Get off my lawn, too
Reading somewhat dumbfoundedly the meandering and retarded but mercifully brief something or other, evidently scrawled in crayon on the nursing home wallpaper by my own former Senator, Bob Packwood of Oregon, that the ever-forgiving New York Times saw fit to publish today, I kinda felt sorry for the old heel. How the mighty senator, a pro-choice, pro-Israel, pro-environment and pro-women’s rights Republican who also had, in his ample spare time aggressively felt up every female within seventy miles of Washington (few appreciated this sort of attention..) was today reduced to babbling fear-mongering Lars Larson gibberish, probably without a broad in sight. So he looks abroad, and lo and behold, he sees a sea of commies, which we’re naturally about to become. It’s a regular Red Menace out there. Huh? Again, my disappointment is complete; a man who made his career as an iconoclast except in the sexual area, has turned into a clearly depleted teabagger who, frankly, has become a stranger to both the real world and the English language, and it’s embarrassing for everyone involved.
Using the blatantly false statistics of 2010, when Bush related disasters entered the regular books, to some imaginary past idyll similarly cherry-picked and misleading, Packwood begins declaring that we were sliding down that commie hill past Britain in the foothills and heading for some commie sinkhole where those “Nordic” whatchamacallits live. Those towheaded hippies spend, like half the dang budget on useless trinkets like education and healthcare when everybody knows that money is supposed to help his friends keep him off commercial flights and away from the depredations of the “Death Tax,” surely considerable for ol’ Bob after so many years of successful influence peddling both in and out of government. He repeatedly, in an already very repetitive rant, refers to people earning over $250,000 as the “so-called-rich.” Packwood’s not shy about pointing out that his cleaning lady makes that much, and good for him. I just think that it would be putting it mildly to say that what he wrote is unpersuasive.
When Packwood’s utterly cynical and self-serving career began, the tax structure was far more progressive than anything proposed by the Obama Administration, and this bothered him not at all. After all, his fawning support of militarism, both American and Israeli, was always expensive, and taxes were actually levied for spending in those days. Knowing where his bread was buttered as well as he knew where the slow elevators with hot women in them were, Packwood could afford a liberal “conviction” or two to slice up the electorate in a state dominated by liberal Republicans. When Packwood’s career flamed out in a blaze of increasingly disgusting accusations from dozens of women he’d harasssed, exposed by the Washington Post after our own Oregonian had looked the other way for a few decades, it was obvious he had flaws, but being a Dittohead was not among them.
That’s no longer the case, and if that piece of poorly written and deliberately deceptive nonsense is Senator Packwood’s idea of elder statesmanship, he’d do well to let us all forget him.
There’s just a teensy bit of cognitive dissonance in this phrase for me…
the mighty senator, a pro-choice, pro-Israel, pro-environment and pro-women’s rights Republican who also had, in his ample spare time aggressively felt up every female within seventy miles of Washington (few appreciated this sort of attention..)
…that I cannot attribute to your hagship’s reasoning, but only to the former senator’s misogyny.
Or perhaps I am “too nice” on these matters (…paraphrasing Jane Austen’s Mr. Woodhouse)?
What a comedy of errors that previous Packwood episode was! I guess he decided it was time for a new (to him) platform. One that was previously GOP-tested.
;~)
Oh, I totally dismiss these “principles” as adopted merely to get laid. I met Packwood when I was in college, when he was but a verdant 65 or so, and he looked like Don Knotts, but he nonetheless knew every girl in the room full of poli-sci majors, but I still thought he was smart and well-prepared for his Q & A. Hurl Check material when the news came out, though. Not a guy you’d want pawing you, to say the least.
Well, we encouraged everybody to recycle, didn’t we? Is it their fault that they misunderstood what we meant by trash?
The good news is that we don’t ever have to worry about running out of warmongers, torturers, mercenaries, Christian Phalangists, Jewish Phalangists, morons, thieves, and scumbags of both AC and DC persuasions.
The bad news is…uh…er…the bad news.
Can’t we liberals ever stop playing the blame game, and just look forward like everybody else?
Nope. Sorry, William… ;~)
From Packwood’s screed:
“If we spent like the Nordic countries, we could provide government-paid maternity leave, subsidize college tuition and offer a health plan that was close to free for all Americans. But this would leave significantly less money for taxpayers to spend as they want.”
Uhhh. This makes no sense if you consider the fact that maternity leave beyond 6 weeks is typically UNPAID, that college tuition at state schools is approaching $20 grand PER YEAR, that health insurance for a healthy family of 3 is $600 a month for something even halfway decent, where is this extra money the middle class is supposed to have to spend as they please? If we had that kind of money, we wouldn’t be in hock up to our eyeballs.
And more nonsense:
“The billions of dollars a year raised by the higher rate won’t begin to cover the trillion or so a year in increased government spending.”
Never mind the billions LOST by cutting taxes to the highest wage earners left a deficit in the trillions spent on the two wars (and attendant profiteering, fraud, larceny, etc.) implemented by Bush.
Oh, crimeny, I need a drink.
Don’t forget how Packwood ousted Wayne Morse in ’68.
Pushing the moronic idea that Morse’s opposition to the war was opposition to the troops.
Cause if you really really love those troops . . .
. . . you’ll send them in harm’s way.
Pushing moronic ideas can win elections, even in Oregon.
Packwood was totally insincere about all that, but NOT about everything.
There were some political issues that Packwood really did sincerely care about. According to the New York Times, Packwood literally cried tears of relief and joy when the Tax Reform Act of 1986 was finally approved in the Senate Finance Committee – - lowering the rate for the top bracket from 50% to 28% (later raised back upwards a little by Bush-41 when it turned out that Laffer was wrong).
Packwood’s not shy about pointing out that his cleaning lady makes that much
No way. The lady who owns the cleaning company, maybe. The employees who do the work, no. I ain’t buying it.
If you can make a quarter million a year cleaning houses, I’m through with IT – I want some real dough. Hand me that toilet brush and show me where you keep the vacuum cleaner. Where’s my apron?
I was speaking metaphorically. What I meant was that the concept of anyone earning so little had never occurred to him. (and perhaps that his cleaning lady came from sexyfrenchmaids.com and therefore pulled in a little more dough per job.
Sweet blog. I never know what I am going to come across next. I think you should do more posting as you have some pretty intelligent stuff to say.
I’ll be watching you .
Thank you. Please do.