Nixon Redux

Did you see the three-hour American Experience documentary on Richard Nixon last night on PBS?

It was a good primer on all of the current elections.

I watched the first two hours and then taped the last hour, which I can watch tonight after Harper regains his minority government at 8 o'clock.

In Nixon's first two election wins, he didn't beat his opponents, he smashed them. And he did so by spreading the most ugly, hateful and untrue rumours. In his defense for using such tactics, he said that the only important thing is to win. maybe he should have coached the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Nixon had gained national prominence by chasing Communists from under every American bed, even before Joe McCarthy. In other words, his strength was to name enemies, real or imagined.

Sound familiar?

Most of you, like me, lived through the Watergate drama. I was attached to my black-and-white, rotary dial TV all summer long that year.

Looking back on Nixon's disgrace and on his earlier "triumphs," what continues to astonish me is the sight of thousands of sheep cheering madly for this creepy, evil bastard.

Much as I am astonished watching thousands of sheep cheering madly for the dumbest president in history, George W. Bush, and the worst ticket in history, McCain/Palin.

That Nixon was a brilliant, untrustworthy and unstable snake was self-evident. You had only to look at him and listen to his words and the sound of his voice and you knew you were viewing craziness.

That Bush is a dimwit and a puppet and that McCain and Palin have no business in public office is also self-evident.

What scares me is are the adoring throngs. How shallow, how desperate, how ignorant can ordinary people be?

It is to Weep

$8 Million to give free heroin and heroin substitutes to 190 Vancouver addicts and 66 Montreal addicts.

And then a hefty report of "scientific" conclusions to wade through.

One can only weep.

At $50,000 per year per bed, that money would provide 160 treatment opportunities.

That's 85% of the Vancouver addicts who were helped by doctors and scientists to continue using heroin.

What would prompt a human being to proceed with this kind of hateful, evil plan when helping an addict to live free of drugs is always possible?

That anyone takes this "scientific" experiment seriously is frightening.

The Fox is in the Hen House

How reassuring is it to learn that Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., the former head of Goldman Sachs and one of the firm’s most accomplished global deal makers, is leading the Bush administration’s struggle to contain an economic contagion stemming from a disintegrating housing sector, volatile financial markets and frozen credit, resurgent inflation and widening job losses?

In other words, the man who made a personal fortune short-selling and manipulating markets and clients with ruthless abandon (His bonus in his last year was in excess of $35 Million.) is now going to lead us all out of the desert.

And then why should we be surprised that Goldman Sachs will itself be one of the beneficiaries of the instant government largess?

The man who should be behind bars is the Treasury Secretary.

We'd like to say, "Only in America," but that would leave out Italy, France, Germany and most of the plundering civilized world.