Jim Austin

His previous columns are archived HERE.

JIM AUSTIN

A contagion on the land

PUTNEY, VT | Eight years of the Bush administration has promulgated a contagion on our land that won't soon be excised. Thanks to the voters the Republican right wing has been, by virtue of self-interest and manifest corruption, forced to crawl back under the stinking rock from whence it came. It will no doubt fester in the darkness, gathering simpleton adherents until their numbers once again tip the scales in favor of evil. Other than that, they have done pretty well.

Does it surprise you that the right wing has been talking trash about Obama before he even says, "I do" on inauguration day? Sean Hannity was on the other day with breaking news. Someone unearthed a picture of Obama wearing a hat and smoking a cigarette.

"Why was this picture suppressed?" he fulminated, eyes bulging like organ stops. Once again, he postured, the Liberal media refused to release a photo that could have been vital to McCain's campaign.

Yup, that was the difference all right. A funny hat and a cigarette.

I've got news for him. The media was also kind to McCain. They refused to publish a daguerreotype of John swilling bathtub gin with flappers "before" the repeal of the Volstead act.

Other slime merchants have been desperately trying to link Obama with Illinois lunatic governor Rod Blagojevich. Was Barack going to get a cut from the sale of his Senate seat? Did they get together at the Chicago Hilton and snort coke with Marion Barry and Boy George? Only time will tell.

George Bush spent some time sneaking over to Baghdad a few weeks ago under the cover of darkness. While he was at a news conference giving another version of his "Mission Accomplished" speech an Iraqi reporter screamed at him, called him a "dog" and threw a pair of shoes at him. They discarded the notion that the reporter noticed that Bush's footwear seemed down at the heels and was presenting him with some LL Bean desert boots as a gift. In the end they decided that this was a case of "shoeshank redemption."

The incident showed, they said, that thanks to George and his policies Iraq was now a democracy and people felt free to voice their displeasure just like citizens of America. Wow. Talk about making a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Instead of throwing flowers and gratitude the reporter threw footwear. Same idea, different culture.

Sarah Palin's little problem in her home town of Wasilla will similarly require some industrial-strength spinning.

Her future son-in-law's mom has been charged with several counts of drug dealing and hard-core pain killer possession. Ouch, this is worse than her revelation that Africa is a "country" or that she claimed foreign policy experience by her ability to see Vladivostok from her back porch. So far Sarah hasn't commented on the charges.

Maybe the woman was a Democrat and the painkillers were a legitimate remedy for being associated with Sarah. Or perhaps she was just following in the footsteps of Republican altar boy Rush Limbaugh whose love of oxycontin is second only to his hatred of Barack.

Whichever story emerges don't expect the media to let it go. Sarah is just too hot a commodity when it comes to selling magazines. Did you know that Time Magazine picked her as runner-up for Person of the Year? Wink, wink golly!

Lest you think I'm smearing a whole tube of lipstick on Republican pigs, let's visit an interesting Democratic ruminant. Caroline Kennedy, daughter of martyred John F. Kennedy has thrown her hat in the ring with hopes of being chosen for Hillary's vacated New York Senate seat. Clearly she figures that if a geographically handicapped mayor of Wasilla Alaska can be a potential Vice President of the USA surely another woman with no significant experience could make a splash in the Senate.

There is no question that we all know "who" she is but "what" she could bring to the table is a little fuzzy. I mean my father was a pretty good dentist but you sure wouldn't want "me" to give you a root canal.

I think it was Winston Churchill who said that Democracy was a lousy system but it was the best that humankind has come up with so far. He also said "Americans could always be counted on to do the right thing, after they had tried everything else." In the past decade I think we have pretty much covered "everything else."