoir about growing up among street gangs in Los Angeles, is another fake. The author, whose real name is Margaret Seltzer, grew up in a well-to-do neighborhood and never did the things described in the so-called memoir.

Now people who are trying to destroy Carl Perrin’s run for the Democratic nomination are saying that he too has a phony memoir. The book in question is a grammar book called “Subject Meets Verb: A Love Story.” Perrin had the book printed and used it in his English classes at Casco Bay College in Portland, Maine. Trying to lift his book above the deadly dullness of the typical grammar book, Perrin invented some characters to use in examples in the book. The main characters are a Professor Aristotle Mongoose and his love, Miss Sweetcakes.”Mongoose and Miss Sweetcakes share a love for each other and for chocolate. The professor is described as being witty and having a “dapper mustache.” Perrin’s students always charged that Mongoose was a stand-in for Perrin himself.

It is true that Perrin never denied that charge, but he never claimed that “Subject Meets Verb” was a memoir. Now political opponents are claiming that the book is in fact a memoir and his students knew that. Political enemies further allege that Perrin was never in charge of the Chocolate Lab at Hedgehog College, and in fact never even taught at Hedgehog College. Perrin is very frustrated by these charges because they are true: He never taught at HC, but he insists that he never claimed to be Aristotle Mongoose. It is a classic dirty trick, to put a twist on the facts and distort the truth so that it no longer is true.

VETO MAKES WORLD SAFE FOR WATERBOARDING

President Bush vetoed a bill that would outlaw waterboarding by the CIA. “We want to use the technique on some of those Democratic trouble makers,” the president said, smiling to show that it was just a joke.

Meantime, the vice president’s old company is making soldiers sick—literally. KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton, is supplying water to the troops. The Pentagon found that the water was "was not maintained in accordance with field water sanitary standards." Soldiers were breaking out with skin rashes and other ailments. The water was used for laundry and personal hygiene. Thank God the troops didn’t have to drink the stuff.

In other political news, two Vermont towns, Brattleboro and Marlboro, voted to do the job that Congress should have done. The two towns voted to impeach President Bush and Vice President Cheney for violating the Constitution. Voters realize that the town has no authority to arrest the president and vice president, but the vote gave them a chance to express their anger about the way that the administration involved the country in the war in Iraq .

U.S. NOT HEADED FOR RECESSION

The U.S. is not headed for a recession according to President George Bush. “We acted robustly to head that off,” he said. “We’re giving everyone $300. We’re even giving it to Democrats, even to people who didn’t vote for us. I hope they’ll remember that $300 when they go to the polls in November. No one can accuse us of just helping rich folks pay less in taxes.”

As for the people losing their homes through mortgage foreclosures, the president said it was just the economy working. “People bought homes they couldn’t afford, and the market place is taking those homes away. That’s the way the system works, and the sooner people learn that, they better off we’ll be.”

By November Mr. Bush believes the market will have made a complete correction, and the people will see the need to keep a Republican government in office. “John McCain has supported our war effort from the beginning. If our troops are not able to discover weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before the end of my term, I’m sure that the McCain administration will be successful in that search.”

MALE STRIPPER

Some sanctimonious Puritans are trying to get Carl Perrin removed from any remaining primary ballots. They are charging that the former English professor once worked as a male stripper at the Kit Kat Klub in Portland, Maine.

Perrin vehemently denies the charge. He admits he used to go to the club once in a while, but he insists that he never worked as a professional stripper. “Sure, I took my clothes off at the club once, but it was just once, and I was never a professional stripper.

“Besides, it was a long time ago. I was just a kid, still in my fifties. We were at the club, and I had had a few too many scotches. These women in the next table kept egging me on, saying, ‘Come on, Big Boy, let’s see you get up there and show your stuff.’ So I got up and started taking my clothes off. When I got down to my underwear, my wife pulled me off the floor and took me home.

“That’s all there was to it. This stuff about being a professional stripper is a smear tactic by my political enemies. They’ll do anything to stop me.”

HILLARY MAKES COMEBACK!

Hillary Clinton won in both delegate-rich states, Texas and Ohio. She also won in Rhode Island, while Barak Obama won in Vermont. Obama is still ahead in delegate count, but the New York senator has narrowed his lead. The race is still on with no clear-cut top dog for the ultimate prize. On the Republican side, John McCain came out with a clear victory. He will be the Republican candidate for the presidency.

Attention now focuses on Democratic candidate Dr. Carl Perrin. He has not picked up a single delegate (although he did get a few votes in his retirement community). Will he stay in the race? The answer to that question is, yes. Perrin realizes that it is mathematically impossible for him to get enough votes in the upcoming primaries to win the nomination that way. “I am suspending campaigning, but I am not withdrawing from the race. It ain’t over until it’s over,” the former English professor said.

According to insiders, the way Perrin sees it, the battle between Obama and Clinton will go all the way to the convention. The two senators will each have about the same number of delegates, so the convention will not be able to choose between them. They will have to find a compromise candidate, someone like Professor Carl Perrin.

The fact that the Republican candidate will be John McCain will work in Perrin’s favor. A lot of seniors will vote for McCain because of his age. It would be a big mistake for Democrats to let the GOP take all the geezer votes.

TEXAS AND OHIO

This is the big day in Democratic politics. If Hillary doesn’t do well in the Texas and Ohio primaries, will she drop out? Some people are urging her to back out gracefully. Any attacks she makes on Barack could be used by the Republicans in the general election in the fall. She insists that she has just begun the fight. Tomorrow the political landscape could look very different. Or not.

No one is urging Dr Carl Perrin to drop out of the race. Frankly most people don’t even know that he is still in the race, but he is wondering whether he has a chance of picking up even one delegate. He knows that he has no chance of winning in Texas, but Ohio is a different thing. He lived in Defiance, Ohio, for nine years and taught at Defiance College. He earned his Ph.D. at Ohio State University.

The former English professor knows that he can’t win in Ohio, but he is still desperately hoping he can pick up at least one or two delegates. Insiders say that if he doesn’t get any votes, he will consider dropping out of the race. Perrin himself will not confirm this. “Don’t count me out,” he says grimly.