Bush & Company

Regarding two current GOP presidential candidates, both notably self-contradictory, Mr. Romney is bent on being president, but Mr. Gingrich may deliberately sabotage his campaign, which already bears the seeds of its own destruction.

Newt's the mayor of Flipfloptown---
If he were king he'd wear a crown,
A yakker who has no objection
To speaking fact or pure invention.

With millions raised and millions spent,
Mitt aims to be the president
While that deceitful Newt instead
Is in it mainly for the bread.

Once GOP speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich said he and his third wife are a "frugal" couple, yet it's been discovered that they had a Tiffany bill, now paid, between $250,000 and $500,000 on what Newt explained was a "standard no-interest account." Coincidentally maybe, a former Gingrich staffer is currently employed by Tiffany.

"Callista and I have paid off our house, we have paid off our cars, we run four small businesses, we happen to be successful." He emphasized that they live within their budget, have no debts except the mortgage on a rental property in Wisconsin and "don't do elaborate things."

Perhaps to deflect attention from the frivolous impression cast by the Tiffany revelation, he sanctimoniously scolded the media for "gossip" replacing "serious policy."

Mr. Gingrich and his wife
Live a very frugal life;
They're a normal married pair,
Their expenses almost nil,

Just one house, the mortgage paid
And the cupboards nearly bare;
One might say they're almost poor;
Maybe they're on Medicaid. . .

So one has to wonder how
They could spare 500 thou.
What their Tiffany bill was for
That sly Newtster just won't tell.

On May 12, 2011, Sen. John McCain, well-known survivor of wartime enemy torture, stated that torture not only didn't lead to Osama bin Laden's downfall, but that it's immoral, illegal and ineffectual in collecting reliable intelligence.

He was criticized by former senator and current presidential hopeful Rick Santorum, who countered that McCain "doesn't understand how enhanced interrogation works."

Mr. Santorum, unlike his former colleague and fellow Republican, has likely himself never undergone waterboarding or any other form of torture.

What'll he be remembered for?
Not some legislative bill
Sagely sired on The Hill,
Nor for having matchless skill

With simile and metaphor
Debating on the Senate floor,
But his stance Vietnam vet
John McCain, who in that war,

Was a torture victim, yet
On that point the man's all wet!
He's never going to live it down,
Even in this shameless town.

Slick talking, often insinuating Newton Leroy Gingrich, who accuses President Obama of the very breaches he himself is guilty of, former politician, now pretend politician, has reached a new low in greed, hypocrisy and prevarication, even for a politico.

Mr. Gingrich, Newton, Newt,
Man! You really are a beaut!
Sort of elfin, kind of cute,
Known as notably astute,

Yet you'd bring so much disgrace
On that Kewpie baby face.
With lies your aim is to enflame,
Sanctimoniously laying blame

And it takes a lot of nerve
When your plan is not to serve.
For the stigma on your name,
Clearly, Newt, you have no shame,

Or the dough you're going to gain
For front groups and a fake campaign.
That's because you just don't care,
With millions raised and gobs to spare!

Is The Maverick really back?

Ex-maverick John McCain has somewhat redeemed himself by getting past his often mean-spirited digs at Democrats and President Obama and his distraction with political polls.
On Monday May 12, he relayed information straight from CIA director Leon Panetta that neither waterboarding nor any enhanced interrogation techniques led to the discovery of Osama bin Laden in a safe house in Pakistan, roundly repudiating the claims of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld who continue to attempt to protect the distorted legacies they've concocted for themselves.

He emphasized that the use of these methods---torture---is "prohibited by American laws and values" and "mistreatment of any prisoners endangers our own troops, who might someday be held captive."

He said that he mourns "what we lose when by official policy or official neglect we confuse or encourage those who fight this war for us to forget that best sense of ourselves."

He especially credited the president: "It took real courage to assume the many risks associated with putting boots on the ground..."

It would be heartening to have the maverick of old back for good.

Donald Trump is a person of little quality---vacuous, coarse and self-important, lacking in taste and judgment, who smugly represents himself as a regular fellow, but who, through sheer genius, made it big.

Although he patently believes otherwise, he also lacks self-respect. How else could he repeatedly and publicly propagate obvious lies? How else could he brag that he's "proud" and "honored" to have brought the Obama birthplace question, already proven resolved, into such prominence, which, with other nonissues, are what whining malcontents, smallminded and ignorant, voraciously respond to, demanding the simplistic and uninformed solutions proposed by Trump, Palin and Bachmann?

Such are his issues. These are his people. He knows who his audience is and he plays to it.

His Celebrity Apprentice ratings have dropped. His poll numbers as GOP favorite have plummeted. He's now implying that the most successful people are too good for political
office.

Mr. Trump, have you finally trumped yourself?

President Obama is a cautious risk-taker, a patient, reflective, methodical strategist and tactician, a modest man, a leader.

Refocusing attention on seizing Osama bin Laden after President Bush had ceased the chase, tiring of the failure to take him "dead or alive," President Obama concluded the dangerous and complex mission, many months in preparation, in the military town of Abbottabad, Pakistan, May 1, 2011.

When President Bush said in March 2002, "I don't spend that much time on it. . .I really am not that concerned about him" he sealed his fate for many as not being an effectual or focused decision-maker and when Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and General Tommy Franks refused to send additional troops to Afghanistan, even though Osama's approximate location had been established, they were later seen as stubbornly shortsighted.

Obama's choice of Navy Seals (Sea, Earth and Land commandos) and the Army Delta Force, using helicopters over bombs and planes to avert certain sacrifice of life and documentation, was risky, but right. Attempted retaliation by enraged radicals, foreign and domestic, must nonetheless be expected as an unintended consequence.

Some conservatives credit George W. Bush with laying the groundwork for the successful raid. They also claim that enhanced interrogation techniques were greatly responsible, but those methods tend, insist experts, to extract false information; many sources and many components led to Osama's whereabouts in a large safe house with high walls and a cache of computer hard drives, tapes and other invaluable data.

The belief that al Qaeda's founder, whose primary goal was to bankrupt the United States, is
not really dead is rampant among the few.

Rejoicing in a killing or an assassination is at the same time vaguely disturbing and unsatisfying, unsettling to one's moral sense and human sensibility.

That the demonic and misguided mastermind of 9/11 was barely roused from sleep and unarmed when fatally shot is a discussion that is being avoided here ( although such substantial public figures as Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore have expressed concerns) while abroad, widely criticized. One wonders why he wasn't instead captured and taken into custody. Though lacking in the same impact and immediacy, it would have led, via the proper channels, to his ultimate execution.

At last the wicked Laden's dead,
By Navy Seals shot in the head,
But there are those who have to pout
In envy mode while others shout

That he's not dead, it's just a sham---
A patently Obama scam---
Osama's really on the lam.
In order to dispel all doubt,

Though buried in the Arabian Sea,
It may be necessary he,
To prove he's dead forevermore,
Be washed up on the Jersey Shore.

On April 27, Israeli-turned-American dentist/lawyer/real estate broker Dr. Orly Taitz appeared on Lawrence O'Donnell's The Last Word loudly proclaiming that President Obama is "committing felonies." "Obama is a liar!" she shouted as the frustrated O'Donnell attempted fruitlessly to force an admission from her that the long form of the Obama birth certificate is genuine. Instead, she tried to discredit his selective service record.

Known as "Queen of the Birthers" and filing lawsuit after lawsuit, one wonders, what's in it for her?

Orly, why are you obsessed
With a virtually futile quest?
Unlike Mr. Donald Trump,
Claiming that he's on the stump,

Your rationale is still unclear.
Nonsense ringing in my ear,
Screeching that Barack's a fraud,
Based on theses wholly flawed,

His lawfulness put to the test,
Proven once, then proven twice,
Your protests pitiful at best;
Take some sensible advice:

Quit your persecution fest
And put this foolishness to rest.