It's Obama's fault

(Recent paintings by George W. Bush)

"Looks like someone out of Kenya" --- the Tea Party protesting at the White House during the weekend

And while we are at it, here's a fitting fragment from the Green Eyes, Ch. 27: I'll charge 100 dollars but am willing to negotiate:

"We're dressed, ready to roll, Ben's got hold of an inch of the fliers, how do we get hold of my father? He has a cell-phone, right? Let's hope he’s not behind on the payments. Technology works, so I tell my father my truck is broken, I need to borrow his car, right now, to drive a friend to the Greyhound terminal in Ocean View. I'll be at the parking lot in two minutes. As we exit the main entrance his back is turned to us, he's expecting us coming down the ramp, he isn't even aware we're coming from upstairs. I won't call him out of course, from behind, or touch his shoulder, I never touch him, save sometimes on the third day, when I throw him out. So I just walk around him in a semi-circle, perimeter of 20 feet, Ben-John next to me, Ben proudly holding his stack of fliers, grinning. Let a little mystery prevail. Ben is born in Kenya, right? I just extend my hand, say nothing, until it holds the car keys, hand father the apartment key (the spare one, of whose existence he's unaware) we get into his crappy, reddish, dirty, misparked Chevy, Ben waves with his hands to my father, still holding the fliers. We've not said hello, we've not said goodbye, we're good." 

Freedom Fries --- Chapter 3: "I said Hu" (Part II)

Previously, Pamela Nachtrieb Timbers, the voluminous Dean of Berkeley Law School, had been asked by President Obama to swing by for an interview --- a position at the Supreme Court is vacant --- but Pamela, regretfully, had to tell Obama about a skeleton in her closet. She is now explaining to Georg Lukacs, the charismatic hedge-fund titan (who happens to be an old friend of hers) why. Various secret services are listening in of course, anything Lukacs does is of interest, and even more so when it involves a potential future member of the Supreme Court.

“You really want to be a Supreme Court judge?” Lukacs continues on the tiny screen of the Park Avenue spies. All hot dogs have been finished by now, and Smith is twice as happy as his partners.
-“What’s left in store for a wise, hence middle-aged, woman? Plus, it would get me away from Berkeley.”
-“What’s wrong with Berkeley?”
“The sun always shines, and this Yoo always smiles, you know, John Yoo.”
-“Sure, torture memos.”
-“He’s back, you know.”

“Did you talk to Obama about Yoo?” he asks.
-“He couldn’t care less. He cares about the torture thing only because it could mess up his agenda.”
-“To the extend he has one.”
-“To the extend he has one.” Funny, Pamela thinks, we always agree on politics.
-“Did you mention him at all?”
-“Only between the lines.”
- “And?”
-“He answered only between the lines.”
-“Well, you’ll have to return to your Yoo now, and teach him torture manners.”
-“Very funny.”
-“You need my help?”
-“How?”
-“I could help, you know.”
-“You know, Yoo got pranked, sort of. It wasn’t on the news? Well, he’s go pranked. Somebody got into his class, with the Abu Ghraib outfit. It’s on the internet, YouTube.”

Jim, the driver, is back in his seat when a NYPD officer knocks at the side window of his van. Jim lowers the window, and the cop lowers his pointed cap into Jim’s cabin. “You are mis-parked, to put it mildly,” the cop says. Jim points to a sticker on the dashboard with a large picture of Hizzoner Michael Bloomberg, surrounded by a sizable posse of doting women, a large signature of Bloomberg, and the message ‘EXEMPTION, HOW CAN I HELP YOU?’ The officer squints, shakes his head, and is about to say something, when the Tea Room conversation audibly resumes inside the van.

Find a caption

"My fellow Americans, let me say to you: Stand witness to the death of the red tie!"

The second inauguration --- reblogged (Ross Douthat)

We usually don't do this, but a friend from Baltimore sent this real nice gif-picture, and we need a pretext to post it, and Ross Douthat writes well, so here it is ...

... and here's Douthat's NYT piece reblogged:


My fellow Americans, I am grateful for the honor of this hour, mindful of the consequential times in which we live, and determined to fulfill the oath that I have sworn and you have witnessed.

[long pause]

Hey, no, just kidding: That’s from George W. Bush’s second inaugural. I just wanted to see if you could tell the difference.

I’m going to keep this brief, because we’re all cold and there’s always a chance that the House Republicans might start imitating the Donner Party if we stay out here too long.

[broad wink at Eric Cantor]

You already know how the better angels of our nature are going to make hope and history rhyme, and all the usual fluff. So I’ll skip that part. But before my second term gets under way, I do have a few people from the last four years I want to acknowledge.

First, my dear friends in the press and on the professional left (but I repeat myself). It’s so nice to have you back on the bandwagon, guys! I’ve been surfing the Interwebs, reading the tweets, and it feels like old times. The Obama realignment is all the rage again. The thrill is back on MSNBC. Newsweek’s comparing me to Jesus. All I need is a will.i.am video to really take me back.

Freedom Fries --- Chapter 2: "The President is on the line for you!" (Part 2)

Previously, there have been hints that George W. Bush may experience a change of heart in retirement, that Samuel Fisher, founder and CEO of the Lynx (LYNX) network, is concerned about the ratings, and that George Lukacs, the charismatic hedge-fund titan, can't handle fair-and-balanced news. We've also learned that John Yoo, professor of constitutional law at Berkeley University and author of the infamous torture memos of the Bush era, is in some kind of trouble. Change of scene, and scenery: meet Alberrt, a young polymath prodigy in the employ of the Fisher Laboratories, LYNX's research arm, who's soon going to fiddle with the electronic copy of President Obama's birth certificate stored on the server of the Hawaii Department of Health---or is he?

Sangre de Christos mountains

A lab with a view. The pay is good, the canteen is okay, the other guys are usually okay, and the vista of Sangre de Cristos is an extra. Commuting is difficult, almost 40 miles, but it is a nice ride through the mesa, and the Mexican chicks in the retro bars of Santa Fe are always happy to have him back when he returns late from work. Joe always returns late from work since he has nothing else to do. He is supposed to assist Alberrt, the resident whiz kid, but Alberrt never asks for assistance, hiding instead under his head gear and doing his whiz-kid stuff. So Joe hangs around while Alberrt works late into the night — if it is work; it is possibly more some kind of therapy. Having nothing else to do, Joe play the role of a body guard, and he makes sure he looks the part with his shaved scalp.

Alberrt, with his slender body, beautiful mulatto face, short, cropped, light hair is sitting at his desk, the head gear in place, the green eyes fixed on the screen. A virgin version of Tiger Woods, sort of. Joe is bored. Everybody else has left. Joe takes the remote control of the Walkera model helicopter that the lab has ordered for unclear reasons — reasons are never clear at the Fisher labs — and decides to practice. He starts the rotor, has the thing lift off, and hover below the ceiling. It can go up and down. It can go fast. And it can make tight turns, which it does around Alberrt’s head. It can also touch down, which it does on Alberrt’s desk. The model is practically as large as a real chopper. Alberrt ignores it.

Joe crosses the out-sized room and puts his arm on Alberrt’s shoulder. “Man,” he said. Alberrt reacts to Joe’s touch, he is apparently in a good mood. “What are you doing?” Alberrt lowers his head gear. “Skinhead,” he says, “I’m into the computer of the State of Hawaii Department of Health. With System’s Administrator privileges.”

Joe looks at a large green sheet displayed on Alberrt’s screen. It says “Certificate of Live Birth” at the top, above what looks like the seal of the State of Hawaii. To the left, under “Child’s name” it says “BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA II.” According to the certificate, he was born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii. The mother’s maiden name is given as “Stanley Ann Dunham,” race “Caucasian,”, the father’s name as “Barack Hussein Obama,” race “African.” He was apparently born at 7:24 pm on the Island of Oahu. The sex is male.

Hitler interrupts Obama's speech (reposted)

John Grisham: Why is the Tea Party racist?

From an interview in Der Spiegel

SPIEGEL: What do you dislike most about the Tea Party?
Grisham: I don't understand where these people have been two years ago. These are the same people that voted for Bush twice, and now the say they are dyed-in-the-wool conservatives that hate the budget deficit. But when Bush created the deficit (there was a surplus under Clinton), these people kept quiet.
SPIEGEL: Bush was president.
Grisham: Yes.
SPIEGEL: Now it's Obama.
Grisham: Exactly. That's how a right-wing conservative movement with racial overtones came about.

President Obama in the Oval Office

-"Do you like my new curtains?"