Please! A Little Common Sense?

John Corzine went back to work yesterday. It was a miracle. In a teary departure from the hospital he acknowledged that he had set a bad example for young people and indicated that he would wear a seatbelt and not drive at 91 miles per hour. Duh! Is he lucky to be alive or what? Barack Obama says that the man who was and remains his spiritual guide, (and may be a black racist), and he do not agree on every issue. So What? I hope he doesn’t agree with anyone about everything. Hillary Clinton said a sensible thing last week during the debate, and then, when all the pundits started to question her judgment, she apologized for her opinion. It’s an opinion for God’s sake. I want my President to have one. More importantly I want the President to be able flexible enough to change an opinion. What’s with this apology nonsense? She won’t apologize for her vote on the war but she apologizes for an absolutely correct response to a common sense issue.

Republicans and Democrats alike have faced the truth about the lie that took us to Iraq, but still John McCain says it’s where we belong. Rudy Giuliani, who was the most hated mayor in the country on Sept. 10th—how quickly we forget-- became the “nation’s mayor” and is running for President on a platform totally in opposition to everything he believed before he became the most hated mayor. Mitt Romney, who is a Mormon but was a liberal on social issues (which is how he got elected as governor in Ma.) has become an ultra conservative on social issues, and is appalled by where he stood in the past--his lifetime commitment to social justice. The President will veto a bill that ends financial support for the war. What a dope! It’s a perfect out for him and if things continue to worsen—which of course they will in the chaos of the US departure, he can always blame the Democrats.

And why are gas prices back up again? Does the word ‘gouging’ ring a bell. After the Congress took the oil companies to task for high prices, the cost miraculously fell. (By the way, when George Bush declared “Mission Accomplished” four years ago regular gas was at $1.51). But now we’re back to thinking that $2.80 is cheap. And you can only pay that in New Jersey. I’d say it is time again for a little task taking.

Political appointees throughout this government have taken the low road time and time again. Wolfowitz has his girlfriend on the payroll. The Justice Department, which had the right to fire political appointees, was so sure there needed to be a cover-up that they lied, when there was no need. To do anything but say “all appointees serve at the pleasure of the President or his representative, the Secretary, and you no longer please them.” Harsh but it is a Washington reality—and everyone knows that it is the way things work. There is not an Agency of a Department that has not been touched by some vile Administration act of dishonesty. And we, the people who elect these yahoo’s, sit back and watch with no outrage. And this was the administration elected (?) on the basis of “we’ll make you proud of your government again.”

My next door neighbor in NY doesn’t say hello to me. I mean I say “hello”, and she may nod, but usually I don’t even get that. She and her obnoxious entitled child have no sense of civility. In addition, if I’m on the elevator with the kid, she often looks up and says, “I don’t like you.” And her mother doesn’t even look up or at me and certainly never admonishes her for being rude. What is that about? Have we come to the point where people think they can behave in any despicable way they choose and it’s OK. It’s fine to lie, cheat, gouge, pillage, disrespect and pick their nose in public and treat people with not an ounce of kindness.

On the other hand, John Edwards is answering issues questions and no one takes notice.
Tony Snow, one of my heroes went back to work yesterday. He admitted that he has stage IV cancer but he is not going to lose hope. He knows her can’t recover but he, like Elizabeth Edwards, intends to go on with his life.

Maybe it’s true that the good die young and the evil live to do some real damage. That truth is stranger than fiction, and a lie is an easy convenient way to get what you want. And what happened to common sense? We’re just sayin...Iris