John McCain

The New French

You know how John McCain said he might not talk to the Spanish government if he's elected president? How, in an interview last month, he lumped Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero in with anti-American leaders such as Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and the Castro Brothers of Cuba?

Well, what I want to know is, does that make the Spanish the new French? And, if so, does that mean that this year all truly patriotic (i.e. idiotic) Americans will have to start calling their favorite aphrodisiac Freedom Fly, a la those Freedom Fries of French-hating days gone by? And, what I really want to know is this, will Freedom Fly still get you as horny as its American-hating cousin, Spanish Fly?

Uncle Ron and The Deregulators

Once upon a time, way back in the 1980s, some seemingly intelligent people (economics professors at the Chicago School of Economics, led by Milton Friedman, for instance) and some not particularly intelligent people (Ronald Reagan, for one) agreed something had to be done. Their nation was suffering under the chains of regulation and the tyranny of oversight and, like some sort of Charles Bronson-Chuck Norris deregulatory tag team, they were going to save it and they didn't care who got hurt in the process.

It seems that fifty years earlier, way way back in the 1930s, some socialists with funny sounding names like Keynes and Roosevelt had tried to fetter capitalism.

And, as everyone knows, to fetter capitalism is to fetter freedom. And to fetter freedom is to fetter the American way of life.

"Two faces have I
One that laughs one that cries
One says hello one says goodbye
One does things I don't understand
Makes me feel like half a man"

         - Bruce Springsteen, "Two Faces"

Regardless of what Barack Obama may have said four years ago in that famous speech of his at the 2004 Democratic Convention, there definitely are two Americas - two diametrically opposed Americas. And I'm not just talking about Republicans and Democrats here, though that division largely mirrors the real divide.

A Hero In What Way Exactly?

Is it just me or is all this constant talk of John McCain as "The Great American Hero" more than just a little bit ridiculous? Not only did he do nothing to earn the title, he actually did things most people would consider to be the antithesis of heroic. I mean, seriously, since when did slaughtering civilians make you a great hero?

It's been a pretty inspiring few days this past week or so, what with Barack Obama wrapping up the nomination for the Democratic Party and all. And then Hillary Clinton finally - four days after it was over and in probably the best speech of her entire campaign - conceding defeat and vowing to do everything she can to help Obama win the White House. Hers, like Obama's, has been a historic and inspirational run and hopefully someday soon we'll see a woman as president. Just not this time. This time the more inspirational candidate won.