American Patrol

Following a unanimous verdict from the Minnesota Supreme Court and a long delayed concession from former Senator Norman "Bates" Coleman(R), former SNL producer and Air America radio personality Al "I'm Serious" Franken will be Minnesota's junior United States Senator. State Governor Tim Pawlenty(R), who had been abetting his party's efforts to block the seating of another vote in the Democrat's Senate majority by refusing to certify the election results after the initial recount and first state court case, indicated he would be signing Franken's certification sometime today. Franken, in a speech outside his Minneapolis home after the Supreme Court decision was announced, indicated he would be going to Washington, where a fully staffed office awaits him, sometime next week.

Coleman, whose concession contradicts earlier statements about taking the case as far as the US Supreme Court if necessary, indicated in his statement this afternoon that he was conceding in part to avoid "damaging the unity of our state..."-- the same unity he appealed to when he urged Franken to concede, in clear contradiction of Minnesota state law's requirement of a recount, back in November. Since that time, Coleman has managed to unite a majority of Minnesotans against his politically opportunistic legal battle to save his Senate seat by any means necessary. Speculation was rife about Coleman's political future, if any-- his approval ratings as Senator were consistently mediocre, and his legal contesting of the '08 Senate race in the face of polls suggesting that nearly two thirds of Minnesotans thought he should concede defeat have not improved his popularity. Coleman is rumored to be considering a run for Governor in 2010-- Pawlenty is retiring and possibly preparing a Presidential run-- but may find that bed pretty thoroughly shat in by its current occupant, who is preparing to unilaterally slash the state budget after vetoing a tax increase earlier this year.

As for Franken, the joy that Minnesota Democrats must be feeling over finally getting him seated should be more than a little tempered by the fact that it is occurring nearly eight months after Election Day. The blame for Franken's failure to decisively defeat a relatively unpopular Republican Senator in a state that went for Barack Obama by 11 points should be laid firmly where it belongs-- on the fact that Franken was a lousy candidate, a vague and uninspiring speaker (not aided in the least by his tendency to denote seriousness by means of a vocal mannerism that made it sound like he was trying to suppress a large belch) with a background full of ripe "gotcha" material, more of which is likely to surface between now and his probable re-election run.

For the moment, though, congratulations to him, and a sigh of relief that this is finally over, meets a somewhat wary "stay tuned..."

As badly as things had been going for the Powers That Be in the weeks before last Wednesday, it is all too possible to imagine a conference call taking place on the subject "Who can we take out that will reboot the news cycle for the next few days?" Michael Jackson was the clear choice-- once wildly popular, always wildly controversial, visibly unhealthy, and with a family and entourage loaded to the very brim with telegenic lunatics who could be counted on to spew forth into every camera that got within a few hundred yards.

Intentional or not, Jackson's death managed to dominate news coverage from the time his sudden illness was announced clear through the weekend, and is still receiving extensive coverage this morning. What news has been displaced in that time period is something we may learn when it festers into full blown tragedy or scandal, if we learn it at all. Why this kind of tabloid crap rates wall to wall coverage by all major cable news sources for days is a question we can contemplate at leisure in the meantime.

In some ways, we can count ourselves as lucky-- their second choice was a plane load of tourists.

I actually felt sorry for Mark Sanford for about forty five seconds last night. Sorry for myself too, most likely, but we’ll get to that.

I had followed the astonishing shit fountain that was the Sanford story in text only format off and on for most of the day, and was aware of how cosmically fucked he had been by the day’s events. “Take him off the grill, he’s done,” said my office mate Zed, a polite young man who would never consider sticking a fork in anyone’s ass, even before the AP wires concerning the Governor’s gawkily erotic e-mails and his possible use of state funds on trips to Argentina had posted. Still, I had not seen the actual news conference that kicked off one of the weirdest days in recent political history until late last evening, and was surprised to find myself somewhat moved by the beginning of Sanford’s apologies. Listening to Sanford apologize to his spouse and sons for letting them down, I, and I daresay many other members of the divorced with kids community—and we are legion—experienced a sudden rush of shit to the heart. Everything that I had learned about Sanford over the course of the day fell away at that moment, and I found myself in empathy with the man, his family broken, his future bleak and unimaginable, delivering an apology that would never ever be enough to make up for his actions.

The Governor followed up by apologizing to his staff, and to all South Carolinians singly and collectively. He then began to apologize to what soon seemed like a comprehensive list of all those South Carolinians by name. This soon became mind numbing enough to kick my critical facilities back into alignment, at which point I re-tumbled to the accumulated facts. Sanford had let his wife down by fucking another woman. He had let his sons down by setting off several large bombshells in what had previously been their stable and nurturing home by fucking a woman other than their mom. He had further let his family down by forcing them to lie for months to cover up the fact that he was fucking another woman, and by likely repeating that action on Fathers’ Day. He let his staff down by making them lie about his whereabouts to cover up the fact that he was out of the country fucking a woman other than his wife, and by leaving them holding a rather large bag indeed for five days with no means of contacting him. He had let down all South Carolinians, singly and collectively, by disappearing for days on end, completely abdicating his responsibilities as their governor in what may yet prove to be an impeachable manner, so that he could fuck a woman other than his wife, in a foreign county, quite possibly at their expense.

“Fuck that,” I thought, “he’s a much bigger asshole than I ever was.”

Until last week, Sanford’s career hadn’t been an appreciably larger collection of clinkers than that of any of his rivals for the tattered mantel of the Conservative Republicans, and had in fact been going well to the degree that one could consider that mantel to be a prize worth fighting for. Though I am sure that the cell phone and e-mail traffic between the Governor and any one of a number of crisis management PR teams is fast and furious at the moment, any possible comeback—I imagine an attempt at exploiting the “contrite sinner” image for maximum Evangelical appeal, along with a lot of fingers pointing in Bill Clinton’s direction—is dependent on whether or not Sanford’s deeds lead to impeachment, indictment, or both, possibilities that seem ever more likely as the story progresses. Even if he isn’t, anyone supporting him out of anything other than a fervent belief in God’s forgiveness through our risen Lord Jesus Christ has to find some way of getting around the stone cold documented fact that Sanford has spent those moments of the last year not occupied in acting like a damn fool pursuing a career as a lying pimp.

In any other party in any other year, I would rate Sanford’s chances of a comeback at zero. For the Republicans circa 2009, suffice it to say that I don’t want to contemplate living in a world where such a thing can take place until I absolutely have to. Until then, somebody pass me a fork.

"...summer..."
-- Brian Wilson, William Shakespeare, Nat "King"Cole, Frank Sinatra, Jonathan Richman, et al

Ah, Minneapolis-- Torture Chamber of the Four Seasons...

Spring ended, officially, with the solstice on Sunday, and like many springs in these parts basically acted like Winter's punk kid brother, arriving late and treating us to temperatures that had us raiding the closets for blankets and jackets we'd stored after a couple of nice days early on. (Those who think of evenings in the 40s as "good sleeping weather" are advised that taking to one's bed is a common thing for chronically depressed people). While it didn't rain much-- actually, not at all for most of May-- it poured during those weekends after Labor Day that the meteorological Pollyannas hereabouts mistake for "early summer," canceling many a planned graduation party, outdoor wedding, and general purpose cookout and leaving the would-be hosts stuck indoors with crushed dreams, bad attitudes and cellars full of beer and hard liquor. The ones who also had firearms were a particular worry.

That's all over now, of course, and we have been dumped as usual from a disappointing Spring into the worst, nastiest, stickiest summer weather possible. "It's not the heat, it's the humidAAARRRRRGH!" said the old man at the bus stop this morning as my book bag, containing two heavy hardcover books and a thermos of curry, made contact with his crotch at a fair rate of acceleration. As miserable as it can be living through the weather here, listening to the locals talk about it is a special hell all its own. Each lousy climatological feature seems to inspire its own tiresome utterance, from brief one liners about winter keeping the riff-raff out to long Keilloresque sermonettes about the adversity making us stronger people and better Christians.

For summer, besides my poor elderly transit mate's comment, the statement usually made is "enjoy it while you can." And right on. It is summer's special irony that it starts on the longest day of the year and begins the long slow march to the shortest, those dismal days of bitter cold and pitch black late afternoons. In a climate that can conceivably feature frozen precipitation from October through May, it can be a keen irony indeed, with every day spent forcibly huddled by the air conditioner taking us closer to the days we'll spend forcibly huddled by the fire or furnace. Enjoy it if you can is more like it.

Lord knows I'll try. It's gin season. That should help a bit.

A KEEN GRASP OF THE OBVIOUS AWARD goes to CIA Director Leon Panetta for his recently released comments to the New Yorker on former Veep Dick Cheney's criticism of the Obama administration's national security policies. “I think he smells some blood in the water on the national-security issue. It’s almost, a little bit, gallows politics. When you read behind it, it’s almost as if he’s wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point. I think that’s dangerous politics.”

How such a collection of careful, conditional statements, especially so long after the fact, could provoke a response other than "well, duh," much less foment a full blown media controversy, raises some interesting issues. Panetta's comments merely echo much of the analysis of the statements made by Cheney during the May 22nd Cheney/Obama "dueling speeches," and seem, like that analysis, to proceed rationally from the premises Cheney offered-- the only logical proof of Cheney's argument that Obama's policies are endangering the country would be an actual attack on the country.

That merely calling a spade a garden tool would qualify Secretary Panetta for a KGO says something about the changing nature of both the obvious and the way it is grasped in the Obama era. While KGOs during the "Clinton Sandwich on Bush" era (George HW/ Bill/ George W)were largely given to a political or media figure making a statement that was fatuous, pompous, or both, Panetta has earned his simply by stating, in fairly plain terms, what were already commonplace observations in the national dialogue. That such a display of candor by a member of a presidential administration that supposedly stands for transparency and accountability should be rare enough to be noticed, much less awarded, should give one pause.

The media's continued misapprehension that presenting "two sides of every story" without evaluating the truth of each side's case(much less considering that a story may have three, four, or one hundred seventeen sides)constitutes "objective journalism" certainly plays its part in this. An even greater role though is played by the President's attachment to "bipartisanship"-- always a popular buzz word with the focus groups, "bipartisanship" has, like everything else in politics circa 2009, gone from its Republican meaning (agreeing to everything the Administration says without question) to its Democratic counterpart (diluting the actual expressed will of the majority of the American people to avoid upsetting the minority unduly)without ever serving the causes of honesty or pragmatism. Administration compromises, on just about every foreign and domestic issue one can name, litter the ground, while statements that rile the extremist minority become subject of media feuds and calls for retraction and apology.

If the President, his party, and his administration think that they can resolve any of the current crises faced by this country without upsetting some people, they are sadly mistaken. Statements such as Panetta's need to become the norm, not the exception. Obviously.