Conservatives illuminating only own ignorance

I may not agree with all their wacky views, but I can understand conservatives getting in their typical purple-faced tizzies over things like gay marriage and keeping government out of our lives.

These are bedrock conservative issues.

Yes, the party that’s opposed to government intervention is ceaseless in its defense of personal liberty until it comes to issues like who’s rocking whose bed.

But when did conservatives become so opposed to conservation?

I’m, of course, referring to the latest conservative bogeyman, the compact fluorescent light bulb.

Conservatives say they are evil. They say they are destructive. They say they threaten the very fiber of American society.

It makes me nostalgic for days when they used to say things like that about Osama bin Laden.

Yes, these are dark days for light bulbs.

When I heard there was an innovative new light bulb that could save Americans on average $85 a month, I reacted the way an old conservative would have.

I thought, “This will let me conserve about $1,000 a year on electric bills.”

That I vowed to lavish the savings on donations to ultra-liberal organizations like the Sierra Club didn’t diminish the initial conservative motivation.

When exactly did the conservative movement begin to lose its mind?

The federal energy legislation that has them frothing was championed and signed by George W. Bush in 2007. It didn’t infuriate them then.

Was it when they were revealed to be so wrong about each and every aspect of the misguided $3 trillion Iraq War, the most costly and wasteful government program in American history?

Was it when they realized that eight years of conservative rule didn’t lead to panacea, but led instead to the election of America’s first black president, a man they despise?

The debt ceiling crisis has all the experts terrified -- and Michele Bachmann’s not an expert.

Not me.

Here’s what’s going the happen: Fiscally-minded grown ups of the conservative movement are going to begin exerting pressure to get a deal done. It’s already happening with Mitch McConnell.

Republican negotiators are going to cave because President Obama’s looking like the adult here.

Then Tea Party conservatives will do what they do best: They will become furious, only this time the sum of their wrath will be directed at inter-party allies.

That means the party will nominate the most extreme candidate from the most dysfunctional slate of presidential aspirants either party has ever considered.

The best candidate, the one who could engage voters from both parties, is Mitt Romney, a man so earnest he makes me wish I could get him drunk and passed out long enough to draw Sharpie eyebrows on his forehead before his next candidate debate.

But he’s a magic underpants-wearing Mormon and that won’t fly with primary voters in places like South Carolina.

If his complexion was just a shade darker they’d be demanding he produce his birth certificate.

That’s why I’m comfortable predicting the nominee will be reactionary Texas Governor Rick Perry. Yes, the man who recently mentioned seceding Texas from the union will soon be campaigning to run the country he considered abandoning.

Perry recently signed a law exempting Texas from the Bush energy and light bulb standards and is seeking manufacturers who -- yee! haw! -- come to Texas to open a plant making bulbs the old-fashioned Edison way.

The idea was mocked by Bob Keefe of the Natural Resources Defense Council that argues on behalf of conserving our resources.

“It’s pretty unlikely any manufacturers are going to be rushing to Texas to make a product based on technology that’s 125 years old, is highly inefficient and is something the majority of consumers have widely said they’d don’t want.”

He’s saying it’s not a very bright idea.

It’s just what we’ve come to expect from a movement that’s increasingly being led into the darkness by a bunch of inefficient dim bulbs.

Bin Laden death round-up

My first reaction to the news was more somber relief than euphoria. It’s been too long and too much has happened. So I was surprised to see the jubilation outside the White House last night and everywhere today. But it pleased me very much. I like spontaneous jubilation, encourage its outbreak, and wish I could have been there to high-five elated strangers.

More thoughts:

• My favorite celeb tweet comes from Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks. She wrote she was pleased to see our president announce the news in a dignified blue suit in front of flags rather than in a flight jacket and from the deck of an aircraft carrier. If you haven’t seen the Chicks’ performance documentary “Shut Up and Sing,” you owe it to yourself to do so. It’s a reminder of the blind hatred the far right unleashed on anyone brave enough to speak out against the Iraq War. The Chicks received death threats and basically chucked their career with mainstream country radio. Did they cow before the hostility? No. Instead they raised their middle fingers and in 2006 released a searing song “Not Ready to Make Nice” about the whole ordeal. The Chicks could release a series of Slim Whitman tribute records and I’ll buy everyone of them. In the never-ending arguments ricocheting around the world, you can take Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, the birthers and all the combined blowhards of Fox News. I’ll take the Dixie Chicks. On every issue.

• I was tickled to see the networks relaunch all those old al-Qaeda training videos that showed would-be holy warriors swinging from hand-over-hand bars like the one down at my kid’s elementary school. If this was intended to menace, it never worked with me. I had a feeling our Navy SEALS weren’t training on monkey bars and playground equipment.

• I’ve found myself becoming more sympathetic toward W. Bush while maintaining my belief he was utter incompetent in way over his head. But my disdain for Donald Rumsfeld remains absolute. His arrogance in the face of his many failures still astounds.

• My favorite post sweeping Facebook shows Obama waving to the crowd saying, “Sorry it took me so long to release my birth certificate. I was too busy killing Osama bin Laden.”

• For purposes of comedic symmetry, I am hoping we’ll learn that bin Laden’s home in Abbottabad is near the town of Costelloabad.

• I was fortunate enough to spend three days doing a bunch of newspaper stories on Navy SEALs back before the first Gulf War. I’ve been lucky my whole life in that I get to spend time around impressive and competent people and around good people who are just a lot of fun. But I’ve never been more impressed by the combination than those exhibited by Navy Seals. Truly, they were the best men I’d ever met.

• For the record, a Navy SEAL is an elite tactical soldier and SEAL stands for their capacity to operate on SEa Air and Land. These SEALs are not to be confused by the cuddly ones insulated by a thick layer of subcutaneous blubber.

• I’ve watched more Fox News today than I have since the 2008 presidential elections. It’s a joy watching their anchors tie themselves in knots trying to ensure all the home team Bush administration gets at least half the credit for the successful kill that eluded them for seven years. You’d think Karl Rove was flying one of the choppers. Once I’m done here, I’m going to scan the channel guide to see if there’s a Contortionist Network nearly half as entertaining.

• My heart kind of catches when I watch the videos of the Philadelphia fans at the Phillies-Mets game when news of bin Laden’s death started to break. I wish I could have been there with them. And, man, I wish I could get Josie out of school and take the whole family up to Shanksville about an hour away. But I wouldn’t want the kids to see me cry and cry I always do whenever I go to Shanksville.

• I don’t think you can underestimate the impact this will have on the 2012 races. I believe it will thin even further the already weak Republican presidential field. That Haley Barbour, an attractive and savvy campaigner dropped out, shows he doesn’t think Obama can be beat. Now, neither do I.

• Just learned bin Laden's full name is Osama bin Muhammed bin Awad bin Laden. Give him four more bins and he could be Dollar General store.

• I wish I could take the week off and just immerse myself in The New York Times and other top media to devour every word of the story. It’s too over-the-top to call this our generation’s V-E Day, but it’s sure something to savor.

• Love the historic coincidence that the day bin Laden was killed was the same day Hitler died and the same day Bush donned the flight jacket and did his “Mission Accomplished” thingie.

• Rock on, America, and God bless the men and women working at home and abroad to defend the greatest nation on earth.

I say nice things about Republicans

It’s a measure of President Obama’s humility that he won’t reveal the healing role he played during his visit to Gabby Giffords.

And being a partisan Democrat, I can’t help but wonder what miracles would stem from a Bill Clinton visit.

If Obama can restore vision to traumatic head shot victims (well, sort of), then certainly the sight of Clinton sauntering into intensive care would cause the ladies to spring out of their hospital beds to start applying party make-up.

Say what you want about his politics, but the man’s got charisma.

It’s been five days since the tree of liberty was refreshed by the blood of patriots. Anyone feeling better about it yet?

I have to think that’s one gem Thomas Jefferson wishes he could take back. I can’t imagine he meant the bloodletting to apply to someone like Giffords.

Could she be a more becoming patriot? No fair-minded observer would describe her as tyrannical (the full Jefferson quote applying to blood from both patriots and tyrants).

She is beloved for being collegial, intelligent and even-handed about difficult issues. Sure, she may have favored prudent health care reform, but she was married to an astronaut. That’s so cool.

Is she the kind of patriot to whom Jefferson was referring?

Was 9-year-old Christina Green?

If I may be so bold, I’d like to edit Jefferson to something more in tune with common sensibilities.

It should read: “The tree of liberty is magnificent to behold in all seasons, but it looks best when patriots of all political persuasions come together to nurture it and hang red, white & blue bird feeders from its majestic boughs.”

There! Now, isn’t that better?

Being a liberal I’m, of course, politically correct. Words matter. 

They matter when you’re talking about patriotic bloodlettings, Second Amendment solutions, and emphasizing the need to re-load rather than retreat.

And I hope the ones that matter most are the eloquent ones President Obama spoke in Tucson.

Our 10-year-old daughter had heard vague details about the shootings over the PA system at school. That pleased me. In football terms, the principal there called an audible. He decided on the fly the event was relevant enough to turn into a mini-civics lesson.

Bravo.

I didn’t want her to see the footage of the mayhem, or the demonic pictures of the madman. I didn’t see that doing her any good.

But I wanted her to see how we grieved.

“America suffered a tragedy on Saturday,” I said. “I want you to watch how America heals.”

It couldn’t have been more moving.

From the native American invocation and the steely poise of intern Daniel Hernandez to Obama’s stirring speech, it’s something I’ll never forget.

Of course, it means nothing if we don’t act on his admonition to care more for one another, to civilize our rhetoric and elevate the political discourse.

Let it begin with me.

I’m going to say a bunch of nice things about prominent Republicans I used to blast for knee-jerk reasons.

Because I’m so new at this, please forgive me if some of it sounds sarcastic.

Here goes:

• George W. Bush! -- He was the right man for the right time on 9/11. I felt exactly the way I do now about Obama’s speech in Tucson as I did when Bush spoke after 9/11. The people who know him best all love him. He’s raised two beautiful and vivacious daughters. He loves baseball. He presided over the presidency during extraordinarily difficult times and he didn’t let it defeat himself or the country he loves. He enjoys a good laugh and isn’t one of those childish sorts who can’t laugh at himself. He doesn’t hold petty grudges. His post-presidential years will be dignified and free of taint. He’s at peace with his actions and is deserving of the happy respite he so enjoys in the Texas he loves.

• Dan Quayle! -- In 2003, I wrote a book called “Hole in One! The Complete Book of Fact, Legend and Lore of Golf’s Luckiest Shot.” The New York Times cited it in 2009 as the Bible on the topic. If The Times says my book is The Bible about holes-in-one, then I can rightly declare I’ve written a holey book. I interviewed dozens of celebrities about their golfing perfection. Quayle was one of the nicest. We talked for about 45 minutes and he couldn’t have been friendlier. He was such a good sport he didn’t even mind when I asked him about his wife Marilyn’s saucy response when someone asked her about reports he’d had an affair while on a golf trip (“Anyone who knows Dan knows he’s much more interested in golfing than sex.”) He just laughed and said she was mad when she said it. He’d had two aces though 2003 and I hope he gets a bunch more.

• Tom DeLay! -- The man’s got balls. Even while under indictment for the crime of which he was just convicted and sentenced to three years, he still went on “Dancing With The Stars” and whooped it up. And before he went into politics, I hear he was a fine exterminator.

• Newt Gingrich! -- He has a true and abiding love for animals, zoos and history. He’s a thrice-married man who still has the buoyant audacity to court family values voters. Did you know he’s a Pennsylvania native? Go Keystone State!

• Rush Limbaugh! -- He loves golf and smoke cigars. He’s indifferent to what people think about him. He had Elton John sing at his recent fourth wedding. When National Enquirer busted him for drug addiction in 2003, he didn’t weasel out and call them a bunch of liars. He said, yup, you got me, thus another monumental victory for tabloid journalism.

• Dick Cheney! -- Now, this is getting tough. Okay. When he shot that guy -- anniversary alert! -- five years ago February 11, he didn’t let his instincts get the better of him and just go finish the poor bastard off.

• Sarah Palin! -- Uh, Sarah Palin! . . . Sarah Palin? . . . Hmmm . . . Okay . . . Sarah Palin is wonderfully childlike in her approach to complicated problems!

That’s enough for now.

President Obama said we needed to start being nicer to one another.

He didn’t say it was always going to be easy.

Random thoughts from NYC

News reports say stranded cruise passengers survived on nothing but spam, mayo sandwiches and booze! Booze! Booze! Sounds like my diet from 1985-89.

I’m confident I could write a decent and semi-coherent blog post about the whole incident, but I’m lacking the motivation.

As previously reported, I’m in the midst of a splendid NYC frolic. My every instinct is to completely blow off the blog until I feel the urge to write something Thanksgivingy.

But after blogging about three times a week for more than two years I feel compelled to post something. Anything.

This is a mild form of insanity. It’s not like the blog police will come along and revoke my license to blog or make me take a blogging pay cut.

So here are some random thoughts from the past couple of days mingled with a tweet or two.

• Critics saying Bush's "Decision Points" is no "War & Peace." Had he been true to history, he'd have named his book, "War & War.” The release of books by two of my favorite topics for vastly different reasons -- Bush and Keith Richards -- should have spurred thousands of words of comment for me. But all I could manage about Bush was the “War & War” line. I just didn’t want to pile on. As for Keith, I’m couldn’t be more thrilled that by writing his life story he and I are now colleagues. 

• If coral is a stony ocean rock and corral is a pony pen, can corrral be a rocky ocean enclosure to keep seahorses?

• If the Shaws had a son and they named him Rick, would Rick Shaw be destined to go into the ground transportation business?

• Yesterday our group had a really great driver who full times as a decorated NYPD officer. He honored me by inviting me to ride shotgun in the big luxury van so we could yap without interference. We talked all day about our favorite foods. He’d recently driven his family to Pittsburgh just to enjoy a Primanti’s sandwich. How cool is that? We talked about America’s great heirloom sandwiches from muffaletta, to cheese steaks, to lobster rolls. He told me some great cop stories, too, about his involvement in the Times Square bomber case, which celebs are cool (Dan Ackroyd) and which are jerks (Alex Rodriguez and Beyonce). And he told mea about an incident from just the other day where he held a victim’s bloody, dangling eyeball in his hand while awaiting the ambulance. We’re going to meet for cigars next time I’m in town. All I bring to the table in this friendship is a lot of questions. He’s got the stories. I’ve got the questions. I could ask guys like this questions until out of boredom he tases my chest just to get me to shut up.

• How about a half-hour antiquing show where former Happy Days star Erin Moran seeks interesting items. Call it "Joannie Loves Tchotchke!”

• In all my years of visiting New York, I’ve rarely gone to Broadway shows. It just seems too prohibitive with costs, time and other concerns when there are so many other wonderful options. That’s going to change. Last night our gracious hosts took us to see “Memphis.” It’ll go down as one of the best times I’ve ever had in New York. It was absolutely enchanting and I was blown away by the joy and the talent up on stage. I wish I had the dough to tell my wife and the kids to meet me at the airport on Monday so I could fly them right back here to see “Memphis” again. I want to share it with loved ones and cranky strangers. Everyone’s life would be better if everyone went to see “Memphis.”

• I asked my cop friend if there’s ever been a show that even glancingly captures the day-to-day life a New York City police officer. Never, he said. Not even close. I discreetly refrained from telling him about my “NYPD Pink” idea.

• Spent a few hours at the Guggenheim Museum yesterday. It had me dreaming of opening my own art gallery. Patrons will enter and find four bare walls and a roomful of regular guys who do nothing but say, “Hello, I’m Art.”

• The toes on my left foot are getting so spread out I might be the first person in history to be able to give someone the finger with a foot.

• Visiting a really great museum gives me such a happy and peaceful feeling, yet if anyone knew all the moronic thoughts going on in my head security would hustle me out the door and forever ban my re-entry. One example: I saw a bunch of statues of nude men and was repeatedly struck by the bronzed examples of what Keith Richards would call their “tiny todgers.” Either men have evolved in ways that must be satisfying to women or else artists back then were intent on insulting their models. Maybe size didn’t matter in what was known as the age of enlightenment. Of course, what the hell do I know? Maybe next time I go to the Guggenheim, I’ll hire a hooker to comment on the scale of all the art.

• Like many great cities, New York is struggling for revenue. I’ll bet the city could earn nearly $1 billion if it sold for development just about six or seven prime acres of Central Park. Of course they’d never do that, nor should they. That Manhattan island, maybe the priciest chunk of land on the planet, reserves a whopping 843 acres for recreation is a tribute to the priorities of New Yorkers.

• Now, I hope you have a peaceful and relaxing Sunday in the warm embrace of loved ones. On my last day in New York City, I’ll be doing the complete opposite.

Election thoughts from a non-angry voter

(As noted in comment below, observant reader Emily Suess remarks how the picture I selected makes it look like Beck and I are both staring at the same thing. It's true, I say, it is a deity and He/She is smiling at me and is glaring at Glenn . . . I now return you to your regularly scheduled blog).

We’re nearing the end of the most heated and bitter election cycle since the last one and I’m proud to say I barely care.

The headlines say the electorate is enraged. They hate Obama. They hate Muslims. They hate the media.

Me, I’m mostly at peace because my hatreds are few and many of the things I most hate are getting the absolute crap kicked out of them.

Sure, I wish the Taliban were performing as poorly as the 1-5 Dallas Cowboys, but these things take time. And it’s impossible to diminish just how heartwarming the decline of the Cowboys is to me.

I’ve somehow managed to skate through this entire tumultuous election cycle without engaging in one political argument; any time someone’s tried to goad me into one, I’ve dismissed them with sound reasoning. 

I say, “Look, moron, there’s nothing you can say to change my opinion and as you seem so resistant to logic it would be a waste of my time to even bother trying to change yours. So let’s just sip our beers and discuss the endearing mysteries of women and the happy things we do that make them hate us so.”

I haven’t even stooped to political blogging although part of that is for strategic reasons. I know if my readership is anything like the general public then 50 percent of them will be infuriated if I write something kindly about the Democrats and 50 percent of them will be enraged if I say a Republican surprised me by doing something sensible.

That means I’d risk losing half my readers and that would leave me with, I think, just 4.5 of them.

The polls say the Republicans are going to sweep to power in the House and stand of chance of seizing the Senate.

This should make me, a man so liberal he even loves conservatives, as weepy as Glenn Beck when he considers things like apple pie.

But even if that happens, it won’t bother me one bit. Maybe because I believe the loonier elements of the right wing fringe will be exposed by having to govern and that will doom the Republicans for 2012.

Or maybe I spent all my anger during the Bush/Cheney years. I swear, I woke up every day swearing.

I swore it was a tragic mistake to invade Iraq (I was correct).

I swore cutting taxes to score cheap political points while waging two expensive wars would lead to financial ruin (I was correct).

I swore using wedge issues like gay marriage, stem cell research and Terri Schiavo to rally your conservative base and demonize your opponents would lay waste to decent political discourse for years to come (I was correct).

Right-leaning friends ask if I regret my support for President Obama.

Not for a minute.

The most sensible thing Bush ever did in office was betray his every conservative and capitalist instinct and launch the TARP program. I believe the experts who say that helped us dodge an historic bullet.

Obama continued the drastic steps needed to stave off chaos. It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t popular. It had to be done. Dubya thought so.

Obama’s accomplished much in a hysterical political climate where a powerful arm of the mainstream media still hints he’s a Muslim tourist pallin’ ‘round with terrorists bent on overturning the U.S. Constitution.

Even when G.W. Bush was shredding the actual constitution, I never considered him anything as sinister as what Fox News daily asserts Obama is.

I didn’t think he was evil. I just thought he was stupid (I was correct).

Anyone who thought the historic mess the previous administration left behind could be cleaned up in two jiffy years was crazy.

The news today is pessimistic economists are surprised by a sharp drop in the number of unemployment claims. It is the second straight drop and a clear sign the dreadful job market is recovering.

So come Tuesday I’ll vote the straight Democratic ticket. I’ll do it twice if I can get away with it.

I do this to counter those who’ll be voting the straight Republican ticket to counter guys like me who vote the straight Democratic ticket to counter them, etc.

But I’m convinced the momentous measures taken the past two years have pulled us from the brink. 

And now it’ll be months before I feel compelled to write another political post.

Unless I’m afforded an opportunity to gloat.

I swear.

Tweet of the week from twitter.com/8days2amish.com: "Many political races are incredibly tight. They are neck and redneck."