AMERICAN HEROES - What do Barack Obama, George Bush, JFK have in common?

For the past few weeks we’ve seen the overheated spectacle of Steve Jobs’ hi-tech canonization. St. Steven of Applevania was described as a great man who single-handedly brought the world into the computer age by inventing self-described “neat things“. His gift for reliably tickling America’s zeitgeist was legendary, though dubiously important. His talent owes a lot to H.L. Mencken‘s quote, “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.”

St. Steve was no doubt a clever man and is owed his due. However, he was no saint. He was a man who refused to acknowledge the child who lent her name to Apple’s Lisa computer. He was a man who believed he was too “special” to put license plates on his car. Some of those on the wrong side of him – and that was apparently an easy place to be – might describe him as a sociopath. Those on his good side were able to bask in his equal “specialness” via a vicarious connection to him.

We Americans often puff up our celebrities like this. We sometimes act as a cult of personality, Mormons included.

Kennedy suddenly went from an unpopular President who managed to create both the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban missile Crisis in about the same amount of time it took Sarah Palin to become a half-term governor. He became St. Jack of Hyannis for tragically being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Still, it could’ve been worse. He might had spurned his many adult lovers in favor of kids like many of the priests in his religion.

The Oracle of Cupertino
Clearly, the Oracle of Cupertino and the Hyannis Hero were men, not Gods.

The canonization of St. Dubya of Bush began even before he left office. Supporters swore history would enshrine his brilliance. The myriad mistakes of war were great wins for democracy. The Great Deregulator couldn’t possibly be the man who enacted more regulations than President Care Bear and his financial policies only strengthened the markets so that damned Obamunist could rend asunder all that George had done.

That’s what makes it so interesting to see how they spin the history of a man who’s still alive. The markets were just fine when George was vacationing at the White House. Obama killed CEOs in their beds, despite Obama following the same or similar polices himself. The “irrefutable” evidence? Record compensation for most of the one percent. Obama “lost the war” despite keeping to a schedule Bush the Lesser had drawn up and even doubled down by adding troops several times. Damn commie!

Throw the Bomb, Run Like Hell
But, Republicans do offer Obama some good advice: it’s your problem now, so shut up and fix things while we stand here and throw some good old-fashioned Molotov cocktails at you ($6 at TGIF’s Soviet Friday Night Happy Hour). Don’t blame us because you signed up for an impossible task. Don’t dare blame us for the problem.

Barack, it’s good advice. Stop blaming them even if it is their fault. They’ll just deny it and the rest of the nation will quickly tire of hearing it anyway. Instead, grasp the Wheel of State, keelhaul those mutineers in Congress. Push the Republican rabble aside and cruise on into the Hope and Change you promised.

If you don’t someone will be rewriting your history soon.

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Well, if by lost you mean not flying around aircraft carriers within sight of San Diego showing off your meager junk in a codpiece with a “Mission Accomplished” banner the size of New Mexico behind you, then yes, he lost the war.

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When the dust settled George W. Bush grabbed a megaphone, climbed atop some rubble, threw his arm around a fireman, and gave a fiery speech about truth, justice, and the American way. The good ol’ boy fireman hug was a bit over-the-top, but otherwise it was the perfect thing to rally a country on edge and staring into a bottomless pit of C4.

It also marked the last time I agreed with just about anything he said and the last time there was any semblance of civility in the political process.

At the time, every pundit and politician talked about how the attacks were game-changers. The most oft-heard phrase was, “Our world has changed forever.”

That sure turned out a gross understatement.

Wobble-Kneed Don Knottses
Since the skeevy bastards drove the planes into the World Trade Center, Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field, America became – not the Greatest Generation of heroes and fidelity to high-minded principles – but a country of wobble-kneed Don Knotts impersonators grasping at any straw, enhanced interrogation technique, or abridged law to feel “safe”.

When the most unterrifying terrorist imaginable set his lap on fire, we cried out for the protection afforded by 3 oz. shampoo bottles and forbidden nail clippers – “watch out, I’ll clip you to within an inch of your pinkie finger’s quick”. And for good measure, we meekly stripped naked and suddenly thought it was perfectly reasonable to allow government agents to stick rectal probes up our asses to verify those things in our throats were tonsils and not miniature thermonuclear bombs…no doubt built in Iraq.

Our latter day lunatic fringe is terrified at the tyranny of affordable health care, yet makes not a peep over unrestricted wiretaps, error-prone no-fly lists, and a host of other insults to the Constitution.

The small government champeens somehow see a conglomeration of 380 million individual decision makers as an effective form of government. But, what about the biggest government behemoth of them all – the Department of Homeland Insecurity? For some, it and the Department of Defense are the only two allowable functions of a tyranny-free government, except for the Bureau of Who You Can’t Marry and the Anti-Abortion Administration.

Our twin 30-day cum 10-year wars grind up bodies and trillions of dollars that we aren’t really losing because they’re financed off-budget. Plus anyone the President chooses can be outsourced to some incredibly evil off-shored prison to be beaten and waterboarded with impunity. Actually, you’d think they’d be all for affordable health care after all that.

America: The North American Banana Republic
Our current government is as stable as a South American Banana Republic that can’t agree on which sash and medals the President can wear with his faux flight suit and codpiece.

And, your average American Chicken Little believes the President is a Communist Kenyan, the moon landings took place in a Houston TV studio, and Bush personally killed bin Laden with the pearl-handled six-shooters confiscated from Saddam … or the Pentagon attack was staged… or bin Laden’s whereabouts have been known for years and Obama just saved the killshot for political points… or, well, you get the point.

Whether you vehemently oppose abortion, protest every capital death sentence, believe in euthanasia, or think Obamacare consists entirely of a Death Panel and hypodermic needle, chances are you see bin Laden’s killing as a richly deserved punishment for a cowardly, suburban-dwelling bully dressed in funny clothes and unable to get more than 10 feet from a dialysis machine. And, you’d be right.

Resolved: the man was a worthless piece of shit who didn’t deserve to live. Now, America can chant “USA… USA… USA!”and unite around something again. It’s a good thing that a brave team of our best warriors killed the man in cold blood – there is no question. However, the unity started to fray as the chants fell quiet. People are already arguing over every scrap of information or cockamamie fantasy they harbor. Pundits are pontificating and politicians are preening. In short, the nation is quickly reclaiming its false bravado and Don Knotts tremor.

Those folks were right nearly 11 years ago. The world will never be the same again because we’ve handed the terrorists a victory of continuous self-induced terror, exactly what terrorists want.

And, killing Osama doesn’t change that a whit.

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In a single clumsy flail, Super O has gone both too fast and too slow. Talked too much and too little. Been the soul of diplomatic discretion and a bumbling, unrepentant war monger. He wants the US to lead his new Coalition of the Inept and drop out of it by dinner time. And, he wants Kadafhi dead so he can invite him over for a BBQ on the South Lawn.

The list, as every pissed off American with a pie hole says, is endless.

To be fair, where the hell were the asscakes railing against him now when Moses George wandered off into the desert in search of the Burning Bush, only to turn into a burning Bush instead? And that advise and consent thing? Who the hell are you kidding? There hasn’t been a declared war since WWII. Hell, Bush couldn’t even figure out what to call his before settling on the zesty, “War of Error” moniker.

The list of hypocrisy, as every pissed off American with a pie hole says, is endless.

The Secret Kenyan Goes George Bushy
Still, the secret Kenyan clearly hasn’t thought this through. If he knows the endgame, he’s gone all George Bushy in his inability to explain it. By not having a clear set of goals, a way to know you’re done, and how to pack up and get the hell out of Tripoli, you can start reading the ever-growing list of poor plans having come back to bite us: Korea, Vietnam, Iraq I, Iraq II, and Afghanistan to name a few.

Then, there is the war fighting on the domestic front. Republicans just hope he fails at everything. Liberals want the US to run out and save the world every time some tin pot dictator gets rambunctious. And cost? Phht, we haven’t paid off the last two bloody walkabouts yet and the lobby for cutting funding for them is slim and none. Libya is our next supplemental budget item.

To successfully manage policy, one has to start before the events do. Instead of propping up the Mubaraks and Kadafhis of the world, how about we pick and choose our strong men better? In business terms any overstuffed CEO could understand, the cost benefit ratio of removing one asshat and replacing him with another is no way to maximize our investments and incentify the world to peace.

1, 2, 3, 4, What’re We Fightin’ For?
We also need some vague idea of what we’re fighting for before we go. If it’s to defend defenseless civilians, how about the dozens of other places where people try to beat nonsense into each others’ heads with radar-guided sticks. Do we go to the wall for oppressed Norwegians or downtrodden Guineans?

Going to war, a police action, or a no-fly zone is messy business. Rarely are the situations clear. Something will come back to haunt your decision. Going to war is as much, or more, about the future than the present, so it behooves us to think about what we’re going to do before the time comes to do it.

The biggest single thing that pisses off the rest of the world is that every 4 years the US changes foreign policy from unilaterally nuking our perceived enemies until they glow to crawling on bended knee to every insane, Third World megalomaniac to ask forgiveness for not having given him an extra $2 billion and change as a tax for their often specious support.

And the rest of the world has a point. So, lets gear up, keep our heads low, and try to get this thing finished before it turns out a bigger muddle than the two we already have.

As a nation, want can’t take much more fighting someone else’s battles for freedom before we end up having to refight our own here at home.

Viva la common sense!

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