My daughter turns 24 today. Kaitlin Elizabeth Dunnevant. I’ve always liked the way her name rolled off the tongue. Lots of letters and syllables coming together to make a pretty sound. On her birthday I will take a minute to make a partial list of the many things that come together to make her so wonderful.
* She is the lump in my throat every time I watch Father of the Bride.
* She is the unexpected catch in my voice whenever I brag about her at work.
* In a life of mistakes she is evidence that I got something right.
* She is the smile on my face every time I see a blonde curly-haired two year old in a yellow dress.
* She was the pit in my stomach whenever teenage boys with bad intentions came around, and they all had bad intentions.
* When her softball team lost a thrilling game in the bottom of the last inning she was the only one with tears coming down her cheeks. She may be the most competitive Dunnevant of them all. It’s a glorious thing.
* On the five minute drive to school in second grade I could always make her smile at least once no matter how miserable she was and no matter how hard she tried not to.
* I marvel at the level of discipline she has developed.
* She is the pride I feel when I see her curled up on the sofa reading yet another book. My gift to her.
* When I see her fierce loyalty to friends, her tender heart to the less fortunate, her love and devotion to all things family I realize how amazing my grandchildren will be to behold.
* She is the shame I feel still that I spent the first 24 hours of her life disappointed that she wasn’t a son.
So on this day, may my daughter with the crooked smile, the curly hair, the brilliant mind, stunning beauty and doting father have an awesome day. And tonight at Outback you can have something besides water!
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Saturday, May 7, 2011
The Tale Of Three Mothers
There are three mothers in my life. My biological Mother, my Mother-in-law, and my wife. On the eve of their big day, a few words.
Whenever someone accuses me of being opinionated and strong willed I blame my Mom. She is an amazing woman who shaped me in a thousand ways. My ability to think on my feet I got from her. My passion for travel from her. My curiosity about the world…her. My Mom also infused in me a love for the Bible. Verses dripped from her lips like an act of God, not in the phony forced way of many, but rather it was as if she had literally grafted God’s word to her heart and it flowed out contemporaneously and naturally in conversation. This was a woman who took her faith seriously and she had little patience with those who didn’t. It has been said that my Mother could argue with a fencepost but what is not said is that there exists no fencepost in the world that would stand a chance against her untrained logic. One of my earliest memories on this earth involves my Mom’s beautiful, rich virbrato alto singing “Tell Me the Old Old Story” while giving me a bath one summer night when the fire-flies were pulsing just outside. She had a way of calming me and wrapping me lovingly in her arms before putting me to bed that told me that I lived in the safest place on earth.
Mother-in-law jokes are a National tradition in this country. But for me none of them are ever funny. Although she had many reasons to worry when her daughter announced our intentions ( I didn’t exactly have a spotless resume) she never held back her support for me. In 27 years of marriage she has never once interfered in our lives..not one time. She has always been there for us when we needed her, as dependable as a best friend. She adores her grandkids and would run through a gauntlet for all of us. My marriage is as strong as it is in no small part because of her steadfast loving presence in our lives.
I married my wife for many reasons but primarily because she was so scorchingly hot. In this I was not unlike most other men on our planet. It’s only after the wedding that the luckiest of us discover what an amazing and undeserved windfall we have stumbled into. My wife turned out to be one of the finest human beings I have ever had the good fortune to know. Never was this more evident to me than on the two days that our children were born. I was just not prepared for her strength. I wasn’t ready for her toughness. In the years after I have stood off in the corner of rooms marveling at her amazing powers of organization, her blinding efficiency and the unfathomable depths of her mother’s love. In our house I’ve always had the easy job of making money and being Mr. Fun. I come sweeping in after dinner collapsing on the floor in a pile of tickling and giggles. I had the awesome job of giving them their baths and reading bedtime stories and kissing their sweet faces before the lights were switched off. But my wife had literally everything else. She was the one who made sure they got signed up on time for little league. She was the one who made sure that they turned in their homework, filled out their applications for church camp, got their shots, ended up with straight teeth and remembered to bring flowers on teacher appreciation day. My wife was the reason that our kids made it, the reason that they became the beautiful bright well-adjusted adults they are today. I just watched in baffled amazement and paid the bills. She has simply been the most valuable member of our family for the past 25 years and is the only thing that stands between me and oblivion. Mother’s Day is the day were credit is given where it is most assuredly due. I consider myself blessed that I have three women to praise.
Lucky me.
Whenever someone accuses me of being opinionated and strong willed I blame my Mom. She is an amazing woman who shaped me in a thousand ways. My ability to think on my feet I got from her. My passion for travel from her. My curiosity about the world…her. My Mom also infused in me a love for the Bible. Verses dripped from her lips like an act of God, not in the phony forced way of many, but rather it was as if she had literally grafted God’s word to her heart and it flowed out contemporaneously and naturally in conversation. This was a woman who took her faith seriously and she had little patience with those who didn’t. It has been said that my Mother could argue with a fencepost but what is not said is that there exists no fencepost in the world that would stand a chance against her untrained logic. One of my earliest memories on this earth involves my Mom’s beautiful, rich virbrato alto singing “Tell Me the Old Old Story” while giving me a bath one summer night when the fire-flies were pulsing just outside. She had a way of calming me and wrapping me lovingly in her arms before putting me to bed that told me that I lived in the safest place on earth.
Mother-in-law jokes are a National tradition in this country. But for me none of them are ever funny. Although she had many reasons to worry when her daughter announced our intentions ( I didn’t exactly have a spotless resume) she never held back her support for me. In 27 years of marriage she has never once interfered in our lives..not one time. She has always been there for us when we needed her, as dependable as a best friend. She adores her grandkids and would run through a gauntlet for all of us. My marriage is as strong as it is in no small part because of her steadfast loving presence in our lives.
I married my wife for many reasons but primarily because she was so scorchingly hot. In this I was not unlike most other men on our planet. It’s only after the wedding that the luckiest of us discover what an amazing and undeserved windfall we have stumbled into. My wife turned out to be one of the finest human beings I have ever had the good fortune to know. Never was this more evident to me than on the two days that our children were born. I was just not prepared for her strength. I wasn’t ready for her toughness. In the years after I have stood off in the corner of rooms marveling at her amazing powers of organization, her blinding efficiency and the unfathomable depths of her mother’s love. In our house I’ve always had the easy job of making money and being Mr. Fun. I come sweeping in after dinner collapsing on the floor in a pile of tickling and giggles. I had the awesome job of giving them their baths and reading bedtime stories and kissing their sweet faces before the lights were switched off. But my wife had literally everything else. She was the one who made sure they got signed up on time for little league. She was the one who made sure that they turned in their homework, filled out their applications for church camp, got their shots, ended up with straight teeth and remembered to bring flowers on teacher appreciation day. My wife was the reason that our kids made it, the reason that they became the beautiful bright well-adjusted adults they are today. I just watched in baffled amazement and paid the bills. She has simply been the most valuable member of our family for the past 25 years and is the only thing that stands between me and oblivion. Mother’s Day is the day were credit is given where it is most assuredly due. I consider myself blessed that I have three women to praise.
Lucky me.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Circle the Wagons
There’s a funny dynamic that occurs in a family. No matter how much you might fight with your brothers or sisters, no matter how many names you may call them in the midst of knock-down drag-out fights over time spent hogging the bathroom and whatnot something odd happens when someone from outside the family joins in. Its perfectly fine for me to call my sister a loud-mouthed blowhard but whoa be unto the poor soul from down the street who calls her a loud-mouthed blowhard. That’s my sister you’re talking about bud!! Something very similar happened to me this morning when I opened my online version of Der Spiegel.
I was treated to a charming interview with a German Political Scientist who was complaining about the “immature naiveté “ of the American celebrations at Times Square following the killing of Bin Laden. While its true that I have written on this very blog about my own ambivalence on this matter and my own son wrote quite poignantly of his own conflicts, there was something particularly galling about having to listen to this lecture from…a German. This professor went on and on about the unseemliness of American barbarism and our foolish and unnecessary provocation of the Muslim world. Really? A German feels the need to lecture us about barbarism? A German whose Grandfather was probably elbowing people out of the way 75 years ago so he could catch a glimpse of the Fuehrer. I don’t know that a citizen of a nation that plunged us all into World War twice in the last century is in any position to preach about barbarism. His nation gave us Adolph Hitler and the slaughter of 6 million jews. You want to talk about immature naiveté? Ok lets start with every segment of German society rolling over to accommodate the Nazi party in the 1930’s. I’m thinking that maybe there should be a 100 year gag rule on any country that invades all of its neighbors twice in 25 years prohibiting them from opening their pie-holds in criticism of any other country’s foreign policy. So to all German political scientists out there..um..shut up!
Then I moved on to Le Monde and heard all about the French being aghast at the jubilant displays of “American Triumphalism”. Ahh, the French. As irritating as the Germans can be, at least they give us spectacular beer and the finest cars in the world. From the French we just get haughty condescension and the croissant. I can just picture some Parisian sitting at a lovely café at noon beginning his 3 hour lunch break complaining about our triumphalism secure in the knowledge that thanks to Seal Team Six his chances of being blown to smithereens just dramatically declined. We Americans are constantly reminded of the superiority of French society with its bountiful safety net, fine food, and elegance. Wonderful. While our revolution produced the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and Thomas Jefferson, the French version 20 years later ushered in the Jacobin Reign of Terror that claimed the lives of upwards of 30000 Frenchmen, and introduced a new word into the world’s lexicon…the Guillotine. The supposedly superior French society has produced 57 Nobel Prize winners while we knuckle-dragging Americans have somehow managed to win 327. While our military has had to bail out the French twice in the recent past you would think our boys would get a bit more respect from our friends in Paris. Whenever I am confronted with French whining I think about that great Craig’s List add for the French Infantry rifle…”in mint condition, never been fired and only thrown to the ground twice!” Save me from pious hand wringing from a bunch of cheese eating surrender monkeys who folded at the first whiff of diesel fuel from Hitler’s tanks, then formed the traitorous Vichy government to complete their total humiliation. No wonder they are so offended by military success.
So on this day I circle the wagons. That’s my country you’re talking about bud!!
I was treated to a charming interview with a German Political Scientist who was complaining about the “immature naiveté “ of the American celebrations at Times Square following the killing of Bin Laden. While its true that I have written on this very blog about my own ambivalence on this matter and my own son wrote quite poignantly of his own conflicts, there was something particularly galling about having to listen to this lecture from…a German. This professor went on and on about the unseemliness of American barbarism and our foolish and unnecessary provocation of the Muslim world. Really? A German feels the need to lecture us about barbarism? A German whose Grandfather was probably elbowing people out of the way 75 years ago so he could catch a glimpse of the Fuehrer. I don’t know that a citizen of a nation that plunged us all into World War twice in the last century is in any position to preach about barbarism. His nation gave us Adolph Hitler and the slaughter of 6 million jews. You want to talk about immature naiveté? Ok lets start with every segment of German society rolling over to accommodate the Nazi party in the 1930’s. I’m thinking that maybe there should be a 100 year gag rule on any country that invades all of its neighbors twice in 25 years prohibiting them from opening their pie-holds in criticism of any other country’s foreign policy. So to all German political scientists out there..um..shut up!
Then I moved on to Le Monde and heard all about the French being aghast at the jubilant displays of “American Triumphalism”. Ahh, the French. As irritating as the Germans can be, at least they give us spectacular beer and the finest cars in the world. From the French we just get haughty condescension and the croissant. I can just picture some Parisian sitting at a lovely café at noon beginning his 3 hour lunch break complaining about our triumphalism secure in the knowledge that thanks to Seal Team Six his chances of being blown to smithereens just dramatically declined. We Americans are constantly reminded of the superiority of French society with its bountiful safety net, fine food, and elegance. Wonderful. While our revolution produced the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and Thomas Jefferson, the French version 20 years later ushered in the Jacobin Reign of Terror that claimed the lives of upwards of 30000 Frenchmen, and introduced a new word into the world’s lexicon…the Guillotine. The supposedly superior French society has produced 57 Nobel Prize winners while we knuckle-dragging Americans have somehow managed to win 327. While our military has had to bail out the French twice in the recent past you would think our boys would get a bit more respect from our friends in Paris. Whenever I am confronted with French whining I think about that great Craig’s List add for the French Infantry rifle…”in mint condition, never been fired and only thrown to the ground twice!” Save me from pious hand wringing from a bunch of cheese eating surrender monkeys who folded at the first whiff of diesel fuel from Hitler’s tanks, then formed the traitorous Vichy government to complete their total humiliation. No wonder they are so offended by military success.
So on this day I circle the wagons. That’s my country you’re talking about bud!!
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Smoke 'Em if You Got 'Em...please!!
I’ve never quite understood why young people are generally more politically liberal than older people. Sure, I know all about youthful naiveté and innocence and how every kid grows up wanting to change the world and all. But there seems to be a gigantic disconnect between the young appetite for activist government policy and the reality of actuarial tables. Let me try to explain.
If kids today knew just how screwed they are they would be marching on every nursing home in the United States with signs that read..”Die already!!!” …and “80 years is enough Gramps!!”. Why don’t kids realize how the baby-boomers like me are taking them to the cleaners and will be forever in the future? My two children will be taxed to the moon and back to pay for Mom and Dad’s sweet pension check from Uncle Sam. And the best part is, by the time they are old enough to collect, we’ll all be dead and their retirement age will have been raised to 85 so if they do live long enough to get any money from the government they will have to spend it all on Dentucream and adult undergarments! And it all started when the do-gooders of the American left set their high-minded sights on cigarettes. That’s right, cigarettes!
In 1950 we were a smoking nation. Watch any movie from the forties and fifties and if you can make out the actors through all the smoke you will see that they have cigarettes hanging from their lips. And they looked so good doing it! Back then fully 46% of the population smoked. Not surprisingly longevity in the fifties was around age 65 meaning we had a perfect system. People loved to smoke and cancer loved to shave 15 years or so off smokers’ life spans. Everyone got what they wanted! Now 60 years later, after banning cigarette commercials, adding graphic warnings to packages, passing thousands of laws banning smoking in public places, smoking is now indulged in by only 21% of the U.S. population and guess what?? We’re living a lot longer…A LOT longer. The average lifespan in the U.S. today is roughly 78 years which means that the average retiree gets about 12 more years of paychecks from the Treasury than he used to 60 years ago. And its not just smoking. Now the “Too-Much Fun Patrol” has turned their gaze on childhood obesity. By all means , lets encourage healthier eating habits among all those elementary school porkers out there so they too can live to be 100.
When Social Security was designed back in the thirties the government was secure in the knowledge that very few workers would EVER live long enough in retirement to actually cost them anything what with all the smoking and diarrhea and influenza killing people left and right. Now look at us. We’ve killed off Joe Camel. Michelle Obama is taking the Twinkees away from junior, and Pepto-Bismol sells over the counter for $4. Throw in seat belt laws, helmet laws, air-bags and the Clean Air Act and what you find yourself with is a nation of future ninety year old tech-saavy Grandmas tweeting their congressmen not to even THINK about cutting their Medicare.
So kids, keep voting that Progressive ticket, and ..we’ll leave the light on for ya!
If kids today knew just how screwed they are they would be marching on every nursing home in the United States with signs that read..”Die already!!!” …and “80 years is enough Gramps!!”. Why don’t kids realize how the baby-boomers like me are taking them to the cleaners and will be forever in the future? My two children will be taxed to the moon and back to pay for Mom and Dad’s sweet pension check from Uncle Sam. And the best part is, by the time they are old enough to collect, we’ll all be dead and their retirement age will have been raised to 85 so if they do live long enough to get any money from the government they will have to spend it all on Dentucream and adult undergarments! And it all started when the do-gooders of the American left set their high-minded sights on cigarettes. That’s right, cigarettes!
In 1950 we were a smoking nation. Watch any movie from the forties and fifties and if you can make out the actors through all the smoke you will see that they have cigarettes hanging from their lips. And they looked so good doing it! Back then fully 46% of the population smoked. Not surprisingly longevity in the fifties was around age 65 meaning we had a perfect system. People loved to smoke and cancer loved to shave 15 years or so off smokers’ life spans. Everyone got what they wanted! Now 60 years later, after banning cigarette commercials, adding graphic warnings to packages, passing thousands of laws banning smoking in public places, smoking is now indulged in by only 21% of the U.S. population and guess what?? We’re living a lot longer…A LOT longer. The average lifespan in the U.S. today is roughly 78 years which means that the average retiree gets about 12 more years of paychecks from the Treasury than he used to 60 years ago. And its not just smoking. Now the “Too-Much Fun Patrol” has turned their gaze on childhood obesity. By all means , lets encourage healthier eating habits among all those elementary school porkers out there so they too can live to be 100.
When Social Security was designed back in the thirties the government was secure in the knowledge that very few workers would EVER live long enough in retirement to actually cost them anything what with all the smoking and diarrhea and influenza killing people left and right. Now look at us. We’ve killed off Joe Camel. Michelle Obama is taking the Twinkees away from junior, and Pepto-Bismol sells over the counter for $4. Throw in seat belt laws, helmet laws, air-bags and the Clean Air Act and what you find yourself with is a nation of future ninety year old tech-saavy Grandmas tweeting their congressmen not to even THINK about cutting their Medicare.
So kids, keep voting that Progressive ticket, and ..we’ll leave the light on for ya!
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Bin Laden Sleeps With The Fishes
Osama Bin Laden is dead and we are dancing in the streets. He was a vile man who took great pleasure in the destruction of the west and the killing of thousands. I do not shed any tears for him. There is something in the heart of men and women everywhere that longs for justice especially when it is so long delayed. This longing helps explain the spontaneous celebrations. I will not here judge those who have felt the need to blow off patriotic steam by waving flags, singing songs and chanting “USA, USA”. But when hundreds of thousands gathered in Times Square in 1945 and that happy sailor planted that famous kiss on that happy nurse, they were celebrating the end of something terrible. They were joyous because the long bloody mess was over. No one sang the Star-Spangled Banner when Adolph Hitler killed himself. The day after Bin Laden sleeps with the fishes, nothing is over.
But there are questions. Does anyone find it troubling that the man who master mined 9/11 spent the last six years living across the street from a police station in a country that has received over 5 billion dollars in aid from the American tax payer? This is just the latest in a long series of infuriating entanglements that we have gotten ourselves into these past 10 years. Our vaunted terrorism-fighting ally Pakistan has looked the other way for six years all the while cashing our checks. We expend blood and treasure trying to build schools and hospitals in Afghanistan and Iraq, trying to force-feed democracy to people who hate our guts, and then have to listen to a chorus of critics in Europe and the United Nations. Osama Bin Laden is dead. Good. Now, get us the hell out of there.
I cannot leave this topic without praising the skill and tactical brilliance demonstrated by the Special Forces who carried it out. We are lucky that something in this country is still the best in the world. We are fortunate that at least some branch of government is still all about excellence. President Obama also deserves praise for having the guts to take the risk that this operation carried. If it had blown up in his face like the Iranian hostage rescue did for Carter he would be getting ripped apart today since defeat is an orphan and victory has a thousand fathers. But I will save my patriotic exhibitions for the day when those brave men and women finally come home from the endless misadventures of the Middle East.
But there are questions. Does anyone find it troubling that the man who master mined 9/11 spent the last six years living across the street from a police station in a country that has received over 5 billion dollars in aid from the American tax payer? This is just the latest in a long series of infuriating entanglements that we have gotten ourselves into these past 10 years. Our vaunted terrorism-fighting ally Pakistan has looked the other way for six years all the while cashing our checks. We expend blood and treasure trying to build schools and hospitals in Afghanistan and Iraq, trying to force-feed democracy to people who hate our guts, and then have to listen to a chorus of critics in Europe and the United Nations. Osama Bin Laden is dead. Good. Now, get us the hell out of there.
I cannot leave this topic without praising the skill and tactical brilliance demonstrated by the Special Forces who carried it out. We are lucky that something in this country is still the best in the world. We are fortunate that at least some branch of government is still all about excellence. President Obama also deserves praise for having the guts to take the risk that this operation carried. If it had blown up in his face like the Iranian hostage rescue did for Carter he would be getting ripped apart today since defeat is an orphan and victory has a thousand fathers. But I will save my patriotic exhibitions for the day when those brave men and women finally come home from the endless misadventures of the Middle East.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Goodnight Moon
What does it mean to be a father? It means lying on a beach at night on a lake in Maine staring at the July sky resplendent with a thousand stars and knowing that there aren’t enough stars in this universe to add up the love you have for your children. But those stars shine back at you stories of your failures. The times you didn’t pay attention. The time you couldn’t be bothered with story time because the world series was on. The time you actually pulled the jeep over to the side of Gaskins road at rush hour so you could give undivided attention to screaming at your screaming two year old girl who had hurt you by not wanting to leave the sitter. Your failures were epic and they haunt you forever.
The stars shine back your triumphs too. The valentine’s day breakfasts with your little girl. Twenty two years of them. That 11 hour drive through a snow storm so you could call her from the parking lot of her dorm on valentine’s morning to tell her how much you miss not being able to have breakfast with her for the first time since she was three. Then telling her that if she could get dressed real quick you might be able to work something out. For that day you made her a princess and for that day she knew that she was the most valuable daughter on campus. So, you had your moments.
“…Goodnight Moon. Goodnight light and the red balloon..”
I used to read that book to my children. They would crowd onto the couch in their long t-shirts smelling of soap and lotion as I would read about the cow jumping over the room. I think of that book now because there is also a moon in the sky this night in Maine. Its where my children live now. It’s a whole other place from where I live. There is a vast chasm between them and me because they have grown up. Their orbits are different from mine now. They have gone onward and upward as it should be. And I am still here on the ground staring at the sky. And tonight my son strides onto a stage in a packed hall for an hour of music that thrills and captivates. Before the last song he speaks into a microphone about how any success he has had is a result of gifts given to him by God . How could he not offer them back to him? Then he and his friends perform an original arrangement of “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing”. All of the parents in the crowd begin to weep. All of them. I take it all in astonished at what he has become and thankful that I lived to see it. That’s what it means to be a father.
Goodnight Moon.
The stars shine back your triumphs too. The valentine’s day breakfasts with your little girl. Twenty two years of them. That 11 hour drive through a snow storm so you could call her from the parking lot of her dorm on valentine’s morning to tell her how much you miss not being able to have breakfast with her for the first time since she was three. Then telling her that if she could get dressed real quick you might be able to work something out. For that day you made her a princess and for that day she knew that she was the most valuable daughter on campus. So, you had your moments.
“…Goodnight Moon. Goodnight light and the red balloon..”
I used to read that book to my children. They would crowd onto the couch in their long t-shirts smelling of soap and lotion as I would read about the cow jumping over the room. I think of that book now because there is also a moon in the sky this night in Maine. Its where my children live now. It’s a whole other place from where I live. There is a vast chasm between them and me because they have grown up. Their orbits are different from mine now. They have gone onward and upward as it should be. And I am still here on the ground staring at the sky. And tonight my son strides onto a stage in a packed hall for an hour of music that thrills and captivates. Before the last song he speaks into a microphone about how any success he has had is a result of gifts given to him by God . How could he not offer them back to him? Then he and his friends perform an original arrangement of “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing”. All of the parents in the crowd begin to weep. All of them. I take it all in astonished at what he has become and thankful that I lived to see it. That’s what it means to be a father.
Goodnight Moon.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Hanging By A Thread
My patience with and tolerance of the Republican party is being severely tested at the moment. In fact, its hanging by a thread. At a time when our financial viability as a nation itself is being threatened, at a time when we face terribly complex problems that involve vexing geo-political issues, the three names that dominate the presidential field for 2012 from the GOP are Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, and Donald Trump. Seriously.
Newt Gingrich, that petulant windbag from…uh..from…you know he’s been in Washington so long I’ve totally forgotten his home state. You remember Newt. The former Speaker of the House who shut down the government back in 1995 because he was pissed that Clinton made him sit in the back of air force one. The congressman who famously informed his ex-wife that he wanted a divorce while she was in a hospital room recovering from cancer surgery…THAT Newt Gingrich.
Sarah Palin, that sweet pretty woman with 16 kids who shoots caribou when not giving fiery speeches using words like “mama bear” and “lip-stick on a pig”. She’s the kind of woman who would make an awesome PTA president and there isn’t a woman alive who I would trust more as a car-pool driver for my kids. Honestly, she’s adorable. But I’m sorry, with her I get the feeling that she hasn’t read a real book probably since the Mark of the Lion series, and I’m being generously hopeful on that score. There is such a thing as gravitas after all. The Presidency requires and we should demand intellectual vigor, not simply the faculty lounge egg headedness variety of the current occupant, but rather the kind that comes from a lifetime of inquiry. Should a prospective president be expected to have thought out the implications of unrestrained federalism, or be able to demonstrate a competent understanding of the laws of supply and demand? You “betcha”. Being really good at Facebook isn’t exactly what I’m looking for at this point in history.
Donald freaking Trump. Yes, by all means, lets elect the star of a reality show and prove to the world once and for all that we are finished as a nation. Yes, at a time when the United States is teetering on the brink of insolvency, lets elect as president a man who has personally gone bankrupt not once but TWICE. Can you imagine what the Oval Office will look like after his interior decorators get finished with it? Where in the world will the tanning bed go, in the Lincoln bedroom? That poor presidential portrait painter is going to have a helluva time finding a true match for that hair color. “LIVE from the Oval Office….its Presidential Apprentice!!!” You’re fired.
Yep, hanging by a thread.
Newt Gingrich, that petulant windbag from…uh..from…you know he’s been in Washington so long I’ve totally forgotten his home state. You remember Newt. The former Speaker of the House who shut down the government back in 1995 because he was pissed that Clinton made him sit in the back of air force one. The congressman who famously informed his ex-wife that he wanted a divorce while she was in a hospital room recovering from cancer surgery…THAT Newt Gingrich.
Sarah Palin, that sweet pretty woman with 16 kids who shoots caribou when not giving fiery speeches using words like “mama bear” and “lip-stick on a pig”. She’s the kind of woman who would make an awesome PTA president and there isn’t a woman alive who I would trust more as a car-pool driver for my kids. Honestly, she’s adorable. But I’m sorry, with her I get the feeling that she hasn’t read a real book probably since the Mark of the Lion series, and I’m being generously hopeful on that score. There is such a thing as gravitas after all. The Presidency requires and we should demand intellectual vigor, not simply the faculty lounge egg headedness variety of the current occupant, but rather the kind that comes from a lifetime of inquiry. Should a prospective president be expected to have thought out the implications of unrestrained federalism, or be able to demonstrate a competent understanding of the laws of supply and demand? You “betcha”. Being really good at Facebook isn’t exactly what I’m looking for at this point in history.
Donald freaking Trump. Yes, by all means, lets elect the star of a reality show and prove to the world once and for all that we are finished as a nation. Yes, at a time when the United States is teetering on the brink of insolvency, lets elect as president a man who has personally gone bankrupt not once but TWICE. Can you imagine what the Oval Office will look like after his interior decorators get finished with it? Where in the world will the tanning bed go, in the Lincoln bedroom? That poor presidential portrait painter is going to have a helluva time finding a true match for that hair color. “LIVE from the Oval Office….its Presidential Apprentice!!!” You’re fired.
Yep, hanging by a thread.
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