Circling the Wagoner

Under terms of the government’s bailout of the auto industry, General Motors and Chrysler were asked to submit their restructuring plans to administration officials for approval. Based on these plans, the Obama administration would determine if the companies are viable as ‘going concerns’ before offering additional government funds. GM’s CEO Rick Wagoner submitted his company’s plans on Friday.

The following is a transcript we obtained of a conversation between Wagoner and President Obama:

Obama: So let’s take a look at this plan.

Wagoner: I like your haircut.

Obama: The plan. I need to see the plan.

Wagoner: Here’s the plan.

Obama: Dude, this is just a napkin. And it has a piece of chicken on it.

Wagoner: I’ll need the chicken back.

Obama: Stop humping my leg.

I call you to... do nothing

We’ve been hearing a lot of political commentary about how Barack Obama should ask all of us to help move the country forward, to call us to service, to tell us to do something. But what? Is there anything anybody can do to prevent us from slipping off the cliff into near certain disaster? And besides, most of us are almost complete idiots. What do we have to contribute? Doesn’t he know he’ll be talking to a country that elected George W. Bush twice? He should really be asking most of the country to take a seat and shut the eff up for the next four years.

In the previous two presidential elections -– the only two in which I exercised my electoral right -- I voted both times for Ralph Nader precisely because I wanted to throw my vote away (and I kinda liked the old coot) and because I had nothing else to contribute. This time I voted for Barack Obama twice, if you include the primary, and I had to go through the trouble of changing my voter registration from the Independent Whacko Party to Democrat in order to do it. It took well over an hour and a half. I consider that to be a seismic effort on my part. I’m not going to do anything else because that was exhausting and once again, I have nothing more to contribute.

I’m confident enough to know that I’m not a complete idiot but I really can’t make that assertion about the vast majority of people out there, including whoever might be reading this blog. So really, almost none of you should be helping, almost none of you should serve. I know everybody likes to think of JFK -– ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country, etc. –- but really, most people ask stupid questions, so most people should just ask not anything.

I’m sure Obama will say something similar to ‘ask not, etc.’ in his inaugural address and he’ll inspire us to hope and do something or other, but please realize that it’s just a speech. Just rhetoric. As a great man once said, ‘That's just what we call pillow talk, baby.’ You voted. Good job. Now shut the eff up.

Is Obama really in charge?

When I think of Leon Panetta, I don't think Change, and I certainly don't think Spy. I think Clinton. I think Clinton and I think of all the Clintonistas surrounding Obama before he even takes office. Then I wonder who really selected Panetta as CIA Director. Frankly, the name Panetta makes me hungry for lunch. I'd like a Panetta with olives and oregano, maybe some sun-dried tomatoes. I think I'll order lunch early today.

I Permit You to Hope

Okay, let’s just face it. 2009 hasn’t started off very well. We’ve got layoffs and bombings and earthquakes and shootings and fires, inept Presidents that won’t go away, a cavernous echo-chamber where the national coffers used to be, and a serious shit sandwich in the Middle East. The economy continues to crumble, and you can pretty much set your watch to breaking political scandals. You might be a little discouraged by all this. You might be thinking, ‘We had a good run, America,’ before you go fortify your house with sandbags and barbed wire and shoot any poor bastard who breaches the perimeter.

But there is a glimmer of hope that all this can be turned around, and that glimmer came toward the end of 2008.

No, not the election of Barack Obama.

That hope came from none other than David Hasselhoff. My whole life, I have held the belief that no person can recover from a drunken inability to eat a hamburger properly and the public humiliation that follows. A taco, sure. Who hasn’t screwed up eating tacos? But a hamburger? Never. Call me old-fashioned, but that’s what I always believed. Until now. David Hasselhoff, beloved of the German people, former star of Baywatch, made just such a recovery before the end of 2008 when he sang the national anthem at a college football bowl game in Las Vegas. And hence, our cause for hope. If that hairy-chested beast can recover his public persona and be half the man the Germans think he is, then we have hope too.

Just think of 2008 as this:


This could be 2009:

Do we all feel better now? So come out of your fallout shelters and remove the ammo from your Kalashnikovs, take that gas pipe out of your mouth and tell your neighbor to step back from the ledge –- because maybe things won't be so bad.

Or maybe they will be. Maybe the Las Vegas Bowl just couldn't get anybody else. I hadn't thought of that.

Inevitable Disappointment

We finally got one of our guys on the football team. A member of the marching band has been selected as the starting quarterback. And now we realize he doesn't want to be one of us anymore. We find out he may never have been one of us to begin with.

Yeah, I'm talking about President-Elect Barack Obama and his abysmal choice for the invocation at his inauguration, Mister Rick Warren, a guy whose purpose-driven life has led him to an awful lot of cheeseburgers by the looks of it. [Look at him here, trying to eat Obama]

And then there are the cabinet appointments: middle-of-the-road or conservative.

But we already knew he wasn't one of us. Let's face it. If he were one of us, he'd be a scrawny, bespectacled kid, not QB-caliber at all, a 38-year old freshman physics major dating his lab partner. We all knew it. We had that fear. The fear that the Left can't ever win. Our player doesn't even have an arm, and he doesn't play with a real ball. He's allergic to the grass, so he can't even make it to the try-outs. Oh well, I'm gonna have fun being disappointed over the next four years.