Thursday, January 24, 2013

Observations from the Window 1.24

It has been a fun couple of days to be a progressive/liberal/gay/woman or any one of the above. On Monday we had President Obama's Inaugural speech and than yesterday Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified to Congress on the tragedy in Benghazi, Libya. After seven hours of testimony nobody was talking about what she said but what an awesome job she had done and how bad some of the wingnuts looked. Clinton looked every bit one of the most popular politicians in the country that she currently is. Confident, intelligent, at times emotional, she made a woman proud.

But enough before I get too serious because this is going to be an almost comedic post. I just wanted to share some of the things I have heard coming out of cloud coo coo land because, to quote Rush Limbaugh, "it's a puke fest out there." For the first time, and in all probability the last, I have to agree with him.

In his Inaugural speech President Obama mentioned gays for the first time in an Inaugural and he also mentioned Stonewall. On Fox Pat Buchanan asked "What was he talking about? Stonewall. That's a barroom brawl in Greenwich Village in 1969, when cops were hassling gays and their bar, and the gays fought back and threw them all out. Does that belong in a presidential inaugural?" As Jon Stewart later remarked yes that was Pat Buchanan for the wrong side of history.

During the Clinton testimony wingnut Senator Rand Paul said this; "I think that ultimately, with you leaving, that you accept the culpability for the worst tragedy since 9/11. And I really mean that. Had I been president at the time and I had found that you had not read the cables from Benghazi, you had not read the cables from Ambassador Stevens, I would have relieved you of your post. I think it’s inexcusable." I wont get into what dreamworld Paul lives in to think he would ever be president but I do wonder why 4 dead in Libya qualifies as the worst tragedy since 9/11 and not the deaths of over 4,000 in Iraq and Afghanistan. I should also add that in 2011 Paul proposed cutting the State Department's budget by 70%.

There are so many more of these I could post from Wisconsin wingnut Ron Johnson suggesting Clinton should have just called Benghazi on the phone to find out what was going to NRA President Wayne LaPierre quoting one of the more liberal justices in the history of the Supreme Court. In a totally unnecessary rebuttal to the President's speech LaPierre quoted Hugo Black as saying that there were absolutes in the Constitution that couldn't be debated. LaPierre didn't mention that Black had specified the second amendment as one of the exceptions to that rule.

One of the few politicians as popular as Hillary Clinton is New  Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Again I give you Senator Paul this time on the N.J. Governor and again showing why he will never be president. "I think criticizing the Second Amendment movement and the over the top ‘give me my money’ stuff, ’I want all 60 billion now or I’ll throw a tantrum,' I don’t think that’s going to play well in the Republican primary."

Why do I love politics? The thought of a Rand Paul - Chris Christie debate is all the reason I need.

update - My brother reminded me that Senator Johnson was the same Johnson who as a Senate candidate said of global warming, "I absolutely do not believe in the science of man caused climate change. It's not proven by any stretch of the imagination." In the same interview he also described believers in man made causes of climate change as crazy and "it's far more likely that it's just sunspot activity or just something in the geologic eons of time."