by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
Cher, a sex goddess from my generation who has one of the most distinctive and alluring voices in the history of recorded music, posted a tweet this morning in which she referred to Mitt Romney as an "egregious liar." My first thought upon reading her tweet was that my idol was being far too easy on the money-grubbing tool of corporate America, but hey, she only had a hundred-and-forty characters in which to work! Cher's spot-on assessment of Mr. Forked-Tongue went out to over a million people who follow her on Twitter (including me), and was "re-tweeted" by many of them (again, including me).
Last night's debate obviously got Cher stirred up. I'm glad that she has the patience and stamina to sit through something as emotionally grueling and angst-provoking as the face-off between the President and his challenger. I used to enjoy political events like that, but I have gotten to where I just can't take it anymore. (I followed the debate on Twitter where friendly partisans kept me posted on what was going on. That was all the drama I could handle.)
Cher said in her tweet that she has lived through eleven presidents. I think that number should be twelve, the same twelve that I have lived through - from Truman to Obama - but given our advanced years, those memory gears occasionally begin to slip. Of those eleven or twelve that we have experienced, there have been some that were god-awful. Richard Nixon (Tricky Dick) leaps to mind. He came into office largely by virtue of having a "secret plan" to end the war in Vietnam. Of course, it took him five years to do it - and even then he had to be dragged into the peace process kicking and screaming.
After Nixon we were saddled with Gerald Ford who was, on his best day, an ineffectual joke. A few years laters Ronald Reagan cajoled his way into the White House and spent eight years kissing up to Christian conservatives while his wife, Nancy, was meeting with her personal astrologers in the White House family quarters. Reagan pretended for most of his two terms that AIDS did not exist, and his executive inaction effectively sentenced thousands and thousands of Americans to a lingering and painful death. And on the environment, when it was revealed that loggers in California had cut down one of the nation's oldest and largest trees, Reagan uttered those immortal words, "When you've seen one tree, you've seen them all." What a guy!
George W. Bush, who was elected to the presidency by five wing-nut members of the United States Supreme Court, came into office with a budget surplus and promptly sent most of it back to taxpayers in the form of rebates in order to keep Congress from using the money on social programs. Shortly after that he over-reacted to an act of extreme terrorism and got the United States mired down in two long-term wars (largely to establish oil routes across the Middle East) - and probably wished he hadn't been so hasty in sending all of that money back to the taxpayers. Bush's wars dragged the country into massive debt that may never be settled and caused diplomatic catastrophes that will take years to resolve.
So Cher and I have seen some serious bozos in the White House - but a President Romney would be more than either one of us could probably take. The man was raised rich, got richer by destroying American businesses and sending much-needed jobs overseas and hiding his assets in foreign banks so the U.S. tax man could not get at them. And, yes, Mitt Romney lies about everything.
Thank you, Cher, for pointing that out. You are a goddess - and I would drink your bathwater with a straw!
Citizen Journalist
Cher, a sex goddess from my generation who has one of the most distinctive and alluring voices in the history of recorded music, posted a tweet this morning in which she referred to Mitt Romney as an "egregious liar." My first thought upon reading her tweet was that my idol was being far too easy on the money-grubbing tool of corporate America, but hey, she only had a hundred-and-forty characters in which to work! Cher's spot-on assessment of Mr. Forked-Tongue went out to over a million people who follow her on Twitter (including me), and was "re-tweeted" by many of them (again, including me).
Last night's debate obviously got Cher stirred up. I'm glad that she has the patience and stamina to sit through something as emotionally grueling and angst-provoking as the face-off between the President and his challenger. I used to enjoy political events like that, but I have gotten to where I just can't take it anymore. (I followed the debate on Twitter where friendly partisans kept me posted on what was going on. That was all the drama I could handle.)
Cher said in her tweet that she has lived through eleven presidents. I think that number should be twelve, the same twelve that I have lived through - from Truman to Obama - but given our advanced years, those memory gears occasionally begin to slip. Of those eleven or twelve that we have experienced, there have been some that were god-awful. Richard Nixon (Tricky Dick) leaps to mind. He came into office largely by virtue of having a "secret plan" to end the war in Vietnam. Of course, it took him five years to do it - and even then he had to be dragged into the peace process kicking and screaming.
After Nixon we were saddled with Gerald Ford who was, on his best day, an ineffectual joke. A few years laters Ronald Reagan cajoled his way into the White House and spent eight years kissing up to Christian conservatives while his wife, Nancy, was meeting with her personal astrologers in the White House family quarters. Reagan pretended for most of his two terms that AIDS did not exist, and his executive inaction effectively sentenced thousands and thousands of Americans to a lingering and painful death. And on the environment, when it was revealed that loggers in California had cut down one of the nation's oldest and largest trees, Reagan uttered those immortal words, "When you've seen one tree, you've seen them all." What a guy!
George W. Bush, who was elected to the presidency by five wing-nut members of the United States Supreme Court, came into office with a budget surplus and promptly sent most of it back to taxpayers in the form of rebates in order to keep Congress from using the money on social programs. Shortly after that he over-reacted to an act of extreme terrorism and got the United States mired down in two long-term wars (largely to establish oil routes across the Middle East) - and probably wished he hadn't been so hasty in sending all of that money back to the taxpayers. Bush's wars dragged the country into massive debt that may never be settled and caused diplomatic catastrophes that will take years to resolve.
So Cher and I have seen some serious bozos in the White House - but a President Romney would be more than either one of us could probably take. The man was raised rich, got richer by destroying American businesses and sending much-needed jobs overseas and hiding his assets in foreign banks so the U.S. tax man could not get at them. And, yes, Mitt Romney lies about everything.
Thank you, Cher, for pointing that out. You are a goddess - and I would drink your bathwater with a straw!
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