I know this blog has been overly focused on politics lately, but I’m really bothered and I need to vent yet again.

I’m not bothered that the President failed to disclose a serious medical condition to the American people for a year. If that was the worst thing he did as President, he’d be Jed Bartlet.

I’m not bothered when right-wing commentators call for another 9/11 to “save America” from spirited debate over policy issues and return to a more unified time when everyone was crazed with fear and ready to do whatever the President wanted. Fear is what these people do best.

I’m not bothered by a member of the current administration’s Civil Rights Commission pondering a return to Korematsu. It’s not like he was advocating it, after all.

I’m not bothered that the Secretary of Education would rather read Harry Potter than Shakespeare. Shakespeare can be difficult, and I’ve heard good things about the Harry Potter books. Even the Shakespeare Teacher likes to relax with some lighter fare every now and then.

No, gentle readers, the Republicans aren’t bothering me so much anymore. I think by now we all pretty much know what to expect from them.

It’s the Democrats who totally caved on warrantless wiretapping that are bothering me:

Buckling in the face of familiar scare tactics – and looking to go on vacation – Congress caved on domestic surveillance this past weekend. It handed the White House temporary authority to monitor, without warrants, Americans’ international phone calls and e-mail.

Which brings me to Al Gore. In my opinion, Al Gore is the only person in the country who 1) gets it, and 2) has a strong chance of winning the Presidency.

Because of this, he has a moral obligation to run. He has laid out the most serious challenges facing us today and we have listened. But he may be the only person who can be the change he wants to see in the world. He can’t honestly think that giving a Keynote presentation on climate change can compare to actually being the President. So what’s going on? Is he biding his time, allowing all of us to beg him to run, rather than entering the race now and becoming a target? Or is honestly not planning to run?

I’m bothered by the current state of politics in this country. I’m bothered by the abusive Republicans and the enabling Democrats. And you know what? So is he. So I’ll wrap up this post by linking to rundammit.com, because I’m sick and tired of being bothered by this sorry excuse for a government we have failing to run this country.

It’s time, Al. Step up.

I’m the train that leaves first and I local stops skip;
When a thought in your mind becomes words on your lip;
An American card that Americans zip;
And in package delivery, fast is the trip.

Who am I?

UPDATE: Riddle solved by Annalisa. See comments for answer.

Could it become the new All Your Base Are Belong To Us?

What you say!!

From Henry IV, Part Two:

I know thee not, old man: fall to thy prayers;
How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

The newly-anointed Henry was too rehabilitated to hallo his former fellow Jack. Poms!

In a poll taken over a decade ago, 96% of Canadians said they preferred their health care system to ours.

A more recent poll indicates that 64% of Americans think “the government should provide a national health insurance program for all Americans, even if this would require higher taxes”.

Michael Moore’s film Sicko is the fourth highest grossing documentary of all time.

And millions of Americans have no health insurance at all.

What specifically is it going to take to get Universal Health Care in this country?

I caught the Republican debate this morning.  Bush and Cheney were praised for keeping us safe for the last six years.

Actually, for the past six years, an average of over 500 Americans have died each year on American soil in 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Think about it.

From Troilus and Cressida:

The ravish’d Helen, Menelaus’ queen,
With wanton Paris sleeps; and that’s the quarrel.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

The writer’s quill had spun equal enemies’ warpaths that have seen lands not here.

The problem here – well, in addition to all of O’Reilly’s usual problems – is that he seems unaware, or pretends to be unaware, of the difference between an online community forum like Daily Kos and traditional corporate-owned pre-Internet media. Inviting users to participate in an interactive, Web 2.0 medium doesn’t make you automatically agree with everything they post to your site. If it did, there would be very little reason to do it.

O’Reilly even seems unaware of the comments left by people on his own site. Again, it’s possible that he just chooses not to be aware or he pretends not to be aware. But given O’Reilly’s demographic and the hate he peddles, it’s not hard to imagine that O’Reilly has more than a few viewers who would be willing to express views in a public forum that even O’Reilly wouldn’t want to be associated with.

I don’t consider comments on the O’Reilly site as coming from O’Reilly himself. It’s inappropriate for O’Reilly to use the comments on blogs or the postings of Kos diarists to compare progressive blogs to the Nazis and KKK.

The rebuttal to this lunacy was, of course, put best by Stephen Colbert:

Exactly. The Ku Klux Klan and the Nazis were both notorious for allowing people to express unpopular views in an open and free forum.

And that basically sums it up. If O’Reilly wants to make the argument that people who instigate hate are responsible for all of the comments and opinions of their followers, he’s free to do so. But then, we’ll all need to have a word with O’Reilly himself.

I’m a bad break in baseball; in bowling, a boon;
I’m how labor gets management changing its tune;
When you hit with a fist, or deploy a platoon;
Or how grandfather clocks would announce that it’s noon.

Who am I?

UPDATE: Riddle solved by Andrew. See comments for answer.

Ken Jennings says:

True confession: when celebrity deaths come in threes, as with Ingmar Bergman, Bill Walsh, and Tom Snyder yesterday, I like to imagine the deceased shooting each other in a three-way standoff, like at the end of Reservoir Dogs.

That’s funny. For me, when celebrity deaths come in threes, I like to make up jokes about the three of them arriving at the Pearly Gates at the same time.

Anybody want to take a crack at this one?