While every other civilized industrial nation in the world maintains leadership of their democracies with a calm flair that can only be compared to stone-cold sanity, the United States is required by constitutional law to go berserker every four years and pick another boss. Little wonder that Howard Dean let go with his bizarre post-Iowa call to arms, screaming his head off like the Little League baseball coach from your worst childhood memories. The stress’ll kill ya! If people were paying attention, they would have been more worried about his flippant comment that Fed chairman Alan Greenspan ought to be shown the door. It was back then that Dean’s fate was no doubt sealed. No one goes up against business interests and wins.
& ull; Men Without Hats: Bush isn’t that far ahead, even if he’s out to snuff the perception that he weaseled out of all rightful duties with the Texas Air National Guard during the early 1970s. Check out those Republican National Committee ads on the web. Of course the Republicans are going to highlight a photo of Dean’s Scream (we get it already), but the sight of that contrasted against President Bush in a cowboy hat harnesses one of the lamest bits of mythology in all Americana. A cowboy hat? Everyone knows the man has the rural vote wrapped up. If Bush wants to get ahead of the curve he’d stop referencing Dean, start angling Kerry, and either put away the Stetson or start smoking Marlboros.
& ull; Do the math: Based on a survey of 400,000 companies, The New York Times stated in a Jan. 12 article that 2.3 million jobs have gone out the door since Bush first took presidential oath. A recent CNN/Money magazine report stated that the President’s Council of Economic Advisers looks forward to the creation of 3.8 million jobs this year alone. At least one and a half million Americans looking for work hope Bush is right.
& ull; Not even President Lincoln? “No president has ever done more for human rights than I have,” President Bush recently told Ken Auletta, a writer for The New Yorker.
& ull; Cause and effect? Our very own Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson formally endorsed Howard Dean for president Feb. 6. Three days later, Feb. 9, Dean lost a crucial block of union backing when the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees said it was severing ties with the former Vermont governor and “shifting its resources to the general election.” At press time, Dean still had the AFL-CIO in his corner.
& ull; Now that’s a campaign tie-in! In a Jan. 14 press release announcing Doobie Brothers’ guitarist Pat Simmons’ endorsement of presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, Simmons spends one paragraph touting his running favorite as “the only candidate out there who has the answers America needs to restore integrity to the office of the Presidency.” The remaining six paragraphs recount every last detail of Simmons’ musical career, from childhood on up to his solo career apart from the Doobies. Bet you didn’t know that the titles of his two solo LPs were Arcade and a Japanese release called Take Me to the Highway, released in 1983 and 1995 respectively. Who’s this Kucinich fellow, again?
