The Omnipotent Poobah Speaks!

At this time of the year you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting someone’s list. Worst things, best things, funniest, saddest, stupidest, breakthroughs, failures – yada, yada, yada. So because I’m a copycat if nothing else, here’s my list. Predictions for 2009:

• Barack Obama’s honeymoon period will be among the shortest in recent memory. By April, his starting poll numbers will drop by 18%.
• Within the first month of his administration, Obama will ask the Justice Department not to investigate or prosecute former Bush administration officials. However, he will stop short of an absolute pardon, leaving the door open to prosecution in the future.
• The economic collapse will get much worse before it gets better. Many additional large companies will collapse - and will not be bailed out because there is no money - several states will go bankrupt, and the global economy will go into a deep depression. Things will not improve in 2009.
• Lindsey Lohan will turn straight.
• Elizabeth Hasslebeck and Michelle Malkin will come out as a lesbian couple and form a conservative coalition called Dykes Against Democrats.
• ”Not Jenna” Bush will get married to a scion of an elite, liberal, east coast nouveau riche family and cut off relations with her family because of political differences.
• US troops, already over-extended by on-going combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, will deploy to Somalia in an effort to root out havens for terrorists and pirates that prey on shipping. At least one US warship will sustain heavy damage.
• As 2007 and 2008 presented several major Republican scandals, 2009 will be a year of democratic scandals.
• The open Minnesota senate seat will not be filled until December when Al Franken will be declared the winner.
• The advantage of Franken’s democratic seat is offset by Joe Liebermann officially announcing he has become a Republican.
• Liebermann will begin exploratory trips to Iowa and New Hampshire for a 2012 presidential bid, but will abandon the bid in December because governors in both states swears out restraining orders against him.
• While responding to a Keith Olbermann nomination for Worst Person in the World, Bill O’Reilly will have a stroke on air that leaves him mute. After learning of the event, Olbermann will nominate him again for Worst Person in the World for not tipping the EMTs that responded to the 911 call.
• Dick Cheney’s lesbian daughter will join with Candace Gingrich to form a gay rights advocacy organization comprised of GLBT relatives of high-ranking politicians. They will overturn California’s Prop 8 in a battle that goes all the way to the SCOUTUS.
• Plans for a Bush presidential library will be canceled when a deal to raise funding through proceeds from his memoirs fails when no publisher can be convinced to sign a deal for the book.
• Enroute to a speaking engagement Germany will arrest Dick Cheney for war crimes. He will be convicted because he refuses to defend himself on the grounds that he is a freestanding Republic that isn’t a signer of the Geneva Accords. The Saudi royal family agrees to take him as part of an extradition agreement.
• Early in the year, it will be revealed that most of the Bush family’s wealth was lost in the Bernard Madoff scam. The family will be forced to sell off the Kennebunkport compound and the new Bush house in Houston.
• As a result of the loss, George W. Bush will sign a promotional deal with Frito Lay to promote a new line of “Presidential Pretzels”. The deal will be canceled before any ads air because focus group testing reveals that almost no one will buy them. Hush Puppy Shoes will score with a presidential ad campaign when they debut a line of casual comfort shoes with a picture of Bush on the sole.
• Sarah Palin will be committed to a mental institution.
• Federal legislation will be introduced to cap excessive CEO pay. Unfortunately, the unintended result is that many of the CEOs get a raise anyway by claiming the average $16 billion offered by failing companies is actually an “Attaboy Award” given by the companies to employees who best demonstrate the companies’ corporate behaviors and values.
• India will begin to sub-outsource their US outsourcing deals to Somalia to take advantage of the highly skilled labor pool and low expenses. Riots in Bangalore protest the practice.
• The Obama Administration will find the entire contents of Ft. Knox have been sent by a low-level Bush Administration holdover to a woman in Somalia named Mrs. Natty Bumpo that he met on the Internet.

I’m just a regular Nostradumbass, ain’t I?

The Poobah is a featured contributor at Bring It On!

It’s another week and another “preacher eruption” for the O-Man. However, this one is a little different. This time Obama invited the controversial preacher to speak for him rather than simply being perceived as guilty by association for sitting in Jeremiah Wright’s congregation. This time much of the right has cheered while the left is gobsmacked by the audacity of it.

And therein lies the uneasy division I feel about the affair.

It seems Obama is either the savviest politician on the planet or one of the stupidest. Choosing Rick Warren for his inaugural benediction could be an inspired choice. With it, he’s true to his word to be President of all the people - and like it or not, Warren and his crew are our fellow Americans. Bridging the numerous gaps in our society means bringing together people who simply don’t want to come together in the hopes they can learn how to live with each other. In that sense it isn’t completely unlike trying to unite a racially-divided country. Many blacks and whites still dislike each other, but most have learned to peacefully co-exist.

On the other side is the righteous indignation of progressives who fought for Obama’s election and now feel betrayed by his invitation to include this unlovable gorilla in their midst. After all, Warren is a man of very firm convictions and his biggest and most controversial is that gays are inferior in his eyes and the eyes he attributes to his God. I absolutely understand the impulse to tell the man to go f*ck himself and heartily defend anyone who does so. That is their right – God-given if they so believe – and we should vigorously defend it no matter how much we agree or disagree with it. However, the same goes for Warren’s right to say what he wants.

Clearly, I’m not the only one who has mixed feelings. The positions in the gay community range from Harvey Firestein’s impassioned and justified screed to Melissa Etheridge’s willingness to listen to what Warren has to say, even if it’s repugnant to her.

Obama has shown political savvy before. He was able to successfully turn the Wright debacle into a teaching moment for the country. He also showed how hope is a highly underrated commodity in politics. But, conventional wisdom says that pissing off your base and signalling your opponents that you welcome them with open arms is a suicide more than a strategy.

Although the invite was only for a prayer – not a full-blown speech from the bloody pulpit - people across the spectrum see this as a bold move. It just remains to see if it was good or bad. For my part, I’m hoping that Obama subscribes to a personal tenet I’ve always believed - the strength of a nation lies in how well it treats its least desirable citizens.

And Warren is about as undesirable as they come.

The Poobah is a featured contributor at Bring It On!

A year ago everyone thought Iraq would be the big issue of 2008. McCain bolstered his position by emulating Yosemite Sam’s fine wartime performance while Obama emphasized how unlike Shrub he was by speaking in complete sentences. In the end, the economy won out - mostly because it’s hard to avoid a huge smoking hole in the ground.

This sort of shift isn’t unusual. Faced with people being blown to bits or being unable to buy an SUV the size of Guatemala, Americans will go for the Escalade every time. We don’t like wars because they’re messy and defy simple solutions - especially when a simpleton is in charge. We still haven’t gotten over the fiction that the resolution to every war is to bomb our enemies until they glow.

Now, the election’s over. The economy isn’t under control and soon nothing will be left in the treasury except lint. Obama is quick to say there’s only one President at a time. But when the sitting President is AWOL, Obama finds himself being the one to calm the markets and convince everyone that through some stupendous combination of happenstance and brilliance the economy will rise from the ashes before all of us have shuffled off this mortal coil.

A Festering Boil on the Ass of America
But the war is still there, like a festering boil on the ass of America. It’s becoming clearer and clearer that our foreign policy situation is as bad or worse than our economic sludge pit. You have to hand it to Texas’ Original Village Idiot, when he screws something up, he does it big, bold, and lastingly.

Obama’s shift to foreign policy is already underway. The political gossip has centered almost exclusively on his national security and foreign policy teams for weeks. No one gives a fig who’ll be the Treasury or Commerce secretaries.

No matter how large the domestic challenges or how loudly people scream, almost all Presidents spend the lion’s share of their administration jetting around the world keeping Molotov Cocktails from exploding. “Pressing issues” like health care, the economy, or education always end up lost at the bottom of a pile of burning policy papers, and so, never get solved. If there was the political will to deal with these issues, they would have already been “reformed”.

I bet Obama will end up being the much the same - regardless of his extraordinary interest in the economy. People may want the Escalade, but only if they can have cheap gas and feel safe from nutcases living in Pakistani caves - and just for good measure, so does every other Tom, Dick, and Darfur on the planet.

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