Gov. Blanco's old foe now looks like he'll get her job after all

NPR reports here that, in a surpassing irony, the person now considered most likely to succeed Louisiana's current Governor, my Lafayette homegirl Kathleen Blanco (D), is the very man she soundly defeated four years ago to win the job in the first place. My home state's very first woman governor had a chance to make history...and did so, albeit decidedly not in the way she'd planned on, with her almost comically inept response to the Katrina floods' destruction of New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish. This left her so unpopular she wisely abandoned plans to seek re-election, knowing she would be in for a shellacking from eager GOP operatives and angry storm- and flood-displaced voters.

So guess who's the front runner in next week's free-for-all primary? None other than U.S. Rep. Piyush "Bobby" Jindal, the Republican opponent she faced in 2003. Fresh from re-election to his Congressional seat in the midst of a 2006 midterm-election tide of Democratic winners, Jindal faces a lackluster field of Dem candidates; the two leading popular choices on the Dem side, former Rep./Senator John Breaux and Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu, both elected not to run (the former after a state-GOP attack-ad campaign harping on Breaux's having been a Maryland resident for over two years). Jindal is thus widely expected to win his way into the November runoff. A converted Catholic and die-hard supporter of no-exceptions abortion bans and the Iraq war/occupation, Jindal would only be the state's third GOP governor since the post-Civil War Reconstruction era (David Treen and Murphy J. "Mike" Foster having been the previous two, after four in the 1870s).

All in all, the gubernatorial prospects are looking pretty damned dim for the state of my birth. Here's hoping Walter Boasso or John Georges catches fire enough in the next few days to give this BushCo/fundie stooge a run for his money.

A Nobel Prize does not a viable candidacy make

I'm reposting this from my response to shelleybear in her latest post, because it's undoubtedly the beginning of all the noise my friends are likely to make (yes, redaxe, I'm looking at you) about Al Bore Gore winning the Nobel Peace Prize yesterday and how he absolutely should run for President again now because of it and the halo he's gained from the popularity of his environmental message.

My response to this notion: Oh, God, please, NO!!!

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Ralph Nader did NOT cost Al Gore the 2000 election--Al Gore did! All the experts said it was Gore's to lose going in two years prior, and damned if he didn't go right out and lose it. He had all the advantages in his column: a borderline moron as a GOP opponent; the best campaigner alive, Bill Clinton, squarely in his camp (yes, yes, I know, he was a two-edged sword, but no one can fault his political smarts, just his libido and self-control); eight years of a rip-roaring economy; a gigundo federal-budget surplus; relative peace in the world; and all the big Democrat money behind him.

And he squandered it all on repeated attempts to "remake" himself, unclear policy statements and flip-flopping, picking "Holy Joe" Lieberman as a running mate, and opportunistically using his family as a campaign tool (remember that squick-inducing kiss with Tipper on the convention podium? I sure as hell wish I didn't...), plus >0 charisma and putting people to sleep on the stump. In the end, too many people who desperately wanted to avoid Bush still just couldn't bring themselves to pull the lever for Gore (those that even showed up at the polls at all)...and that, and that alone, was what threw the election in Florida to the courts. (GOP state officials' chicanery in the recount was what kept it there; thank you ever so much, Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris, and may you both roast stark naked in the lowest, hottest circle of Hell for eternity.) If Gore had run even half as effective a campaign as he'd been expected to, Nader's vote would not have been enough to matter at all.

No one bears more of the blame for the 2000 debacle than Gore himself, as far as I'm concerned. His running again would be a disaster for the Dems and ensure GOP hegemony for another two terms; he absolutely must NOT be given another chance to run the party into the ground in 2008. Say what you will about Hillary Clinton's baggage (and you can say plenty!) or Barack Obama's inexperience, at least they're halfway electable; Gore simply isn't, Nobel or no Nobel.

You don't agree? Bring it. He wasted all the faith and hard work we invested in him seven years ago, and I'm heartily sick of the sumbitch—and of people saying he can be the party's salvation this time. If you believe that, I've got a pair of bridges in New Orleans I wanna talk to you about; no checks, please—cash only, and in small bills.

The Songbird gets to stay an extra couple of days

singing_phoenix, my beloved Songbird, visiting from her new home in Nairobi, Kenya the past two weeks, has earned a slight reprieve from the need to dash to the airport today as originally scheduled for her return to Africa. Her boss has consented to let her change her plane reservation so that she leaves on Sunday instead of today.

Which means she and I get a bit more time together to get things done, to enjoy dinner with sffilk tonight and a housefilk in Tucker tomorrow, and I get a whole uninterrupted day's work (and a full day's pay). And I even got some more work to do today which I may be able to do tomorrow and make up the lost day from Wednesday.

Life can be good sometimes.

(Lyrics for music listed above are here.)

Friday is now Posters' Day; Monday will be Book Day.

Today STTL inaugurates two more new features: First, one day out of every week, Friday, I propose to open up the discussion on my journal to my readers' direction. What do YOU think I should be writing about? What would you like to see here in the way of essays on current events, fiction or music, humor or personal data? This is your chance to seize the reins. If you need help coming up with ideas, I can throw out topics in a list without any commentary, such as: the presidential nomination races in both parties; the ongoing drought in the Southeast; the awarding of the Nobel Prizes this week; and the pro/college football season thus far. (Go Saints and Tigers!)

I also propose to institute a day each week—how about Monday?—as Book Day, when at least one post will be about an important (to me, anyhow) new book I think you might enjoy or need to read. It can be on politics, people (biographies and autobiographies), culture, entertainment or God only knows what. Me being a crusading liberal sort, you should be warned to expect lots of polemical material. Here's a sample: Professor Lawrence J. "Larry" Sabato Jr., longtime political analyst and news-media "go-to" guy for quotable quotes about American politics, has just put out a tome called A More Perfect Constitution. He posits that the Founders, bless 'em, could never possibly have foreseen that our little nation would get so big and powerful, or today's policy issues so complex, as they have, and expected us to hold Constitutional Conventions similar to the famous one in Philadelphia in 1776 on a regular, if infrequent, basis in order to keep up. He outlines no less than 23 distinct and urgently needed fixes to our nation's founding document, arguing that piecemeal amendments will no longer suffice to fix a system so badly broken. What do you think? And what's the best book you've read lately, on politics or not?

Bad boyfriend! No con for you!

In what may be karmic payback for the mess I made of the Songbird's finances this summer by procrastinating on bill payments/account closings, the cost of fixing the teal Honda Civic (which won't even stay fixed and may have to at last be junked) ate the money I had hoped to use for a plane ticket to OVFF this year. So given that the latest quotes from Kayak.com range north of $360 for round-trip fare that isn't at some godawful oh-dark-thirty-AM departure time, and that I am not up for a Pegasus Award this year, don't expect to see me there. Pout. Grump.

Political filk: The Ballad of Blackwater USA

I trust I don't have to explain this one. Thought I'd write it down before someone beat me to it; it's already turned up as a headline on blogs.

THE BALLAD OF BLACKWATER USA
(Music: "Black Water," The Doobie Brothers)

We've built us an army
That's privately funded;
Out here in Baghdad, no one knows my name.
The Shiites are jumpin',
My twelve-gauge is pumpin'—
Blackwater keeps makin' the most off this game.

Chorus:
Oh, Blackwater, keep on shootin'
(Mesapotamia moon, won't you keep on shinin' on me?)
Oh, Blackwater, keep on rollin'
(Who gives a damn 'bout a civvy casualty?)
Oh, Blackwater, keep on workin'
(Mercenary men, won't you keep on fightin' for me?)
Don't let them shine no light;
All the black-budget ops that we're runnin'
Gonna make ev'rything all right.
With us on the payroll
The White House don't worry at all...

Congress complains, I don't care;
Don't make no difference to me—
Just guard those diplos as they head uptown.
We are the troops that pacify this land,
Each square and honky-tonk
And we'll be buying all the weapons that can be found.
Repeat Chorus

Don't wanna hear that we can't tame this land;
Screw Osama—gonna take that cash in hand!
(Cash in hand, baby, take the cash in hand, screw Osama,
Gonna make lots o' money all day long)
Repeat to fade

Parody lyrics ©2007 by Matt G. Leger. Any recording or performance for profit requires prior written consent from all copyright holders. All other uses of lyrics freely permitted so long as this notice is retained unaltered.