measuring the drapes
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I would have posted sooner, but I’ve been recovering from an election hangover. When I woke up Wednesday, I had to check online to make sure the Repugnicans hadn’t found some creative way to send this election into limbo (”Fox News reports that the Supreme Court has ruled that Ohio is not actually a state”). Since I didn’t have a ticket to Obamapalooza in Grant Park, I watched the results with some friends at a gay bar. Talk about a conflicted vibe–”Obama’s won California!” “California hates us!” Watching an election in a gay bar wasn’t any different than watching it in any other kind of bar, except for that one priceless moment as Michelle and Barack walked onstage, and everyone in the bar was hushed, until one queen in the back said “What were you thinking with that dress, honey? Michelle needs more gay friends!”
Today the Bushes are hosting the Obamas at the White House, and I like to imagine Barack messing with W.’s head when they’re alone in the Oval Office. You know, just…making shit up. “So, George, I was thinking now that I’m here, would you mind helping me move that desk so I can face Mecca?” Or maybe, in the privacy of that moment, Georgie comes clean–”You know, B-Man, I realize it’s pronounced ‘nu-cle-ar,’ but I like to sound stupid to piss off my dad.”
Now that talk has turned to the transition, you’ll be interested to know that you can apply for a job in the new administration online, at this link. The more I think of it, this may not be a good idea. As much as I dig the fact that the highest level of government is now internet-savvy (finally catching up to….most eighth-graders), I’m thinking that jobs within a president’s administration should be filled in a more traditional way–maybe they should be filled by people the president is already familiar with. Sure, there might be some undiscovered policy genius who sends in an app (”Hmmm…I already applied at Kinko’s, but in case I don’t get that I should also apply for that job working with the president,”), but I’d be worried that some clerical error in the screening process would allow a bunch of unemployed Gap clerks to end up as undersecretaries of something-or-other (”Mom–great news–I finally got a job–yeah I’m gonna be in charge of something called Infrastructure…no, I’m not sure what I’ll be doing but I start in January”).
There is one position I think I could fill in the new administration, but it doesn’t exist yet. I see myself in a new Cabinet positon–Secretary of Humor. Any time the global political situation got really tense, I would come out and do a quick ten minute standup routine, just to loosen everyone up. I would also be in charge of executive -level snark. I truly believe that sometimes it’s not enough to stand up to enemies, you need to mock them. I could convene a special subcommittee to determine exactly which world leaders are the most ridiculous.
Like most people, I was inspired by Obama’s grand oratorical skills. But there on the home page of the transition website, the goal of the new administration is stated as “making sure the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today.” Just a little bit better? Talk about lowering expectations…jeez, take a risk, you guys! Apparently we’ve gone from the sweeping pronouncement ‘Yes We Can!’ to ‘We Might Be Able To In A Small Incremental Way.’ Not quite as catchy.
It has been mentioned that yesterday’s meeting between Bush and Obama was the earliest such post-election meeting in history. If I were George, I’d be in a hurry to wrap things up too.
“Well, Barack, there’s the red phone…you know where the Rose Garden is…hmmmm…what else?….oh, yeah we’re in two unwinnable wars that the public doesn’t support and the banking system is essentially broken and the auto industry is pretty much bankrupt and unemployment is at a five year high and we’ve got no clue where Bin Laden is and…well, anyhoo, I gotta get outta here–I got me a library to build.”
Thankfully, taxpayers won’t have to pay too much for a George W. Bush Presidential Library–hell, we could probably get by with a Presidential Bookmobile for this guy.
Taking a stand against the corrupt influence of corporations, the new administration has announced that lobbyists cannot work in the federal government. Well, in the field in which they lobbied. Well, if they lobbied within the last year. Looks like we’re already gonna need a Department of Disclaimers. And speaking trying to have it both ways, Joe Lieberman (Traitor-CT) will probably be allowed to caucus with the Democrats, a decision based primarily on Lieberman’s irrelevance
One of the mantras of this transition has been “We only have one president at a time.” I’d argue that we have maybe half a president, and I really think that this artificial seventy-some day period before the new guy gets to move in is just an unnecessary throwback to an era when it took a long time for people in the new administration to get to the Capitol from different parts of the country. I say we give the president who’s leaving two weeks notice. Give him time to have one last press conference, send out some resumes, call a few buddies, and clean out his desk. Like I mentioned earlier, Bush would probably just as soon get out of town now, although I’m pretty sure it’s gonna take the jaws of life to pry Cheney’s hands off the levers of power.
