You Go, Blago!

You Go, Blago!

I’ve gotten to like semi-deposed Illinois Governor, Rod Blagojevich.

No, I’m not mentally deranged, I don’t think. Nor am I of Serbian extraction as the mop-haired ex-gov is. Nor do I suggest he’s innocent of any charges against him, although he’s not been charged with any; after all, the guy is from Illinois, home state of the most corrupt town in the country, if not on the planet, so he has to be guilty of everything.

And, yes, I’m up to here with 24/7 Blago news as much as I am with Madoff news and Britney news. But, I’ve come to like Rod’s overall style, if not his hairstyle–and how this Chicago-born Democrat has been sticking it to his fellow Dems far and wide.

I furthermore believe that he’s not a “cuckoo,” as Mayor Daley II has called him twice, the same mayor who supported him twice for the governorship and with whom he palled around and with whom he sat on numberless daises, etc. I think also that Rod has a couple tricks still up his well-tailored sleeve as well as a plan to keep himself out of the hoosegow. He may have risen from humble roots, but he seems to have a grand exit plan.

True, he’s brash, obnoxious, foul-mouthed, sleazy, greedy, and glib, all of which are standard attributes for Illinois political success. He also seems supremely confident for some reason and for that reason, the Powers-that-be in Illinois and Chicago are determined to bring him down. I think those Powers are mightily afraid of what Blago knows and aware that he has no compunctions about spilling all he knows.

Let’s look at the record, as the venerable former New York Governor Al Smith used to say, not Blagojevich’s record in Springfield but the record since December 9th when what he has termed his personal Pearl Harbor began.

The poor guy was rousted from the warm bed he shares with the equally-greedy and equally-foul-mouthed Mrs. Patricia B. on that cold December morning in 2008, barely a month after Barack Obama’s election as president. With his two young kids, hopefully, still sleeping at 6:15 a.m, ...

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Gays and Polls

Something Is Amok with the (Florida) SunSentinel.com

Less than 3 months after Florida voters resoundingly defeated gay marriage in the Sunshine State comes this item from SunSentinel.com: “Let Gays Marry, Adopt, Have Civil Unions, Most Floridians Say [emphasis added]: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/elections/sfl-flbgay0123sbjan23,0,76194.story.

That emphasis was added due to the content of the article which goes on to say, according to a Quinnipiac poll, that 27-35% of all surveyed voters endorsed all those demands of the LGBT, Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transgendered community.

First and foremost, even 35% can hardly be construed as constituting most Floridians, unless there’s some new math out there which equates one-third with a majority.

Secondly, there must have been a mass upheaval over a very short timespan in the thinking of Floridians regarding gay adoption if, again according to Quinnipiac and SunSentinel.com, 55% now oppose the state law prohibiting such adoptions. (Older, Republican, poorer, and less educated voters are said to be the bigoted culprits who still believe in traditional morality.)

Of course, depending on the poll-takers and the wording of poll questions, any poll can be skewed and that could explain Quinnipiac’s results but nothing can explain SunSentinel.com’s interpreting and reporting that a minority of Floridians means “most Floridians say.”

My personal suspicion is that an LGBT constituent is the headline writer for Sun Sentinel.
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Meet the Press--Obama Style

MEET THE PRESS–Obama Style II

President Barack Hussein Transparency Obama,who had promised a “a new level of transparency” in public life is rapidly retreating to a new level of opaqueness within all of three days into his four year reign.

For those maleducated in American public schools, the word “transparency” in a political context means clarity, openness, honesty, candidness, and visibility as opposed to deceit, artfulness, concealment, secrecy, and opaqueness.

Why anyone would expect Obama to follow through on a pledge of transparency when his entire campaign, from questionable fund raising to his smarmy associations was cloaked in subterfuge and deception is beyond me but a majority of voters still bought into his baloney and voted for the guy.

Go figure but the baloney won’t last the test of time until 2012.

You can take a politician out of Chicago but you can’t take the seamy world of Chicago intrigue and crime out of the politician. Of all Obama’s camp followers, the mainstream media, the MSM, is the first that’s quickly coming to realize that the man is not what he seemed. More precisely, the man is all that he seemed to objective critics, though not to his media lapdogs and therein lay the shocker to them. That media, which never bothered to vet him or insist he serve some meat with his political pap, may be coming to realize he is the ultimate charlatan.

BHM may have been able to fool a press more than willing to be fooled but when he starts messing with their bread and butter, accessibility, the White House Press Corps tends to get downright ornery.

And he has begun messing with that accessibility.

Way back in November, 2007, when Barack Obama was still a “presidential hopeful,” the transparency issue had raised its ugly head with regard to his fund raising secretiveness: http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2007/11/sweet_web_column_obamas_transp.html. That should have been a tipoff but the MSM never ran with it. Lapdogs by definition don’t run with much.

Media-types are somewhat less than pleased when they feel shut out. White House media-types can become all but rabid but instead of frothing in public, they tend to politely vent and save their foamy mouths for more intimate venues and circumstances, such as over a martini at The Reliable Source Bar at the National Press Club in D.C.

They vented at Robert Gibbs,...

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Rape, War, and Sharia Law

Rape, War, and Sharia Law in Muslim Nations
Content: “I had thought it was simple.” Thus said the 20 year old brother of a 14 year old Afghani rape victim after he was arrested for using a razor blade to abort his sister’s baby.

The young girl had been raped by a construction worker and had the further misfortune of residing in an orthodox Islamic community where an illegitimate birth meant that she and her family would be treated like pariahs by their fellow Muslims. So her brother, Ali, took her to a cowshed and, as her mother helped restrain her, used the razor blade to slice open her womb. He removed the baby, buried it, then stitched up the wound with coarse string used to tie potato sacks. Ten days later, the girl was taken on a 30 mile donkey ride to a provincial hospital suffering from infection and later, to protect her from family and community members, was evacuated to Bagram Air Base where she remained in critical condition: http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=41777.

Although such lurid and grotesque tales are not unheard of in Western, generally Christian societies, they rarely if ever result from religious motivations. More likely it is a jealous rival or a psychotic, wannabe mother who would perpetrate such acts. Sharia Law, based on the Koran or Qur’an, however, condones such measures to atone for the shame visited upon a family by the sin of being a rape victim.

The other side of the Koranic coin, the rapist’s side, is far more forgiving. The Koran mentions no specific punishment for rapists, the probable reason for their receiving light or no civil penalties, while the victim may receive a hundred lashes for causing the crime. The girls, if not stoned to death, are shunned by their fellow Muslims and their opportunities for a future marriage are nil.

Demonstrating a serious inconsistency, that same Koran denounces rape, except in the event of mitigating circumstances, namely the woman’s religion: The Koran encourages the rape of non-Muslim women, according to more than one source, including http://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.australian/browse_thread/thread/74aa640b4928eaaa, which cites a number of verses to support that view.: “Koran clearly sanctions this. No Muslims can deny these verses. They are called “ma malakat aymanukum…. The Koran verses are: 23-6, 33-50, 33-52, 33-55, 70-30.”

That sanction and that crime against the Afghani girl and what they say about Muslim thought are interrelated with our wars in the Mideast.

As the war in Iraq seemingly winds down toward a victorious conclusion and as the companion war...

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OBAMA'S FRIENDS

THE INAUGURATION PART IV: What You Won’t Read and See on the MSM
Before we’re all caught up in the heady thrill–and propaganda–of the inauguration and the new administration, some perspective is in order. I’ve seen and read articles that are so effusive over Obama and this Age of Change that I was beginning to wonder if I watched a different inauguration and whether all I know about the true Obama and his Obamaniacs was misconstrued.

Then I regained my senses and realize it is not. (See the 50 or 60 previous articles on him on this site.) I’ve seen the man–and he is just a mortal man, contrary to widely reported information–a man extolled for his countless virtues, his elegance, his unflappable demeanor, even for his handwriting skills by Wolf Blitzer.

However, behind the facade, behind that screen, is simply a man, a flawed man like all of us, and his true skills or lack thereof will be seen even on the world stage soon enough. As of now, barely 24 hours into his reign, he can only be judged by his administrative designations and by his executive orders which suggest he has not fully thought through his decisions, (Gitmo), but will follow through on his planned policies to make free and unfettered abortion the law of the land: http://www.lifenews.com/nat4559.html.

Considering the limitations imposed by a paltry day as opposed to the lengthy four which lie ahead, all we have with which to gain a measure of Obama, (aside from his recorded history, of course), is his friends and his supporters. If in any way we are known by the friends we keep, Obama’s friends give cause for trepidation.

One group of friends, (May we call them FOB for Friends of Barack?), was gathered on the Washington Mall as still-President George W. Bush arrived at the inauguration on Tuesday. I would hope that others in the horde of millions who attended the event were not nearly as disgracefully disrespectful as this contingent: http://www.wjno.com/cc-common/news/sections/newsarticle.html?feed=244038&article=4878923.

In the event that video is mysteriously removed from the website of WJNO.com, it depicts a group of blacks hooting, howling, and chanting derisively at Bush. Another video also captured the former president’s helicopter departure: http://www.mydd.com/story/2009/1/21/12149/1143.

But, okay, one or two malcontented groups do not an audience make. Then again, those are simply the only groups who have made it to the Big Time.

Another malcontent, ...

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Obama's Gay Agenda

Obama’s Gay Agenda

“President Barack H. Obama is poised to be the most pro-homosexual chief executive in history:” (http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=42233)

“While we have come a long way since the Stonewall riots in 1969, we still have a lot of work to do. Too often, the issue of LGBT rights is exploited by those seeking to divide us. But at its core, this issue is about who we are as Americans. It’s about whether this nation is going to live up to its founding promise of equality by treating all its citizens with dignity and respect.”– Barack Obama, June 1, 2007

Faithful to that promise of candidate Barack Obama, President Barack Hussein Obama has begun dismantling America’s social foundations with plans to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as well as changing other established policies with regard to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered (LGBT) communities. These are outlined in a detailed posting on the White House website: http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/civil_rights/.

Headed with the above 2007 quotation by Obama, under the category, “Support for the LGBT Community,” the plan incorporates efforts to:

Expand Hate Crimes Statutes: . . . President Obama cosponsored legislation that would expand federal jurisdiction to include violent hate crimes perpetrated because of race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, or physical disability. . .

Fight Workplace Discrimination: President Obama supports the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and believes that our anti-discrimination employment laws should be expanded to include sexual orientation and gender identity. . .

Support Full Civil Unions and Federal Rights for LGBT Couples: President Obama supports full civil unions that give same-sex couples legal rights and privileges equal to those of married couples. Obama also believes we need to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act . . .

Oppose a Constitutional Ban on Same-Sex Marriage: President Obama...

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BARACK, THE MAGIC NEGRO'S ECONOMIC MAGIC

“BARACK, THE MAGIC NEGRO” HAD BETTER KNOW SOME REAL MAGIC

President-elect Barack Hussein “We-Only-Have-One-President-at-a-Time” Obama sure is sending mixed signals. On the one hand he stands virtually mute on foreign policy issues, on the other he speaks out quite a bit and in contradictions about the economy.

Methinks he wants to keep both hands clean.

With the blessings of a mass media blinded by his light during the primary and general election campaigns, he skated through the muck and mire of Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers and Bernadette Dohrn and Tony Rezko and emerged untarnished, at least in the eyes of a majority of the electorate.

Thanks to that same worshipful media, he escaped ridicule, and national publicity, for his countless gaffes, which were so numerous that Michelle Malkin called him “a perpetual gaffe machine.” My favorites are his claim of campaigning in all 57 states, his reference to Iran as a tiny, harmless country, and his baldfaced lies, or gaffes, in his autobiography, Dreams of My Father.

Nevertheless, he was elected, so it’s understandable that the poor guy started to believe his own press and overrated teflon-coated charm until reality finally hit home. He has to realize by now that a president can’t fool all the people all the time, even with a complicit media concealing his flaws and doublespeak.

It’s bad enough that his administration has had so many problems even before it becomes an administration. Mr. Clean’s troubles had just started with Illinois Governor Blagojevitch trying to sell his senate seat to the highest bidder when it turned out that his Chief-of-Staff-to-be, Rahm Emanuel, had numerous chats with Blago, unbeknownst to his boss-to-be, Obama. That’s not much of a testimonial to having a firm grip on his people.

George W. Bush would have been hooted off the stage for his incompetence had a major player in his administration been negotiating, or doing whatever Rahm was doing, with someone such as Blago–and behind his back, if that truly were the case. We will probably never learn the substance of their many chats.

Then came the withdrawal as Commerce Secretary-designate of the much lauded, Bill Richardson...

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MICHAEL NEWDOW RIDES AGAIN!

Michael Newdow Rides Again!

You really have to wonder about a guy who tells someone that his only child was the product of a date rape and he was the victim.

According to one source, http://www.nndb.com/people/981/000049834/, Michael “Newdow claims he was the victim of date rape, perpetrated by [the mother of the child, Sandra] Banning during a camping trip at Yosemite National Park. [Mikey declares] ‘I specifically said “no” multiple times before and during [sex]. Was I forced into being a father? Yeah.’ ”

That must make his daughter feel awfully warm and fuzzy to know that her daddy was raped by her mommy. When she gets a little older, she may begin to wonder how any guy can be forced to have sex with a woman in a public park. She may begin to have more respect for her mom but, as for her dad, she may wonder whether he’s a closet gay or just the world’s biggest wuss.

That awful experience, which I suggest is as honest and truthful as her daddy is, didn’t deter Mikey from filing a lawsuit–on her behalf. The poor, oppressed child was being forced to recite “The Pledge of Allegiance,” daily in her Sacramento school, including those foul words “under God,” and Mikey would have none of it and wasn’t going to tolerate that infringement on his child’s rights.

There was no evidence the child cared either way what she recited in school but Mikey went to court anyway, for her, of course, and not because he has been an atheist “since birth,” as he has said. Those two words, “under God,” represented an affront to his, to her, beliefs even though she had not be known to profess any antipathy to God or any commitment to atheism, like her dad.

The case was thrown out since Mikey, an absentee father as well as a physician with a law degree, had no legal standing since he didn’t have custody of the child.

Still undismayed, and obviously with a lot of time on his hands, he ploughed on...

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DARWIN AWARDS 2008

DARWIN AWARDS 2008
“Named in honor of Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, the Darwin Awards commemorate those who improve our gene pool by removing themselves from it.”

It must be granted that the annual Darwin Awards, as ghoulish as they are, serve as reminders to residents of Planet Earth that a whole lot of stupidity exists on the third rock from the sun.

They “celebrate” people who have committed some of the dumbest stunts imaginable, which stunts usually result in a fatality thereby substantiating Charles Darwin’s theory that only the fittest beasts and other life forms of the Earth survive. The others, those that don’t make the cut such as the Labrador duck or the hog-nose skunk, don’t necessarily shuffle off this mortal coil into oblivion and extinction due to stupidity but rather misfortune.

Not so with the human beast, the human species, as recognized by the contemporary Darwin Awards. Homo sapiens seem to thrive on stupidity.

The official Darwin Awards website, http://www.darwinawards.com/, features the chosen mottos of the organization, including, “Chlorinating the Gene Pool,” “Where Evolution Hits the Pavement,” and “The Tree of Life is Self-Pruning,” all of which, although harsh, are easily verifiable by news events large and small.

That website also includes a quotation from the late, acerbic comic and social observer, George Carlin: “Just think how stupid the average person is,
and then realize that half of them are even stupider!”

Past Darwin Awards have been given to Texas public officials investigating the causes of an accidental, double electrocution who attempted to recreate the scene of the deadly mishap, resulting in the double electrocution of the two investigators. Another Texas winner was the alcoholic with a throat ailment who couldn’t drink his favorite adult beverage so gave himself an enema of 3 litres of sherry and was dead the next morning. Finally, showing that Texans don’t have a dumb monopoly, there was the story coming out of Ghana in which a tribesman covered himself with a lotion thought to make him impervious to bullets and invited fellow tribesmen to shoot at him, and he was promptly killed.

Dumb tales are legion.

The winner for 2008 as determined by votes of Darwin aficionados was “The Balloon Priest.” The good father’s heart was in the right place, raising funds for charity, but his lawn chair was in the wrong place, attached to clustered, helium-filled balloons. Emulating a previous effort, by “Lawn Chair Larry” in 1982...

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DARWIN AWARDS 2008

DARWIN AWARDS 2008

“Named in honor of Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, the Darwin Awards commemorate those who improve our gene pool by removing themselves from it.”

It must be granted that the annual Darwin Awards, as ghoulish as they are, serve as reminders to residents of Planet Earth that a whole lot of stupidity exists on the third rock from the sun.

They “celebrate” people who have committed some of the dumbest stunts imaginable, which stunts usually result in a fatality thereby substantiating Charles Darwin’s theory that only the fittest beasts and other life forms of the Earth survive. The others, those that don’t make the cut such as the Labrador duck or the hog-nose skunk, don’t necessarily shuffle off this mortal coil into oblivion and extinction due to stupidity but rather misfortune.

Not so with the human beast, the human species, as recognized by the contemporary Darwin Awards. Homo sapiens seem to thrive on stupidity.

The official Darwin Awards website, http://www.darwinawards.com/, features the chosen mottos of the organization, including, “Chlorinating the Gene Pool,” “Where Evolution Hits the Pavement,” and “The Tree of Life is Self-Pruning,” all of which, although harsh, are easily verifiable by news events large and small.

That website also includes a quotation from the late, acerbic comic and social observer, George Carlin: “Just think how stupid the average person is,
and then realize that half of them are even stupider!”

Past Darwin Awards have been given to Texas public officials investigating the causes of an accidental, double electrocution who attempted to recreate the scene of the deadly mishap, resulting in the double electrocution of the two investigators. Another Texas winner was the alcoholic with a throat ailment who couldn’t drink his favorite adult beverage so gave himself an enema of 3 litres of sherry and was dead the next morning. Finally, showing that Texans don’t have a dumb monopoly, there was the story coming out of Ghana in which a tribesman covered himself with a lotion thought to make him impervious to bullets and invited fellow tribesmen to shoot at him, and he was promptly killed.

Dumb tales are legion.

The winner for 2008 as determined by votes of Darwin aficionados was “The Balloon Priest.” The good father’s heart was in the right place, raising funds for charity, but his lawn chair was in the wrong place, attached to clustered, helium-filled balloons. Emulating a previous effort, by “Lawn Chair Larry” in 1982...

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MR. OBAMA GOES TO WASHINGTON; HIS KIDS GO TO SIDWELL

”But he's got high hopes, he's got high hopes
He’s got high apple pie, in the sky hopes…”

That 1959 song as rendered by Ol’ Blue Eyes, Frank Sinatra, comes to mind lately as we head toward a new national administration in two weeks. “High Hopes” was a ditty about a lowly ant moving a rubber tree plant, a prodigious challenge for any ant, but he amazingly succeeds in moving that plant.

Expectations are high, virtually through the White House roof, as Mr. Obama goes to Washington. They’re almost as high as an elephant’s eye and most Americans wish him the best of luck, even more than Mr. Smith had. He’ll need all the luck he can get, not for moving rubber tree plants but for moving the nation forward in very trying times. He’ll need luck just to get through Inauguration Day.

Inauguration Day should find, at the minimum, a few gazillion of his followers in D.C. waiting to catch and record his every word, to memorize and recall for their descendants and for general posterity his sage reflections delivered, with soaring rhetoric, on the future of the United States of America. Word is, Michelle Obama may feel proud of her country for the second time in her life!

Where Barack’s many disciples will find space to view or hear him is somewhat problematic, as is the question of where they will rest their weary heads following all the festivities and Inaugural Balls but, hey, if Jesus could feed multitudes with a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish, surely Obama will figure a way to feed and house his millions of minions.

It’s good to know that he had a great Christmas, holiday, vacation in the land of his birth, Hawaii. Considering the campaign drain, the state of the economy, the state of the nation, and the state of disorder the planet is in of late, Obama must really have needed an extended break in a multi-million dollar retreat to gather all his personal resources. He will need all his vaunted energy and charisma to deal with the problems of the universe.

It’s also a good thing that Obama has had little to say of late, and that Michelle has had less, since, as the President-elect has kept reminding us for weeks, the nation only has one president, (and one first lady), at a time. That’s been a selective mantra ...

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2009: NO ONE EVER SAID IT WOULD BE A FUN YEAR

Recent news reports attest to one truism concerning the human condition: the more things change, the worse things get. New years used to bring with them new hopes and notable changes. With all of five days down in A.D. 2009, this year promises to be one for the record books, and not for setting good records.

Three illustrative examples:

ONE: War Is Hell

William Tecumseh Sherman is credited with the brutally honest observation that “War is hell,” but the ongoing Gaza conflict has added a whole new dimension to that sage reflection.

Death and destruction are the handmaidens attendant on any war and collateral damage is always a sad and unfortunate by-product, but when it comes to the deaths of children as a facet of that damage, then bloody battles seem bloodier by far.

The savage forces of Hamas have taken the horror of war a step further. Rather than respecting the victims of an Israeli bomb attack, they chose to exhibit the lifeless bodies of the dead children of Hamas leader Nizar Rayan in a bizarre and ghastly funeral march.

Not content with simply tarnishing Israel with the fact that Israelis had killed ten of his children and his four wives, Hamas employed Rayan’s dead children as props in the battle for world opinion, brazenly and shamelessly parading them in all their grisliness for all the world to see: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1104296/Bodies-Hamas-leaders-children-paraded-group-promises-painful-revenge-deaths.html.

Israel’s hands are filthy in the assault on Gaza but, compared to Hamas’, they are pristine. Both sides are proving Sherman correct. War is indeed hell but some hells are worse than others.

TWO: More Flying Dirt

President-elect Barack Hussein Obama is finding that the path to his new residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is more pockmarked and potholed than the rocky road to Dublin. Teflon-coated during the presidential campaign when slime such as Ayers and Dohrn and Rezko and Wright failed to stick to his hallowed garments, Obama is discovering his media-generated mystique doesn’t extend to his retinue.

It seems transitioning is even more challenging than bowling.

First, it was soon-to-be hatchet man/chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel...

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MUTICULTURALISM AND TERRORISM--2009

AND THE BEAT GOES ON: MULTICULTURALISM AND TERRORISM–2009

No one can ever accuse the government of the United States of having an excess of either intelligence or discretion.

The World Trade Center hasn’t even been rebuilt, in fact it’s far from being re-built, yet our State Department in 2008 extended invites to 3400 residents of nations deemed state sponsors of terrorism to come on in!

Out of a total of 50,000, Cuba, Iran, Syria, and Sudan have been allotted thousands of what are called “diversity visas” furnished to nations with low immigration numbers so that they can beef up their emigration to America. The program was mandated by our Congress and implemented by our Foggy Bottomites: http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=41385.

Nowadays, it’s considered un-American to question the value of further diversification of our population despite any number of studies, and common sense, that indicate such programs are counterproductive and serve to undermine our national integrity.

Whether termed diversity or by its companion buzzword, multiculturalism, the idealistic concept and its implementation have been shown to function not as an enhancement of our melting pot of peoples but rather as a divisive construct, the effects of which is a balkanization into enclaves of foreigners who speak a language other than English and continue foreign practices, traditions, and cultures rather than seeking absorption into our general population.

See this analysis, “The Absurdity of Multiculturalism,” by Ralph S Musgrave, author and social commentator, http://ideas.repec.org/e/pmu56.html.

Writing principally for a U.K. audience, he thoroughly debunks the fatuous, and perilous, underpinnings of a theory much in vogue today but which actually serves to divide, not simply to diversify: http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=41385

We are a nation built on immigration....

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THE UAW/BIG 3 COALITION AGAINST THE AMERICAN PUBLIC

If any reader cares, I’m currently in process of determining which car to purchase or lease in February. That’s when my lease on a 2006 Honda Accord expires and despite incentives being offered by the Honda dealership, and by a competing Toyota dealer, I was seriously considering an American car.

Back in ‘06, I had narrowed my choices down to a Camry, an Accord, and a Chevy Impala. The Chevy salesman helped me cut my picks down to the two Japanese makes when he invited me to give an Impala a test drive. This particular model had more bells and whistles than I would ever use or ever learn how to use.

Nevertheless, even though I’m generally more a meat and pototoes than glitz and glamour car guy, I decided to give it a shot.

The salesman, Mr. X, was very upfront as I slid behind the wheel on a heated leather seat. “Someone already bought this car,” he said with a wink and some amusement, “but I’m sure he wouldn’t mind your giving it a test drive.”

His chances of making a deal went flying out the tinted windows with that candid confession. Unbeknownst to the new owner of the car, this salesman was willing to turn a new vehicle into a demo simply because it was available on the lot. I thanked him for the offer but passed on a test drive and told him why and he was visibly shocked.

Now, I’m well aware that Mr. X was not a member of the UAW but it struck me then that his blase’ attitude toward a buyer who had paid him a handsome commission was symptomatic of the domestic auto industry three years ago.

Frankly, John Q. Public, they didn’t give a damn.

It’s all very patriotic to buy American and keep our bucks stateside rather than sending them to Japan or Germany or Sweden or (soon) to China and I’ve more than done my bit in that regard.

I’ve purchased new American vehicles– a 1971 Mercury Cougar, a 1977 Dodge Aspen wagon, a 1983 Oldsmobile Omega, and a 1986 Ford Country Squire. With the exception of the Cougar, my last pre-K (pre-kids) car, every one of them was a pig to one degree or another.

The Aspen was the sister to the Plymouth Volare which Lee Iaccoca called the worst car Chrysler ever built, which had to have been an understatement. The misnomered Omega was GM’s version of its worst car and featured rack and pinion steering which literally fell apart. The Ford had starting issues and when it did start it raced and refused to bow to the braking system.

As they might say, thrice burnt, once shy so I’ve refused to buy an American car for a generation even though Detroit finally wised up and now turns out products which are fairly competitive in quality to those of foreign manufacturers.

With the economy in the doldrums and the Big 3 automakers on the verge of bankruptcy, I figured this time around I’d allow a Ford, GM, or Chrysler product another chance. That is, until I read some figures and heard stories about the Motor City and its employees. They convinced me that Mr. X’s attitude still prevailed and was still the order of the day with Detroit’s rank and file.

The recent, disgraceful bailout of the Big 3 which, along with the other excursions into profligate socialism, the bailouts of AIG, Wall Street, and the American banking system, are said to be imbalanced and unfair efforts to help the elite to the detriment of the little guys, which is largely true.

However, one huge group of little guys, the membership of the United Auto Workers, seems to be doing pretty damned well. Uncle Sam’s generosity simply cemented in stone their outlandish work rules and perks.

CNSnews.com...
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