Fun With Dick & Jane

WE started the day reflecting on the Drudge Headline:

CAN HIS PRESIDENCY BE SAVED?

It has really been an amazing, spectacular and steep steep fall for this president.

And as evidence of the fall we went on to discuss the CBO projected 10 year debt of $9 Trillion dollars – ($2T more than the administration projected.) The servicing costs of this debt are staggering – not to mention that we are still spending $5m a minute. We talked about Ben Bernake being retained by the administration as Fed Chairman, which appears to be an endorsement of the Bush economic policy.

Next we talked a bit about the fact that 43% of all appointments by the WH have not yet been made including whoever should be monitoring Medicare and Medicaid, hallmarks of the President’s government health care plan. More disturbing is the 50 Czars that have been appointed in a sort of shadow government, unaccountable to no one but the President. What is really going on here?

WE talked about Michael Steele’s proposed Seniors Bill of Rights. Dick complained about the costs of his prescriptions. I suggested that since Big Pharma is sponsoring the President’s ad campaign, he was unlikely to see any relief soon.

WE talked about the release of the memos that vindicated Dick Cheney’s position that EIT’s prevented thousands of the deaths in the war on terror.

WE went on to talk about David Axelrod and Tom Daschle’s obvious conflicts of interest.

There is more, including a bit of a battle at the end, when Dick suggested his opinion trumped the actual facts when it came to Karl Rove, a point I shot down with vigor.

Enjoy.

Greetings, FWDAJ Fans. I’m Roger, Jane’s long-time friend and occasional political opposite. I promised her months ago that I would try to crank out a (relatively) brief, podcastic response to FWDAJ, and after much procrastination, I’ve finally followed through. Don’t know yet if there are more to come… we’ll see.

Needless to say, it’ll be a bit different than what you’re used to hearing here. Hope it isn’t an overwhelming shock to the system.

Another slugfest in the first half hour of FWDAJ today. I think Dick is sick of the health care debate. He insisted that there was no reason to pay attention because we don’t yet have a bill. I vehemently disagreed noting the importance of letting our reps know how we feel about Government health care. Dick was also gleeful that a Tea Party organizer was on TV saying they were sending out the word to Tea partyers to show up at these meetings. As far as I am concerned we need more “organizing” not less. Heck, our own president tells his supporters to “get in their faces”. What works for the goose…

We anticipated the Barney Frank Townhall in Dartmouth on Tuesday night. Neither of us even imagined that Frank would say things like: “Talking to you is like talking to a dining room table”.

We talked a bit about the left’s Alinsky methods. “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize it.” Recent recipients (via Breitbart) of the Alinsky method include: George Bush, Sarah Palin, Joe the Plumber, The Mormons, Rush Limbaugh, Tea party goers, a beauty contestant, a Cambridge cop, and Town hall “mobs”.

Dick veered into his usual rant about how much he hates Rush.

The Joker poster, Milk carton politicans, Pharma’s deal with the White House and the “fishy emails” made small appearances as well.

The first half of the show was all about health care, health care and health care. WE had a bit of a battle over who could talk but by the break we had worked it out.

I brought up my weekly complaint about the irresponsiveness of my Congressperson Richard Neal who continues to answer none of my calls or emails. Dick promised to contact him and get him to respond as they are “very good friends”. Nothing so far.

We talked about the 8 new jets Congress earmarked for their personal use – and the pushback which was apparently successful.

I noted that the ethics committee decided that Chris Dodd and Kent Conrad did not act unethically when they received their VIP mortgages from Countrywide. Shocker!

In the tawdry part of the show we talked about John Edwards and the fact that the grand jury is meeting to see if his campaign misused funds by funneling them to his mistress.

That led to a discussion about what matters and what doesn’t when someone runs for office. That was the most interesting part to me, because I still haven’t made up my mind on it.

Enjoy!

We started the program hopefully, with news that President Clinton was in N. Korea to facilitate the release of the two women hostages. Questions still remain about what we promised Kim Jon Il in return, but it’s a great day for those two women.

WE moved on to health care and the Town Hall meetings that have been attended by critics of the President’s plan. Dick had the talking points down – which surprised me – and suggested that the opposition was orchestrated. I told him to take a look at the signs. SEIU and MOVE ON tend do use machine made signs. Individuals not organized tend to make their own signs. I reiterated my latest attempt to contact my congressperson, Richard Neal. Attempt #6 was greeted with an answering machine. I assume he is at the beach.

At some point Dick gave me the now mandatory “I know politics and you don’t speech” and then we were able to move on.

We talked about the blue dog democrats – of which Dick says he is one.

I told the story of Sudanese journalist Lubna Hussein who is on trial for wearing pants in public. I have been particularly impressed by the solidarity other Sudenese women have shown by showing up at the trial, wearing pants.

We talked a bit about the rumor that Greg Craig, White house counsel would be fired as the scapegoat for the president’s foreign policy to date.

There was more, but you will have to listen.