Programs! Get your programs here! (con't.)

Chapter Two in the  TMR tome subtitled, "Who Us Iowans Will Allow You to Vote For For President of Us and the Other 56 States."  Chapter  One covered five of the yawners, all nominally male though not necessarily testiculated.

The two girls in the running have wandered in over the past few months. One of them is attractive. The other is interesting.

Sarah Palin: Even in western Iowa, Sarah will probably never recover from claiming foreign policy credentials because of her ability to see Russia from Alaska. The same applies to her identification of Africa as a country. A plurality of Iowans is proud to know better.

Mrs.Palin is lovely, vivacious, and many of us lust for an invitation to help her hunt her moose.  Unfortunately that's not enough to overcome an atavistic fear of turning the country over to someone whose library card is assessed an inactivity fee.

Her other problem is that she seems far more interested in being in the Fortune 500 than in the White House. (Her last Iowa appearance was a book-signing session in a Wal-Mart near me.)

Michelle Bachmann: It is presumptuous  to write her off as "batshit crazy," even though her default mode is loaded with eye-rollers. The one-word descriptive is "ignorant."  If Sarah's library card is dusty, Michelle never had one. If she attended high-school history classes, her teacher was the basketball coach.

But she is dead serious about becoming our president, concentrating on  one of the great natural constituencies around here, the anti-gay, anti-abortion evangelicals. She talks to them all at every opportunity, knowing their power to pack and control the Iowa caucuses as they did in 2008 when we presented you with the Rev. Mr. Huckabee on a platter. If you require further proof of her ambition, she has just hired a guy named Wes Enos, Huckabee's 2008 Iowa political director.

I describe her as interesting because Michelle is a political flowering of some of the strangest theology ever to cross the minds of shamans anywhere, going back to the mystics of ancient history and continuing through moderns such as Tim LaHaye.  I'm sure she doesn't know that,  any more than she knows the location of the shot heard 'round the world. But she understands in the shrewdest possible way its  vote-getting power in an age where our masters are supremely interested in engaging our emotions rather than our logical thought processes.
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Yes, I will get around to Ron Paul before long. He is not being as bluntly snubbed as he was in the last go-round.

Government Shutdown Crisis

If you're a little confused about this, maybe a snippit of personal history will help ease your mind.

I was present in Washington for the great U.S.Government hiatus of 1984.  I personally observed that the White House groundskeepers were not at work and that public access to the Washington Monument was denied. The latter frustrated several Greyhound loads of tourists.

When all the  players had milked the crisis for all the PR it was worth, things went back to normal.  You could climb the monument stairs, and President Reagan once more had the nicest lawn in the neighborhood.

I can't foresee a Great Shutdown of 2011 being much different.

Ms. Normand

If you liked Mabel as the farmer's daughter in that Wiki cite, you you'll love her as an urbane grownup.

Libya: "I thought YOU brought the custard pies."

Reuters characterizes some of the activity this weekend:


Without the backbone of regular forces, the lightly-armed volunteer caravan has spent days dashing back and forth along the coast road on Brega's outskirts, scrambling away in their pick-ups when Gaddafi's forces fire rockets at their positions.


And if that doesn't make a guy think of Mack Sennett I'll kiss your arse on the shores of Tripoli and give you a day to muster an Arab Brotherhood audience.