Gov. Jim Douglas vetoed a bill that would legalize same-sex marriage in Vermont. Mr. Douglas, a Republican, announced in March that he would veto the bill, which the Senate passed overwhelmingly and the House of Representatives approved 96 to 52. The House needs five more votes for a successful override.

The Senate passed OVERWHELMINGLY and the House approved 96 to 52.

Where does this guy get off? Has he become the “decider” know that W went home?

Apparently, the much-discussed National Council for a New America is going to focus not only on “rebranding” the Republican party, but on redefining the meaning of the word “friend.”

The good news is that this will mean you can call pretty much anyone a friend without all that messy stuff like standing by them through thick and thin or even, heck, preventing yourself from trash-talking them or chucking ‘em under a bus in the name of political expediency!

For example, conservative republican mouthpiece Joe Wurzelbacher — you know, that plumber who asked then-Senator Barack Obama one question and somehow managed to parlay that into a job as Fox News Channel’s go-to guy for “real person” commentary? — refuses to let several of his friends anywhere near his children. And former presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani blew off the wedding of two pals who were there when he needed them most.

What do these good pals of Wurzelbacher and Giuliani have in common? They also happen to be friends of Dorothy.

“I’ve had some friends that are actually homosexual,” proclaimed the plumber-turned-pitchman. “And, I mean, they know where I stand, and they know that I wouldn’t have them anywhere near my children.” Perhaps that explains why he said “I’ve had” as opposed to “I have.”

And despite the fact that Giuliani crashed with two of his gay buddies when his own marriage was on the rocks, the politician — whose vehement opposition to gay marriage would seem at odds with his own “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” approach to the institution — he was a “last-minute no-show” after being invited to their nuptials. “I danced at his wedding with Judith”, one of the grooms has been quoted as saying, “and it would have been nice if he’d danced at mine.”

We all know that friends don’t let friends drive drunk, but when did “friends don’t let friends love whom they choose to love” become an acceptable slogan?

I need to ask those of you who’ve been taking President Obama to task for shaking  hands with this leader or appearing to have bowed before that one a question. 

Um, I don’t wanna appear rude or anything but… are y’all morons?

 

 

 

Seriously, do you not understand the concept of civility? Or perhaps you’ve never heard of keeping your friends close, but your enemies closer? 

Or did the past eight years leave you so used to a president who rolled right over the rights of his citizens — let alone those of people in other countries — that you don’t know how to react to someone who takes the high road?

 

 

 

Is this a small penis thing? Like, you fear that we’re not as well hung as some of the other countries, so you need us to strut around with a metaphorical (if none-too-subtle) club? That may have been true when Bush was in the White House, but we’ve got a black guy in there now… so chillax. He may be walking softly, but you can tell he’s carrying a big stick. 

Oh, and I need to have a private word with you, Dick Cheney… could the rest of y’all just, like, avert your eyes for a sec? No need to embarrass the guy. 

Okay, listen, Dick. Knock it off. I know you’ve got your heart set on making Obama look weak if only so that you’ll look more powerful to all those V.P. groupies who are having trouble overlooking your increasingly-frail appearance and Darth Vader-esque breathing. But President Obama did you a major favor this week by basically giving you and your cronies a Get Outta Jail Free card where that whole torture thing was concerned, so maybe you should stop riding him so hard. I mean, what if he decides to show everybody just how weak he’s not by listening to the swelling voice of Americans who think he’s making a mistake in not investigating and potentially prosecuting your sorry butt. 

Capiche? 

The rest of y’all can come back now.

So here’s the thing: Obama hasn’t even been in office for 100 days yet, and y’all are ready to criticize every single thing he’s doing. How about we make a deal: If he starts a new war, illegally listens in on America’s private conversations or defies the Geneva Convention, then have at it. I won’t say a thing.

But until then, how about you cut him just a little bit of slack?

We did things your way for eight years. Now, let’s give someone else a turn with the talking stick, shall we?

 

Okay, look, somebody just has to come right out and say it: Bipartisan politics is as much an urban myth as alligators in the sewers, Albert Einstein’s guest appearance on Gunsmoke or the guy who smothered between the 77-DD breasts of a stripper at his bachelor party.

While it would be wonderful if we lived in a “Hey, kids, can’t we all just get along?” world, the fact is that our political system has become, for all intents and purposes, a never-ending game of one-upmanship in which the party in power basically tries to sucker-punch those in the minority as often as possible before the tables are turned and they wind up on the receiving end of the blows again.

Democrats disagree with practically everything Republicans say and/or stand for.

Republicans disagree with practically everything Democrats say and/or stand for.

And as much as many voters may love the idea of Ron Paul or Ralph Nader ascending to the highest seat in the land, the notion of a third-party candidate actually becoming president is about as realistic as Joan Rivers being named Playmate Of The Year.

Go ahead, take a minute to get that image out of your system.

How we got this far into our nation’s history without realizing that a political system based on mutually exclusive goals, mud-slinging and antagonism might not be the best idea in the world, I’m not sure. Then again, I’m not exactly a political scholar. 

But when you’ve got one party ready to pounce on every move made by the other — and vice versa — it’s safe to say it won’t be easy to get things done. And even when something miraculously does get achieved, there’s always someone there to make sure that their party gets the credit… and the other gets the blame.

For example, hours after President Obama said he would sign an “imperfect” spending bill to fund the federal government through September — adding that he hoped that future bills would be earmark- and pork-free — Senator John McCain made sure to offer up a not-so-helpful response. “The President’s rhetoric is impressive,” McCain said, only to quickly turn his statement into a backhanded compliment at best, “but his statement affirms we will continue to do business as usual in Washington regarding earmarks in appropriations legislation. The President could have resolved this issue in one statement — ‘No more unauthorized pork-barrel projects — and pledged to use his veto pen to stop them. This is an opportunity missed.”

On one hand, McCain is, of course, right. 

On the other, one can’t help but think, “Um, couldn’t former President Bush have uttered those same things during his eight years in office?”

D’oh!

But have no doubt: If the situation were reversed and a Republican president were making the exact same statement, McCain’s Democratic counterpart would have responded in the same manner. And that right there, my friends, is the problem.

What we’ve got is trouble. Right here in River City. Trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for Party Politics. The irony is that, as children, we are taught to share, to play well with others… and yet it would seem that in order to play the political game, those starry-eyed notions of a world in which tantrums and stubbornness are punished as opposed to rewarded have to be cast aside. Sure, our politicians shake hands with the public and kiss babies and don nice clothes while running for office, but the minute their goal is achieved, the gloves come off so that they can take part in the bare-knuckle streetfighting that is modern politics.

They say that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. But it would appear that unevenly-fractured power has a perhaps-not-unexpected effect: It encourages the worst aspects of human nature to come forth as the people with the most important jobs in the country are reduced to the equivalent of trash-talking, mud-slinging  Jerry Springer guests.

We, the people, deserve better. But until someone invents a better mousetrap, it would appear that we’re stuck with the rodent-infested system that we’ve got. And if we can’t expect civility from those who are, in a way, this country’s ultimate role models and trend setters, what hope is there for the rest of us?