Franken Sense

(As usual, the agreement with the syndicators means this column appears here a week after its newspaper release)

       FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019  
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       BOB FRANKEN
       FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, JAN. 24, 2012
       NEWT’S MITT PICKING
       BY BOB FRANKEN
       Because they make buckets of money from it, political professionals hate to hear us smart alecks contend that their hovering presence around candidates means little. That’s because elections are not won but lost. There’s a lot of evidence to back that up. Do the names John McCain, John Kerry and Al Gore make that point? How about Michael Dukakis? In the elite arena of presidential campaigns, they all are in the Stiffs Hall of Fame.
       Among the active players who are making a valiant effort to reach those fallowed heights we certainly can include Mitt Romney.
       Romney’s awkward pretense that he has any idea about common-people concerns time and again end up with him blurting out in ways that demonstrate he’s oblivious. His little aside about making “not very much” from speaking fees quickly becomes an embarrassment when we find out he’s talking about $374,000 in one year. When the pressure is on to release his tax records, he seems to become visibly agitated. He starts speaking faster, his eyes appear to jump. It’s no wonder. At least a chunk of his massive fortune was made by causing misfortune for many others.
       All of that said, we cannot ignore the very clever tactics of Newton Leroy Gingrich. He loves to disparage Romney’s “poll-driven, consultant-guided” campaign. His rise and fall certainly have defied the political industry’s conventional wisdom. This is Newt’s Law of Gravity -- the opposite of the other Newton: What goes down goes back up.
       Gingrich’s life has been one big roller-coaster ride. However, to give credit where it’s due, the man is a master at reversing a slide. He is a ferocious counterpuncher, most dangerous when he’s against the ropes.
       Just one example: The very same day the tawdry interview with his ex-wife Marianne was released and then grossly overplayed on cable TV, Gingrich turned what might have been mortifying embarrassment into a triumph that will be long remembered in debate history.
       The memorable moments usually are defined by a single sound bite. Lloyd Bentsen’s “Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy” shot inflicted permanent damage on Dan Quayle. Ronald Reagan’s “There you go again” arguably had a lot to do with his making Jimmy Carter a one-termer.
       Poor John King of CNN. When he led off the evening by asking about Wife No. 2’s bitter comments, Gingrich made mincemeat of him, getting a roar of approval from the audience. It was a defining moment in a state chock-full of rock-solid conservatives and evangelicals who scorn the “elite media,” as Gingrich put it, for “protecting Barack Obama.”
       A chagrined King, a consummate professional, nevertheless became Gingrich’s Quayle. It will be replayed forevermore..

Start off the week with the Rev and me tonight (Monday) during the 6:00 Easterrn hour. Call me crazy but I'm thinking politics might be on the agenda.

(As usual, the arrangement withn the syndicator means this column appears here a week after its newspaper release)

       FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019  
       CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236
       BOB FRANKEN
       FOR RELEASE FRIDAY, JAN. 20, 2012
       WAR CRIMES PERSPECTIVE
       BY BOB FRANKEN
       I don’t know if the same signs are in every Whole Foods, but there are several that adorn the walls of my neighborhood store. Probably the most cloying one extols the corporation’s support of The Animal Compassion Foundation for “raising animals naturally and humanely.” “In short, we believe,” it goes on, “that through the work of the foundation, we can improve the lives of farm animals.”
       Now, ain’t that nice? Of course, they did leave off a line: “THEN WE SLAUGHTER THEM!!!”
       It brings to mind all the moralistic hand-wringing over those U.S. Marines who made the mistake of being photographed as they urinated on the bodies of apparent Taliban fighters the Marines seem to have killed before they were killed.
       Inevitably, the pictures hit the Internet, and just as inevitably, U.S. officials of the highest rank, the secretaries of state and defense among them, expressed their outrage: “Utterly deplorable,” said Defense Secretary Leon Panetta; “inconsistent with American values,” added Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Panetta promised appropriate punishment for this violation of the international laws of war prohibiting “abuse of corpses.” Tellingly, military officials also were pondering charges against those who took the pictures. It’s not nice to embarrass the United States.
       Nobody seemed to state the obvious, which was that the worst mistreatment of the dead was making them dead in the first place. Nobody spoke up for the Marines who were cast in that role. Nobody, that is, but that noted wise man Rick Perry.
       Yes, that may have been a tad sarcastic, considering that Perry has since decided to pack it in and go lick his own wounds, but he was one of the few voices when he went on a Sunday gabfest to bemoan the “over-the-top rhetoric” about the Marines’ actions, saying they should be reprimanded and not punished since, “Obviously, 18- and 19-year-old kids make stupid mistakes all too often. And that’s what’s occurred here.”
       What occurred there in Afghanistan was depraved and ghoulish, but also understandable when you remember that these young men have been fighting for their lives for however many months and were probably in a rage about the friends they have lost in hostilities that are hard to understand.
 

I take my act to Rev. Al Sharpton's show again tonight (Thursday) during the 6:00, Eastern hour on MSNBC

I'm on with the Rev tonight (Monday) during the 6:00 PM, Eastern hour. Whatever will we discuss? (Hint: It's an NBC GOP debate later this evening.

(As you can see this is somewhat dated. The arrangement with syndicators means this appears here about a week after its newspaper release)

       FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019  
       CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236
       BOB FRANKEN
       FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, JAN. 17, 2012
       THE END OF HUNTSMAN’S HUNT
       BY BOB FRANKEN
       The appropriate observation about the latest from the world of politics is downright Orwellian: Sanity is Insanity. How else would we describe Jon Huntsman’s belief that he could succeed by taking the middle of the road, using rational ideas against competition that is way out there, spouting extremist babble that is only sometimes coherent.
       Happily for Huntsman, he seems to have regained his connection to reality by pulling out of the race. Now he can reconcile those fantasies where he assumed he ever had a chance. Obviously, he had some moments when it occurred to him that this wasn’t quite right; the time, for instance, when he tweeted “To be clear, I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.”
       OK, Jon. You were crazy. You want evidence? How about when you uttered, “I don’t think you need to run down somebody’s reputation in order to run for the office of president”? Of course you do, Jon. What would possess you to think otherwise? It was that kind of thinking that put you so far down in the South Carolina polls ... way down. Even Stephen Colbert was ahead of you, and his participation is a big joke.
       Of course, “big joke” might describe the candidacies of those still in the running. Surely when Mitt Romney declared that “Corporations are people,” he was making a funny. Or when Rick Santorum compared gay relationships to bestiality, he couldn’t have been serious. Could he? Actually, someone thinks so, since he got that endorsement from evangelicals.
       We don’t even need to list all the wild rantings of Newt Gingrich or Ron Paul. First of all, there isn’t enough space, and besides, they would be hard to believe outside the election loony bin. As Rick Perry said, “Oops.” By the way, Perry is still strutting his stuff.
 

      
(As usual, the agreement with the syndicators means this column appears here a week after its newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019  
       CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236
       BOB FRANKEN
       FOR RELEASE FRIDAY, JAN. 13, 2012
       ROMNEY CAMPAIGN BAIN BANE
       BY BOB FRANKEN
       Here is what’s confusing: The free-enterprise system, held up as such an ideal, is supposed to reward those who risk THEIR capital and THEIR livelihoods in pursuit of the American Dream.
       How did that morph into the nightmarish way Mitt Romney and the others of his ilk game the system? They make huge fortunes gambling with the precious savings scraped together by millions of others who than suffer the loss of their future. These greedy manipulators add to their bulging coffers no matter what.
       They love to proclaim that their frontier spirit of entrepreneurship is what encourages innovation. But, research and development is one of the first outlays to go in their process of reducing every business to nothing more than a ledger-sheet entry. There is no more cutting-edge experimentation. Cutting workers, however, is high on their list of ways to achieve precious efficiency, tossing them off onto an economic landscape the profiteers have robbed barren.
       Romney started out wealthy, thanks to his accident of birth. His claims that he ever sweated unemployment deserve the ridicule they’ve gotten. He’s used his silver spoon to scoop up untold millions at Bain Capital, a private equity firm that used OTHER people’s money to buy existing companies and do whatever it took to maximize their resale value. If, as it so often did, that meant pulling the rug out from under employees, so be it. That’s the way things work in their Darwinian world, where Survival of the Richest

I'm on with the Rev during the 6:00 PM, Eastern hour tonight (Thursday). Whatever can we find to talk about?

      (As usual, the deal with the syndicators means this appears here a week after its newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019  
       CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236
       BOB FRANKEN
       FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, JAN. 10, 2012
       SPORTING GAMES, POLITICAL GAMESMANSHIP
       BY BOB FRANKEN
       If it seemed like an inane question at the end of Saturday night’s New Hampshire debate, that’s because it was. But, in the effort to inject some warm humor into the long conversation among cold, humorless people, ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, who was participating as co-moderator, actually got a telling response in spite of himself by asking if each wasn’t at the debate, “What would you be doing on a Saturday night?”
       The candidates were quick to say they’d be watching sports on TV, answers calculated to demonstrate that they are just regular guys, and not the weirdly irregular ones they appear to be.
       The problem is that they took this puff ball and dropped it. As the sportscaster used to say, “LET’S GO TO THE TAPE!”
       NEWT GINGRICH: I’d be watching the college championship basketball game.
       (UNKNOWN): Football game.
       GINGRICH: I mean, football game.
       (LAUGHTER)
       Thank you.
       RICK SANTORUM: I’d be doing the same thing with my family. We’d be huddled around, and we’d be watching the championship game.
       Sports fans everywhere would have seen how the disingenuously jocular candidates were genuinely un-jock-u-lar.
       Obviously, Newt shot still another airball.
       And Santorum, who claimed he’d be taking in the college football championship, also fumbled, since that game was to be played two full nights later.
       The fact is, it was NFL playoff games that were broadcast Saturday night. That’s professional football, of course, not the semi-pro college version. It might seem somewhat nit-picky, except that anyone who really would be tuned in knows the difference. Of course, they probably didn’t see the debate.
   

(As usual, Tge deal with the syndicators means this column appears here a week after its newspaper release)

       FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019  
       CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236
       BOB FRANKEN
       FOR RELEASE FRIDAY, JAN. 6, 2012
       NO ONE IS NO. 1
       BY BOB FRANKEN
       It’s quite possibly the outstanding news photo of 2012. OK, that might be a little gushy, since it appeared in The New York Times Jan. 3, but it may best capture the mood of the entire election year.
       It shows a sign depicting a ballot with a check beside “NO ONE!” According to the caption, it was taken outside a barn in Marshalltown, Iowa, but it certainly reflects the sentiments of mass disgruntlement everywhere in this nation.
       How many polls do we need to quantify how fed up millions are with what they consider a dismal choice to lead a “government of the people” that only seems to function on behalf of rich people -- that is, when it functions at all.
       Only Nevada offers a “none of the above” option, but it’s nonbinding. Unfortunately, huge numbers of American voters make that selection in an even more damning way: They don’t vote. Time after time, they’re in the majority. And those who do show up at the polls all too often are registering not their support but their opposition ... not FOR a candidate, but AGAINST the other.
       Instead of a participatory democracy, we’ve deteriorated into a passive-aggressive one, where citizens have good reason to believe their well-being and beliefs will be sold out to the highest bidder and feel powerless. That’s probably why there’s an organization that advocates for “none of the above.” Since there’s a group to push just about any case, why not this one? Naturally, it has a website, NOTA.org, with its own pitch:
      

I will be spreading my usual disdain for politicians around the 6:00 PM Eastern hour tonight on MSNBC

(As usual, the deal with the syndicators, for now, means this column appears here a week after its newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, JAN. 3, 2012

THE TRAVELING SALESPEOPLE AND THE HOME FOLKS

BY BOB FRANKEN

Every four years, we dust off the Willie Nelson song “On the Road Again,” because presidential campaigns are one big road show. The moment the contrived drama is over in Iowa, the actors and their directors, their tap-dancers, as well as the Greek chorus of reporters, all strike the set and move to New Hampshire. Then it's on to the next one-week stand, talking love and rewriting the lines to fit the local mood.

Each quadrennial (I LOVE using that word), the various states get to enjoy a moment in the cold light of pretend concern about the issues that fester there. The candidates rejigger their kinship message for a week and then move on.

But there are performances that stay in the same theater, in the same district or within the borders of the same state, from beginning to end.

Obviously, each is the war story about a slice of congressional turf. These set pieces ultimately determine which party controls the House and Senate, and which decides the fate of the agenda put forth by the one who ends up in the White House.

Tony Blankley's home in Great Falls, Virginia, outside Washington, was routinely described as a "gentleman's farm", which was appropriate because Tony was the consummate gentleman, befitting his birth in London. But the farm animals on this property were of the exotic kind. It always occurred to me during visits that the worn out cliche might have been changed to "If you want a friend in Washington, get a llama"

The truth of the matter is that Tony's human friends included an equally diverse collection of the human kind. It is a mix of people coated in a wide variety of political stripes and those who wear different hats.

I was in the herd of journalists whose relentless pursuit of his clients was never taken personally by him. No matter how hard the collisions that came with our work, when he would finish defending his client, Newt Gingrich, from our professional onslaught he would go to dinner with his antagonist to laugh about the day and chew over ideas and gossip along with our meal.
.
I enjoyed many such evenings as well as warm times with his family and Our get togethers would always range from lofty intellectual discussions to low humor. And of course, time with the llamas.

Now he's gone. He died this weekend, leaving a large group of admirers who will now circle around his incredible wife Lynda and their children.

He never forgot his British roots and manners. Frankly, it was amusing, because he had come to the United States at such a young age. I used to joke that when we got angry at someone, he would "smite the bounder", while I would "kick the ---- out of him". On this side of The Pond, his family settled in Hollywood where he became a child actor. He grew up to be an attorney, speech writer, columnist, editor and during his years as Newt Gingrich's press secretary, a fireman who was constantly putting out Newt's rhetorical fires. He somehow managed to be bon vivant and down to earth at the same time, which is remarkable when you think of it, as was his ability to bridge the gap between restless curiosity and graciousness.

A few years ago, he showed me video of his role in the movie "The Harder They Fall". He was eight years old and played Rod Steiger's son. I was astonished at how he looked like a miniature of his grownup self, a munchkin duplicate. In adulthood he managed to be bigger than all the pettiness that so often reduces Washington. I am among the many who will mourn his premature passing and celebrate the good fortune of sharing his life, both professionally and personally.

I'm dishing with the Rev on MSNBC tonight (Friday), sometime during the 6:00, Eastern, hour.

(As usual, the agreement with the syndicators means these columns appear here a week after their newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019  
CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236
BOB FRANKEN
FOR RELEASE FRIDAY, DEC. 30, 2011
MORE PROMISES TO BREAK
BY BOB FRANKEN

Gonna be a resolution ...
Actually it’s that time of year, the beginning, when we make a slew of resolutions. As a public service, let’s resolve to help our leading lights promise to change their ways in 2012. It’s Make and Break Time.

Where do we begin? With whom? So little space, so many irritations and so many irritators. But let’s start at the top of the list.

Newt Gingrich promises to rid his speech of all bombastic, bomb-blastic adjectives and adverbs. That means no more meaningless but incendiary qualifiers like “radical(ly),” “secular,” “Islamist” and “socialist,” so often spit out in various combinations, and no more self-aggrandizing ones like “profound,” or “truly conservative,” “historical” and “professorial.”

That last one has antagonized professors everywhere, given Newt’s habit of bragging that he’s read a book and then spewing a few CliffsNotes ideas from it. History scholars are particularly incensed with the “historical” one, since he so often embarrasses them with his out of-context descriptions of past world events.

He comes across as a pedantic someone trying to snow the voter who thinks the Ottoman Empire was a furniture store and has no idea what the Federalist Papers are but thinks it sounds nice when Gingrich cites them, albeit inaccurately.

(As usual, the arrangement with the syndicators means this column appears here a week after its newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, DEC. 27, 2011

PAUL'S HATE-SOILED PALL

BY BOB FRANKEN

I love the season right after Christmas. You can say “Happy holiday” without someone getting bent out of shape. And we can all drop the forced yuletide smiles and return to the normal sneer.

That's good, because the subject at hand is something to snarl about ... the efforts to put the best face on the hateful writings in the name of Ron Paul.

This is major league bigotry. After the 1992 Los Angeles riots, according to his newsletter, “order was only restored ... when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks.” He predicted the “coming race war in our cities” and, to spread the poison around, warned of a “federal homosexual cover-up.” This was in between Paul's gigs in Congress and before he went from despicable fringe hater to widely celebrated weirdo.

Now his people say he had nothing to do with the vile words. He did make an estimated million dollars from them. They were the work of “ghost” writers, as one staffer told Reuters. That would be opposed to the “night riders” of the Ku Klux Klan, who, like ghosts, also wore sheets. Paul himself told The New York Times, “I was pretty careless about what was going into my own newsletter.”

Call me a skeptic, but it sure seems highly implausible (translation: probably a lie) that Paul or anybody could be that “careless” and not be aware of such invective going out in his name. And if that is true, then one has to question how grossly unqualified he would be as an executive of anything, to say nothing of the United States chief executive.

I'll be riffing with The Rev tonight (Thursday), during the 6:00 PM, Eastern hour.

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

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BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE FRIDAY, DEC. 23, 2011

THE SILLY SEASON'S VERSE INSTINCT

BY BOB FRANKEN

'Tis the time around Christmas, Hanukkah and whatever,

And the season to suffer in Iowa's weather,

This year, the winter's unusually raucous,

As we mark that state's big day, with the GOP caucus.

The voters are nestled at home in their bed,

Watching campaign ads nonstop that fill them with dread

But on Gingrich, on Romney, on Paul in that fight,

Along with Rick Perry, deer in the headlight.

They're quite a collection, these partisan souls,

Amazing to watch as they bounce in the polls,

Each of those chosen as the someone-not-Mitt,

Is quickly deposed, from not-Mitt to nitwit.

Except for the Newtwit, it's twice that he's managed,

To slither the heights even with all his baggage,

For a second time, though, his lead's going south,

It happens each time he opens his mouth.

And as his prospects again start their flaggin'

Party heavyweights flock to the Romney bandwagon.

It's easy to find, and easy to spot,

It's the one with the dog tied down on the top.

He claims he's the one with the most stable views,

Not like the others who light up cable news.

To say nothing about Palin and, of course, Donald Trump,

Who again hint they'll add to the candidate dump.

The others have shown all their skills as debaters,

Each trying to be No. 1 among haters.

Judges, and immigrants, to say nothing of gays,

Just some of those slimed by their venomous spray,

But they're not the main villains in this demagogues' drama,

That honor, of course, goes to Barack H. Obama.

If cheap shots escape them, in ideas, there's a dearth,

Once again, they'll bring up the president's birth.

I'm doing the Sharpton show tonight on MSNBC tonight (Tuesday) during the 6:00 Eastern) hour.

(The usual: This is a week old column-, thanks to the agreement with the syndicator, which I'm working on)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, DEC. 20, 2011

AREN'T WE ALL AMERICAN SOMETHINGS?

BY BOB FRANKEN

It is not hard to conclude that the two prevailing political philosophies in our country are democracy and demagoguery.

The former includes a belief in our better instincts to see to it that bigotry won't be jammed down our throats, and similarly that a particular religion won't be imposed on us, nor will hatred of another be successfully whipped up by shameless exploiters.

The very first provision in the Bill of Rights covers that. The problem is, it also allows for the same free speech that can be used by demagogues to inflame the worst primal reflexes of a mob.

Unfortunately, mob psychology often carries the day. Look at how one extremist group with the innocent-sounding name Florida Family Association has managed to so intimidate the Lowe's home-supply company with its intolerant threats that Lowe's pulled its commercials from the TLC program “All-American Muslim.”

Instead of showing mainstream U.S. followers of Islam as regular people pursuing the same good life we all are -- estimates vary, but there are up to 7 million in the United States -- the FFA insisted that the show was “propaganda that riskily hides the Islamic agenda's clear and present danger.”

Lowe's buckled, explaining that the program had become a “lightning rod.” Then the travel website Kayak.com buckled too, albeit insisting that “the show just sucked.”

Tomorrow morning (Monday) during the 8:00 hour,Eastern, we rev up the political season again on MSNBC

Lots of MSNBC (guess who's in town for the holidays). Tomorrow (Saturday) at 11:30-ish (Eastern), we'll be talking politics

I'll start out the week talking the usual trash on MSNBC, Monday morning, the 26th during the 8:00 (Eastern) hour

Its Thursday Night Live with me and the Rev on MSNBC during the 6:00 PM, Eastern Hour

(The current understanding with the indicators means this coumn appears here about a week after its newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE FRIDAY, DEC. 16, 2011

NEWTMITTPICKING

BY BOB FRANKEN

Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, or “Newt Romney” in the Book of Bachmann, are both right. Not “right” as in pretend ultraconservative, but correct. About each other.

When Romney suggests that Gingrich should give back the $1.6 million he was paid being a “historian” for the disgraced mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, he was onto something. The payoffs were really for Newt's membership in the D.C. family, with relationships so incestuous that the theme song could be “Dueling Banjos.” For those barely past puberty, the song is from the movie “Deliverance.” Of course, Newt didn't really deliver anything but his inbred connections, even though he insists he was never a lobbyist. In Washington-speak, one doesn't have to be an official “lobbyist” in order to lobby.

As always, Newt Gingrich was ready with a scathing putdown citing all of Mitt Romney's money “earned bankrupting companies and laying off employees.” In case someone is wondering about Gingrich's promise to stay “positive,” in campaign-speak, “positive” means “negative.”

It also is possible that each can be on the winning side of the argument and the losing at the same time.

Gingrich has never missed an opportunity to take big bucks from the very same inside-the-beltway operators he trashes when it suits his purpose.

And Romney's highly touted business career is riddled with the kind of financial manipulation and job slashing that got us into the economic mess and keeps us mired in it.

(As usual, the arrangement with the syndicator means this column appears here a week after its newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, DEC. 13, 2011

SPEW IN THE ZOO

BY BOB FRANKEN

We can thank Gingrichproductions.com for making sure we know that “Newt has liked animals since he was a little boy” and that he and his wife, Callista, “visit zoos and museums everywhere they go.”

One can only assume that they particularly prefer those with panda bears. How could they not, considering his close relationship to them? He has, after all, built an entire career as a hard-to-bear panderer, intentionally igniting the passions of extremists in one group after another.

But he may have gone too far when he tried to whip up Israel's staunch defenders in the United States by telling a Jewish Channel interviewer that Palestinians were an “invented people,” suggesting that they had no right to the land they have claimed for decades, nor, by implication, a Palestinian state. That ran afoul, of not only virtually all foreign-policy experts from both parties, but also the Israeli government, which is engaged in negotiations, albeit sputtering ones, that would have such a state as an end result.

He is being chastised for more than his “incendiary” rhetoric, which is nothing new to Newt. Gingrich is a historian, as he loves to tell us, but once again he has taken facts about ethnic groups who rose out of the collapsed Ottoman Empire and twisted them into untruths. He knows that, but he also knows that a lot of gullible voters out there don't, so he's employing the old adage, “If you can't dazzle them with your brilliance, baffle them with your bullfeathers.” (Hey, it's close enough.)

He is not the lone panderer in the Republican presidential shootout. When speaking before the Republican Jewish coalition forum in Washington recently, he was just one of a gang who each described President Barack Obama's Mideast and overall international policies as “appeasement.”

What a loaded word that is, since it usually describes the kowtowing before Hitler in the 1930s by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. Normally, any connections to Nazism and its unspeakable horrors are considered excessive in political debate, but not by this crew.

I'm mixing it up with the Rev tonight, but this is FRIDAY Night Live during the 6:00. (Eastern) hour.

(As usual, the agreement with the syndicator means this column appears here a week after its newspaper release. This one, for instance, has had subsequent events, namely Trump's bailout, proving even he can be chagrined)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE FRIDAY, DEC. 9, 2011

THE TRUMP DUMP

BY BOB FRANKEN

In 1991, when we were broadcasting the bizarre Clarence Thomas hearings -- brimming with salacious charges about his past behavior -- the coarse language and juvenile silliness of the debate juxtaposed with the droning pomposity of the senators. It made for truly entertaining TV. What a hoot it was to be involved; what terrific, uh, exposure.

At one point, during a break, a panel of us inside-the-Beltway pontificators was having another of those “What does it really mean?” discussions, also pompous. One of the analysts was deploring the wall-to-wall telecast because it left such a negative impression about supposedly revered institutions, namely the Senate and the Supreme Court.

My response was that his lament was misdirected, that it wasn't the coverage but the buffoonish reality that was the problem. Generation after generation of lowest-common-denominator politics had eaten away at our grand concepts and left them too often hollowed-out jokes. The public needed to know that, and we had a responsibility to show it in all its inglory. And it has only gotten worse in the decades that followed.

Fast-forward to this year's contest for the most powerful job in the world, and now the hand-wringing about Donald Trump hosting a Republican presidential debate. “This reduces the campaign to mindless inanity” is the common cry, particularly from those who still believe real journalism is relevant. That lament is only half-accurate. This doesn't reduce anything. This year's contest is another circus, guided by a “sucker born every minute” mind-set. Substance is unwelcome. The dopier the discussion, the better.

So why shouldn't Trump run a debate? He symbolizes the entire clown act, even conning us into frenetically covering his possible entry into the fools' derby. We bit, even though we knew full well this so-called musing by “The Apprentice” TV-show host happened to coincide with the all-important ratings period.

(As usual, the agreement with the syndicator means this column appears here a week after its newspaper release)

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BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, DEC. 6, 2011

TIME FOR THE OTHER RICK

BY BOB FRANKEN

Andy Warhol famously called everyone's fleeting moment in the spotlight “15 minutes of fame.” In the wild and wacky world of Republican presidential politics, it's more like 15 days. That's about the time it takes for the latest GOP ABM candidate (Anybody But Mitt) to rocket into the poll stratosphere as the great right hope to challenge steady Mitt Romney, and then to flame out.

There has been fleeting dazzle from Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain (now, uh “suspended”), to say nothing of those who decided to avoid the slippery slope, like Sarah Palin, Chris Christie and Donald Trump. Round and round it's gone, settling on one, then the other; in fact, it has landed twice on Newt. But it passed right over Rick Santorum. He has never been able to move from the debates' nosebleed section. Maybe when Gingrich self-destructs, it'll be time for Rick the Other.

He certainly has the conservative credentials, a GOP hard rock as a United States senator from Pennsylvania, until losing a re-election bid in 2006. The way things work is that losing in politics is the prerequisite for a presidential run. Just ask Gingrich. Still, Santorum has never risen much past the three- to five-point level in the preference polls, stuck there while the others took off, still there to welcome them back to obscurity.

Is this his moment? He's someone who comes across as a nice guy with some mean positions. As he and his very, very small entourage have been traipsing around Iowa in what he's calling his “Faith, Family and Freedom” tour -- always at the ready to take on anyone who is against faith, family or freedom -- he has let the world in on the personal sadness that drives his campaign.

The last of his seven children, his 3-year-old daughter, Isabella, was born with a rare debilitating genetic disorder. A major motivation, he says, is the necessity he feels to overturn the Obama health-care law, which he feels will endanger proper medical treatment for her. Many, however, believe he has it backward, because that law actually prevents insurance companies from denying coverage to those with pre-existing conditions.

(As usual, the arrangement with the syndicator means this column appears here about a week after its newspaper release. This, for instance, came out before Cain packed it in)

       FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019  
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       BOB FRANKEN
       FOR RELEASE FRIDAY, DEC. 2, 2011
       CAIN AND THE SEX HEX
       BY BOB FRANKEN
       Well, so much for that self-imposed Herman Cain hiatus, a timeout from dwelling on the many facets of his improbable candidacy. To maintain some proportionate coverage, it was time to focus elsewhere, like on Newt’s bizarre rise from the dead. But the moratorium must be broken in order to ponder the Cain campaign’s mortality and, specifically, its death. 
       When Ginger Smith came forward with the claim that she and Cain had indulged in a 13-year affair, it was nails in his coffin. He was already toast after all the unanswered harassment accusations. Following the latest disclosures, true or not, it’s clear that no matter how long he held on, he was just a dead candidate talking. The allegations would be our entire focus.
       Why? Let’s spell it out: S-E-X. It’s one thing to gloss over policy shallowness and other boring substance, but we just cannot, nor do we want to, shy away from nosiness about every detail of who’s doing what or who’s done the deed and with whom. Or tried to.
       It doesn’t have to be workplace propositions, inappropriate language or the other allegations of brutish behavior. This is merely a claim of doing it on the side. 
       In a somewhat-puzzling statement that failed to deny the specifics, Cain’s attorney, Lin Wood, decried coverage of “private, alleged consensual conduct between adults -- a subject matter which is not a proper subject of inquiry by the media or the public.”
       First of all, let’s thank Mr. Wood for sharing his opinion, which surely is motivated by personal feeling and not the billable hours he’s charging. Sorry, though; it is a proper subject of inquiry.
       We can all moan that the obsession with scurrilous behavior distracts from the truly important problems, but we lap up every smutty detail.
       And, of course, many conservatives are charging “liberal conspiracy.” Never mind that we all devoted massive amounts of attention a couple of presidencies ago to the adventures of Bill Clinton, proven and unproven.

(As usual, the agreement with the syndicators means this column appears here a week after its newspaper release)       

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019  
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       BOB FRANKEN
       FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, NOV. 29, 2011
       OLD NEWT, NEW NEWT
       BY BOB FRANKEN
       Think about how scary this is: Newt Gingrich is in trouble with the haters. That’s right; Mr. Nasty himself has become controversial for not being hardhearted enough.
       It seems that in the babble of the nonstop debates, he was detected being “humane,” to use his word, about allowing longtime illegal immigrants who have been otherwise law-abiding to stay in this country.
       Now he’s gone and done it. The extremists he usually incites are extremely upset with him. It has created an opening for Mitt Romney, who is working so hard to be a part of the Fringestream. He jumped right in with the accusation that Gingrich is promoting “amnesty.”
       Ever the brawler, Newt punched back by displaying a 2007 TV interview in which then-Massachusetts Gov. Romney contended illegals should “be able to stay, sign up for permanent residency or citizenship.”
       That, in turn, caused Mitt to squeal like a stuck prig. His campaign quickly complained that the line was taken out of context, that in the same sentence, he went on to clarify “but they should not be given a special pathway.”
       His outrage probably would have some credibility, except for the inconvenient fact that Romney is being accused of the same kind of distortion. He’s running an ad that purports to show Barack Obama acknowledging that “If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.”
       What we don’t see in this replay of candidate Obama in 2008 is that he was mocking John McCain as the bottom fell out during a Republican administration.      This is the usual swimming in the dirty poll. Sound bites can be manipulated, and unscrupulous politicians (pardon the redundancy) will do so with glee.

I'm on MSNBC tonight (Friday) batting it back and forth with The Rev during the 6:00 Eastern hour. Whatever "It" is.

(As usual, the arrangement with the syndicator means this column appears here a week after its newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

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BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE friday, NOV. 25, 2011

UNDERSTATEMENT FROM RICK PERRY?

BY BOB FRANKEN

Maybe we've mis-underestimated Rick Perry. Maybe his gaffe-a-minute debate performances and the various campaign positions that are downright goofy have caused many to dismiss every word that comes stumbling out of his mouth. But let's be fair and give him credit where it's due.

Take, for instance, his Nov. 15 speech in Iowa, where he promised to eliminate various government agencies, set a limit on the now-lifetime terms of federal judges and cut the pay senators and representatives receive in half. That last one is the biggie. It would make them part time because, as he explained, “They are completely detached from the people.”

Let's hear it for Rick. But has he gone far enough? The polls consistently tally a contempt rate for Congress at about 90 percent. Put another way, nine out of 10 probably believe Perry's part time should be NO time.

Get over it, people. We need a Congress. The Founding Parents made the very first article of the Constitution about the legislative branch. But they were envisioning an effective one. Silly them. What we've gotten less than three centuries later is one that makes a mockery of the entire system of government they created.

Look at the latest example to pile on the modern-day garbage heap of futility. That, of course, would be the failure of the so-called Supercommittee to cobble together the beginning of government financial rescue. The members finally admitted defeat, and whimpered something about the need to continue to save the country from future economic collapse. “You can't just ignore this crisis,” Co-Chair Patty Murray, D-Wash., said as she and the others closed shop.

(As usual, the arrangement with syndicators means these columns appear here a week after their newspaper release. This is an obvious case in point)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

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BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, NOV. 22, 2011

TEMPERING THANKSGIVING

BY BOB FRANKEN

For so many, Thanksgiving has largely become Black Friday Eve, the day before merchants hope for a bang-up first day of Christmas sales that push their year to the profitable side of the ledger. In the black. Get it?

Oh yeah, Thanksgiving is also the day that tradition sets aside to express gratitude for the bounty. Unfortunately, far too many are not sharing in it. They face a Bleak Friday, and, for that matter, every day. Even if they swallow their pride and show up to accept the turkey and dressings provided by the prosperous looking for a feel-good moment, most of the time they wonder where the next meal is coming from.

There are even reports that some Salvation Army chapters, along with various other agencies that serve the destitute, have run out of turkeys and the other fixings this year. As the number of those in dire straits grows, the contributions diminish.

That is the uncomfortable truth that should erase the smug glow. As we go over the hills and through the woods to Grandmother's house, we need to take stock of those of all ages who have lost their houses and/or are among the nearly one in 10 who can't find work and/or the millions of others who are struggling to make ends meet in lesser jobs. Let's also remember there are many more millions who have simply given up looking.

I'm doing the MSNBC thing tonight (Monday) during the 6:00 Eastern hour. Me and the Rev

I'm taking a break from the gridiron to toss around the various political footballs on MSNBC this afternoon (Friday) in the 3:00 and 4:00 PM hours (Eastern). Afterwards, I'll work on better sports metaphors

(As usual, the agreement with the syndicator means this column appears here a week after its newspaper release and gives an opportunity to see whether it stood up to subsequent events)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

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BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE FRIDAY, NOV. 18, 2011

TRICKY NEWT

BY BOB FRANKEN

How could we forget? Nov. 7 was the anniversary of the 1962 news conference during which defeated California gubernatorial candidate Richard Nixon snarled to reporters that they wouldn't “have Nixon to kick around anymore.” As we all know, we did. He rose from the ashes to be elected president of these United States, and then flamed out again, consumed by Watergate.

Forty-nine years after the “kick around” moment, the late Mr. Nixon has been reincarnated in the form of Newt Gingrich. That can be the only explanation why their careers have followed similar trajectories. Nixon made his name “red-baiting”; Gingrich is willing to bait any convenient target. Muslims, gays, “secular elitists,” the “secular left,” secular “fanaticism.” He is among the haters' favorite baiters.

It has worked for both of them, lifting them out of congressional back-bench obscurity. Nixon became vice president before his up-and-down run to the top job, and Gingrich rose to House speaker, before that gig dissolved in various ethics scandals. Now he's trying to take that same, improbable upward path as his role model and become the next POTUS.

He's certainly employing one of “Tricky Dick's” favorite tricks. No matter what the question, he uses it as a springboard to demonize the media. Maybe Gingrich was just marking the Nov. 7 anniversary when he went on the “Today” show to chastise all the attention paid to Herman Cain's past sexual-harassment allegations, sputtering, “There is just a huge gap between the gossip that fascinates political reporters and the average person's concerns.”

Nixon called that “average person” a part of the “silent majority.” Whatever the tag, huge numbers of them consider us reporters and commentators total scumbags. Gingrich knows that full well, just like Nixon did.

For both it was and is payback. Newt Gingrich is the first to acknowledge that he holds a grudge, actually telling Ann Curry: “I went through two months in June and July where folks in New York and Washington said my campaign was dead, I was gone, it was all hopeless. Nobody in the country said that.”

And in true Richard Nixon style, he is beginning a turnaround. After some huge blunders, his top campaign professionals abandoned the sinking ship of his candidacy. Pack journalists, like we usually do, swarmed to pick away at the fallen runner.

(As usual, the arrangement with the syndicator means this column appears here a week after its newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

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BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, NOV. 15, 2011

LESS CAIN MORE NEWT

BY BOB FRANKEN

Let's honor the recent passing of Andy Rooney by asking the question his way: Have you ever wondered why halting something is called a MORatorium? Is an increase a LESSatorium?

Whatever. It's time for a Herman Cain moratorium, time to impose some Herm limits.

He doesn't want to talk anymore about the accusations of sexual heavy-handedness, but they must be cleared up. Right now, the controversy is stuck in the “he said, they said” netherworld, with no real way to get at the ugly truth, no matter what it is.

Sending his wife, Gloria, out from seclusion to the friendly confines of Fox News to declare that she believes her husband because “he would have to have a split personality to do the things that were said” just isn't going to cut it. We need to know. Somehow.

Waterboarding is presumably out of the question, even though Cain was one of the Republican candidates at the most recent debate who endorsed it as an acceptable “enhanced interrogation technique.”

Even as Cain rises to the top in the polls as a contender, we still need to put him on pause. He's only the latest concoction of the Republican flavor-of-the-month club; meanwhile, Mitt Romney plods along, serving up plain vanilla.

So, it won't be easy to take a Cain break. With all his basso-bizzaro bluster, his oversimplifications, inaccuracies and outright stumbles, he is a gift that keeps on giving. He's similar to Sarah Palin, another “candidate” from whom some of us pundits decided it was time to take a hiatus a few months ago.

To be sure, the two offer some contrasts. He's a candidate; she decided to get off the bus. He has that voice like a fine wine. She should be fined for her whine.

But there are fundamental similarities: Each panders to the far right, and both are a gaffe-a-minute. They share an exquisite talent for self-promotion and an innate understanding of how bad publicity is actually good and is easily deflected as a “witch hunt” (Cain) by pencil necks in the “lamestream media” (Palin).

Tonight's MSNBC appearance has been moved to next Tuesday because of a scheduling conflict

I'm doing MS tonight (Thursday) with the Rev during the 6:00 Eastern hour. What could go wrong?

(As usual, the arrangement with the syndicator means this column appears here a week after its newspaper release)

       FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019  
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       BOB FRANKEN
       FOR RELEASE FRIDAY, NOV. 10, 2011
       UNSLICK RICK
       BY BOB FRANKEN

       You know how Republicans have taken to mocking President Barack Obama for using a teleprompter when he speaks. It’s standard practice for many politicians, to say nothing of us TV twinkies, so it’s kind of a cheap shot. But then, just about all the shots in politics are down in the bargain basement. Be that as it may, certainly Rick Perry could have used a teleprompter in the latest GOP debate Wednesday night.

       There he was, cruising along with one of his oversimplifications about how he would upend Washington, joining those who promise to obliterate various federal departments that make life inconvenient for the party’s wealthy donors what with all their pesky regulations and stuff. “It is three agencies of government, when I get there, that are gone,” Perry began, “Commerce, Education and the --what’s the third one there? Let’s see.”

       It was hard to tell on my TV if he reddened as he tried to recover: “Commerce and let’s see. I can’t. The third one I can’t. Sorry. Oops.”

       The agony went on as others tried to help him, even suggesting the Environmental Protection Agency, another agency that Perry and his corporate puppeteers despise. Nope, that wasn’t it. For the record, it was the Energy Department he was trying to remember, but “oops” indeed.

       His handlers later called it a “human moment” and “authentic,” but a chagrined Perry realized that wouldn’t cut it, so, to his credit, he simply admitted “I stepped in it.”

(The story has changed somewhat, but, as usual, the arrangement with the syndicator means this column appears here a week after its newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

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BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, NOV. 8, 2011

THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT

BY BOB FRANKEN

Sorry, Mr. Cain. Yes, it's true you are demanding that those of us in the media, ethics-challenged that we are, move on and away from our questions about the sexual-harassment charges against you. You insist that real people (meaning you, apparently) want to hear about important issues, so stop with the questions that linger about your conduct with female employees during your tenure as head of the National Restaurant Association.

Let's see how to put this, sir: How about, It ain't gonna happen. As a matter of fact, it is fair to say that those the only questions we should be asking. All the other stuff is just a diversion from a relentless inquiry into whether you acted like a sexual thug with female subordinates.

Thuggery is the only way to describe the accusations of Sharon Bialek, who has come forward with a claim that back in 1997, when she sat down to discuss a job: “He suddenly reached over and put his hand on my leg, under my skirt and reached for my genitals.” Then, she went on that he (meaning you) tried to pull her head toward his crotch.

This is vile. If true, it could possibly have been pursued as a sexual assault, but it wasn't. And the statement from your campaign that “all of the allegations of harassment against Mr. Cain are completely false,” just will not suffice. This now is far beyond the “witch hunt” that is, as you claim, some concoction of the “inside-the-Beltway” crowd. If these accusations are anywhere near true, you need to withdraw from a candidacy that would be a blight on our country.

If they are not, then we all need to know, so that any lingering doubts about such accusations of heinous actions can be swept away, and the nation can level appropriate scorn against those would engage in such a smear. When your organization goes on to say “Fortunately, the American people will not allow Mr. Cain's bold '9-9-9 Plan,' clear foreign-policy vision and plans for energy independence to be overshadowed by these bogus attacks,” that is wishful thinking.

(As usual, the agreement with the syndicators means this column appears here a week after it's newspaper release which was just as all the sexual harassment hell broke loose)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

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BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE FRIDAY, NOV. 4, 2011

POLITICAL JABBERWOCKY

BY BOB FRANKEN

It’s a shame that Lewis Carroll isn’t around to write a modern-day “Through the Looking Glass,” because our current political wonderland would have provided even more bizarre material.

There are so many purveyors of reverse reality, and Herman Cain is just one of them. Here is a man who never wastes an opportunity to tell us how uniquely plain-spoken he is, and yet, as we discover time after time, he’s just another candidate who bullshoots from the lip.

Cain’s version of the events regarding his past sexual-harassment charges is ever-changing, a classic case of obfuscation. He grudgingly provides new details —after they are revealed by the media. And, of course, he accuses the same-said media of engaging in a “Witch Hunt.” That’s right out of the campaign I manual, and it goes over really well on the right, which is his election stumping ground.

A Washington Post poll taken after the initial POLITICO reports on all this show that seven out of 10 Republicans say the charges don’t matter.

Rush Limbaugh has rushed to his defense, characterizing the media frenzy as an “unconscionable, racially stereotypical attack.”

Now, remember, that’s from Rush Limbaugh, the grand dragon of radio, whose years broadcasting vitriol to his Ditto Heads frequently have included gratuitous bigoted rants. But there he is, suddenly playing the great emancipator.

And the arch-conservative wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has wasted no opportunity to exploit her husband’s bizarre confirmation hearings with his racially charged claim that he was the victim of a “high-tech lynching.”

Those hearings forced sexual harassment to the forefront, where it belonged. But what followed was the inevitable descent into the bureaucratic HR Hell of another reverse reality.

In far too many companies and organizations, bureaucrats and obstructionist lawyers have created such a tangle that, notwithstanding the sanctimonious stated policies of management, the environment at work is as “hostile” as ever. Human Resources departments are too often demonstrably INhuman. More material for the 21st-century Lewis Carroll.

Accountability becomes irrelevant. It is thwarted by a process that only serves the enforcers and not the victims. It also provides, as we’re witnessing, for the candidate who wants to avoid exposure until the controversy goes away.

(As usual, the agreement with the syndicators means that this column appears here a week after its newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

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BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, NOV. 1, 2011

DEBATE AND SWITCH

BY BOB FRANKEN

Whether it's the ardent admirers of Rick Perry or those who consider him a dangerous buffoon, everyone needs to take seriously what is behind his campaign's announcement that he might bag some of the upcoming GOP debates.

Oh sure, it's easy for the haters to conclude that his performance in past encounters has been an embarrassment that nearly pulled the props out from under his pulpit. However, his spokesman, Ray Sullivan, of course had a much more elegant spin.

Sullivan told CNN, “The candidates need to spend time in Iowa.” On Fox, he elaborated: “These debates are set up for nothing more than to tear down the candidates.” Translation: Gov. Perry is challenged when he's challenged.

Once he floated his trial balloon and it attracted some flak, he erected the usual candidate “Let Me Explain” mantra and immediately tiptoed back a little. He's now saying that he hadn't really decided.

Notwithstanding his story behind the story (I've always wanted to use that expression), he does have a point. We've already had eight TV debates, and there are scads more scheduled. After all, they are good theater and get good ratings, but they also get in the way of more traditional events.

They take huge chunks of time away from town halls and other photo-op contrivances, to say nothing of the valuable behind-the-scenes meetings to grovel for money from fat cats who want to buy influence.

Even so -- and even though some of the other contenders complain about how these encounters get in the way -- the bad-mouthers have it all wrong.

We need MORE debates, not fewer. There should be so many that we set aside a TV slot for them ... let's call it “D-Span.”

(As usual, the agreement with the syndicator means this column appears here a week after its newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

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BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE FRIDAY, OCT. 28, 2011

FLAT TAX FLAT-OUT FOOLISHNESS

BY BOB FRANKEN

Why call something a “flat tax” when it causes the playing field to be even less level? Since what it really does is make the rich richer at the expense of everyone else, wouldn't a better name for it be “fat tax” -- as in “fat cats.” Funny how each of the plans offered by the Republican presidential candidates manages to accomplish that.

You can call it “9-9-9,” as Herman Cain does, or “Bold,” as Rick Perry does, or whatever catchy title the others use, but it's really just a con that lowers taxes on the wealthy and often raises them for all those who can't afford lavish campaign contributions.

Their best moniker would be “subterfuge,” since each is usually pitched as a way to uncomplicate the labyrinth of Internal Revenue Service loopholes that already benefit the super-moneyed interests. These approaches simply make it even easier for them to pay less than their fair share.

Is it any wonder that all but one of the GOP candidate offerings eliminate or reduce the capital-gains and estate taxes? Guess who is burdened by those taxes. The ones who have the most substantial capital gains and estates? Good guess.

More importantly, is it any wonder that the latest New York Times-CBS News poll registers two-thirds who believe that the wealth in this country is distributed unfairly? The good news is that apparently the vast majority of Americans have a grasp on reality, even if the politicians don't.

(As usual, the arrangement with the syndicator means these columns appear here a week after their newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

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BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, OCT. 25, 2011

THE TV NEWS' UNCOMPREHENSIVE REPORTS ABOUT OCCUPY WALL STREET

BY BOB FRANKEN

How many days in a row will every TV news outlet in the country assign an 8-by-10 glossy correspondent to cover the Occupy Wall Street protesters and ask the same burning question: “But, what is their agenda?” “What do they want to accomplish?” or some other variation of “This is not being handed to me on a spoon, so I don't get it” “Back to you in the studio, Heather and Scott.”

Television anchors are all named Heather or Scott. Or Diane. But I digress. The point is that the message of the demonstrators isn't outlined on some bullet-point PR release, and is therefore not penetrating the on-the-scene journalists' makeup and hairspray, so we keep hearing the same story line on Action-Eyewitness-News Center.

The furrowed-brow puzzlement is not only nauseatingly repetitious, but it's also a bit dense, since the movement may be loosely formed, but its message is very precise: Change. Not the loose “Change” of campaign promises, but real change.

Undo the control that wealth has over the country -- control that sabotages the promise of our founders. Allow an opportunity for personal riches, as long as a proper amount is given back to the society as a whole, the one that provided the opportunities for success.

That means an equitable tax system, where the fortunate share larger amounts of their bounty. As Massachusetts Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren declared in an August speech: “There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own.”

(As usual, the agreement with the syndicators, meansthese columns appear here a week after their newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

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BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE FRIDAY, OCT. 21, 2011

REPUBLICAN SNITTY SNITTY BANG BANG

BY BOB FRANKEN

When out covering combat, I would always keep in mind that the producers back home in TV land would positively drool anytime there was what we all called “Bang-Bang” -- in other words, the sights and sounds of combat were a sure-fire (pun intentional) way to get on television.

The folks at CNN had to be in ecstasy the other night. The GOP confrontation they co-sponsored from the Las Vegas strip “war zone” certainly provided a bang-bang-up ending to the current debate series.

If only they had recruited Hank Williams Jr. to sing the opening theme. He's available, since ESPN dumped him. He would have been perfect in this setting, belting “All my rowdy friends are comin' over tonight.”

The candidates certainly were rowdy. Maybe it's a Vegas thing, a group decision that the party's nomination is still a crapshoot.

First of all, who put that “Kick Me” sign on Herman Cain's backside? There's no shortage of suspects, considering all those he's left in the dust while zooming to the top tier

But maybe he pinned it on himself, in the form of that “9-9-9” plan. The Tax Policy Center has compiled a study concluding that the proposal would mean higher taxes for 84 percent of Americans. Cain insisted that the criticisms were “erroneous” without citing specifics. Rick Perry announced that he's about to unveil a flat-out flat-tax scheme, so he challenged Cain with “I'll bump plans with you, brother.” He repeatedly referred to Cain as “brother.” What's with that?

I'm doing MS tonight (Thursday) during the 6:00, Eastern hour. This is a wild guess but we'll probably talk about politics

(As usual, the arrangement with the syndicators means this column appears here a week after its newspaper release)

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^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<

^By BOB FRANKEN@=

^C.2011 Hearst Newspapers@=

WASHINGTON _ Let's face it, the very most anyone remembers from any political debate is one sound bite. But sometimes, as in the Oct. 11 Bloomberg-Washington Post debate at Hanover, N.H., we have a rhetorical embarrassment of riches. Or just an embarrassment.

There was Texas Gov. Rick Perry, fending off comparisons with Mitt Romney's economic proposals, blurting, “Mitt’s had six years to be working on a plan. I’ve been in this for about eight weeks.”

Usually a candidate's admission that he's been thinking the economy for just eight weeks would have easily made him the sound bite award winner. But he was contending with Michele Bachmann.

No one yields a pithy phrase like her. And this time she was actually on target when she turned to Herman Cain. Cain has now shot slightly ahead of the field in the Oct. 12 NBC poll, even edging out Romney, 27 percent to 23 percent. Much of Cain’s traction has come from his so-called ``9-9-9’’ plan which makes taxes on all individuals and corporations 9 per cent and adds a 9 sales tax for bad measure. Never mind that it's truly a Hood Robin, in that it takes from the poor and gives to the rich. It's really, really simple.

That gave Bachmann her opening to clobber him. ``When you take the 9-9-9 plan and turn it upside down, I think the devil is in the details.’’ Now that as Perry himself might say, is a whuppin'.

Not that it does her much good. In the NBC poll, she is down at 5 per cent and Perry is at 16. Both are former hopes of the ABM crowd, meaning ``Anybody But Mitt.’’ Now it's Cain's turn.

(As usual, the arrangement with the syndicator means that this column appears here a week after its newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, OCT. 11, 2011

THE FAT OF THE LAND

BY BOB FRANKEN

Setting aside any opinions about his politics, it's a shame that Chris Christie decided not to get into the presidential race, because we probably won't have a rip-roaring debate about one of our most deep-seated prejudices. It's the one against fat people, bigotry with a capital “BIG.” In the immortal words of Christie himself, much of the commentary was fat-out “ignorant.”

Those, for instance, who characterized his extremely portly physique as the manifestation of an inner lack of discipline were revealing their own flabby thinking about a subject that is much more, uh, weighty than the usual fluff.

First of all, the battle of the pounds is a struggle of massive proportions. Ask former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who is again on the upward trajectory of the loss-gain seesaw. Or inquire of Newt Gingrich how rough it is on one's self-esteem to labor with a condition that is so widely ostracized. He would much rather tell us about the other “big ideas” he alone has.

Should those of us pondering a potential candidate for our highest office even bother discussing the size of his waist? Or is it a waste of time? A really good ancillary question would focus on the chances of corpulent woman. Fat chance?

By the way, there's a reason for the snarky language here. It reveals the steady diet of cruelty we could expect if anyone so demonstrably unfit and untrim got into the race. When Christie ran for governor of New Jersey, the forces of his Democratic opponent, Jon Corzine, released a TV commercial showing Christie getting out of a car with his belly jiggling while the announcer complained about how “Christie threw his weight around.” Christie beat Corzine, but it is common for us to hear slim showoffs make sure we know how swell it is that they're svelte.

(As usual, the arrangement with the sydicators, means this column appears here a week after its newspaper release)

^SARAH PALIN TO THE BARRICADES@<

^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<

^By BOB FRANKEN@=

^C.2011 Hearst Newspapers@=

WASHINGTON _ Now that Sarah Palin has decided not to run for the presidency, the burning question is this: Where does she take her act next? Actually, there's a natural forum for her campaign-tease catch phrase deriding ``Crony Capitalism.’’

It’s the street. The woman needs to take it to The Man.

, ``Crony Capitalism’’ is what the spreading protest is about. She and that disorganized group of young people and, now, unions, that huddle under the "Occupy Wall Street" umbrella, both target what she described in an Iowa speech as "the capitalism of connections and government bailouts and handouts and influence peddling and corporate welfare"

Both argue that the corporate-political complex needs to be taken on. (A generation ago, it was called the ``Military-Industrial Complex.’’ Same thing.)

While she and her cohorts on the right would claim that the Tea Party movement she's nurtured is similarly anti-establishment, it is not. It's really anti-tax which plays right into the hands of the fat cats who are well represented among crony capitalists.
Palin leaves behind a Republican presidential field dominated by candidates who also want to maintain the current economic structure. Not only are Mitt Romney and Rick Perry at the top of the party heap, but they are now joined by Herman Cain.

Yes, Herman Cain. He's either tied for second with Perry behind leader Mitt Romney (Washington Post-ABC News-October 4th), or in another October 4th survey (CBS News), he's tied for first with Romney.

All three are unapologetically on the side of big money. Romney will forever be remembered for his ``corporations are People’’ statement, Perry's policies favoring mega businesses in Texas are the stuff of legend, and now we have Cain out there touting his ``9-9-9’’ plan.

(As usual, the arrangement with the syndcators means this column appears here a week after its newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, OCT. 4, 2011

BOYCOTT? WHY NOT?

BY BOB FRANKEN

Anyone who questions the danger to this nation where public support is essential should check out a widely read August memo from GOP consultant Bill McInturff, who warned of the growing “lack of confidence in our political system and its leaders,” or look at the polls, like Gallup's Sept. 27 installment, which measured 81 percent of respondents dissatisfied with the way government is being run.

The numbers are so overwhelmingly negative that perhaps a double negative is appropriate: We Can't Do Nothing.

Standing by, watching society slide down the tubes, paralyzed by the politics of moneyed special interests while waiting to vote in the next election -- it may not be enough. So, if we shouldn't do nothing (this is fun!), and it's time for action, what action? What are the choices for those of us who have gotten used to wallowing in the apathetic complacency of disgust?

Confrontation? It's the new old thing. Taking it to the man. But, as we've seen in the massive protests in Madison, Wis., and elsewhere, our elected officials sometimes seem impervious. Even if a few are recalled, their cuts and successful union-busting advance the schemes of the powerful corporate leaders who financed their campaigns. And when a small group raucously takes it to the streets where it counts -- that most important street of all, Wall Street -- they certainly are aiming at an appropriate target. After all, it is the real seat of government, the nation's capital capitol, which exercises control over the symbolic seat that they've bought and paid for in Washington. But remember, the powerful exercise massive power, so participants are manhandled by police and are pepper-sprayed. Even so, the protest movement is moving out a bit ... spreading not just to the Brooklyn Bridge but to a few other cities. Good start.

(As usual, the agreement with syndicators means this column appears here a week after its newspaper release. This was written before Mr. Christie decided not to make a run)

^CHRISTIE FINDS FLIRTATION IS FUN@<

^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<

^By BOB FRANKEN@=

^C.2011 Hearst Newspapers@=

WASHINGTON _ Sometimes we can be really insensitive. How many of us, for instance, have worried about the hurt feelings of all the GOP presidential candidates whenever they see or hear still another Republican bemoan the sorry lineup now challenging incumbent Barack Obama?

Even the Obama campaign guru, David Axelrod, acknowledges that his guy faces a ``titanic’’ struggle to win re-election. No one needs a reminder about the fate of the Titanic.

But Republican Party faithful worry that their present choices will give Obama clear sailing.

To be clear, many of them are looking for someone who is not Mitt Romney. This would-be candidate would demonstrate competence and experience _ and also generate heat compared to Mitt's tepid.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is just the latest to be basking in the warmth reserved for those on the pedestal of the unannounced. The clamor had reached such a fever pitch in spite of Christie's repeatedly stated non-interest that he wondered aloud what it would take to be convincing, ``short of suicide.’’ Now it's fair to wonder if he convinced himself. His denials have slipped to wily non-answers.

To the repeated pleeeeze-will-you-run question after his Reagan Library speech earlier this week, Christie was cagey with his answer. The question, he said, is ``incredibly flattering.’’

That's way short of ``short of suicide.’’

But it's one thing to enjoy what can be described as a pre-commitment honeymoon and another to take the plunge. Just ask Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who was the last one anointed a savior. Since he jumped into the pool, Perry's been having a harder time staying afloat, weighed down by debate performances.

A Fox poll, released Sept. 29, shows he has dipped behind Romney, down 10 points in the last month. By the way, there seems to be a Cain mutiny going on. Herman Cain is now in third place, although Sarah Palin dismisses him as the ``flavor of the week.’’ Of course Palin's outsider game is leaving many faithful with a bad taste. It's getting stale.

(As usual, the deal with syndicators means these columns appear here a week after their newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, SEPT. 27, 2011

THE CAMPAIGN MUNCHKINS

BY BOB FRANKEN

What with all the back and forth about hearts and brains, it doesn't take too much imagination to see the similarities between the Republican presidential debates and another work of on-screen fiction, “The Wizard of Oz.”

There, for instance, was Rick Perry skipping merrily along the yellow-brick road, imagining an easy jaunt from Texas to Washington, when he fell into the gaping pothole of illegal immigration and bitter hostility against those who sneak across the border looking for menial jobs and facing life on the run. The very same man whose extreme views on a variety of subjects have thrilled the extremists who control the GOP is suddenly on the defensive.

It seems that Gov. Perry's record is not entirely cruel. So, he's fending off attacks over his executive order mandating student vaccinations in his state against the virus that causes cervical cancer. Now he has to own up to his record of compassion for the undocumented. Not only had he opposed the idea of a 1,200-mile fence along the border with Mexico, calling it “idiocy,” but suddenly he was under attack -- the most wicked which came from Mitt Romney -- for supporting in-state resident tuition for the children of parents who had brought their families as they crossed into life as U.S. illegals in Texas.

Perry was indignant, insisting during the last Florida debate that those who oppose the approach “don't have a heart.” “I think if you're opposed to illegal immigration, it doesn't mean that you don't have a heart,” shot back Romney, a day later, “it means that you have a heart and a brain.”

I'll be on MSNBC tonight (Thursday) during the 6:00 PM, Eastern, hour.

(As usual, the agreement with the syndicators means this column appears here a week after its newspaper release)

^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<
^By BOB FRANKEN@=
^C.2011 Hearst Newspapers@=
WASHINGTON _ It's outright predictable. Whenever anyone, usually on the left, has the audacity to suggest that the rich should be giving back just a teeny bit more, their paid protectors on the right side of the feedlot will scream: ``CLASS WARFARE!’’

As we all should know, those words are loaded ones, implying that any reform is tantamount to Marxism.

So it was when President Obama outlined his proposals to address the overlapping disasters of the economy _ massive national debt and desperate unemployment. The mere mention of added taxes on the wealthy or subtracted subsidies for their corporations gets the automatic GOP response. ``Class warfare,’’ complained House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis. ``Class warfare,’’ muttered House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

It's become so predictable that the president was ready in his Rose Garden presentation earlier this week with a killer sound bite: ``It’s not class warfare, it’s math.’’

At least Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., put on a different spin, going to the floor to sniff: ``This is not a jobs plan, this is a re-election plan.’’

This the same Mitch McConnell who so famously declared, even before this year's congressional firefight had started, that ``the single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president’’?

(As usual, the arrangement with the sydicators means this column appears here a week after its newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, SEPT. 20, 2011

BULLY FOR THE PRESIDENTS

BY BOB FRANKEN

Does anybody remotely care that it was Teddy Roosevelt who came up with the term “bully pulpit”? Well, he did, to describe the uniquely prominent platform available to a very powerful officeholder, like, say, a president. President Barack Obama is trying to shout from his these days, but he might want to remember that a bully pulpit works only if the user is willing to be a bully.

And that's been his problem. He's advocated a “balanced approach” while dealing with adversaries who will accept only the unbalanced. The latest New York Times-CBS News poll, taken in mid-September, shows his disapproval rating now at 50 percent, his lowest as POTUS.

A new book by Pulitzer Prize winner Ron Suskind won't help. It's called “Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington and the Education of a President” and depicts a chief executive who can't control his very top level subordinates. It reinforces a toxic notion that Obama is a weak leader. That, in turn, has fed the idea that he's vulnerable and can be defeated in next year's election.

Apparently, his team worries this self-fulfilling perception can become reality. So his chief strategist, David Axelrod, has sent a memo to news reporters and organizations complaining we have “focused on the president's disapproval ratings as if they existed in a black box,” disregarding that “Americans are increasingly rejecting the tea party” and that the GOP's candidates for the White House “are busy courting the tea party.”

(As usual, the arrangement with the syndicators means this column appears here a week after its newspaper release)

^GOING THROUGH THE DOWNWARD MOTIONS@<

^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<

^By BOB FRANKEN@=

^c.2022 Hearst Newspapers@=
WASHINGTON _Score one for Herman Cain.

Cain is running for the Republican presidential nomination as the un-politician so when confronted during a GOP debate over not understanding how Washington works, he shot back: ``Yes, I do. It doesn't.’’

Of course, he's only half right. It took a blend of government incompetence and greed in the private sector, which Cain always champions. Together, they have dragged the nation into a financial crisis that is documented still again by newly released figures from the U.S. Census bureau:

In 2010, 46.2 million Americans were living below the poverty line, the highest number in the 52 years the bureau has been keeping track, 15.1 per cent of the population. The upward mobility we have always held sacred has become a national downward mobility. Median income, overall, is at the lowest level since 1996. Of course, this is fed by the scourge of unemployment: 14 million out of work, another 10 million scraping by in lesser jobs or simply abandoning the search...and hope.

So here comes President Obama to the rescue. He has presented a new collection of old ideas for using strategically placed federal funding to jolt new hiring and the repair of crumbling infrastructures. Pretty obvious stuff.

Also obvious is the mechanism to pay the estimated $450 billion needed for his American Jobs Act, with its features like cuts in payroll taxes, incentives for hiring long-term unemployed and tons of money for highways, bridges and school construction.

The wealthy individuals who have fed on the fat of the land need to share a few more of their crumbs. The Census Bureau, by the way, points out that the only significant gains in income last year occurred among those in the top one per cent of the economy.

(As usual, the arrangement with the syndicators means this column appears here at least a week after its newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, SEPT. 13, 2011

PRESSING THE PRESS

BY BOB FRANKEN

Here's a little nugget that was buried in President Barack Obama's address before the joint session of Congress last week: “Already, the media has proclaimed that it's impossible to bridge our differences.”

Right you are, Mr. President. Given how some Republicans boycotted your address and one held up a protest sign, it's not hard to suspect that the partisan gap is too wide for any meaningful cooperation. Feel free to prove us wrong.

Then there's Newt Gingrich who, the night before the speech at the GOP debate, when host Brian Williams asked him about differences over health care among the party's presidential candidates, replied: “Well, I'm frankly not interested in your effort to get Republicans fighting each other.”

Call me crazy, but isn't that what a debate is about, Newt? According to the dictionary, it's “a discussion of opposing viewpoints.” One would assume you knew this. Is this how you're hoping to breathe some life into your campaign, what's left of it?

Come to think of it, maybe Messrs. Obama and Gingrich are onto something. They have seized on one of the few remaining bipartisan issues, because whatever their political persuasion, our leaders generally come to dislike the reporters and the organizations who cover them.

Frankly, a lot of the scorn is deserved. It's true that we in the media often don't do the job we should in applying aggressive skepticism to what our officeholders and candidates dish out. Instead, we go for the cheap-shot, mindless stories about scandals and personality clashes. But if we did perform adequately, they'd really despise us.

To be honest, I usually shy away from writing about “us.” First of all, we are too self-involved. Look no further than the coverage of 9/11's anniversary, which so often degraded into our reflections about what we were doing and thinking that day. Who cares? In addition, those of us in the news biz get far too sensitive about professional animosity when we should wear it as a badge of honor.

(As usual, the arrangement with the syndicators means this column appears here a week after its newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE FRIDAY, SEPT. 9, 2011

CONGRESS, OBAMA FOCUS ON SAVING JOBS

BY BOB FRANKEN

The president himself called it a “political circus,” and the season of clowning around has begun. The focus of President Barack Obama and members of Congress this time is squarely on jobs. Sad to say, it is mainly on saving theirs.

Oh yeah, they're also trying to appear like they're doing something about the 14 million people who are unemployed in this nation and the 10 million untallied others who are struggling with lower-paying work than they used to have, and sadly, those who have given up looking.

People can be forgiven for concluding that the D.C. politicians simply were going through the motions of caring about anything but themselves. There was the president, before a joint House-Senate session, outlining a new stimulus program with a price tag of $447 billion. He gave the legislation a catchy title, “The American Jobs Act,” and got right to the point:

“The question is whether in the face of a national crisis we can stop the political circus and do something to help the economy, whether we can restore some of the fairness and security that has defined this nation since our beginning.”

Well, the answer didn't look all that promising, if the first reactions were any indication. The Republicans largely sat on their hands. Quoth Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell: “This isn't a jobs plan. It's a re-election plan.”

Mercifully, it wasn't too long before we could watch the Green Bay Packers-New Orleans Saints game that followed -- a game that somehow started as scheduled even though players and management struggled for months over bitter differences. In the end, they demonstrated that they could negotiate their way past the differences. All it took was deciding that they had a mutual interest in working out a deal.

That feeling of common purpose is sorely missing among the players on the two sides in politics. They are each singularly consumed by the desire to get re-elected by making sure the other doesn't.

What is so galling is not just that they are ruining the lives of millions, it's that they are making things worse by creating what could be a self-fulfilling prophecy of further downfall.

It's another night on MSNBC for me. The fun goes on during the 6:00PM Eastern hour tonight (Friday).

(As usual, because of the arrangement with the sydicators, this column appears here at least a week after its newspaper release)

TURF BATTLES

"It is a beautiful night for political football".

Chances are the news anchors won't say that but they should. They and their colorless color analysts will be doing play-by-play of a presidential address to a joint session of the House and Senate about the nation's debilitating unemployment.

Significant as that should be, our government's leaders have managed to reduce the event into nothing more than a part of the pregame show leading up to the NFL season opener.

After all, some amateurish heavy-handedness by the opposing sides had threatened to schedule the speech in the Capitol at the same time the gridiron professionals were playing smashmouth at their own stadium, Lambeau Field in Green Bay.

Once Washington's best and brightest realized just about all of us would choose to watch the giant athletes collide, the small minded officials hastily decided to set aside their pettiness and do their thing beforehand.

The White House had already fumbled on the first play. What a bad call it was to try originally to schedule the congressional appearance on Wednesday night. And what a coincidence that the Democratic administration chose the precise time Republican candidates seeking to take Barack Obama's job from him would be debating in California.

Maybe they should just wait to let Obama simply hand it to one of them, since he seems to be hellbent on forfeiting. It was predictable to everyone but him that he would be sacked for a big loss by Speaker John Boehner, who defended his team's turf with a No-Way-Mr.-President

Come to think of it, maybe the Packers and Saints will be providing a postgame show, following the pushing and shoving in the Capitol. Whatever happens, our nation's leaders have once again left a widespread impression they're out of their league

If the D's versus the R's played by pigskin rules, instead of their piggish ones, the House floor would be littered with yellow flags. But they don't.

For example, while blocking behind the back is a major gridiron violation, it isn't in DC where most everything is done behind the back. And while the fundamental part of football involves blocking and tackling, here in Never-Never land it's only blocking, as in preventing anyone from coming up with any solutions to the problems which are dragging us to the ground.

I'm on MSNBC during the 6:00 Eastern hour this Tuesday evening to lead a group cringe over the latest political developments

(As usual, the arrangement with syndicators means these columns appear here a week after their newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, AUG. 30, 2011

WINDS AND WINDBAGS

BY BOB FRANKEN

It's a confession that makes me cringe: I have been one of those TV types like those we've witnessed standing in the middle of Hurricane Irene with everything flying around, informing the world that yup, it sure is stormy out here. It's what we do.

In and around politics, however, the blowhards pretend to ignore the obvious; such as there is no way in the world that Republicans in Congress are going to make any deal with the White House that furthers any purpose but unelecting President Barack Obama. That internal debate we hear of in the current administration about whether to pursue compromise or force the issues is a big waste of time. The only motivation for any accommodation by their adversaries will be avoiding embarrassment.

Still, there's the pointless argument between the “let it all hang out” crowd and the incrementalists. The White House needs to abandon what AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka calls “little nibbly things” and instead chomp on the other side with an aggressive push for higher taxes on the rich, tough regulations on financial flimflam artists and spending on labor-intensive public-works projects. Never mind that the tea partiers will scream about “class warfare”; it will be and should be, since their wealthy patrons have been conducting class warfare against the poor and middle class for a long, long time.

The Democrats need to point fingers at the GOP enablers in Congress who take campaign contributions in return for keeping legal what should be white-collar crimes. As for the president, instead of pandering to big-business interests, he should make a forceful issue out of their misconduct.

I am on MSNBC tonight (Friday) during the 6:00 Eastern hour. Think of it as a send off to your long weekend

^LEFT AND RIGHT FEET IN MOUTH@<
^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<
^By BOB FRANKEN@=
^C.2011 Hearst Newspapers@=
WASHINGTON _ Let's set aside for the moment the argument over who is ``fair and balanced’’ or whether that idea even suggests that the various sides in our public arguments should be granted automatic equivalency.
Frankly, they often should not. But what they do deserve from those of us who aspire to journalism is fairness.
Which brings us to the epidemic of foot and mouth disease.

Many of us have been getting some gaffe laughs at the expense of Rep. Michele Bachmann for her various factual errors and exxagerations. But if she's going to get bruned by us, shouldn't we also hold Vice President Joe Biden's loose lips to the fire?
After Bachmann's recent reference to the present dangers of the ``Soviet Union,’’ I was one of those joining in the ridicule, saying that she didn't need the kind of ``gotcha’’ questions that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich complained about in the last Republican debate, because she was ``a walking, talking gotcha answer.’’ The point was that she has repeatedly made foolish verbal mistakes.

But Biden has been doing that for decades. Those who keep track remind us that in August 1987, he was forced out of a presidential run when he was caught plagiarizing the words of a British Labor Party leader and inflating his law school standing. In that case, he claimed he had graduated in the top half of his class at the Syracuse University Law School, when he actually ranked 76th out of 85. 24 years later, he’s still going strong.

There he was last weekend in Chengdu, China, speaking to Sichuan University students during his official visit when he blurted out this intended criticism about that country's harshly enforced one-child-per-family rule.
His point, as he put it, was ``you have no safety net. Your policy has been one which I fully understand, I'm not second guessing, of one child per family. The result being that you're in a position where one wage earner will be taking care of four retired people. Not sustainable.’’

"Fully understand"? "I'm not second guessing"? This is a forced population control policy, he was talking about, one that the US State Department itself in 2010 called one of China's "principal human rights problems"

(As usual, the agreement with the syndicators means this colu,m appears here a week after its newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, AUG. 23, 2011

MEETING THE MEANING

BY BOB FRANKEN

Don't you sometimes wish that for once, someone would break off a romantic relationship by saying, “It's not me, it's you.” Or that a boss firing an employee would end the memo with, “We wish him the very worst.”

The point is, there are so many situations when it would be wonderful if those involved simply said what they meant, instead of using platitudes that are transparent anyway.

That's certainly the case in politics. In fact, it is almost always the case in politics. Imagine how refreshing it would be if everyone just bleated the truth instead of putting lipstick on their spinning piggishness.

The president could get over his “let's reason together” act and hammer away at the Republicans with his real feelings. Instead of calling for a “balanced approach,” he'd shout: “These tea-party crazies are out to destroy the country. Their fanaticism is matched only by their simple-minded understanding of government.” Instead of telling big business, “I'm convinced we can and must work together,” which is what he told a U.S. Chamber of Commerce meeting a few months ago, he'd tell them: “You guys are predators who have wreaked havoc on the country just to fill your financial bellies to the point of obesity. Instead of coddling you, we should arrest you -- or at the very least tax you blind!”

But no, the president prefers subtlety, based on the mistaken belief that people are in the mood for reasoned nuance. And certainly, he's not the only one who uses words as subterfuge.

(As usual, the arrangement with the syndicators means these columns appear here a week after their newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, AUG. 16, 2011

IOWA'S OUTGOING AND INCOMING

BY BOB FRANKEN

Even though it seems to be another moneymaking gimmick for the Iowa Republican Party, and even though it has a spotty record of picking eventual winners, 2011's did serve as the straw poll that broke candidates' backs. Tim Pawlenty wasted no time. After too few of those voting saw much good in Pawlenty, he quickly folded his nearly empty tent. He isn't the only also-ran who was run over.

Michele Bachmann came in No. 1, proving once and for all that the “Are you a flake?” question is irrelevant. She even topped Ron Paul, whose “Well, yes, I AM a flake” rants usually have served him well in these nonbinding tallies.

Mitt Romney opted out, but among the nonplayers, Rick Perry was the big winner. He was 1,200 miles away in South Carolina, where he stole a lot of thunder by announcing that he would be running for president himself. In spite of his studied country-boy demeanor, he demonstrated he was no hayseed. He immediately made a big splash in the pool of candidates, particularly for Romney and Bachmann.

The three have much more in common than their big hair. Like Romney, Perry is in the governor's club and can lay claim to real experience running a state. Like Bachmann, he's adored by social conservatives, including so many who would replace America's traditional religious pluralism with rigid singularism.

It is easy to dismiss their simple-minded presentations as dumb. But considering their audience, they are dumb like a Fox News. They camouflage their judgmental views with smiley faced harshness.

I'm on MSNBC tomorrow (Tuesday) morning at 9:00, Eastern. Probably will be discussing current events.

I'm on MSNBC tonight (Friday) during th 6:00 Eastern hour, the rescheduled appearance from last night.

My MSNBC hit tonight (Thursday) is now rescheduled for tomorrow (Friday). Same time: 6:00PM, Eastern hour.

I'm on MSNBC tonight (Thursday) at 6:00, Eastern, with more of the ridicule of our politicians

(As usual, the arrangement with the syndicators means this column appears here a week after its newspaper release)

^STEPPING OUT OF THE CRISIS ADDICTION@<

^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<

^By BOB FRANKEN@=

^C.2011 Hearst Newspapers@=

``My name is U.S. Politician. I am addicted to widespread destruction. I am a Debacle-holic.’’

We're looking in on a meeting of AA+ . . .the self-help organization for those who cannot resist wreaking havoc on our desperate nation. This is not the highly respected Alcoholics Anonymous. Rather, this is grossly disrespected Absurdity Anonymous. The ``+’’ means REALLY Absurb.

No one is identified, not because of secrecy, in this instance, since these people are hooked on publicity.

``I am drunk with power, poisoned by Demon Dumb. My irresponsible actions have not only brought serious harm to my family and friends but millions upon millions of others who have suffered great harm from my irresponsible actions. I am held in contempt by all of them.’’

If there was ever a need for an intervention, this would be it. Look at the polls. A Marist survey, taken Aug. 2-4, shows that a startling 70 per cent of those questioned believe the United States is heading in the wrong direction. The scary part is that there's no assurance we've fallen as far as we will.

The downward slide got a big push from that action by Standard & Poor’s, the financial rating firm, the weekend after the debt deal. It left a bad taste in everyone's mouth. Whatever S & P's competence or motivation, its downgrade rationale is difficult to dispute: ``... the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policy making and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges.’’

Maybe that blow to national self-esteem and the investment gyrations that followed were big enough jolts.

Maybe the August break can be best used for rehab programs. Then, the time might be right for the AA+ 12 Step Program:

1) Put aside personal agendas and pursue reasonable solutions that will rescue the country everyone claims to love.

2) Pass laws where those who are responsible for careless and shady dealing that led to the economic downfall are punished instead of rewarded with greater wealth.

3) Raise taxes on those who keep their riches, instead of hiring the unemployed.

4) Take steps to live up to the historic promise of equal opportunity and equal protection.

5) By all means, eliminate the fat and fat cat favoritism from government spending without cutting to the bone of social need.

6) Create a congressional mechanism where every member of government must accompany his support for or against legislation with a list of all campaign contributions that might have influenced the decision.

7) Tone down the toxic rhetoric.

That's enough. We don't need 12 Steps to get started on the road to recovery, particularly since most of these are in the ``Ain't Gonna Happen Category.’’

(As usual, the arrangement with the syndicators means this column appears here a week after its newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, AUG. 9, 2011

TROUBLE AND BLAME

BY BOB FRANKEN

“We got trouble, folks, right here in (Potomac) River City,

“With a capital “T” and that rhymes with “P” and that stands for Politics.”

Unlike Broadway's “Music Man,” in Washington there's no music, man. All we have is dissonance as the members of this marching band follow their own distant drummers. Instead of the shiny “76 Trombones,” they've managed, by strictly blowing their own horns, to tarnish the once-gleaming credit instruments of the United States.

When Standard & Poor's took the U.S. debt rating from the exalted Triple-A and knocked it down a notch to AA+, it knocked the nation down a notch, too. Whatever the practical effect, slipping from the top of the monetary heap to below France, Germany, Britain and Canada certainly is a wound, a real hit on our exceptionalist hubris. And it's a self-inflicted wound. A top S&P official called the bitter war over raising the borrowing limit a “debacle.”

To complete the picture, it should be noted that the other two credit-ratings agencies, Moody's and Fitch, are sticking by their AAA designations, at least for now. Just as importantly, all three of them certainly failed to cover themselves in glory leading up to the 2008 economic collapse. They all stand accused of providing unduly positive analyses of the exotic mortgage bundles, enabling the massive hustle that crumpled under the weight of financial reality. Many contend that Standard & Poor's is acting now out of skittishness.

“AAA,” by the company's definition, means that an entity has an “extremely strong capacity to meet financial commitments. “AA,” even with a “Plus,” is “Very strong.” If this were put in college terms, we'd have slid from a 4-point GPA to high 3-point, which would mean we wouldn't graduate with honors. In fact, we'd drag our entire institution out of the elite category.

In this case, just about everyone involved has dishonored his and her public-service responsibilities. This is a real morale killer. So, let's play the blame game. For starters let's turn to Congress, which is now under the control of fringe elements. It's easy to point to tea-party anarchists, but we also should reproach their craven leaders who are unwilling to corral them.

I'm on MSNBC tonight (Monday) during the 6:00 Eastern hour, picking at the remaining straws.

I'm on MSNBC tossing it back and forth with Rev. Al tonight (Thursday) during the 6:00, Eastern hour.

(As usual, the arrangement with the syndicators means these columns appear here a week after their newspaper release)

^AMERICAN POLITICS: LOW SCORE, HIGH SCORN@<

^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<

^By BOB FRANKEN

^C.2011 Hearst Newspapers

WASHINGTON _Members of Congress, past and present, are among the many that etiquette assigns a designation of ``HonorableÆÆ in front of their name. The proper address on a letter, for instance, is ``Honorable (Name)

Maybe the time has come to undo that tradition.

If you decide to attend some meeting with your congressperson if he or she is masochistic enough to confront constituents during the August vacation, consider offering this question: ``Are you ashamed"ask sweetly, ``that you are in Congress?"

If the answer is ``no"be concerned. Be very concerned.

He or she has just come slinking back from Washington, taking part in a process that barely avoided doing serious and lasting harm to the credit of the United States. In the process, the participants brought serious discredit on themselves, as well as their institution and the country itself. Russia's spook-strongman Vladimir Putin jumped at the chance to say that the U.S. is ``living like parasites off the global economy"

Harsh? Possibly so. But listen to the words volunteered by respondents in a Washington Post-Pew Research Center poll that asked: ``If you had to use one single word to describe your impression of the budget negotiations in Washington, what would that word be?"The survey concluded on July 31, as the debt deal was consummated.

``Ridiculous"topped the list, but ``Stupid" ``Childish," ``Idiotic" and ``Pathetic" were well represented.

A New York Times/CBS News poll showed Friday that public disapproval of Congress is at an all-time high. A record 82 percent of Americans now disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job. More than four out of five people surveyed said that the recent debt ceiling debate was more about gaining political advantage than about doing what is best for the country. Nearly three-quarters said that the debate had harmed the image of the U.S. in the world.

(As usual, the arrangement with the syndicators means this column appears here a week after its newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, AUG. 2, 2011

THE UNSTABLE BALANCED-BUDGET AMENDMENT

BY BOB FRANKEN

John McCain calls it “bizzaro.” Even John McCain. The reliably hardscrabble conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page calls it “crack political thinking.” This has to be loopy, particularly since it's the same old Republican/right-wing (pardon the redundancy) shtick about a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution.

This time it's been playing in the debt-crisis melodrama. You've heard the refrain -- a simple-minded song-and-dance about how the federal government should be held to the same standard as families and individuals who must live within their means. The ultimate argument is that debt is bad, whether it's public or private.

Frankly, if the cheap-shot politicians want to demean the Constitution, maybe they should set their sights higher. How about a balanced-budget amendment that simply bans borrowing by anybody? Think of it: no more monthly payments, no more defaults, no bankruptcy nor worrying about paying anybody back. Since we're tampering with the nation's fundamental charter, let's go big-time and make sure the change encompasses all facets of this nation's life.

It's living within our means, right? And never mind the really mean consequences. No longer in our personal lives will we be able to afford a house, or a car to park in the driveway or a TV inside to watch the news, which will show the economy sliding into oblivion, because no one will be buying much of anything.

It will mean that the millions of people who make the stuff we finance will be out of work; sticking with cash-only will result in not enough for buying anything, even food or medical care in an emergency. It'll work the same way with our government: If some other country decides to push the U.S. around, there will be inadequate funds to protect our nation. If there's not enough to provide for the less fortunate, they'll just get sick or starve. But hey, at least the budget will be balanced.

I'm on MS tonight (Monday) during the 6:00, Eastern, hour. Whatever is there to discuss?

(As usual, the agreement with syndicators means this column appears here a week after its newspaper release)

BOB-FRANKEN-HNS

EXTREME DYSFUNCTION

(For use by New York Times News Service clients)

By BOB FRANKEN

C.2011 Hearst Newspapers
WASHINGTON - "The American people may have voted for divided government," uttered a frustrated President Obama, "but they didn't vote for a dysfunctional government."

"Dysfunctional"? How about "disgusting" or other words that describe the sorry state of our national government? Sorry to disagree, Mr. President, but that's exactly how they did vote. They were already distressed with the poor performance of those in power, so they ignored all the warnings and proceeded to elect fringe candidates who made no bones that they wanted to come to D.C. and wreck the place.

And that's what they're doing. It brings to mind that old line "Cheer up, things could be worse - and sure enough they are." To put it mildly, reason is in even shorter supply these days, kept out by ideologues who won office by spouting overly simplistic solutions.

Now, they have no choice, as they see it, but to stand by their glib one-liners, even when they are exposed to the harsh complexities of grownup politics. Like so many who constantly proclaim their toughness, they're really too timid to take bold action and face the consequences of breaking naive campaign promises they shouldn't have made in the first place. They scurry on, chattering away, refusing to acknowledge the probability that their tunnel vision will send the economy down the shaft.

Here's another "diss" word: "Disdain."

There's a lot of that going around. Real Clear Politics, an online politics blog, averages all the major public opinion polls. Its July 27 average showed President Obama's job approval rating at just 45 per cent, but that is stratospheric considering the congressional number, just barely over 19 per cent.

Those who believe the country is headed in the right direction amount to 26 per cent of those asked. They're either the wealthy or those who watch cartoons when the news is on. For the most part, voters are showing true buyers' remorse, with the next chance to undo the damage over a year away when we have elections again.

(As usual, the agreement with the syndicators means this column appears here a week after its newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, JULY 26, 2011

THE DEBT CRISIS: DROPPING THE BALL

BY BOB FRANKEN

With the NFL wrapping up agreement while the players here in Washington drop their political footballs, it is tempting to make the comparison between a league with some fumblers and the bumblers running our country as we lurch toward economic disaster. Their turf is the quicksand of intransigence, and so far, the opponents have been unwilling to pull themselves out of their grudge match even as the bottom starts to fall out of the economy. There are cheers as the professional jocks get back to business, but polls show almost nothing but jeers for those scorned as amateurish jerks and their political monkey business.

The news and sports worlds are jam-packed with cliches. Any commentator will sooner or later quote Otto von Bismarck. What a shame he was rattling around Germany in the 1800s because he'd be quite a tweeter today (ein hochtoner auf Twitter?). The guy was a Prussian machine. Bismarck is the one who said “Laws are like sausage. You should never see them made.” I should point out that there are some who think he stole the line, but who cares; they should get a life. The point is that the present-day sausage is so riddled with ideological and rhetorical pathogens that it threatens to poison the economy.

(As usual, the agreement with syndicators means this solumn appears here a week after its newspaper release)
^WHOSE FAULT WOULD DEFAULT BE?@<
^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<
^By BOB FRANKEN@=
^C.2011 Hearst Newspapers@=
WASHINGTON _ The reason an important part of American greatness is teetering on the edge of her financial credibility is because the Tea Party team that the voters sent to Congress last year is keeping its promise.

Why would anyone be surprised by this?

In district after district, successful Republican candidates pledged they would cut the federal government down to size, no matter what. Disgusted voters, who were amply warned about what ``no matter what’’" meant, sent them to Washington.

Now, with a sufficient number of lawmakers to block any sort of compromise that other congressional leaders are seeking, this bloc of Tea Party-supported House members is holding fast to the rigid position of no-deal-without-painfully-crippling-cuts and no-way-on-higher-taxes-no-how, even if a financial default will result, even if they block increased borrowing authority, even if that destroys the ``Full Faith and Credit’’ that symbolizes the strength of the United States. It will severely weaken the country they profess to love.

Then there are the convenient deniers, the Michele Bachmanns of this world who want to make political hay out of the scorched earth. She's out there declaring to the world that she is not going to vote to increase the debt ceiling, because, as she puts it again and again, this is about ``scare tactics’’ from President Obama who is unwilling to ``tell the truth.’’

That ignores entities like a coalition of influential business groups, which never met a Republican they didn't like...at least until now. The Business Roundtable, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers _ usually the powerful champions of corporate self-interest _ have organized top CEOs to sign a letter to the politicians involved, warning them that “failure to raise the debt ceiling would strike an immediate and serious blow to any economic recovery, and failure to make significant progress on long-term debt reduction will continue the uncertainty which is hampering our investment climate.”

That sounds positively Obama-like, which is remarkable, but so is the danger.
This explains why Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has come up with his Plan B, which would effectively hand over the power to increase borrowing limits to Obama and, as he argued, put the onus on the White House to explain why times are so hard.

(As usual, the agreement with syndicators means this column appears a week after its newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, JULY 19, 2011

PASS THE PEAS, PASS THE BUCK

BY BOB FRANKEN

By now, possibly you've heard that “eat healthy” Michelle Obama was spotted at a baseball game ordering a milkshake, burger and french fries -- along with a Diet Coke, probably to assuage the guilt. She was busted by a Washington Post reporter who tallied the calorie count at 1,700.

The far-right, eat-UNhealthy crowd has gone bananas, and not the high-potassium kind. They are heaping scorn on the first lady for hypocrisy. Maybe, though, we should give her a serving of sympathy.

Her husband recently nagged his fellow debt-crisis negotiators that it is time to “eat our peas,” meaning they need to make huge decisions about budget cuts that are extremely unpalatable. (Imagine how many times she's heard the same “peas” line at home.) The budget talks got downright snippy. The president obviously left a bad taste in everyone's mouth.

Both Mr. and Mrs. Obama are participating in efforts to reduce the nation's unhealthy fat. Both are caught up in bitter controversy.

The first lady's various nutrition and exercise initiatives bring squeals of “nanny state” and “government intrusion” from anyone seeking a rhetorical advantage and anyone who gets campaign support from food-industry giants who market a lot of dangerous products.

Similarly, the president has slammed into a Republican Party that has become a subsidiary of the tea party. T.P. is controlled by those who insist that before they'll go along and increase the nation's borrowing limit, there must be an agreement to slash trillions of dollars from even the most fundamental social programs. They sneer at compromise even in the face of a first-ever default by the United States of America. Reduce everything, they demand, except when it comes to losing body weight.

(As usual, the agreement with the syndicators means these columns appear here a week after their newspaper release)

^WHOSE FAULT WOULD DEFAULT BE?@<

^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<

^By BOB FRANKEN@=

^C.2011 Hearst Newspapers@=

WASHINGTON _ The reason an important part of American greatness is teetering on the edge of her financial credibility is because the Tea Party team that the voters sent to Congress last year is keeping its promise.

Why would anyone be surprised by this?

In district after district, successful Republican candidates pledged they would cut the federal government down to size, no matter what. Disgusted voters, who were amply warned about what ``no matter what’’" meant, sent them to Washington.

Now, with a sufficient number of lawmakers to block any sort of compromise that other congressional leaders are seeking, this bloc of Tea Party-supported House members is holding fast to the rigid position of no-deal-without-painfully-crippling-cuts and no-way-on-higher-taxes-no-how, even if a financial default will result, even if they block increased borrowing authority, even if that destroys the ``Full Faith and Credit’’ that symbolizes the strength of the United States. It will severely weaken the country they profess to love.

(As usual, the arrangement with the syndicators means this column appears a week after its newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, JULY 12, 2011

UNSOUND BITES

BY BOB FRANKEN

While all the principals dither about whether they’re seeking a big deal or a not-so-big one, this is a huge deal: House Speaker John Boehner has won the mythical Sound Bite of the Week Award. As always, the competition is brutal, but in describing the maddening intricacies of the sputtering debt-ceiling negotiations as “a Rubik’s Cube that we haven’t worked out yet,” he captured the very essence of the twists and turns that frustrate a solution. He also scored points for clarity — using a plain-spoken butcomprehensive metaphor. Not only that, it was delivered in a clear eyed way (yes, that’s a cheap shot).

Most importantly, it was accurate, which sets it apart from the usual misleading bites. On any given day, the partisans stomp to microphones and cameras to confuse any given issue with their distortions. Usually, while facile, they are not entirely factual.

They blow hard from both sides and sabotage the quest for compromise, or as President Barack Obama put it in his news conference, “voices in our respective parties that are trying to undermine that effort.”

When the debate focuses on Social Security, the granddaddy (literally) of all the impossible political issues, someone always pops up on the left to shout “Social Security has never contributed to the deficit. Ever!” That’s true. But what happens in 25 years or so, when trustees say the self-sustaining trust fund will be depleted? Who will finance payments to the glut of senior citizens, unless there is reform very soon? As for the massive, costly entitlement reform, meaning Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, they are huge drains right now.

Meanwhile, on the other flank, a favorite is “job killing,” the ultimate, uh, killer sound bite. Everything the right opposes is “job killing,” a useful accusation anytime anyone has the audacity to suggest adding revenue ... readily available revenue. That means added taxes and reduced subsidies for our most prosperous individuals and corporate entities, who are paying far short of their fair share back into a nation that provided a framework for creating their fortunes.

That deception is starkly exposed right now. As the wealthy add to their piles of money, they hoard it. Witness all the big companies and money marketeers who report hefty profits. They don’t spread that around. For proof, look no further than the fact that one in six Americans is either jobless or underemployed — or worst of all, has given up even trying to find work.

(As usual, the arrangement with the syndicators means these columns appear here a week after their newspaper release)

^THE AGE OF TWITTER COULD HELP PIERCE THE WASHINGTON FOG@<
^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<
^By BOB FRANKEN@=
^C.2011 Hearst Newspapers@=
WASHNGTON _ That ``Hail to the Tweet’’ meet at the White House opens a lot of possibilities, even though President Obama didn't have to comply with Twitter’s rule that limits thought spurts to 140 characters.

That requirement applied to his online questioners but the president responded verbally and talked as long he wanted, which is really unfair when you consider that TV news has long adhered to micro word limits. We call them ``sound bites.’’

Even worse, he made no news whatsoever, choosing instead to do the real governing the old fashioned way...in secret. We get only hints about what really goes on behind closed doors in the negotiations over... say...the debt ceiling. Witness the pabulum we got the two sides emerged from the most recent session to give us a few of the aforementioned sound bites

President Obama called the discussions "Very constructive, adding "People were frank". And from House Speaker John Boehner it was "We had a conversation. It was productive".

Not the kind of stuff that will cause anyone information overload.

Typically, these boilerplate comments don't even begin to suggest all the intricate deal making or the complex legislation that these people are hatching. It’s often unclear whether even they understand the details or how such a labyrinthine plan fits together.

Perhaps the time has come to take the incomprehensible and simplify it. We could by imposing that 140 character limit on arguments by all the characters in Washington. Debates in Congress would no longer go on and on, press conferences would pick up some zip, the TV networks would only have to interrupt prime time programming for a couple of minutes to accommodate speeches from the White House. Think of all the free time that everyone would suddenly have available for more commercials

It's not such a radical idea, considering that some present and former members of the House have so famously had experience with Twitter.

In the Senate, of course, it will mean being dragged kicking and screaming into modern times, but maybe it really is the moment to replace the filibuster, which literally dates back to ancient Rome, with more economic and efficient ways of communication. With apologies to Broadway, maybe this is the dawning of the Age of Twitter.

If a deal is reached, we could hold the debate with dispatch in the Twitspatch:

(About the draconian cuts to social programs... Medicare and Medicaaid and Social Security accompanied by just a smattering of loophole closings which are shaping up to be the only tax increases when the President caves):

``@Barack Obama: Remember that `balanced deal’ I talked about? We didn't get it but it's the best we could do.’’

``@MitchMcConnell: (Can you believe he has a twitter address? Well he does). Yes, there are job killing tax hikes which I promised wouldn't be on the table, but it's the best we could do.’’

I am doing MSNBC tonight (Tuesday) at 6:00 Eastern. Who knows what we'll learn?

(As usual, the arrangement with syndicators, means this column is released a week after its newspaper submission)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, JULY 5, 2011

JULY 4TH: NO HOLIDAY FROM DESPERATION

BY BOB FRANKEN

Now that the July Fourth celebration of the nation's beginning has come and gone, the day off should serve as a reminder of those millions of desperate unemployed countrymen and -women who are forced to be “off” every day. The number is about 14 million, in fact; 14 million people who are trying to find jobs but cannot, in a dreary economy that is so wildly inequitable that it threatens the vision of our founders.

One poll after another shows the optimism of the American dream being jolted by the pessimism of present-day realities. A new one from CBS News/New York Times counts 39 percent of those asked who “believe the current economic downtown is part of a long-term decline and the economy will never fully recover.” Tellingly, CNN also tallies 30 percent who feel they'll lose the jobs they have now.

Nearly half of the respondents -- 48 percent -- fear a great depression. After the last crash, unemployment rose to a quarter of the workforce.

Bleak statistics explain this emotional depression: The New York Times commissioned another analysis that demonstrates how top-heavy the recovery has been. In 2010, the typical top executive at the top 200 corporations made $10 million, up 23 percent from the year before. They have been well-compensated for protecting profits, often by laying off staff. As for the holders of those stocks, the wealthiest in the U.S. make up 80 percent of them.

Pollster Mark Penn writes of a Time magazine/Aspen Ideas Festival survey in which “a startling 71 percent ... sees the U.S. as worse off than a decade ago.” Is it any wonder? “Americans,” he goes on, “blame their leaders and politicians for the decade of decline.” That's not hard to understand, considering the day in, day out display of self-interest chaos that passes for government. But blaming the “leaders and politicians” only tells part of the story.

The melancholy also is fueled by the feeling of being helpless to do anything about the stockpiling of financial resources by an amoral cabal of the wealthy. This self-anointed royalty is hoarding misbegotten trillions of dollars that should be plowed into an economic rescue. They get away with it by manipulating their office-holding puppets.

I'm doing MSNBC tonight during the 6PM, Eastern, hour. Could be about politics but that's just a wild guess.

^BACHMANN’S NEW TONE: FAREWELL TO ALL THAT@<
^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<
^By BOB FRANKEN@=
^C.2011 Hearst Newspapers@=
WASHINGTON _ It was the right thing to do. Chris Wallace, host of the ``Fox News Sunday’’ show, called an ``insulted’’ Michele Bachmann and said he's sorry. She has accepted his apology for asking her: ``Are you a flake?’’

He got a lot of flak for that, deservedly so. It was demeaning. And it was not exactly the right question.

After watching her official candidacy speech in Waterloo, Iowa, where she presented herself as the ``voice of reasonable, fair-minded people,’’ she now calls herself a ``unifier.’’

Her suddenly mellow tone had played well at the New Hampshire debate a couple weeks earlier so she’s now avoiding the incendiary rhetoric that made her a cable news inciter. She has switched from careless to calculated. So, the proper question is: ``Are you a fake?’’

Anybody who's been paying attention knows that Michele Bachmann has built her political career on ``Don't Confuse Me with the Facts’’ sound bites that range from bombast to bomb blast. She was right out in front of the fringe parade last November with the claim that President Obama's trip to India would cost $200 million a day.

Never mind that this was hogwash. She put it out there and the Obama haters had new reason to hate _ and to love her for it. Her oratorical resume is splattered with McCarthyisms, such as the suggestion in 2008 that members of Congress should be investigated for being ``anti-American.’’

She is stridently conservative, arguing, ``Literally, if we took away the minimum wage, if conceivably it was gone, we could potentially wipe out unemployment completely, because we would be able to offer jobs at whatever level.’’ She overlooks the possibility that if we went all the way in that direction, to outright slavery, we could have full employment. Maybe she's forgetting that's been tried.

Her grasp of history has become legendary. Her most recent flub came in the opening speech of her campaign, in Waterloo, Iowa, where she was born, and where she is hoping to triumph in the state's first-in-the-nation delegate-selection competition. She declared that Waterloo was the home of John Wayne. Actually, it was the birthplace of John Wayne Gacy, the gruesome serial murderer.

Still Bachmann is running a killer campaign. She has shot to the top of the latest Des Moines Register poll that shows her neck and neck with Mitt Romney for the lead among Iowa Republicans.

They are a particularly conservative bunch in the state, so she gets a lot of points for her support for teaching ``intelligent design’’ in schools or rallying people to be ``armed and dangerous’’ in their opposition to an energy tax or last year claiming that Obama administration policies were ``turning our country into a nation of slaves.’’

(As usual, the arrangement with syndicators means these columns appear here a week after their newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, JUNE 28, 2011

CUTBACKS IN AFGHANISTAN AND THE UNITED STATES

BY BOB FRANKEN

It's hard to argue with President Barack Obama when he says, “America, it is time to focus on nation-building here at home.” Let's face it: That “exceptionalism” to which so many demagogues cling is in dire need of repair “here at home.” To put it bluntly, we are tapped out.

The debate about whether the U.S. has a moral obligation to protect the severely oppressed around the world is beside the point. Plainly and simply, the United States of America is stretched too thin -- its armed forces as well as its financial resources.

Two wars and one in Libya that the White House insists isn't really a “hostility” have sapped the country's energy. At home, no matter how many experts insist that the recession is over, desperate millions are still mired in its rubble.

Decades of fiscal irresponsibility have left an economy that is close to being crushed. It's not just a case of overspending; it's also the matter of catering to the rich and powerful who continuously have been allowed not to pay their fair share.

Worst of all, the political system that must somehow come to the rescue is itself paralyzed; the voices of reason and cooperation that are essential have been strangled silent. Instead, we get spectacle, like Republicans flouncing out of negotiating sessions because Democrats would even dare to talk about raising taxes on the wealthy. Democrats are no better, many refusing to budge when it comes to shaving back expenditures no matter how extravagant or unnecessary.

As laudable as each social program sounds, almost every one has flab that can be trimmed. That is certainly the case when it comes to defense spending. And yes, the entitlements, meaning Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, certainly could be reworked so that they could continue to protect the aged and needy but do so in less wasteful ways. The alternative is a looming bankruptcy.

I am on MSNBC tonight (Friday), during the 6:00 (Eastern) hour. Meaning, of course you will delay your weekend plans. Am I right or wrong?

(As usual, the arrangement with the syndicators means these columns appear here a week after their newspaper release)

^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<
^By BOB FRANKEN@=
^C.2011 Hearst Newspapers@=
WASHINGTON _ It's a great song: ``All my exes live in Texas.” George Strait goes on to explain that's why he lives in Tennessee.

Now we have Rick Perry, who proves some excess lives in Texas. At the moment, he's tippy-toeing around the idea of trying to leave the Lone Star state, after more than 10 years as governor, not for Tennessee but for D.C., which he basically promises to shut down if he became president.

So far, he's just a campaign tease, spreading the gospel about limited government and his version of economic success, while his many detractors bitterly complain that he is trying to use the Gospel to preach discriminationand telling a glaringly incomplete story about how good things are back home.

His latest controversy swirls around that massive August 6 “Call to Prayer” he is fronting in Houston's Reliant Stadium. He calls it ``apolitical’’ but defenders of the separation of church and state call it unconstitutional, citing his clarion call to ``come together and call upon Jesus to guide us through unprecedented struggles and thank Him for the blessings of freedom.’’
That might leave out a whole lot of Americans who are free to not call upon Jesus as their personal savior.

This is an event that is sponsored by the American Family Association, an organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center calls an anti-gay ``ate group.’’ One AFA top official, Bryan Fischer, even blames the Holocaust on homosexuals that made up ``all of the Storm Troopers (and) the Brownshirts.’’

Rick Perry makes no bones about his hard-right agenda. He's all for teaching Intelligent Design. On the ``anti’’-side there are gays, abortion, and the federal government unless . . . he's accepting federal money for the state. Otherwise, as he told the Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans, ``Our goal is to displace the entrenched powers in Washington.”

This is the governor who repeatedly pushes “anti-groping" state legislation that would prohibit TSA security people from conducting their controversial pat downs at airport checkpoints. Never mind that U.S. officials say they would refuse to let planes fly out of Texas if Perry signs the law.

(As usual, the arrangement with the syndicators allows the appearance of these columns here a week after their newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, JUNE 21, 2011

PAWLENTY OF NOTHING

BY BOB FRANKEN

Tim Pawlenty has gotten a case of the “shouldas,” as in telling Fox News' Sean Hannity “I should have been much more clear during the debate.” The statement follows the criticism that he was fainthearted when facing off on CNN against Mitt Romney and the other Republican candidates.

The beginning of his saga was nasty enough. On “Fox News Sunday,” he had taken a shot at the Massachusetts health-care plan that was Mitt Romney's creation as governor of the state, and model for the hated “Obamacare” that Romney is now repudiating every chance he gets as he disowns his public record. Pawlenty called it “Obamneycare.” But the day after, when he had Mitt in the palm of his hands, standing right there, T-Paw was too polite, the detractors charge.

The frustrated moderator, John King, even tried to goad him, asking: “If it was Obamneycare on 'Fox News Sunday,' why is it not Obamneycare here with the governor right there?”

Pawlenty refused to take the bait, depriving us all of the type of sound bite that makes these encounters memorable. One of the best examples is the unforgettable moment in the 1988 vice presidential debate. Democratic candidate Lloyd Bentsen confronted Dan Quayle over a comparison to JFK and scornfully lowered the boom with: “I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy.”

Given the accusation that Mitt Romney has spent so much time racing to the far right and away from his record on health care and the likes of gun control and abortion, how magical it would have been if Pawlenty had looked to Romney and said: “I knew Mitt Romney. You are no Mitt Romney.”

Alas, it didn't happen, and now Pawlenty is backtracking, after backtracking from his criticism of Romney's backtracking. One explanation of his squeamishness is that he has a bad case of “Minnesota nice,” given how the state prides itself in good manners. The problem is that good manners just don't cut it in a presidential campaign.

I'm doing MSNBC this evening (Thursday) during the 6:00 PM, Eastern, hour, offering solutions to all the nation's problems. Won't want to miss that.

(As usual, per the arrangement with syndicators, this column appears here a week after its newspaper release)

^THE PRECIPITOUS DOWNFALL OF ANTHONY WEINER@<

^(For use by New York Times News Service clients.)@<

^By BOB FRANKEN@=

^c.2011 Hearst Newspapers@=

It's called "Chinese Water Torture", even though it apparently has nothing to do with the Chinese. Instead, the term came, for unexplained reasons, from escape artist Harry Houdini. We all know it refers to the slow dripping of water on the head of an unfortunate, which eventually drives him crazy.

Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., couldn't escape. He has been driven from Congress by the Chinese Water Torture of new Twitter escapade revelations. Why is it that these situations inevitably end up featuring some porno movie actress? This time, her name is Ginger Lee.

And why are they invariably represented by Gloria Allred, the prominent attorney and preeminent self promoter? In comparison to Allred, the always available Anthony Weiner was a media recluse.

We all knew how this would end after the steady erosion of support from most of his "friends" in politics, to say nothing of his foes.

Yes "friends" is in quotes. The cliche is if you want one in Washington, "get a dog." In this case, except for a few diehards, everyone else here was snapping at his heels as he fled to rehab. He had requested and been granted a two week leave from the House, but the clamor for Weiner to simply "LEAVE" grew too loud to ignore. So he disconsolately trudged to Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn _ where he first declared himself a candidate for city council in 1991 _ to tell the world he was stepping down.

The announcement came in a tumultuous news event that could only happen in New York. The screaming made mincemeat of any hope by Weiner that he could have made a graceful exit. He had tried to hang on, but "The distraction that I have created has made that impossible"

He had infuriated his fellow Democrats, who were about to meet in Washington and take action to strip him (pardon the expression) of his committee assignments, which would render him ineffective. Now Governor Andrew Cuomo will schedule a special election

(As usual, these columns appear here, per the arrangement with the syndicators a week after their newspaper release. This was one overtaken by subsequent events)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2011

WEINER AND LOSERS

BY BOB FRANKEN

Last we heard, Rep. Anthony Weiner's wife didn't want him to resign from Congress, perhaps because she simply didn't want him moping around the house. His fellow Democrats don't want him moping around the House, either, while they shun him for his Twitter escapades. Weiner himself has sought the all-too-familiar refuge of rehab, proving once again that D.C. truly is “Hollywood East.” Through representatives, he is now hedging on whether he'll resign. That's after Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has turned on him, urging him “to seek that help without the pressure of being a member of Congress.”

The Democrats have plenty of pressure to deal with themselves, playing D-fense while R's pile on. On the “Meet the Press” playing field, GOP party Chairman Reince Priebus argued that Weiner had “turned this town and this country into a three-ring circus.” His Democratic counterpart, Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, shot back that Priebus was using a “double standard.” That's hard to argue, given how getting caught, online and off, with your pants down in Washington is bipartisan, in fact, bi-everything.

If this flippancy seems cold, consider how obvious it should be, by now, that unlike Las Vegas, what goes on Twitter goes everywhere. Any fool should know that. Unfortunately, Weiner is only the latest fool on the Hill who insolently believed that he was somehow exempt.

Mindless sensationalism though it may be, this is still worth discussing because of the important insight it provides into the immaturity of some of those we have elected to deal with the nation's grown-up issues. Forget how juvenile his behavior, Weiner's biggest sin was flaunting it without even stopping to think about the consequences. That has to be really galling to the many conscientious members who get splattered with the embarrassment of a reckless few.

To make matters worse, Weiner ignored the bromide that the cover-up is worse than the un-cover-up. Now he's embarrassed, or at least, that's how he plays it for the cameras. It's hard to know if he's chagrined about what he did or for getting caught; for lying about it or for getting caught lying. He even gave a deceptive interview to Wolf Blitzer! If that's not a crime, it should be.

Although anything but impartial, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor nails it when he says: “We've got a lot of serious challenges going on in this country and a lot of work for Congress to do. The last thing we need is to be immersed in a discussion about Congressman Weiner and his Twitter activities.”

I'll be talking politics tomorrow (Saturday) morning on MSNBC at 8:00 AM. You'll be up, won't you?

(As usual the arrangement with syndicators means these columns appear here a week after their newspaper release)

^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<
^By BOB FRANKEN@=
^C.2011 Hearst Newspapers@=
WASHINGTON _ For those weary of Anthony Wiener and the word play with his name, let's move on and consider GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain. It's time for a Cain Scrutiny.

The man is conservative with a capital ``C.’’ He told the CBS Morning News Wednesday: ``I believe homosexuality is a sin. . . I believe it is a choice.’’

His position on Muslims, he says to Glenn Beck, would require them to prove their loyalty to the Constitution before they could serve in his administration, unlike, say, Catholics or Mormons.

It's easy to understand how the most recent Gallup poll of self-identified Republicans, raises Cain to the top when it comes to what Gallup labels as ``Positive Intensity Score,’’ which means a strongly favorable opinion.

Mitt Romney, who is leading the overall GOP preference pack, is in the tepid intensity range. So is Newt Gingrich. Michele Bachmann shows up well and Sarah Palin does OK but they are no Herman Cains, who has become a regular Mr. Excitement.

This shouldn't be a surprise. The Herminator, as he likes to call himself, does not engage in nuanced rhetoric. To lengthy applause at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, he declared that ``stupid people are running America’’ and that liberals are ``liars.’’ It sure doesn't hurt his cause that he's an African-American with appeal to those who have tried to shed accusations that their opposition to Barack Obama is tinged with racism.
``Don’t condemn me,’’ he quipped to the Manchester Union Leader, ``because the first black one was bad.’’

I'll be on MSNBC, poisoning the political debate again tonight (Wednesday), during the 6:00 PM, Eastern hour.

(As usual, the arrangement with the syndicators means these columns appear here a week after their newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, JUNE 7, 2011

BEYOND MARRIAGE AND THE MOMENTS OF SEX

BY BOB FRANKEN

This shouldn't be a provocative question, but sadly it will be: Why is an act that, timewise, takes up a tiny part of our existence such a huge factor in how we're defined? Yes, this is about sex. When you strip away (pun intended) all the dogma, you are left with an activity that doesn't come close to consuming our schedule in the way that commuting or shopping or other day-to-day mundania do.

Gay mania seems hard-wired into so many people's procreative reflexes. But analysis demonstrates that we, as a society, finally are plodding away from this primitive revulsion to what we like to call “alternative lifestyles,” a term that betrays an overemphasis on the brief moments spent partaking in it. A 1996 Gallup poll found that only 27 percent of respondents favored a right to same-sex marriage. Gallup's most recent shows majority acceptance. It's simply the latest to do so. The various prominent surveys indicate an even higher level of support for civil unions; more than six-in-10 are for the concept.

Non-heterosexuality remains a perilous flash point, because of those who can't get past their oppressive passions. In mid-May, the Minnesota Legislature found it politically necessary to offer on the 2012 ballot an amendment to the state constitution banning same-sex marriage.

On the other side of the debate, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is trying to appeal to the conscience of state senators to stop avoiding the issue, chiding: “Do you want to be remembered as a leader on civil rights? Or an obstructionist?” He's pushing them to tackle a bill that would permit gay marriage, as the laws now do in five states and the District of Columbia.

At the same time, the Rhode Island House of Representatives has passed a bill granting civil-union rights to same-sex couples. Final passage would mean Rhode Island would join several other states choosing that approach -- Illinois, Delaware and Hawaii joined the list this year. It's the middle ground that, even with its legal protections, leaves many gays dissatisfied, since they contend it still makes them second-class citizens.

Maybe there's an answer to that. What if state-sanctioned marriage, involving couples of any coupling persuasion, was taken out of the equation? What if all unions -- with the rights, responsibilities and deductions -- were recognized under the law. Marriage itself would be reserved for the religious or ceremonial in the venue of the couple's choice, only as a supplement to the licensed binding relationship.

(As usual, the arrangement with the syndicators means these columns appear here a week after their newspaper release)

^SARAH PALIN STUMPING AND TRUMPING@<

^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<

^By BOB FRANKEN@=

^C.2011 Hearst Newspapers@=

WASHINGTON _ Of course The Donald would invite The Sarah up to his New York penthouse. She is, after all, taking her Clampett bus expedition to American shrines, and that's what Donald Trump considers himself.

In addition Sarah Palin and Trump share two interests: presidential politics and sham reality shows. Actually, that's just one.

``What do we have in common?’’ she responded after the get-together. ``Our love for this country, a desire to see our economy put back on the right track.’’ They both also have a remarkable ability to turn reporters into shills who chase after them to snap up whatever crumbs they toss.

Palin can even keep a straight face when she tells her Fox News BFF Greta Van Susteren that her bus jaunt isn't ``a publicity-seeking tour.’’ All the while she's getting disproportionate publicity from the very news people she disparages.

``I don't owe anything to the mainstream media,’’ she gloats. Actually, she might feel she owes us a measure of sweet revenge for making her squirm in the 2008 election, when she ran as the Republican vice presidential nominee. According to her disenchanted former top aide Frank Bailey in his new book ``Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin,’’ the former governor of Alaska is someone who would ``routinely set out to destroy those who criticized her or her loved ones.’’

If that's what she wants to do to news coverage of political campaigns, more power to her. Her relentless attacks on the news media could result in some reforms that are long overdue.

It's high time that the usual candidate-journalist symbiosis is ripped apart. For too long some of us have been the lazy ``Boys (and girls) on the Bus.’’ Sarah Palin would be doing a great service if she continued to keep reporters off her bus and disrupted the inevitable Stockholm Syndrome that results from such extended captivity.

I join MS host Cenk Uygur tonight during the 6:00 PM hour for some verbal razzle dazzle

(As usual, this column appears here a week after its newspaper release, per the arrangement with the syndicators)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, MAY 31, 2011

THE UNREAL REALITY SHOW

BY BOB FRANKEN

With Sarah Palin now playing her maybe/maybe-not mind games, it's easy to forget how Donald Trump did his dance on the heads of those of us desperate for an interesting political narrative, no matter how flimsy. In fact, after pulling to a halt, The Donald has restarted his trip through egoland, even while The Sarah takes her bus ride through the same territory.

Trump is now saying he “won't rule out” reversing course and might run for president after all. Presumably, that decision will come right about the time his “Apprentice” show begins a new season and needs some promotion. What a shame, because his exit statement actually contained some food for thought. Consider this line: “I will not shy away from expressing the opinions that so many of you share yet don't have a medium through which to articulate.”

Yes, the word “shy” in connection with Trump is ludicrous, but his point that so many of us don't feel like anyone in the politics biz is taking up our cause certainly hits home. How many polls do we need to demonstrate that?

Look no further than the current foolishness about the debt ceiling. Vice President Joe Biden says that his bipartisan group of negotiators is closing in on budget cuts “well above $1 trillion pretty quick.” There are no specifics about which desperate needs of the poor, the young and the infirm are on the table, while tax hikes for the rich are kept off by adamant Republicans.

As for the elderly, GOP leaders still are defiant about their plan to gut Medicare despite the battering they're taking. Even after the issue wrenched an ultrasafe district from his party, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says it is “still on the table.”

This unmellow drama is largely a contrivance, because the Republicans and Democrats could have reached an agreement on time if someone hadn't told them that the delinquency wouldn't occur immediately after the May 15 deadline. Instead, the United States government will have to play a financial shell game while partisan drama kings and queens get their maximum attention and scare us all to death.

(As usual, the arrangement with the syndicators means this column appears here a week after its newspaper release)

^THE ELECTION TOO FAR TO CALL@<
^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<
^By BOB FRANKEN@=
^C.2011 Hearst Newspapers@=
WASHINGTON _ The ``D’’ wins a special congressional election in what had been a long-safe ``R’’ congressional district in Upstate New York, after it became a referendum over Tea Party-driven overreach on Medicare reform.

The Republican Presidential lineup thus far is a collection of really light hitters and those, like Newt Gingrich, who are prone to strike out the moment they strike out on the campaign trail.
Many of those who might be sluggers _ Mitch Daniels, Haley Barbour and Mike Huckabee _ have decided to sit this game out. The rest of the field is left to some unflashy players, Tim Pawlenty, Jon Huntsman and others who have made a name for themselves mainly for having little name recognition. The moment's leader of the pack, Mitt Romney, can come across as a mannequin.

So, it's easy to see that the Republicans have Barack Obama exactly where they want him.
Yes, it is true that the president will probably have a clear track to nomination, a contrast to the other side's littered pathway. Never forget, however, how easy it is for a commanding lead to get chewed up by infighting and complacency.

Let's traipse back a couple decades to the initial term of President George H.W. Bush. He had led a coalition in the popular 1991 Iraq war, the first one. At this point, he was riding high, and the Democrats' usual suspects for running against him were bailing out because it looked like the incumbent would float to re-election.

That gave the governor of a small state, Bill Clinton of Arkansas, the chance he needed to take a shot. He was... after all, the ``Man from Hope,’’ _ Hope, Ark., that is. So when Bush-1 showed that instead of being out of reach, he was out of touch, Clinton overcame the incumbency advantages. Add to the mix the goofy but effective third party effort by Ross Perot, and William Jefferson Clinton won the White House. More to the point, George Herbert Walker Bush had forfeited.

(As usual the arrangement with syndicators means this column appears here a week after its newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, MAY 24, 2011

GAY BULLYING

BY BOB FRANKEN

This has to stop. Think what you will about Rupert Murdoch's various franchises ... and what a lot of people think is downright ugly. But whether people hate them or not, his U.S. news organizations are operating in a country with a jealously guarded free-press tradition. It doesn't matter how slanted they are. So, efforts by interest groups that slant the other way to apply economic pressure, or by a White House trying to intimidate Murdoch properties, are flat out un-American.

His Boston Herald was excluded from a press pool covering a presidential trip to Boston. The tabloid had run a story about Republican almost-candidate Mitt Romney that covered the full front page. Someone in Obamaland decided that was inappropriate.

Spokesman Matt Lehrich put out a statement saying, “I tend to consider the degree to which papers have demonstrated to covering the White House regularly and fairly in determining local pool reporters.” Lehrich and his administration colleagues insist they do not have any punishment agenda. To turn the Fox News chant inside out, “You decide, we'll report.”

To be fair, many administration officials do appear on Fox News. That list has included the president. But there also have been instances where these people shut out the channel or favor others as blatant retaliation. To be even fairer, though, we should point out that every White House I've ever reported on has played the same game.

The Bush leaguers, both 1 and 2, often would raise Cain about this or that, sometimes with a heavy-handed suggestion that access to their stars would dry up. That is a potent threat, given how TV news relies so heavily on live talking heads. The Clintonistas often would try to shut down my coverage of their boss's various escapades. And no one needs to be reminded about the sinister coercion from Richard Nixon and his henchmen.

Us usual, the arrangement with the syndicators means this column appears here a week after its newspaper release)

^THE NEWT AND MITT EVOLUTIONS@<

^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)
^By BOB FRANKEN

^C.2011 Hearst Newspapers
WASHINGTON _ They have a lot in common. It's a safe bet that when Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich pondered a presidential race they had no idea that they'd be racing backward.

Gingrich, when he's not hatefully base playing, occasionally wants to peddle some food for thought. So, on ``Meet the Press,just two days after his candidacy announcement, he decided to show he wasn't just a party hack, by hacking away at Republican gospel in the form of House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan's call to radically transform Medicare.

The Ryan plan _ which would provide eligible beneficiaries with vouchers to pay for their own private health insurance _ was ``right wing social engineering",Gingrich said.

Big mistake. Instantly, the clobbering began. His fellow Republicans began calling him every name but Newt. South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley was typical. ``Here you have Rep. Ryan trying to bring common sense to this world of insanity and Newt absolutely cut him off from the knees",she complained.

It's more like Gingrich cut himself off at the knees. So he called Ryan to apologize for what he called ``inelegant" language.

Of course, he's reflexively blaming ``media minions" for all this controversy. That was a quote from Rick Tyler, his spokesman. Faulting the press, or what Gingrich himself has called the ``gotcha press", is the default conservative excuse for anything.

Gingrich preemptively also took on paid media, meaning the inevitable future commercials from his political opponents: After Gingrich retracted his words he announced: ``Any ad which quotes what I said on Sunday is a falsehood."

He had blurted the words, he explained, after an ambush question on ``Meet the Press". It was all a big surprise, he insisted. ``It didn't occur to me going in that you'd have a series of setups". Gingrich has been a guest on the program 35 times.

(As usual, the arrangement with the syndicators means these columns appear here at least a week after their newspaper release and are sometimes overtaken by subsequent events)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, MAY 17, 2011

GINGRICH -- AFFAIR ASSESSMENT

BY BOB FRANKEN

Give the man some credit. Newt Gingrich isn't shying away from what one friend calls his “nontraditional” love life, which is to say two divorces and an admitted affair with his current wife leading up to marriage number three. It's a proven tactic. Tell everything, take all questions, and the people will get tired of hearing about it, since we all have the attention span of gnats.

Now that Gingrich has made his presidential run official, he was on “Meet The Press” expressing his hopefulness, saying, “I have a large number of social conservatives who support me because, as we've talked this through, they've reached a different conclusion about what America needs and what I can bring in trying to fill that role of leader.”

Make what you will about the fact that as House speaker, Gingrich kept alive the pursuit of President Bill Clinton's observance of the “nontraditional,” but he's right. Even though an April NBC poll showed that a little less than half of its respondents were comfortable with a candidate who has had “multiple marriages,” it's usually way more complicated than that. No matter how sanctimonious candidates may be, they are humans and their relationships are almost always tangled. The truth is that except for the automatons, most of these people are like the rest of us; they take their pants off just like you and me.

Gingrich also is correct in that there is so much more to discuss about the perception that his career is one big, calculated cheap shot. Barely two days after his announcement that he was off and running, he called President Barack Obama “the most successful food-stamp president in modern American history.”

Racist? “That's bizarre,” he declared on “Meet the Press.” His shopworn accusation that Obama didn't believe in “American exceptionalism” wasn't jingoism either. Would his recent alerts about a “gay and secular fascism” be an appeal to dark homophobic feelings, or is his constant attack on Islam or “Radical Islam” simply pushing a reliable bigot button? Don't be silly.

(As usual, the agreement with the syndicators means this column appears here a week after its newspaper release)

^FIGHTING THE PENTAGON BUDGET BATTLES. . . AND LOSING@<
^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<
^By BOB FRANKEN@=
^C.2011 Hearst Newspapers@=
WASHINGTON _ President Eisenhower fell far short in his 1961 farewell address when he warned that ``we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex.’’

He understated matters. It's a much more convoluted military-industrial-political-lobbying-bureaucratic complex. When it comes time to slash unnecessary defense spending, its influence can prove to be impenetrable.

Thanks to clever corporations that spread the manufacture of their billion-dollar big-ticket weapons bonanzas over dozens or even hundreds of congressional districts, they create a Gordian knot of employment that members of the House or Senate would untangle only at their political peril.

Enter Leon Panetta, now the CIA director but soon to become the new Pentagon chieftain. At least he knows how the game is played. After all, he was once a chairman of the House Budget Committee and one-time director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget.

But he hasn't been a secretary of the Department of Defense, surrounded by all the special interests who want to maintain their pet programs, no matter how obsolete or sometimes outright useless.

So when Panetta's soon-to-be predecessor, Robert Gates, insisted last year on shutting down the duplicate jet engine program for the F-35 Strike Force fighter, he went through lobbying and political hell. The redundant engine was finally stricken from the budget as an obvious waste.

But the pain was spread among many congressional districts, so sure enough, when the House Armed services committee rolled out its package for the new Pentagon budget, it included an amendment with procedures that could resurrect that second engine. We should not be surprised.

Gates had rattled his military-industrial-etc. constituency by proclaiming he would ram through $78 billion in Pentagon budget cuts over 10 years (the F-35 redundant engine accounted for $3 billion). That seemed quite bold, until President Obama chimed in to say he expected $400 billion in Pentagon cuts in the next 12 years, which seemed even bolder, until we heard from experts that even $400 billion in cuts would be relatively easy to attain.

(As usual, this column appears here, per arrangement with the syndicators, a week after its newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE FRIDAY, MAY 6, 2011

DIMMING THE BIN LADEN LUSTER

Why do they do that so often? Why do our leaders, both in and out of uniform, find it imperative to take a super human military exploit and embellish it with an exaggerated narrative. Inevitably, they wind up taking shining victories and tarnishing them. They should know that. So is it some sort of compulsion?

Obviously, this is brought to mind by the awkwardness that followed astonishing heroics of the Navy Seals who took out Osama Bin Laden. 10 years of pent up frustration would have exploded into celebration in the same way, without US counter-terrorism chief John Brennan garnishing the saga. Their claim bin Laden was armed when he was shot dead and that he had used one of his wives as a human shield were great drama, but fiction.

They are usually unnecessary and only serve to distract from the national pride. Excuses like "Fog of War" fall flat and leave an opening for the opposition. In this case, GOP Congressman Pete Sessions of Texas had a good question: "Why don't they just say they don't know?"

To their credit, Obama administration leaders quickly owned up, which is far better than some of the coverups attewerempted during the Bush years.

Look at the hard feelings that fester still today over the combat death of former NFL star Pat Tillman. His valor was a legend itself, but now his legacy has been turned bitter because of the top level attempts to suppress the truth that he had been killed by friendly fire.

(As usual, the arrangement with thesyndicators means my columns appearhere a week after their newspaper release)

^AFTER THE BIN LADEN VICTORY, IT’S BACK TO BUSINESS@<
^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<
^By BOB FRANKEN@=
^C.2011 Hearst Newspapers@=
WASHINGTON _ Now that our leaders have shown they can take decisive steps to protect us from the mortal dangers of terrorism, maybe this is the time to demonstrate they can also rescue us from the corrosive effects of politics.

The matter of raising the debt ceiling is an immediate case in point. Wouldn't it be nice if the glow of unity that accompanies the end of Osama Bin Laden would spread into the tough debate that is revving up over raising the debt ceiling, considering that failure to do so could undermine the nation's financial credibility and credit for the foreseeable future?

Interestingly, in the same morning President Obama travelled to Ground Zero in New York, Vice President Joe Biden was convening the first budget negotiation between warring politicians in Washington.

Democrats have been calling for a clean bill that would raise the borrowing limit without any linkage to budget cuts. No way, say Republicans, who want to extract more spending cuts before they embrace a higher debt ceiling.

Biden bowed to reality and said: ``They're not technically connected but the fact of the matter is they're practically and politically connected.’’

And House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., conceded that he was ``under no illusion’’ that the Medicare slices he proposed would survive the political storm that was already thundering.

That's a start but they're a long, long way from determining how to undig each side's heels on spending cuts and tax increases. How often will we hear Republican House Speaker John Boehner mellifluously speak about Democratic ``job destroying’’ spending proposals and President Obama's mantra about the need to ``win the future.’’

(As usual, the arrangement with the syndicatoirs means these columns appear here at least a week after their newspaper release. This was written right after Osama biin Laden's death)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, MAY 3, 2011

THE TERRORISM WAR TRIUMPH, THE POLITICAL WAR MOMENTARY PAUSE

BY BOB FRANKEN

“Justice has been done” said President Barack Obama, as he dramatically announced the death, finally, of Osama Bin Laden, who was shot down in a meticulously planned effort by a U.S. special operations unit at his compound in Pakistan. The troops became national heroes for executing their violent and dangerous mission -- a mission that had been unaccomplished for nearly 10 years, during which hopes of retribution had been frustrated.

Let's be honest: Sometimes revenge is the best revenge. So the national celebration was immediate, with spontaneous crowds gathering to cheer outside the White House, at ground zero and around the country, even overseas.

The political impact will take time to evolve.

Obviously, Obama gets a huge boost, after all the opposition accusations that he has been too timid against terrorism. Although bin Laden roamed free during the administration of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney often has made the charge that Obama was soft on terrorism, complaining, for instance, “President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war.” Now, Bush, Cheney's ostensible boss, is calling the dispatch of bin Laden a “momentous achievement.”

The administration made sure we knew Obama had personally approved the raid and participated in months of planning. After all, how many times have we been confronted with reminders by American extremists and opportunists that “Obama” and “Osama” sound alike? Their relentless intolerance has taken many forms, the “Birther” obscenity being just one of them. They're the hateful manifestations of “He's not one of us.”

As usual, the arrangement with syndicators allows these columns to appear here a week after their newspaper released. Obviously a lot has happened since then)

^THE OIL COMPANIES OFFER A SLICK JUSTIFICATION FOR THEIR HUGE PROFITS@<
^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<
^By BOB FRANKEN@=
^C.2011 Hearst Newspapers@=
WASHINGTON _ What ingrates we are. How could we even think of rolling back $4 billion a year in tax subsidies for big oil and gas? Just because the energy corporation-nations are making even more gargantuan profits as they reap the windfall from gasoline prices that are bringing our economy to its knees, we're whining about their special-favor treatment. Have we no pride?

Has John ``I Never Met a Lobbyist I Didn't Like’’ Boehner turned into a mushy wimp when he said that ``we certainly should take a look at’’ the billions in tax subsidies the industry gets, at a time when the government is desperately looking for ways to close the budget deficit?
We expect that from President Obama and the Democrats, but Boehner? Doesn't he, doesn't everybody, realize that even though these gas and oil industry profits are extracted from all of us, the pain is worth it?

So as the reports of stratospheric quarterly earnings skyrocket, just remember, they're good for us, like really foul-tasting medicine.

Don't take my word for it. We can thank the American Petroleum Institute for a brand new study that explains the public service its member conglomerates perform. According to Karl Isakower, who is API's vice president of regulatory and economic policy, ``The oil and gas industry supports millions of jobs and a significant portion of our economy and the retirement benefits of America's teachers, police officers and thousands of others with a pension or 401(k).’’

The API study analyzed four states' public employee pension plans that invest heavily in energy stocks and therefore benefit from these profits. The API study was publicized to blunt any public anger about soaring oil company profits at a time when gasoline prices are hitting $4 a gallon.

And, days after the API study was released, sure enough, Exxon said it earned nearly $11 billion in the first quarter, compared with $6.3 billion, or 1.33 per share a year ago. Revenue increased 26 percent to $114 billion. The results even surprised Wall Street which had estimated $2.04 per share on sales of $112.6 billion. Shell, Occidental and Apache also announced results that were extremely prosperous.

(As usual, per the arrangement with the syndicators, this column appears here a week after its newspaper release)

^FRITTERING AWAY FULL FAITH AND CREDIT@<
^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<
^By BOB FRANKEN@=
^C.2011 Hearst Newspapers@=
WASHINGTON _ Few phrases capture the sense of this nation's indestructible grandeur than the promise that a loan to the government is backed by the ``Full Faith and Credit of the United States.’’It means, according to various dictionaries, ``An unconditional commitment to pay interest and principal on debt....no matter what.’’ The Standard and Poor's company less elegantly assigns an ``AAA’’ designation to the highest quality securities, which have always included those issued by the U.S.

It's obvious where this is going: We are faced with a spreading perception that those who lead the government are squandering that precious faith in the country's financial credit. S&P fired a warning shot by reducing the description of U.S. sovereign debt from “Stable” to “Negative” while retaining the AAA rating for government debt for now.

Obvious though it may seem, it is still startling to read that the Standard and Poor's committee of experts was predicting there was a one-in-three chance that S&P would lower the all-important triple-A rating within the next two years because ``we believe there is a material risk that U.S. policymakers might not reach agreement on how to address medium and long-term budget challenges by 2013.’’

It caused immediate stock market reflux. The Treasury Department hastily put out an antacid statement insisting that S&P is ``underestimating the ability of America's leaders to come together.’’ Is it possible someone wrote that with a straight face and that the folks at Treasury so OVER-estimate the potential for meaningful accommodation?

What's really incredible is how much the warning shocked everybody, given all the loose cannon fire from Democrats and Republicans alike that could result in failure to raise the debt ceiling. That evantuality would make the S&P assessment moot since U.S. financial credibility would tank on its own.

Technically, U.S. borrowing tops out in mid-May, although the accountants at Treasury say they could probably play a few games with the ledgers and avoid default until there are no tricks left. Think July. That's not a lot of time. Connecticut Democrat Jim Himes, who sits on the House Financial Services committee, calls it "messing with live ammunition.’’

(As usual, because of the agreement with the syndicators, this column appears here a week after it's newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, APRIL 19, 2011

BIRTHER OF A NATION

BY BOB FRANKEN

It's about a year and a half before the “October Surprise,” that suspiciously coincidental, immensely favorable last-minute development for a sitting president right before an election. Even so, there's little question what President Barack Obama's 2012 October Surprise will be.

With a about a week to go, Obama will RELEASE HIS BIRTH CERTIFICATE!

Now, that's HUGE! Normally, that would silence the Republican nominee, Donald Trump. But this is Trump, a man who's spent an entire lifetime spouting off about nothing but himself.

And Trump could well be the choice. Is there ever any question? As always, he is able to be enough of a crass act that he's a natural selection of the GOP (I forgot, many in the party don't believe in natural selection, but whatever ...).

What's fascinating is how he continues to suck us all in with his hucksterism. Each and every time he comes up with a new trivial PR stunt, like running for president, we go bananas. The more we ridicule him, the more we get bent out of shape by his shamelessness. Every time we watch MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell versus The Donald, up Trump goes in the polls. Each time he gets caught in a boldfaced lie, up again. He's right up there with the Republicans' leading candidates on the low road of a party whose slogan should be “Down is Up.” It makes as much sense as its other guiding principle, which is that tax cuts for the rich mean more government revenue.

Already he's staying true to form, trashing everybody in sight -- ripping critical reporters and now one of his competitors, Mitt Romney. You know, Mitt Romney, the rich avatar? On CNN Trump just had to point out, “My net worth is many, many, many times Mitt Romney.”

He last played us pundits like a fiddle in 2000, when he convinced us that a third-party run was anything but his usual schlock scam. This time, he might actually start believing in his GOP hustle, and then he could lead the ticket. In fact, he'd be the entire ticket, because he'd likely fire his running mate, Michele Bachmann. She's tea party; he's ME party.

(As usual, the column appears here a week after its newspaper release per the arrangement with the syndicators. This one was writen the day President Obama made his GWU Budget Reform speech)

^THE BUDGET TRAGI-COMEDY@<
^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<
^By BOB FRANKEN@=
^C.2011 Hearst Newspapers@=
WASHINGTON _ Speaking of his fellow politicians, as they court one fiscal disaster after another, Max the senator summed things up beautifully when he said, ``We're acting like we don't know how to run the country.’’ Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, so he should know,

It's a mighty convincing act in a budget melodrama that seems to never end. It moves from one familiar backdrop to another. The script stays the same, though there are a few variations. Take the current horror show over raising the national debt ceiling before it tops out in May _ and certainly before it becomes impossible for the U.S. government to borrow any money, probably in July.

This time, President Obama has decided to dabble at the role of leading man. Somebody probably reminded him that Harry Truman had a sign on his desk that read: ``The buck stops here.’’ It didn’t say: ``Pass the buck.’’

Before he delivered his speech at George Washington University on Wednesday afternoon, the president briefed congressional leaders at the White House. The Republican House and Senate leaders had their reaction to the meeting even before it began. In DC-speak, it was ``prebuttal,’’ as opposed to post-speech rebuttal. In this case, the ``buttal’’ was more like a taunt, with House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, offering sarcastic congratulations to a chief executive who had ``finally decided to engage.’’ That was for consumption by his tea party backbenchers in the Capitol.

The scene quickly shifted. Obama took his script and teleprompters to nearby George Washington University, which is appropriate because if the entire national debt was individual dollar bills, we'd see Washington's face more than 14 trillion times.

(As usual, the arrangement with the syndicators requires that these columns appear here a week after their newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 2011

THE SHUTDOWN SHOWDOWN

BY BOB FRANKEN

There are two ways to look at the averted government shutdown: It was another sad display of big-league politics played by little-leaguers, instead of “grown-ups,” to quote President Barack Obama. Or ... actually, that's the only way to look at it.

Never mind Obama's contrived victory lap to the still-open Lincoln Memorial, the president got hosed. House Speaker John Boehner was able to jack up the price of a deal with negotiating tactics that are familiar to any used-car salesperson.

His ploys were hardly sophisticated. They have been around since the first bazaar haggling. Eons later, this bizarre haggling featured some of the same transparent tricks.

Look at how he used his tea party chorus as snarling background music for blatant intimidation. Each and every time he agreed to a figure, he knew he could count on his crazies to provide an excuse for welching on the deal. It was obvious deception, but it worked.

So did the rider artifice, in which the Republicans demanded provisions that would sabotage abortion rights, environmental protection, health care reform and the like. These were all near and dear to Democrats, who were easy marks willing to trade off more money -- nearly $40 billion this year -- to save these straw men. All they could do is whine about it, while trying to look like tough guys by putting out stories about how firm the president was with Boehner behind the scenes, or how the affable Joe Biden chewed him out (Boehner, not the president).

(Writer's note: As usual, the arrangment with syndicators means this column appears here a week after its newspaper release)

^OBAMA SUPPORTERS DON'T GITMO SATISFACTION@<
^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<
^By BOB FRANKEN@=
^C.2011 Hearst Newspapers@=
WASHINGTON _ What were they thinking? What possessed his strategists to decide to make President Obama's re-election effort official on the same day his administration was making its final surrender on Guantanamo Bay?

Is their campaign slogan ``Cave You Can Believe In’’? It certainly won't be ``Change You Can Believe In.’’

Given how it's widely believed Obama will be the first candidate ever to raise and spend a billion dollars in a presidential election campaign, ``Big Bucks You Can Believe In’’ might be more appropriate.

It looks like he'll need every bit of that treasure to turn burnout into turnout.
The danger for him is that so many Barack Obama supporters have joined the ranks of the formerly-ardent.

They are disgruntled by what they perceive as an abandonment of lofty promises. Instead of raising taxes on the rich, they see him kissing up to corporate interests.

He's done little, they feel, to rein in Bush-era hard-line national security practices and now he's buckled under political pressure to wimp out on his pledge to close Guantanamo.

So the world still has the American Devil's Island to despise and will witness military tribunals there instead of civilian courts. The decision amounts to a vote of no-confidence in the Constitution. The brutal terrorist defendants get to be tried not as the low-life violent criminals that they are, but as warriors and martyrs.

(Writer's note: As usual, the arrangement with the syndicators means this column appears here a week after its newspaper release. Obviously, since then, the parties have reached their budget agreement, temporarily averting what some construe as a crisis.)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, APRIL 5, 2011

FEATHERWEIGHTS FIGHTING HEAVYWEIGHT PROBLEMS

BY BOB FRANKEN

Don't you love the TV anchors who treat us like idiots when they describe issues of great magnitude by saying something like "If you placed all the eggs in this recall end to end, they would reach the very top of the Empire State Building!"?

Actually, they would fall and splatter, leaving a terrible mess on 5th Avenue, but let's not quibble. The news-huckster consultants have won. So let's talk about the Washington budget negotiations.

If all the dollar bills of the national debt were stretched out, they would go to Pluto and back. The amounts in the cutbacks that cause such mortal combat between Democrats and Republicans wouldn't even make it halfway to Mars.

This debate seems to happening on a different planet. The drama king and queen politicians in the nation's capital are putting on their theater of the irrelevant as they scramble to come up with some sort of unhappy medium deal to keep the government we no longer can afford up and running.

What a performance! On any given day, we could count on bizarre showmanship from those of the far-out right, like Indiana Republican Mike Pence. He's the one who yelled, at a Capitol tea party rally, "It's time to pick a fight!" That means make painful cuts to every program that doesn't affect a hard-liner's particular district, nor its voters, nor its corporate campaign contributors, nor its families' individual federal subsidies. On the left, we hear Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid portray his forces as the defenders of the children, the elderly and other "innocent bystanders" whose lifeline programs are in danger.

(Writers note: As usual this column appears here a week after its newspaper release per the arrangement with my syndicators)

^NEWT NEWS IS NEVER OLD NEWS@<
^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<
^By BOB FRANKEN@=
^C.2011 Hearst Newspapers@=
WASHINGTON _ The Libyan desert's shifting sands have nothing on Newt Gingrich's Libyan shifting stands.

You have to give the man credit. In his never ending fight to stand out in the ``Trash Obama Republican Sweepstakes,’’ he shows himself to be so fast on his feet, that he sometimes puts one in his mouth. He's a one man ``Crossfire.’’

When President Obama hadn't yet committed to military intervention, the March 7 Gingrich sound bite on FOX was: ``Exercise a no-fly zone this evening.’’...``All we have to say is that we think that slaughtering your own citizens is unacceptable and that we're intervening.’’

Here's a scary thought: Maybe the White House was following Gingrich's lead and that's why Obama and NATO later pulled the trigger. Obviously, though, Newt Gingrich is not someone who can take ``yes’’ for an answer.

On March 23, he was telling the ``Today Show’’: ``I would not have intervened.’’ Inconsistent, to say the least.

No problem. A couple days later in Des Moines, Gingrich acknowledged that ``obviously there were contradictions’’ in his views. Not his fault though. It was Barack Obama’s, he insisted. "The fact is that on each day I was on television I was responding to where the President was that day. I was trying to follow Obama.’’

But then, he subsequently told the Greenville S.C., Women's Republican Club on March 24 that the president had failed to show leadership on Libya and that he was ``spectator in chief instead of commander in chief.’’

So, Gingrich contended he was ``trying to follow’’ the ``spectator in chief.’’
Confusing? Maybe he wants it that way.

What’s really happening here is that Gingrich is attempting to position himself as a Republican presidential contender and Obama critic by playing the old game of ``whatever he’s for, I’m against.’’

The man is no newcomer to verbal gymnastics. In February 2007 he was saying on the TV program ``Frontline’’ of the proposed ``cap and trade’’ approach to limiting greenhouse gases: ``Frankly, it’s something I would strongly support.’’

That was then. By April 2009 in Newsweek, he was strongly opposed. ``Such a plan would have the effect of an across-the-board energy tax on every American. That will make our artificial energy crisis even worse.’’ Again, only two words can explain what set off the schizophrenia: ``President Obama.’’

.

(Writer's note: Per the arrangement with the syndicators, this column appears here a week after its newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, MARCH 29, 2011

REDSKINS AND OTHERS OUT OF THEIR LEAGUE

BY BOB FRANKEN

It's always good when there's a news lull like we have right now, so we can dwell on matters that keep our attention far longer and raise more emotion than the likes of wars, natural disasters or imminent government shutdowns.

Automatically, our thoughts can go to that other mess, the National Football League. No, this is not the usual incredulous musing about a strike by millionaire employees against billionaire owners. Frankly, it's kind of fun to watch the two sides thrash around. It provides us the opportunity to ponder the nature of the sport, particularly its fundamental sensitivity.

Where else would you find a team with a name that is out-and-out racist, like “Washington Redskins”? In the NFL, of course. Not only that, but as the franchise of our nation's capital it is particularly remarkable. This, after all, is where a showboating politician was once asked, “Have you no decency?”

(Pardon the “showboating politician” redundancy, and also the “decency” question with such an obvious answer.)

The name “Redskins” is a disgrace and needs to be replaced. This would be a good time to take the plunge, since the league isn't doing anything else at the moment.

There are so many D.C.-appropriate names. The question is which one to choose. What best captures the essence of this unique market? So many possibilities, such a small word count.

Now, now. Who's the cynic who said “Bozos”? Bad idea. Think of the copyright problems.

There certainly are other possibilities almost as obvious: The Washington Presidents, the Congressionals or, to borrow from sports history, the Senators, who had about as much success in baseball as the professional football franchise has had since owner Dan Snyder took the helm.

What yawners. We need to capture that power-grabbing greed and deception that defines D.C.'s way of life. The Politicians comes to mind. That would work if the team decides to emphasize deceptive plays.

Or how about the Lobbyists, to pay homage to those who buy most of the loges at our stadium. Maybe the Fat Cats, as a tribute to the ones who really run things, or the Spinners, who are their apologists.

(Writer's note:) The arrangement with the syndicators allows these columns to appear here here a week after their newspaper release. This is an obvious case in point)

^THE LIBYAN ROAD TO POINTS UNKNOWN@<
^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<
^By BOB FRANKEN@=
^C.2011 Hearst Newspapers@=
WASHINGTON _ The U.S. adventure in Libya is already looking like one of those here-we-go-again trips where we don't know where we're going.

Not only that but we can't be sure whether our fellow passengers will be with us all the way to the final destination, whatever that is. So far it seems to extend to the next news cycle.

While we're firing away missiles, at a cost of over a million dollars a pop, according to the Navy, there is already squabbling with the other coalition partners about whether they will take up some of the heavy lifting. So far they've been junior partners. Or less.

What happens when the facade of support from the Arab League unravels, as it has already begun to do? That is complicated by the jumbled Mideast puzzle, with pieces strewn all over the place. Libya is hardly the only place in an uproar. Some of the very rulers called on to support the military force against Moammar Qadhafi have their own popular uprisings to suppress.

Worst of all is the confusion over how it all ends. Is wildman Qadhafi still in power? Does that threaten other countries in the region? (After all, this is the man who at a 2009 Arab League meeting declared himself ``King of Kings.’’) What about the deadly consequences if he does hold on to power? Will this end in a stalemate with the Libyan rebels?

Before we hear too much more about ``no fly zones,’’ let's not forget that there were two such zones over Saddam Hussein's Iraq for 11 years _ and we know where that got us.

Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., is not exactly a firebrand but he's offering the same criticism of Obama’s decision to attack that many fellow Republicans and Democrats are leveling. There is the usual grumbling about a president’s constitutional overreach. But that lament is always futile.

Of more immediate consequence is the complaint that Lugar leveled on CNN when he said, ``I do not understand the mission because as far as I can tell in the United States there is no mission and there are no guidelines for success.’’

The best the administration’s designated explainer could offer was basically no explanation. Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, could only say: “I think it’s for others to determine where this will go long term.”

I'm on "White House Chronicle" this Friday, Saturday and/or Sunday, depending on the local station.

JAPAN’S CATASTROPHE PUT WASHINGTON SQUABBLES IN PERSPECTIVE@<
^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<
^By BOB FRANKEN@=
^C.2011 Hearst Newspapers@=
WASHINGTON _ When we look to Japan and the scope of the tragedy inflicted there on our fellow human beings who have been betrayed by the planet we all call home, it puts into perspective the petty budget bickering in Washington. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., accurately calls it ``absurd political theater’'.

The debacle at Japan’s nuclear plants forces us to realize how much time our policy makers have wasted for generations, leaving us so far behind when it comes to coping with progress and technology that we court disaster from unpredictable forces, like a 9.0 earthquake and tsunami. No matter what assurances we get, these facilities are not only vulnerable, but when they do fail, it can be catastrophic.

So thanks to decisions or the lack of them over decades, we are stuck, forced to rely on them as part of what Deputy Energy Secretary Daniel Poneman calls ``... a very important component to the overall portfolio we're trying to build for a clean-energy future.’’ He was merely expressing the widely accepted view that we must accept the well-known downsides of what is sometimes called atomic electricity, even with its inherent dangers and questions about how to safely dispose of the growing piles of radioactive waste and store it for centuries in its acutely toxic and volatile afterlife.

The reason wind and solar and other relatively clean energy sources have gotten mere lip service is because the corporations that peddle the dirty sources like oil and coal have seen to it that our pliant politicians remain short sighted, never looking beyond the next campaign contribution.

How ludicrous it is that nuclear power is called a ``clean’’ alternative fuel when, as we're seeing, it can literally endanger the world. We still don't know what the scale of the health and ecological ravages from the collapsed plants in Japan will be.

We do know that widespread damage from the 1986 accident at Chernobyl still lingers, decades after it happened.

(Writer's note: The arrangement with the syndicators allows these columns to be posted here a week after their newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, MARCH 15, 2011

THE BULLY KING

BY BOB FRANKEN

How appropriate that the two events were held on the same day in Washington. At the White House, it was a conference on bullying. Up the road in the Capitol complex, it was the committee hearing to encourage the bullying of Muslims.

Obviously, the hearing's organizer, Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., wouldn't agree with that characterization; he was, he insisted, simply exploring the “The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and that Community's Response.” The more that people hammered him for pandering to anti-Islam bigotry in the United States, the more he railed against “political correctness.”

By the way, “bigotry” is the right word. Recent polls like those of Gallup and Pew Research Center show the consistent number of people who will admit to negative views of Muslims in this country hovers around 40 percent. So King and the others from within his party know full well their targeted fear-mongering would score points politically, in much the same way that Sen. Joe McCarthy exploited anti-communist hysteria back in the 1950s.

If King and the rest were serious about exploring the danger of violence from radical extremists, they wouldn't be focusing solely on Muslims. While it is true that we continue to be frightened by the deadly violence and attempted violence of jihadists, shouldn't we be talking at the very same time about the deadly actions of some of those on the fringes of the anti-abortion movement? Or fundamentalist Christians? Should we have hearings aimed at those religious groups? How about the other armed militia militants. And the loners? Timothy McVeigh was not a Muslim.

(Writer's note: By arrangement with the syndicators, these columns appear here a week after their newspaper release)

^QUANTICO AND GUANTANAMO: THE WIKILEAKS’ NAKED COMPARISON@<
^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<
^By BOB FRANKEN@=
^C.2011 Hearst Newspapers@=
WASHHINGTON _ Now that President Obama is making Guantanamo Bay the Land of Broken promises and keeping the notorious prison camp open, Army Private First Class Bradley Manning might want to request a transfer to Gitmo from the Marine Corps brig at Quantico, Va.

In his new executive order, the president promised that the Guantanamo prisoners will be treated in conformity with the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit, among other abuses, ``outrages against personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.’’

Right now PFC Manning is being held in near solitary confinement at Quantico; he’s kept in his cell 23 hours a day with one hour out for limited exercise.
He's facing allegations that he leaked tons of classified documents. Military prosecutors just added 22 other charges, including ``Aiding the Enemy.’’ That one carries a potential death penalty, although prosecutors say they will not seek capital punishment.

His Marine jailers confirm that while he awaits preliminary legal action, he is required to spend a chunk of his time without clothes on. His lawyer David Coombs complains that Manning was ``stripped naked...forced to stand naked in front of his cell.’’ ``This type of degrading treatment...is inexcusable and without justification.’’

We have gotten some explanations from Quantico officials that Manning is on a POI, a ``Prevention of Injury’’ watch. Marine spokesman Lt. Brian Villard would not offer details, saying: ``I can't explain it to you without violating the detainees’ privacy.’’

``PRIVACY’’? The man stands there without a stitch, totally exposed.
Let's suffice here in this family environment to suggest that this rationale is a bit ludicrous. By the way, medical officers at the base reportedly insist that POI monitoring is not necessary.
Pentagon chief spokesman Geoff Morrell sheds more light on the justification for Manning’s treatment by explaining that it is appropriate because of the ``seriousness of the charges he's facing.’’

Now we're getting somewhere. Could this be bare spite? Literally?

(Under agreement with the syndicators, these columns appear here a week after their newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, MARCH 8, 2011

THE GOP PRESIDENTIAL ENTERTAINERS: BEATING THE HUMDRUM

BY BOB FRANKEN

This column has nothing to do with Charlie Sheen or anything he's said. In fact, his name is here only as a shameless attention-getter for the search engines. Other than that, who needs him? We have Newt Gingrich and others in the GOP who are flirting with a presidential run. Some of them are outright groping the idea.

Newt's at it again, and he's still able to get a huge amount of attention simply by taking a preliminary step before the preliminary step before the big step into full-fledged candidacy. When it comes to name recognition, the good news for Gingrich is that everyone knows who he is and what he stands for. The bad news for him is that everyone knows who he is and what he stands for, which is fundamentally anything that:

A. Trashes Democrats (“the party of food stamps”), President Barack Obama (a “Kenyan anti-colonialist,” which a lot of us are still trying to understand), liberals (“part of a secular socialist machine ... that represents as great a threat to America as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union”) and/or Muslims (excuse me, “radical Islamists”).

B. Keeps his name out there.

It seems to work, despite a lot of baggage: Even if he succeeds in overcoming all the questions about his personal morality (two divorces, an affair with the woman who became his present wife), he also has a mixed public record. On the one hand, he has a reputation as a really smart guy. After all, he led the 1994 charge of Republicans who wrenched control of the House from the Democrats, who had held it for 40 years. But he also was forced to step down as speaker in 1999, as ethics charges swirled around him and after the forces he led in Congress got the blame for a government shutdown.

Now he's trying to fall up, and become one of his party's wild things. He'll need to pass the one who really makes the hearts of the faithful sing. That, of course, would be Sarah Palin, whose comments about anything and everything have become the stuff of legend, and satire.

(Writer's note: The arrangement with the syndicators allows these columns to appear here one week after their newspaper release)

^GAO REPORT FINDS HUGE GOVERNMENT BLOAT _ BUT DON’T EXPECT A DIET ANYTIME SOON@<
^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<
^By BOB FRANKEN@=
^C.2011 Hearst Newspapers@=
WASHINGTON _ As Republicans and Democrats have given themselves two more weeks to agree on a budget and avoid the partial shutdown of the federal government, except for ``essential’’ services, there is a lot of bruised self-esteem at the various agencies among those deemed ``non-essential.’’

According to the GAO, there probably should be a lot more of the latter sort.
The Government Accountability Office, the auditing arm of Congress, is certainly trying to live up to its name by performing an important service. A new GAO report released this week documents program-by-program how ``reducing or eliminating duplication, overlap or fragmentation could potentially save billions of taxpayer jobs annually and help agencies provide more efficient and effective services.’’

The ``duplication, overlap or fragmentation’’ is laid out in damning detail: There are a hundred departments assigned to surface transportation matters, 82 deal with teacher quality, 80 supervise economic development, 56 have a piece of ``financial literacy.’’ (How ironic is that one?)

Food safety is supervised by 15 entities, with conflicting mandates from the likes of the Agriculture Department and the Food and Drug Administration. We end up with confusion and contradictions that are breeding grounds for deadly illnesses that spread throughout the country. The dreary list of disorganization is a long one.

(Writer's note: The arrangement with the syndicators allows my columns to appear here a week after their newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

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BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, MARCH 1, 2011

LABOR PAINS

BY BOB FRANKEN

Among the expressions that are grossly overused and all too frequently misleading is the word “team,” certainly when uttered in context of the workplace.

While it is a fact that employer and employee are on the same side, they are, as often as not, playing against each other. Whether it's like the battle raging right now in state capitals between government employees and adversarial politicians, or less boisterous, this is a class struggle that crosses the border between public and private sectors.

To put it simply, the boss wants to pay subordinates as little as possible for as much product as possible. Unions exist, management believes, to protect those who want just the opposite: higher wages for less time and effort.

At the top of a corporation's heap, organized labor usually is seen as the enforcer of mediocrity. Meanwhile, those looking up have a similarly unfavorable impression of the executive suite, controlled by an unscrupulous ruling class that rewards its members with bloated salaries and outlandish perks for doing too little and doing it badly.

What we get is never-ending ferocious warfare, some of which is fought in the political arena. Generally, Democrats and unions support one another while Republicans and the top brass have the same symbiotic relationship. On “Meet the Press,” Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker said that this is his “moment in ... history.” It's the moment, as he sees it, for completing his party's and its benefactors' quest to crush organized labor.

(Writer's note: Per arrangement with the syndicators, these columns appear here a week after their newspaper release)

^U.S. SHOULD GET OUT IN FRONT OF HISTORIC CHANGES@<
^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<
^By BOB FRANKEN@=
^C.2011 Hearst Newspapers@=
WASHINGTON _ He is demonstrably a madman, a ruthless dictator. Until recently, Moammar Gadhafi was the outcast he deserved to be.

That is sadly not the case in so much of the Mideast, where for decades the United States has backed oppressors for our own convenience, making a mockery of promises to be a beacon of democracy. Time after time when it suited anti-Soviet, anti-terrorist and pro-oil needs, America sided with the bad guys.

At his Feb. 15 news conference, President Obama had a lecture for these leaders, saying: ``You've got to get out ahead of change, you can't be behind the curve.’’

Given how long the U.S. has been behind the curve in the region, those words may ring hollow. As these entrenched despots lose their grip, this country is left to worry whether those dubious allies will be replaced by adversaries.

Let's face it, we have been controlled by an instant gratification compulsion to act on short-sighted needs and neglect the longer term.

This same kind of short-sightedness is evident here at home. After generations of raised alarms, the financial walls are starting to crumble. Individuals can pretend they are so much more prosperous than they really are. Money is lavished wildly and the charges put on a credit card with little regard for where it was spent or how it was misspent. No one is bothered with a realistic revenue stream. Taxes are disdained. There is always money to borrow. Or so it seems.

(Writer's note: The arrangements with the syndicators allow for my columns to appear here a week after their newspaper release.)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, FEB. 22, 2011

BUDGETS AND GRUDGES

BY BOB FRANKEN

What a shame that our leaders can't call in one of those debt-relief companies that bombard us with promises that they can help us crawl out of our deep financial hole. Some of them are even honest. With a crushing arrears that right now stands at an incomprehensible $14 trillion, with $1.65 trillion more in deficits expected on the pile this year, the nation could certainly use somebody's expertise at setting up budgets that eliminate the frivolous while maintaining the basic necessities.

It sounds simple, but it gets goofy when politicians are involved. They answer to constituents who have vastly different opinions on what is frivolous and what is necessary. You've heard of NIMBY, as in “not in my backyard,” the cry we hear when it's time to place some garbage dump or human dump somewhere? Now, as we attempt to spread the cutback pain, we're getting squeals of NIMBA, meaning “not in my budget allocation.”

It works for some, particularly those who have bottomless resources for lobbyists and campaign contributions. So oil subsidies remain for the energy companies that won't be satisfied with profits that are only obscene. In fact, we get to continue promoting the culture of petroleum excess. The Army gets to continue spending $7 million or so a year advertising itself on NASCAR racers.

But the right wing rolled over one social program after another, and worked hard to settle some old grudges. If these lacerations remain, we will kiss the Corporation for Public Broadcasting goodbye, as well as Planned Parenthood grants and, of course, the money to implement the GOP-hated health-care reform, as well as any meaningful business regulation.

The grim reapers would mow down all but their favorites, with little regard for the unfortunate who would be left behind in a barren landscape. “After all,” quipped a sarcastic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, “you can lose a lot of weight by cutting off your arms and legs”

(Writer's note: By arrangement with the syndicators, these columns appear here a week after their newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, FEB. 15, 2011

CPAC ATTACK

BY BOB FRANKEN

Sarah Palin is such a big star on the right that when a look-alike actress appeared at the Conservative Political Action Conference shindig in Washington, she caused a huge commotion. Palin had decided not to show up, but even her parody can cause true believers to swoon. Then again, some of the real deals who did drop by looked like they, too, were parodies of politicians.

For a change, it wasn't Rep. Michele Bachmann who stole the spotlight, which she usually does when Palin is sucking all the air. Her convention-starting speech was just her usual perky gruel, in which she charged that Barack Obama had “ushered in socialism.” Same bit, different day.

There was Donald Trump, who served up another of his repeated presidential-candidate apprenticeships, trying to comb over his lack of political know-how with a tea-party-market-tested complaint that the United States has lost respect in the world during Obama's time in the White House. “And I can tell you this,” he declared, “if I run and if I win, this country will be respected again.” Although he got booed by his audience when he insisted that the guy who garnered the most votes in the conference's candidate straw poll, far-out libertarian Ron Paul, could never win, it didn't matter. This is great PR.

Newt Gingrich is no stranger to self-promotion, and he definitely is planning a run. So he was there raising his finger to the wind (you can decide which finger), issuing a clarion cry to get rid of the Environmental Protection Agency and decrying administration proposals to create a “cap and trade” carbon-emission policy as a “war on American energy.”

But wait. Isn't this the same Newt Gingrich who, in 2007, said about cap and trade: “Frankly, it's something I would strongly support”? Hey, people can change. That was then, in Gingrich's pre-tea phase. The man has had more makeovers than, say, Mitt Romney.

(Writers note: Per the arrangement with the syndicators, these columns appear here a week after their newspaper release)

^CYBERSPACE'S UNSTOPPABLE FLOOD OF INFORMATION@<

^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<

^By BOB FRANKEN@=

^C.2011 Hearst Newspapers@=

WASHINGTON _ Let's hear it for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her continuing campaign for what she calls ``the freedom to connect.’’ There she was again, this time at D.C.'s George Washington University, castigating regimes that try to ``clamp down on Internet freedom.’’

Clinton argued that ``the scale should always be tipped in favor of openness.’’ You listening, Iran? You listening, Burma? You listening, United States?

Unfortunately, in an awkward bit of timing, prosecutors for the U.S. government were in a federal courthouse just a few miles away in Alexandria, Va., trying to convince a judge they should have access to Twitter communications in their zealous pursuit of WikiLeaks.

The government wants the Twitter accounts of three people linked to the WikiLeaks probe _ screen names, mailing addresses, telephone numbers, credit card and bank account information and internet protocol addresses.

In this country, the official scales apparently tip away from transparency when it causes inconvenient embarrassment.

Many who used to hide behind opaque screens are now finding the new openness overwhelming. That goes for those not only in public positions, but their chroniclers in the private sector as well.

The rush to be on top of developments in Egypt by journalists as well as intelligence operatives became a self-feeding frenzy of miscalculations, which were then breathlessly passed on to the world by correspondents citing the likes of ``knowledgeable sources.’’

Turns out all these knowledgeable sources didn't know jack. They were frequently relying on the news organizations. A big case in point was testimony before the House Intelligence Committee by CIA Director Leon Panetta, that ``There's a strong likelihood that Hosni Mubarak may step down in Egypt tonight.’’

The TV networks, along with print and internet sites, took that as official confirmation of their breaking stories that a departure was, in fact, going to happen later that day. The problem, as we now know, is that Panetta was simply echoing what he had heard from the media.

(Writer's note: The arrangement with my syndicators allows for these columns to appear here one week after their newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, FEB. 8, 2011

CAIRONIC POLITICS

BY BOB FRANKEN

I tried to hold back, but I couldn't, and it's her fault. I had decided to join some of the columnists who had announced they would make February a Sarah Palin-free month. I did so even though I had reservations about being on a collusion course with them, further fueling the anti-trust of media types who present themselves as separate and independent commentators.

Besides, Ms. P. made it easy by slowing her usual gush of mindless inanities. She even had been keeping quiet about the crisis in Egypt.

But she just couldn't contain herself. She had to take a shot at the Obama administration's ginger tiptoeing through the diplomatic and strategic minefields. In a Christian Broadcasting Network interview released Saturday night, she proved as glib as ever, using the old Hillary Clinton for President imagery for her clever sound bite: “This is that 3 a.m. White House phone call, and ... it seems that that call went right to the answering machine.”

So, even though we all needed a break, my boycott is over. (Language police: Is BOYcott the right word when we're talking about a woman? The mind wanders.)

Besides, there were plenty of others filling the void. We already had heard Newt Gingrich spew out his take on the Obama people, which was: “I don't think they have a clue. I think it is very frightening to watch this administration.”

(Writer's note: By agreement with the syndicators, these columns appear here a week after their newspaper release)

^SLINGS AND ARROWS ON CUPID'S DAY@<
^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<
^By BOB FRANKEN@=
^C.2011 Hearst Newspapers@=
WASHINGTON _February 9, 2011.
Feb. 14th is not just a day for romantics, but this year it's a big day for political science and economics wonks every where.

Feb. 14th is, after all, when President Obama will release his administration’s budget proposal for the next fiscal year. It sounds like it will not be the Valentine’s Day massacre of government programs that his Republican adversaries are demanding.

He's calling it ``a responsible 10-year path for reining in the deficit.’’ Those on the right are demanding something that gets the job done in say, one year. Tops.

All this is a tad strange when you consider Congress couldn’t get fiscal and pass this year's budget blueprint because, as Maya McGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, lamented, ``No one wants to spell out what they would do, given that the choices are humongous deficits or tough policy choices.’’

Everyone is as far apart as ever. Each side believes it is aligned with the angels against the devils.

Pick your poison: Liberals argue that more government spending will mean more government revenue because social programs will turn those in need into taxpayers. They describe that spending as an ``investment.’’

As for stirring up calcified government bureaucracies, that is obviously a right-wing plot to demonize public service. Instead, their watchword now is ``Jobs, Jobs, Jobs.’’

(Writers note: By arrangement with the syndicators, these columns appear here a week after their newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, FEB. 1, 2011

EGYPT: LOST OR FOUNDERING

BY BOB FRANKEN

Oh sure, the president is grappling with the conflicting considerations swirling around the chaos in Egypt ... human rights vis-à-vis the need for maintaining ties to a longtime reliable Arab ally. We're hearing a lot of tepid public statements as the administration tries to have it both ways. As the man says, though, make no mistake about it, there is a political undertone that easily could become an overtone if Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is run out and replaced by anti-American Islamists.

If that happens, Barack Obama will face a huge uphill battle to overcome Republicans piling on and accusing him of being the president who “lost Egypt.” Just ask Jimmy Carter about Iran. His failed attempts to live up to this nation's human-rights rhetoric merely resulted in a despotic shah being replaced by even more oppressive religious fanatics, who threaten the world still today.

Or ask the Democrats who “lost China,” which became a potent campaign slogan that helped propel the GOP's Dwight Eisenhower to power after the pro-American Nationalists were overrun by Mao's revolutionaries. Again, we're still bedeviled by that one.

Now we have Mubarak, trying to hang on as a popular wave across the Arab deserts threatens to sweep him away after 30 years of brutal rule and cronyism, buttressed by massive foreign aid from the United States through the entire period of his rule. The great bulk of that is spent on the military, which this year is $1.3 billion. That's a huge investment in a dictator who has weathered decades of U.S. sanctimony from one president to another.

So, in an effort to stay with the shifting sands, there was Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton playing the role of U.S. government pinball and bouncing from one Sunday talk show to another. She recited carefully constructed talking points, like that the U.S. is “ready to help with the kind of transition that will lead to greater political and economic freedom.” In diplo-speak that translates to “Hosni, don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out.” But it also hedges the American bets to make sure no one is antagonized. The obvious worst case is that Egypt is seized by those who would turn that pro-American government, and not incidentally pro-Israeli government, anti-both.

I'm doing MSNBC today (Sunday) during the 2:00 and 3:00 PM Eastern hours. Which is good because I won't miss the Super Bowl.

(Writer's note: The agreement with the syndicators requires these columns appear here a week after their newspaper release)

^`WINNING THE FUTURE’ ALSO INCLUDES THE 2012 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION@<
^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<
^By BOB FRANKEN@=
^C.2011 Hearst Newspapers@=
WASHINGTON _ We get it, Mr. President. We need to ``Win the Future.’’
You said some variation of that point nearly a dozen times in your State of the Union address, so consider the message signed and sealed.

The delivered part is something else. To see how that goes, we will have to wait for the, uh future.

Wasn't it nice to see all those Republicans and Democrats sitting next to each other, without even holding their noses? But President Obama had it just about right in his speech when he said, ``What comes of this moment will be determined not by whether we can sit together tonight, but whether we can work together tomorrow.’’

We didn't have to wait till ``tomorrow’’ to see how that would work. Just a few seconds later, on the very same night, all we had to do was watch. As Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn., raced to the cameras to speak derisively for the Tea Party. ``For two years,’’ she declared, ``President Obama made promises just like the ones we heard him make tonight. Yet still, we have high unemployment, devalued housing prices and the cost of gasoline is skyrocketing.’’

Bachmann seems to fancy herself the real Republican leader, as opposed to people like Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, or Rep Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

In the official GOP response, Ryan wasn't being all that conciliatory himself: ``The facts are clear: Since taking office, President Obama has signed into law spending increases of nearly 25 per cent for domestic government agencies _ an 84 per cent increase when you include the failed stimulus.’’

(Writers note: Per the arrangement with my syndicators my columns appear here a week after their newspaper release. This one was written before the State of the Union address)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, JAN. 25, 2011

THE OBAMA PRESIDENCY COMMERCIAL BREAK

BY BOB FRANKEN

The halfway point of President Barack Obama's first term easily could inspire another of those GEICO commercials.

You know the ones: The huffy-puffy anchorman type asks in his exaggerated way: "Could switching to GEICO really save you 15 percent or more on car insurance? Has there really been 'change you can believe in'?"

Cut to a shot of Obama out for a walk with some of his aides. He's stopped by a man who asks if he can break a buck. "Yes, we can!" shouts the president. "Hey!" the guy complains, "You only gave me 15 cents!" "Sorry," says Obama, "I inherited the deficit."

Obviously there has been some change but oftentimes, it's nickel-and-dime stuff. As massive as health-care-reform legislation was, for instance, it was so diluted that it didn't really cure the fundamental illness. The insurance companies still run the show, and they will be able to shift tactics to make sure they still get their outlandish financial returns. It's certainly not the "big f------- deal" Vice President Joe Biden called it.

The same is true for financial reform. While there are new regulations in place, those who gutted our economy with their recklessness and/or fecklessness still finagled ways to come out ahead. Now they are hoarding their subsidies, while millions of people who are unemployed get more desperate by the day, and month, and year. Ask them about change.

Or ask the wealthy, who would have had to pay more taxes if President Obama had managed to live up to Candidate Obama's promises. He didn't; they don't. This isn't chump change, by the way. They are getting to keep $700 billion that otherwise would have made a dent in the onerous national deficit. Their Republican protectors were plainly and simply able to outmaneuver the Democrats, which wasn't very hard because the Dems were scattering.

^THE SENATE IS WHERE PROGRESS SINKS IN QUICKSAND@<

^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<

^By BOB FRANKEN@=

^C.2011 Hearst Newspapers@=

WASHINGTON _ It was nice to see that House members could play nice and have their debate over health care repeal without gang warfare. Still, are the Democrats and Republicans really ready to sit next to each other during an entire State-of-the Union speech next Tuesday?

In a letter to colleagues, Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., wrote: ``Beyond custom, there is no rule or reason that on this night we should emphasize divided government, separated by party, instead of being seen united as a country.’’

That's all well and good but is it pushing our luck to put these momentarily subdued warriors within physical reach when they jam into the crowded House chamber to listen to President Obama?

What happens when one partisan leaps up to cheer, while the other one sits there like a bump on a log? In other words, do we risk a hostility relapse?

Besides, we can take this pretend politeness too far. Look no further than the exaggerated chivalry in the Senate. It's in the rules: ``No senator in debate shall, directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another senator or to other senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a senator.’’
It's called ``comity’’ and it's transparently contrived.

The next time you're having an insomnia problem, don't pop an Ambien or Lunesta. Instead switch your TV to Comity Central, otherwise known the C-SPAN feed of what traditionally is called the “World’s Greatest Deliberative Body.” That's ``deliberative’’ as in stupefyingly glacial. Guaranteed, you'll be unconscious in no time. Meanwhile, on the screen, the members will be still referring to their arch enemies as ``my friends.’’

(Writer's note: By agreement with the syndicators, my columns appear here a week after their newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, JAN. 18, 2011

CIVIL FIGHTS

BY BOB FRANKEN

The new concern about irresponsible political invective, temporary though it may be, obviously is overdue. It's worthwhile to put a lid on the vitriol, but, as we deal with those who have damaged our country, we also must differentiate between civil and servile.

President Barack Obama has embarked on a course of closer cooperation with business and financial giants. If he's not vigilant, they can roll over his administration as he cozies up to them. And I say that with all due respect.

Let us not forget for a moment that our economic disaster was inflicted on us largely by the free-market profiteers. They brought the country to its knees while those who were supposed to rein them in were afraid to rain on their parade from one quarterly report to the next.

Now, in an effort to steady the Obama presidency, the administration is making nice with the same corporate interests who spent massive amounts of money to finance his “shellacking.” They succeeded in discrediting his effort to bring some order to the frontier that's their home. Now he's responding by planning a speech in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce lion's den to reassure the fat cats that he will work with them to see to it their interests are protected. It's not as if they aren't already shielded by the pliant politicians who grovel for their campaign donations and their armies of lawyers who are expert at gaming the system and undermining enforcement of laws against abuse that are already too weak. And I say that with all due respect.

(Writer's note: The arrangement with the syndicators allows these columns to be posted here a week after their newspaper release. This one preceded the tragic events in Tucson, which has been reflected in subsequent material)

^TEA PARTIERS DISCOVER THE CONSTITUTION!
^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<
^By BOB FRANKEN@=
^C.2010 Hearst Newspapers@=
WASHINGTON _ January 5, 2011 -- About that decision by the Republicans to mark their control of the newly formed House of Representatives by reading into the record the U.S. Constitution:

This was a GOP flourish, apparently to celebrate their discovery of rule under law. In any case I know I speak for many when I say to them, ``Thank you for sharing’’ _ and also for your new requirement that all legislation include language about how it follows the Constitution.

One has to wonder exactly why the new guard of insurgent Republicans and the old guard Republican leaders that they've frightened to death are doing such a show-and-tell with the entire document and passing out little booklets with the text of all the Articles and Amendments.

One can only suspect this is merely the usual political showmanship, pandering to the Tea Partiers and others who vehemently seem to believe (they seem to believe everything vehemently) that the very idea of government is unconstitutional. At the very least, they think it sure has been lately.

(Writers note: The arrangement with the syndicators allows my columns to be posted here a week after they have been distributed to newspapers. Obviously, this one preceded the Tucson murders. Reflections on that will appear on this site after the normal delay)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE DAY, TUESDAY, JAN. 4, 2011

BEDBUGS AND DEFICITS TAKING A BITE

BY BOB FRANKEN

While it is true that most of us are lulled into believing that the important work of government is done by the White House and Congress, and every once in a while the Supreme Court, they are just a distraction. The real show in Washington takes place in officialdom's hidden branch, the work group.

With that in mind, make plans to be in D.C. Feb. 1 and 2 for the national summit of the Federal Bed Bug Work Group, organized by the Environmental Protection Agency and including the Departments of Housing and Urban Development, Agriculture, Commerce and Defense, along with the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. No, this is not made up; it's for real. In fact, it's the second-annual summit.

Various lobbying groups will show up, perhaps maybe even one to represent the pests themselves. The greatest news of all is that you and I can attend. It's open to the public, so the first order of business should be identifying hotel rooms that are not infested.

Why focus on the Bed Bug Work Group? Because it represents a real slice of Washington life, or in this case, a chomp. Work groups are sometimes called study groups or commissions. Whichever, they are all motion and no movement, a substitute for action. Usually, for those who don't have a solution to any problem, they are an excuse simply to pass the buck.

(Writer's note:The arrangement with the syndicators allows my columns to appear here a week after their newspaper release)

^ASSANGE, THE WIKILEAKER, GETS SCOOPED BY A LEAK@<
^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<
^By BOB FRANKEN@=
^C.2010 Hearst Newspapers@=
WASHINGTON December 22, 2010_ You gotta love it: The news that WikiLeak's Julian Assange was writing his memoirs was leaked before his announcement. Given what we've read about his personal life, a good title would be ``IckyLeaks.’’ Truth is, we know way more than we should about the guy.

He's not the really important part of the story about the massive amounts of confidential material his group has dumped into the public realm. Nor is the content, which is generally harmless ho-hum stuff. What matters here is the vindictive attempt by embarrassed officials to crush him.

Set aside, for the moment, those Swedish sex charges, meritorious or contrived, and focus instead on the reported efforts by the United States government to imprison him for heinous crimes that carry severe penalties.

What has leaked out (of course) from the Justice Department is that _ given the difficulty of pursuing full-fledged espionage charges against Assange _ prosecutors are now exploring a conspiracy charge instead, as in conspiring with the alleged computer hacker, Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, to spill the secret beans.

How spiteful is that, particularly when one considers what a cinch it is to get an indictment? The old bromide is that any prosecutor can get a grand jury to ``indict a ham sandwich.’’ Imagine how easy it will be for any ham-handed attempt to get an indictment in the alleged Assange-Manning conspiracy.

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, is sometimes way out there, but this time he is spot on with his recent speech in the House of Representatives about the furious administration response.
Paul, speaking on the House floor, issued a challenge to the ``hysterical reaction’’ in the form of several questions. Probably the most fundamental was this: ``Do the American people deserve to know the truth regarding the ongoing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen?’’

The answer to Paul’s question should be a resounding, ``Of course,’’ though many higher ups clearly don't think so. They are chagrined at how the WikiLeaks have laid bare the reality of a cyber-system that is vulnerable to the whims of a 23-year-old computer jockey. That reality is scarier than any actual disclosure in the leaked cables.

(Writer's note: Per the arrangement with the syndicators, my columns appear here a week after their newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE MONDAY, DEC. 20, 2010

DEMOCRACY'S HYPOCRISIES

BY BOB FRANKEN

Doctors have their Hippocratic oath with its “First do no harm” ideal. In politics, it's a corrosive, unspoken Hypocritic oath. For proof, look no further than the games with earmarks played by the very members of the Senate who made a big deal out of the claim they had sworn off them.

Never mind that they ultimately voted down a pork-laden spending bill stuffed with billions of dollars in goodies that were snuck into the legislation by many of the most sanctimonious anti-earmark Republicans. That only happened because they got caught dunking their hands in the bacon jar.

That recently reformed dunkerd Mitch McConnell was suddenly opposing earmarks as “the kind of thing the American people are tired of.” Did we mention that the nonprofit group Taxpayers for Common Sense tallied earmarks embedded in the measure by McConnell at $112 million? He was just one of many.

Another one we've all noticed is the new chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, which is the spigot (rhymes with piglet) through which most of this largess has always flowed. He is Hal Rogers. In a long congressional career, he has become known as the “Prince of Pork,” always making sure he spreads federal money back home. Now, he's suddenly another convert to the tea party religion, where ending the practice is an article of faith.

Before those tea partiers start shouting hallelujah about their big victory over Washington's way of doing business and over all the lobbyists who grease the skids, maybe they should pay attention to how so many of their flock are abruptly flocking to fundraisers here in D.C. to pay off campaign expenses. Guess who ponies up the big admission to those events? That's an easy one. The lobbyists, of course.

I'm on MSNBC tomorrow (Thursday) throughout the 11AM, Eastern hour.

(Writers note: The arrangement with my syndicators means these columns appear one week after their newspaper release)

^IS AMERICA `EXCEPTIONAL’?@<
^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<
^By BOB FRANKEN@=
^ C.2010 Hearst Newspapers@=
WASHINGTON December 15_ ``American Exceptionalism’’ _ the notion that the U.S. is the greatest nation, right or wrong _ has been drummed into our brains from the day we're born. Anyone who dares to debate the concept is dismissed as unpatriotic.

The concept of the country as a ``City on a Hill’’ dates back to the Puritans. Now, it's the conservatives who try and enforce a ``Love It or Leave It’’ zealotry. It's also handy to them as another reason to attack President Obama, for having the audacity to adjust to the modern world.

When the president was asked about it last year he responded: ``I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.’’ That was enough for the conservatives.
Just about all Republican wannabee presidential candidates have jumped on the exceptionalism bandwagon.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., are all onboard. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee declares: ``To deny American Exceptionalism is in essence to deny the heart and soul of this nation.’’

Sarah Palin _ never one to be outdone in the heart and soul department _ went right after the president in her book, saying that ``when President Obama insists that all countries are exceptional, he is saying none is, least of all the country he is leading.’’

(Writer's note: By arrangement with my syndicators, this column appears a week after it is released to newspapers.)

^IT’S TIME FOR A CALM LOOK AT THE WIKILEAKS PHENOM@<

^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<

^By BOB FRANKEN@=

^C.2010 Hearst Newspapers@=

WASHINGTON December 2, 2010 _ Let's go against the grain and try and temper some of the hand wringing about the latest WikiLeaks dump. Let's clear the air about what it means and what it doesn't.

It definitely means chagrin, the same kind we feel when writing a scathing email and accidentally hit ``Reply All.’’ Everyone can read the ridicule, including the target you were trying to trash behind his or her back. If we’re now front-stabbing someone we've been buttering up, we suddenly experience the agony of deceit.

It also means we have a system of secrecy that is so klutzy that the lowest level malcontent has the ability to open the leaky floodgates. Let's not overlook the fact that the main suspect here is an Army private.

For an analysis of what the content of the deluge means, we can rely on Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who's been around the track a few times. Here’s his reaction earlier this week: ``Now I've heard the impact of these releases on our foreign policy described as a melt-down, as a game-changer and so on. I think those descriptions are fairly significantly overwrought.’’

So let's be wrought about this and sift through the pile of cables.

_ The Saudis, other Arab countries and Israel are terrified about a nuclear attack. Imagine.

_ Nuclear Pakistan is a troublesome U.S.partner. We're shocked. Shocked!!

_ North Korea is suspected of supplyingIran with strategic weapons. And South Koreahas pondered the implications of a possible collapse of the North. OMG!!

_ American officials occasional use snarky language to describe leaders of other countries like France,Germany, Russia, evenLibya. Gasp.

_ There's more but I'm sure your heart can't take it. And if anyone thinks it all seems familiar, it's probably because he or she has read just about any newspaper or maybe even watched TV news over the last few years.

Still, just about anybody in the national security game can be heard huffing and puffing again about how this release, like the WikiLeak dumps that proceeded it, completely blows up the old way of doing business, which is to keep information about the world's momentous decisions from the very people who are affected by them, namely us.

COUNTERING THE LABEL MOVEMENT WITH NO LABELS

"Yeah sure. Whatever". Doesn't that pretty much sum up the disgusted reaction of so many who watch the partisan buffoonery bleating from the political extremes. And why not? There doesn't seem to be a place for those whose hearts and minds are not out there in never never land.

What if that wasn't the case? What if there was a place for the great bulk of us who refuse to be defined with a dogmatic label. It might even be cleverly called "No Labels". What a concept!!

Except it is no longer just a concept. No Labels, a group dedicated to organizing and inspiring a committed uncommitted of the political spectrum is about to kick off nationwide with from Columbia University this weekend.

It is self consciously nonpartisan by being bipartisan to the core. The founders are Democratic eminence Nancy Jacobson and GOP insider Mark McKinnon.

I am a member and participant in the rollout, fronting the webcast of the day's events at NoLabels.org. It begs the question about how a professed journalist can publicly identify with a political organization, since not taking sides is fundamental to what we do (or used to do and should be). That is exactly the point. No Labels, as the name makes clear, takes no side, unless you call common sense a side. It appeals to my professional ambivalence and personal one about most issues.

(Writer's note: By arrangement with my syndicators, my columns are placed here a week after their newspaper release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, NOV. 30, 2010

CHEAPY CREEPY

BY BOB FRANKEN

How sad it is that so many of our leading public figures invest large chunks of their political capital on the cheap shot. And why not? From their point of view, it pays huge dividends.

Apparently the gutter's not the limit if they can gain the allegiance of millions who settle for pablum in order to justify their misplaced resentments.

Case in point: Sarah Palin shamelessly exploits an aversion to complexity with simplistic bombast and outright deception. She is more than happy to fill the vacuum that is created when reason and knowledge have been sucked out of policy arguments. The name of her game is blame.

In her new book, Palin goes after Barack and Michelle Obama. She just cannot avoid the appeal to bigoted Caucasian victimhood: “Both of them spent almost two decades in the pews of Jeremiah Wright listening to his rants against white people.” Palin's hardly the only one.

It is always so fascinating, for instance, to hear public figures angrily deny they're racists even as they gratuitously play the race card. We've watched and heard the hard-right cheerleaders like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh repeatedly make their crude, prejudiced comments designed to attract millions of alienated listeners and viewers.

Newt Gingrich has built an entire career on a pile of ugly phrases. With him, it's an art form to somehow give his abrasive appeals to ignorance the false sheen of intellectualism. He has found Muslims a handy target for his exploitation. What other explanation than rabble-rousing can there be for his demand that “we should have a federal law that says sharia law cannot be recognized by any court in the United States.” Pure demagoguery. So is calling Obama a “secular socialist.”

(WRITER'S NOTE: Under the arrangement with the syndicators, these newspaper columns appear here a week after their release)

^RANGEL'S DOLLARS AND CENSURE@<
^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<
^By BOB FRANKEN@=
^C.2010 Hearst Newspapers@=November 24, 2010

WASHINGTON_ It was a beaten Charlie Rangel who pleaded for mercy from the members of the House Ethics Committee but didn't get it last week. Now the veteran New York Democrat faces a censure vote by the full House of Representatives for his violations of the rules.

Assuming that he loses that vote, too, he faces searing ignominy. Censure is a big deal. The Congressional Research Service officially defines it as ``...a formal vote by the majority of Members present and voting on a resolution disapproving a Member’s conduct, with generally the additional requirement that the Member stand at the `well’ of the House chamber to receive a verbal rebuke and reading of the censure resolution by the Speaker of the House.’’

Imagine the disgrace of the 80-year-old Rangel, former chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, a 40-year member of the House, standing before the podium, the other members and the world, via TV, while his demeaning punishment is read to him.
He will become the 23rd House member in history to be censured.

Already he has apologized to his colleagues ``...for the embarrassment I have caused you,’’ which is a far cry from his defiance last summer. That's when the charges against him were formalized, among them that he solicited big money for his Charles B. Rangel Public Policy Center in New York from donors who had special interest in legislation and that he sometimes used official letterhead for his fundraising.

Back then he insisted he was doing nothing that his colleagues also didn't do. He thundered about a new normal where they ``...change the rules.’’ Unfortunately, he is right about that. Members of Congress have long sought money from the special interests seeking favors so they can construct their monuments to themselves. Of course, we’re not even discussing campaign contributions from donors with particular interests in legislation.

(Writers note: The arrangement with the syndicators allows for my columns to appear here one week after their newspaper release)

^OBAMA ENTERS A NEW ERA@<

^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<

^By BOB FRANKEN@=

^C.2010 Hearst Newspapers@=

WASHINGTON _ Just two years after Barack Obama wrapped this country in pride over his election, his presidency sure seems to be wearing thin. Events of this month alone give strong evidence that much of his promise and so many of his promises are in various stages of unravel.

At the very least he and his administration have frayed at the edges. The mid-term elections make the point loud and clear. The Republican/Tea Party steamroller ran on the high-octane fuel of dissing Obama.

And when he made the usual presidential retreat from domestic problems and scurried overseas after his party’s shellacking, he found a gaggle of other world leaders unwilling to gloss things over with the usual member-of-the-club platitudes.

In fact, President Obama was treated like a Rodney Dangerfield during his Asia trip. By extension, so was the United States, getting no respect when trying to work out trade deals or impose currency policy. It seemed as if the mighty superpower was suddenly being dismissed as impotent by other nations, hell-bent on flexing their muscles at the expense of the shrinking giant. He comes back with nothing, not even a pledge from an overseas corporation to outsource a call center in the U.S.

His prestige with them is further undermined here at home where Republican senators are refusing to ratify the START agreement he made with Russia, which would further reduce the nuclear weapons stockpiles of both countries

On the current domestic agenda the name of his game has become face saving as he slip-slides toward a deal on extending the Bush tax cuts and tries not to look like he's flat out caving in, further feeding the perception of a weakened presidency.

Same with the don't-ask-don't-tell policy against openly gay men and women from serving in the military. Conservatives are antagonized he's wants to drop the ban, while liberals complain his pursuit has been too halting.

His national security agenda has slammed into a bipartisan wall. Remember closing Guantanamo?

(Writer's note: By arrangement with my syndicators, these columns are held for a week after their newspaper release before they appear here)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, NOV. 16, 2010

PALIN COMPARISON

BY BOB FRANKEN

Now that we have just a little more than 700 days to the 2012 presidential election, and the campaign is well under way, there is one question that dominates the conversation: Do you think Sarah Palin is really going to be a candidate?

She already is. Actually, she's careening around a learning curve, trying to prove to her many skeptics that she is not an empty sound bite.

To dispel that notion, Palin's ghost thinkers have decided that she should talk some trash about monetary policy. So she's flitting over the Federal Reserve and has landed on the Fed's latest policy to attack the depressing non-recession by pumping new money and hopefully new life into the economy. One of her nuggets of enlightenment includes her demand to the Fed to “cease and desist” -- melodramatic to be sure, but less so than the snit she has gotten into with a Wall Street Journal reporter who pointed out she got some of her facts wrong. Oh picky, picky, picky.

Certainly, there are knowledgeable arguments against the Fed's approach, including the one that Palin recites, which is that it invites future inflation. But for the Palin campaign, that's not what her economic focus is about. What matters to her is inflating her image from know-nothing to know-something. She's expanding her repertoire of policy positions beyond being anti-Death Panel, anti-New York mosque near ground zero and all around anti-“hater.”

Writer's note: Per the arrangement with my syndicators, these columns appear on this site a week after their newspaper release.)

^WEALTH GAP KEEPS GROWING@<

^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<

^By BOB FRANKEN@=

^C.2010 Hearst Newspapers@=

WASHINGTON _ Novcember 11, 2010--You don't have to be a jazz fan to appreciate the genius of Billie Holiday. She was not just a brilliant singer but was also a remarkably perceptive writer.

Seventy years after she wrote ``God Bless the Child,’’ her lyrics resonate even more today:

``Them that's got shall get@<

``Them that's not shall lose@<

``So the Bible said and it still is news.’’@<

Theological scorekeepers agree she was referring to the Bible's Gospel of Matthew. The gap between ``Them that's got...’’ and ``Them that's not’’ indeed still is news, because it has grown to biblical proportions.

Our update comes from the U.S. Census Bureau and its study showing that in 2009, the income chasm between those at the top and bottom of our economy was the widest ever. The top tier of the nation's earners made nearly 50 percent of the pay, compared with 3.4 percent by those below the poverty line.

That's a 14.5 to 1 ratio, nearly double what it was in 1968. A large scale analysis of IRS income data by economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty found that in 2008 the richest one-hundredth of 1 percent, that's 14,000 U.S. families, possessed over 22 percent of our entire national wealth. The bottom, by which they mean the bottom 90 percent of the population, controlled 4 per cent.

Depressing Social Security statistics released in early November reveal that the top 72 wage earners in the United States made as much as the 19 million lowest wage earnings. And yes, ``depressing’’ is the right word. Saez and Piketty point out that this gap is the largest since 1928.

Why has this happened? Again?

(Writer's note: Per the arrangement with the syndicators, my newspaper columns appear on this site a week after their release)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, NOV. 9, 2010

THE LAME DUCKS’ FINAL GLIDE PATH

BY BOB FRANKEN

We can only hope that when the members of the lame-duck Congress flock back to the Capitol they don’t fowl up their swan song. They must cut through the inevitable post-campaign confusion and take care of business.

Tax business is the priority. If Democrats couldn’t exploit the GOP’s fierce defense of cuts for the wealthy before the election, they won’t do it now. So their demands that the rich be excluded from an extension of the Bush cuts will ring hollow; if something isn’t passed, taxes go up for everyone. The steamrollered president already has made it clear that he doesn’t have the stomach anymore for that fight.

Even more treacherous is the road ahead for an extension of unemployment insurance. Republicans successfully turned that into an issue about government overspending, instead of one about the 2 million desperate Americans who have been out of work so long they face losing their flimsy lifeline and going into free-fall.

There is so much else that should be settled, but will mostly get tossed into the Forget About It bin. Immigration Reform, the so-called DREAM Act? Dream on. Don’t Ask Don’t Tell? Don’t ask. START, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which requires Senate ratification? A nonstarter.

Writers note: Per the arrangement wioth my syndicators, these columns are posted here a week after their newspaper release)

^THE AUDACITY OF TAXES@<
^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<
^By BOB FRANKEN@=
^C.2010 Hearst Newspapers@=
WASHINGINGTON _November 3, 2010 The election showed how quickly voters turn from ``change you can believe in’’ to apparent non-believers, when their faith is overwhelmed by impatience. This is a country that demands results. Quickly.

So it was a rueful President Obama who admitted at his post-election news conference Wednesday that ``we're stuck in neutral.’’ And stagnation is simply unacceptable.
Worst of all, we have been conditioned to expect all gain and no pain. As David Stockman, President Ronald Reagan's budget director, tells the ``60 Minutes’’ CBS-TV program, ``We've had a 30-year spree of really phony prosperity...’’ financed by ``both parties essentially telling a big lie’’ that the country could live the good life without paying for it.

Stockman should know. He was the whiz kid in the Reagan White House who helped contrive the budget rationale that led to 1981's largest tax cut in U.S. history. It's the same siren song that Republicans have used to seduce voters ever since.

It’s a mirage called ``supply side economics,’’ a have-your-cake-and-eat-it too bit of puffery. The premise is that tax cuts lead to more private sector spending, which increases profits and employment, which brings in more government revenue and cuts budget deficits.

It didn't take long for Stockman to realize this was a charade, particularly since much of the uncollected revenue ended up in bank account of millionaires who hoarded it instead of spending it. When he said so, he became a GOP outcast.

Stockman is still hammering away at the politicians who refuse to dispense the bitter pill and acknowledge to the American people that for the foreseeable future, ``We're going to be living in a period of austerity.’’

(Writers note: The columns syndicated by King Features must wait a week before they can be distributed at this site:)

FROM NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE, 300 W 57th STREET, 15th FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10019

CUSTOMER SERVICE: (800) 708-7311 EXT. 236

BOB FRANKEN

FOR RELEASE TUESDAY, NOV. 2, 2010

THE MIDTERM GROANIES

BY BOB FRANKEN

If there is one thing we can say about this election, it's been terrific television. So it makes absolute sense that Fox News' Glenn Beck would attract huge crowds to his Washington tent meeting in late summer, and that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert would pack in even larger ones in late October with their massive testimonial to political irony. This was politics as spectacle, and the time has come to recognize the excesses, the buffoonery, of those who have caused us to laugh until we cried.

The other branches of showbiz have their self-congratulatory awards -- the Oscar, the Emmy, the Grammy. It is only fitting, then, to acknowledge the outstanding achievement in outlandish rhetoric that defined the melodrama that has played out all across the great American midway. The time has come to name the first-ever winners of the election Groany awards. We're honoring those who most made us groan: “You gotta be kidding!”

This year's competition has been brutal, and there has been a richness of embarrassments. We are not even going to bother with a Best New Artist champ. There are just too many out there unwittingly drowning us in their witlessness.

There is no sense trying to hold everyone in suspense, waiting for the Groanies' top prize. There is just no question who is No. 1 on the twit parade.

That would be the memorable singsong from Christine O'Donnell, the surprise Republican nominee from the small but mighty state of Delaware. Who will ever forget: “I Am Not a Witch.” It's an instant classic. Or, “That's in the First Amendment?”

She easily tops another top performer, the gubernatorial candidate in Rhode Island, Frank Caprio. Caprio has captured just how raw the emotions have gotten with his message to the president of the United States that he should “really shove it.” Obviously this was genuinely heartfelt since, like President Barack Obama, Frank Caprio is a Democrat.

^A GOOD ELECTION WAGER: BET ON NEVADA

^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<

^By BOB FRANKEN@=

^C.2010 Hearst Newspapers@=November 20, 2010

WASHINGTON _ How appropriate that Nevada has become a showplace for voters deciding whether the Tea Party is worth a gamble. Look no further than the spread...in politics we call them polls.

Every credible survey taken in the state shows that Harry Reid and Sharron Angle are even money leading up to the Nov. 2 election.

Who could have expected such a nose-and-nose race between the Democrats' No. 1 man in the U.S. Senate and a seemingly long-shot challenger like the Republican/TP's Angle running on the fringe?

Harry Reid is splattering her with mud, running ads that call Angle ``Extreme and Dangerous,’’ citing her past comments like ``...if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really going to be looking toward those Second Amendment remedies.’’

Reid, the four-term incumbent and the leader of his party in the Senate, should have been an odds-on favorite to win again. The problem is that he comes across as a bit odd himself...definitely not a smooth talker. Maybe it's because HIS foot is so often in his mouth, like last March when he declared on the Senate floor: ``Today is a big day in America. Only 36,000 people lost their jobs today, which is really good.’’

Correction, senator. That was definitely bad. The gaffe is on you. In addition, you had painted Angle as such a ditz that she benefited from the lowered expectations you created for her in your debate earlier this month. You didn't decisively put her away, and in this game of chance a tie goes to the challenger.

The problem for the party is that Reid as Senate majority leader may be leading his fellow Democrats out of the majority in Congress. ``Far out’’ is the new ``in,’’ and in state after state, the financiers and the other high rollers who usually hedge their bets are betting on those who seem to thrive on pejoratives like ``loopy’’ or worse.

The Angle campaign, for example, raised $14 million in the third quarter, according to the Federal Election Commission, while Reid pulled in about $2 million. Across the country Tea Partiers and Republicans in general are raking in the cash.

Man Up Madness: Politicians And “Electile Dysfunction”

by Bob Franken | 8:45 am, October 25th, 2010

It’s not difficult to imagine a new Cialis ad: “It can happen at any moment”, the announcer intones. Onscreen, we see a campaign debate between Mr. and Ms. contenders. The woman looks meaningfully at the guy and shrieks “MAN UP!!”.

Maybe that’s the inspiration for the “Man Up” mantra we’re suddenly hearing from so many candidates, who are giving new meaning to the word “hardline”. It’s almost, but not quite always, women, and usually Republican.

Obviously, they are trying to deal with Electile Dysfunction. That would be the best explanation why the expression has suddenly, uh, arisen.

The only other plausible one is that some Tea Party genius (I know, an oxymoron), decided it would be a good way to label the opposition as timid, soft on something or other.

Usually, when everyone suddenly starts with the same construct, it can be traced back to the dark mind of some wordsmith. But sometimes it spontaneously spreads like so much swamp gas. That seems be the case here as one candidate after another adopts it as a phrase meant to titillate (Where IS my mind?).

It’s not new, but right now this verbal disease is bouncing from one distaff side to the other from R to D. It’s spewing out of the mouths of Senate candidates like Nevada’s Sharron Angle, and Missouri’s Robin Carnahan. It does seem to be more of a phenomenon of the Right though.

Hey, Dan Brown—Why Not Write A Book Called The Rovian Code?
by Bob Franken | 8:47 am, October 21st, 2010

Note to Dan Brown: You really should write a novel about this year’s election. It’s got everything you need and more: intrigue, treachery, even witchcraft. But most important for you, it has a secret society.

Actually, there are several. They have different names, though their sinister members are pretty much the same. In this thinly-disguised fictionalized account, the real-life US Chamber of Commerce would be called the N.A.B.G., or “National Association of Bad Guys.” Dan might find it difficult for his society to be taken seriously. For instance: N.A.B.G.’s budget of $75 million for campaign ads might seem a little over the top.

But it’s not the top—it’s the tip, actually, of a money iceberg. Altogether, the projected expenditures are estimated at $150 million when you add in the even more ominous organizations.

One in particular would be run by a man with a remarkably mild face that masks intense malevolence. Strangely enough, he puts his covert stealth on public display. He even has regular TV gig on an extremist television network, where he brags about his dark exploits.

He is either revered or reviled, but he thrives on intimidation. His nihilism is inspired by Machiavelli: “… anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved.”

Your book’s title: The Rovian Code.

It’s set in a time when five members of an equally obscure tribunal, a so-called Supreme Court, decree that it’s permissible to open the Watergates of covert campaign contributions using certain kinds of cartels as conduits. Identity theft is impossible. These shell organizations are impenetrable, not even susceptible to hackers.

That’s because in your not-stranger than-truth narrative, these syndicates are governed by a strict Omerta that shrouds all the mystery backers. Anybody who tries to expose them is bought off or mysteriously disappears. That way, they can remain unseen as they invest in their crusade to wrench back control of government from the progressive infidels.

^YOU CAN’T BEAT THIS ELECTION SEASON FOR ENTERTAINMENT@<
^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<
^By BOB FRANKEN@=
^C.2010 Hearst Newspapers@=
WASHNGTON _ This election season sure has some entertainment value.
Where do we start?

Look at the California gubernatorial race, with Democrat Jerry Brown, A/K/A ``Governor Moonbeam’’ running against Republican Meg Whitman, who has plowed more than a hundred million dollars of her own money to try and get elected. But with all the huge issues there...a failing economy and all the rest, the campaign has gotten bogged down in pettiness.

Here we we have Meg Whitman, the Queen of Hearts, advocating an ``Off with Their Heads’’ policy against those who employ illegal immigrants. That was until her own undocumented housekeeper of several years surfaced.

Not to be outdone, Brown was part of a conversation in which Whitman was called ``a whore.’’ Did I mention this was recorded? So the Brown campaign apologized, sorry for the offending remark and REALLY sorry about getting caught.

In Nevada, the name of the game is pulling the candidates' feet out of their mouths. Sharron Angle and Harry Reid, who is the Senate's Democratic leader, spend large amounts of time running backward.

Angle talks about her absolute opposition to abortion even in cases of rape or incest and has said that victims should look for an alternative that ``made what was a lemon situation into lemonade.’’ Reid on immigration: "I don't know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican.’’

North to Alaska we go where insurgent Joe Miller defeated incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the Republican primary. Miller is probably the only candidate seeking a seat in the U.S. Senate who says he favors repeal of the 17th Amendment providing for direct election of senators. And he also would repeal the federal minimum wage law.

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The Hater’s Haven: Let’s Start A New Website Called “Hellbook”
by Bob Franken | 7:52 am, October 15th, 2010

Enough with Facebook and Twitter. I admit that I use them; they’re good business billboards. But people, I just don’t care if you got a tatt, or how proud you are that your kid won the spelling bee, or even if your kid got a tatt. I really don’t. Let’s face it: Social media are quickly becoming passe, sort of like anything “green” or “organic.”

The time has come for anti-social media. It’s time for ” Hellbook.”

This is where we can go when we want to tell others where to go. It’s the best hope for the misanthrope. Kinda brings tears to you eyes, doesn’t it? That’s the idea.

This is where we fend off all the irritating people in our lives. Here, we can “Fend” everyone we simply want to leave us alone and place them on our very own Diss List. There are so many possibilities.

Maybe we could have a special place in Hellbook for the sadists who bombard us with robocalls and distorted campaign ads that play at much higher volume than the TV program we’re trying to watch. How about a secret section for this country’s shady oligarchs, who brought down the economy and are now making huge campaign contributions so they can buy more of the government?

They would rate a special place that would really light up with each disclosure about how these very same culprits faked the documents needed to throw unfortunate homeowners and their families out on the street. Maybe we can include these supreme scoundrels’ names and addresses, with maps to their gated communities.

We could send messages that would be far shorter than Twitter’s 140 characters. Rahm Emmanuel would have a field day. Of course, he also might be on quite a few of the lists. So would all the pipsqueak political demagogues on both sides of the fence, the ones that pollute the waters with their simple-minded fearmongering and bigotry. Without a doubt, politicians would be among the most popular of the unpopular.

Special dishonors could go to the officeholders and wannabes who have staffers ghostwrite posts on Facebook and Twitter in an effort to look hip and trendy.

How dumb is that? It defies logic. If they were hip and trendy they wouldn’t be politicians, now would they?

That site could be divided in half. On the right, imagine all the Fends a Sarah Palin (she would call them “Haters”–accurately), Newt Gingrich or Glenn Beck would have. I’d probably want to stay away from Christine O’Donnell, though. (Do we really know for sure that she only dabbled in witchcraft?)

^TARP EXPIRES: HOW DID THE FINANCIAL BAILOUT DO?@<
^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<
^By BOB FRANKEN@=
^C.2010 Hearst Newspapers@=
WASHINGTON _ October 6
I'ss just about the hottest argument of the campaign season: Should members of Congress have voted for the trillions of dollars in government bailouts?

The Troubled Assets Relief Program and its offspring turned out to be a mixed bag but the argument misses the point. Back in 2008, under the Bush administration, it wasn't a choice. It was a case of do something to show that the federal government wasnÆt passive in the face of a global financial crisis. Do something, even if it's s wrong. Being right and doing nothing would be even worse.

There were dire warnings from the Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson that credit would dry up and commerce would freeze unless Congress approved federal intervention.

Still on Monday, Sept. 29, 2008, the House stunned the jittery financial world by rejecting Bush'sbailout proposal. Most of the Republican House members had spurned pleas from the president. They insisted it was too hastily prepared and wasteful government interference in the private enterprise system.

The next day the stock market tanked and the Dow industrial average suffered its biggest drop in history.

It took ``tweaking"and downright Bush administration groveling before the House voted a second time that week and passed the revised version. Then, the governments of key banking countries in Europe and Asia also intervened and the worldwide chaos started to subside.

The planet's monetary system wasn't poisoned to death by the toxic greed that came all too close to killing things for everybody. Sad to say, those responsible never had to assume responsibility and, infuriatingly, many have actually thrived as their ``Too Big to Fail" banks, investment houses and corporations stabilized and resumed paying huge bonuses to their executives. They haven't spread the wealth, as the dismal U.S. unemployment numbers attest, but a worldwide Depression was averted.

WRITERS NOTE: In the week since this column was released, President Obama has been going non stop, and the question becomes "Is it too little too late".

^OBAMA TRIES TO FIND HIS CAMPAIGN GROOVE@<
^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<
^By BOB FRANKEN@=
^C.2010 Hearst Newspapers@=
WASHINGTON September 29, 2010
_ ``I need you fired up,’’ President Obama shouted to the college kids.
And Vice President Joe Biden told fellow Democrats to ``stop whining.’’

Obama, who hasn't been at all ``fired up’’ in the mid-term election campaign, is now trying to return to the rock-star mode that served him so well the last time around. It is certainly a contrast to the moping that had characterized his seeming detachment from the 2010 midterm elections.

Let's face it: ``Things Could Be Worse’’ just doesn't cut it as an inspirational campaign slogan. Neither does ``Blame the Republicans,’’ no matter how justified it may be. They come across as, well, ``whining.’’

Is it really the Republicans whom Obama should blame for his inability to overcome their intransigence? Or should we consider how he fails to convey a sense of urgency? As Garry Trudeau puts it in the ``Doonesbury’’ cartoon strip, Obama has been overdosing on ``chill pills.’’

This is a president who hasn't even been able to sell a sure-fire winner like slightly higher taxes on the wealthy. The consensus is that such a tax hike would cut the deficit by $700 billion over 10 years. Polls show that Americans favor such an increase, with the Gallup survey reporting approval by a 44-to-37 margin.

^DEMOCRATS RISK A `CRACKPOT STRATEGY’@<
^(For use by New York Times News Service clients)@<
^By BOB FRANKEN@=
^C.2010 Hearst Newspapers@=September 22, 2010

WASHINGTON _ Is that a sigh of relief we hear from the Democrats? Do they feel that Republicans have given them a chance to cut their losses by dealing them a bunch of jokers? Well, the Democrats need to be careful. There are already some signs they might overplay their hand.

It’s not that either party has a corner on negative advertising. The Democrats, in particular, seem to be betting heaviest on ridicule, teeing off on Tea Party-supported Senate candidates Sharron Angle in Nevada, Rand Paul in Kentucky and Christine (``Dabbled in Witchcraft’’) O'Donnell in Delaware, and the others.

Democrats have done everything but describe these Republican nominees as a squadron of GOP cuckoo birds. And we've just gotten started.

That strategy could become a house of cards. Most importantly, relentless Democratic-led ridicule can quickly be perceived as nastiness. Non-stop anything gets old in a hurry and can quickly turn into sympathy for the targets.

An important study in the American Political Science Review found that ``While negative ads have the capacity to weaken political support for a candidate's opponent, 'going negative' in a campaign can also diminish the attacking candidate's stature among voters.’’

Since Sharron Angle won Nevada's GOP nomination to challenge Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, the incumbent has relentless pounded her with ads: Angle wants to ``Wipe Out Social Security,’’ says one. (She favors privatization) Even with this kind of clobbering, the most recent Nevada poll conducted by the Rasmussen Reports shows the race in a 48-48 dead heat.

Same with Rand Paul in Kentucky where the latest Democratic ads slam him for opposing mandatory helmets for motorcyclists. The latest polls show that Paul is way ahead of his Democratic opponent for U.S. Senate _ by up to 15 percentage points.