Archive for August, 2010
QUESTION: Could John Bolton make a good VP pick for Sarah Palin?
A lot of people brought this up at the Restoring Honor rally, and we’re surprised we never thought of it before…but would Ambassador John Bolton make a good running mate for Governor Sarah Palin in 2012?
The Ambassador sure would make a great attack dog on the campaign trail, against Joe Biden.
We still don’t believe Hillary Clinton would ever agree to replace Biden on the VP ticket, so don’t even go there. The only way Clinton would run as Dr. Utopia’s VP choice is if Biden discovers he has serious health problems that force him to resign in 2011…and Clinton is confirmed as the new Vice President. We think that would be her price for getting on that sinking ship of a ticket, to actually be made Vice President first, then doing what she could to help Dr. Utopia get a second term. We believe she’s smart enough to know Dr. Utopia’s going to lose…but she’d then be able to run in 2016 against President Palin as former Senator, former Secretary of State, former Vice President Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton.
We just see too many stars aligned and hands of Fate aligned against Democrats in 2012 to believe anyone with sense in their head couldn’t see the disaster that’s to unfold for Dems. And the only way Hillary Clinton makes herself a part of this is if she gets to be Vice President first. Not Vice Presidential nominee. VICE PRESIDENT itself. Just to add to the resume.
It would be great to see her go up against Bolton in debates. Those would, in our opinion, be the most interesting VP debates ever.
And Bolton himself, we believe, would make an excellent Vice President in his own right. He’s experienced enough, and if, God forbid, he’d have to ever inherit the Oval someday, we’d feel safe and secure with him as president.
Our first mustachioed president since Taft, we believe.
What do you think of the prospect, potential, and likelihood of John Bolton being Governor Palin’s VP nominee in 2012? And, yes, we’d like to have either Allen West or Michele Bachman in that role too…but we’re focusing on Ambassador Bolton today.
QUESTION: What's going to happen to the gorgeous Oval Office rug that Laura Bush personally designed and had made for the White House?
Click to embiggen
We think we know the answer already, but it would be interesting if through HillBuzz we could get a definite confirmation on this.
Since Dr. Utopia, our illustrious current president, threw a tantrum recently and insisted he “just couldn’t work anymore” in the Oval Office until it was redecorated to his liking (Cater-era beiges and furniture that came from the old Jeffersons TV set), a new rug was installed in the White House, removing the beautiful one Laura Bush personally designed for her husband’s use.
We believe the George W. Bush Oval Office rug will probably end up in the George W. Bush Presidential Library in Texas.
Just as the new rug the Obamas have installed will go with them to Hawaii sometime in 2013 or so, when one-term Obama begins construction on his presidential library near Honolulu.
The Palins will redecorate the White House in patriotic colors, with most likely a deep blue rug with white, red, and gold accents. There will be lots of Alaskan touches and — we hope — the bear rug the Governor kept in her Alaska office (give to her by her father we believe).
We’re not sure, but we think the rug that’s in the Clinton Presidential Library is the Clintons’ official White House rug…the same being true for the Reagan and Carter presidential libraries, which both have, to our knowledge, exact replicas of the Oval Office.
TWICE we’ve actually seen Jimmy Carter in his Atlanta library, pacing in his make-believe Oval Office, apparently pretending it was 1977 and people hadn’t caught on to what a miserable failure he was. Everything in the room looked like the 70s, down to what we believe was Carter’s actual rug, sofas, and personal items from that time in history. The only thins that were mock-ups were the desk he used and other parts of the White House furniture collection, as well as the historic artwork. The rest of Carter’s belongings no one else wanted, so they moved with him back to Georgia, where he periodically surrounds himself with them and imagines having the ability to do it all over again, this time without being so terrible at “presidenting”.
Can anyone confirm what happened to the other presidential rugs once the new president came to Washington and redecorated?
Where are the Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, and George W. Bush rugs now?
Which rug was your favorite?
UPDATE from CHRISSY: The offices aren’t labeled correctly. It seems the redecoration of the Oval Office is routinely done sometime around the middle of the second year, just as it has been for the Obamas, so presidents in their early photos are sitting in the offices designed for their predecessors. The top left picture is Reagan’s rug. The middle one is George H.W. Bush’s rug. The upper right is the Clinton rug. The lower left flowery carpet was actually designed for Ford, who only used it briefly. Carter did not redecorate during his term and Reagan used the flowers until his new office was completed. The Reagan and Bush 2 pics are correctly labeled. In reading about the Ovals, I came across a really sad bit of trivia. Kennedy’s office was being done over … with a blood red rug … while he was in Dallas. He never saw it.
Great Merciful Zeus (with a side of Oh No They Didn't): Obama brings The Jeffersons' living room set out of the Smithsonian and installs it in the Oval Office
Click above to embiggen
Now, America, this is going too far.
While the Obamas were off on their second vacation this month, to Martha’s Vineyard, White House staff were sent to the Smithsonian to raid the old Jeffersons’ TV set for whatever they could plunder to redecorate the Oval Office.
They stole the Jeffersons’ drapes, and pressed them into weird, striped, beige wallpaper for the walls.
They took the couches George and Weezy sat on while scrapping with Florence or entertaining either the Willises or that weird English guy who lived upstairs, complete with throw pillows, and shoved them into U-Hauls to load into the Oval, ripping up as much of the Jeffersons’ beige, Carter-era carpet to take with them as possible.
The Jeffersons’ coffee table made it safely to the White House, but Weezy’s coffee set and ashtray got dropped on the floor by Rahm Emanuel, who was trying to impress one of the burly male summer interns with how much he could lift, before the young lad matriculated back to Harvard for his studies. The graceless former dancer noble smashed the historic Jefferson china to pieces, then swept the broken bits under the rug, leaving that there on the set (which, unfortunately, meant it couldn’t join the rest of the Jeffersons’ furniture in the Oval Office).
Because she’s now dead, alas, actress Isabelle Sanford could neither be found nor loaded into a car and brought to the White House too, to serve as the sort of gracious, lovable, fashionable, and proud-of-her-country-every-day First Lady this country wants and deserves. But, she’s in the Oval Office now, in spirit, since so many of her TV character’s belongings are being used by the current “president” for the last two years of his single term.
Much like the president who was in office while the Jeffersons were on the air in the first place.
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UPDATE: We’ve learned this whole redecoration is a giant misunderstanding, caused because, while out on his 48th round of golf since taking office, Obama had tees in his mouth while fumbling with balls on the links, and said something about needing to seem more presidential since his poll numbers were cratering. ”Next time I leave the White House for a long period of time, send somebody strong over to the Smithsonian and get me Jefferson’s furniture, and put that all in there. That should do it”.
A puzzled aide asked, “Mr. President, when are you ever IN the White House for an extended period of time? You’re always here, playing golf, getting sweaty with Reggie Love playing “basketball” as “buddies”, screwing around on a lady’s bike somewhere, having ice cream with Joe Biden, or doing whatever it is you get up to late at night with that lights-out-strip-bowling you do with all the male secret service agents under 30. We could redecorate the Oval every day, because of the dearth of time you spend in there actually doing work for the people of the United States”.
“Just get me Jefferson’s furniture, because people are starting to see what a sorry joke I am. And hold these balls, right here, while I get one of these big stick thingies out and start whacking stuff like Frank Marshall taught me when I was little”.
REMINDER: HillBuzz is on The Andrea Shea King Show tonight, at 9pm EST/8pm CST
Just a reminder that we’re going to be interviewed by the one and only Andrea Shea King tonight, at 9pm EST/8pm CST, so please tune in if you can. We’d love to have you join ASK’s regular listeners in her chat room too. The more the merrier!
If you’ve never heard her show before, you’ll love it. ASK is an absolute hoot, so knowledgeable, and she loves this country so much. So please listen if if you are around, and remember the link to the site if you can’t listen live because ASK is just excellent about getting her shows archived so you can listen later, or probably even download it into your phone or Ipod to listen later.
We’re sure some tech-minded person out there can fill in the details on this thread how to do that, in case someone wants to listen to ASK’s show in the car, if that’s possible, by way of the iPod or some other gadget.
Hope you tune in!
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/askshow
Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor Rally was one large "Festival of Kindness"
Yesterday, Glenn Beck asked his viewers to email him examples of kindness on display during the August 28th Restoring Honor rally in Washington, DC at the Lincoln Memorial. He wants these sent to him at kindness@glennbeck.com
Here are some examples of kindness we personally witnessed at the rally, and during the overnight campout on Friday when strangers from all across the country had one enormous incident-free slumber party waiting in some cases 24 hours for the rally to begin:
* Arriving at the rally site at 3am, K. found people helping each other get settled into the dark. He was the only one of us to sleep outside that night, in anticipation of the rally, because he wanted to be able to report back on EVERYTHING that was happening. At 3am, he thought he’d be one of the only ones at the Lincoln Memorial, but there was at least 100,000 there already, setting up camp around the reflecting pool for a good viewing spot the next day. As people streamed in, like ants to a picnic, it was the most orderly, polite, and helpful affair as people took position for the rally the next day. Shouts of “Welcome!” and “Thank you for coming!” rang out from strangers. It was dark, but people brought extra flashlights so that others could see too. People in wheelchairs were given wide berths, and strangers moved their things so they could pass, and get a good seat too, even if they got closer than people who had been there for eight hours already. No one was territorial, mean-spirited, crabby, or short with anyone…despite the discomfort of being outside so late at night, in the dark, sleeping on the ground.
* When K. got as close as he could get (right side of the reflecting pool, near the stage, with a clear sightline of the stage), and went to sit down, one of the women camped out on a large blanket next to him came up and put her hand on his shoulder. ”Excuse me, sir, but I’m just letting you know that we are saving this big space for anyone in a wheelchair that we may see. So, if you sit here, you are going to help us reserve this space, and you’ll be called upon to help those in the wheelchairs get here”. K. said he had no problem with that, and then asked the woman when the people in wheelchairs were coming. ”We don’t know any of them, and maybe none will come, but at events like this we’ve seen people who can’t stand have to be way in the back, and then they don’t see anything. Nobody thinks of them, and so they get left out. My family decided we were going to do something about that, so here we are, and we are going to look for wheelchair-bound people and help as many of them as we can so they can be as close as possible. That’s why we have been here since midnight and are protecting this big space, for them”. So, these people didn’t have any wheelchair-bound friends coming. They didn’t know anyone in wheelchairs, but they were on the lookout for STRANGERS in wheelchairs who MIGHT be coming, and proactively decided they were going to reserve a space for them, on their own, coming to the rally site at midnight the night before to do it.
* When K. told them he was the only one of us camping out that night, these same people said, “Well, it’s official, you are a McCallister now. You are now part of the McCallister Family from Willmette, North Carolina for the duration of this rally and beyond if you like”. It was a gorgeous night out, with the moon full, and the Lincoln Memorial lit-up brilliantly right in front of us. K. didn’t think to bring a blanket or sheet to sleep on, and only had on a tee shirt, jeans, and a backpack with one extra shirt in it…so he wasn’t really prepared to spend the night outside. He would have been fine, and was okay with being a little uncomfortable for a while. But, the McCallister Family would have none of that. When K. tried to curl up on the ground with his backpack for a pillow, the McCallisters said, “Oh, no you don’t buddy. We have all this space right here on the blanket, so you are sleeping there. And here’s a real pillow. Do you want any hot chocolate and s’mores before you go to sleep?” The McCallisters shared everything they brought with K. and adopted him into their group. It was like walking into this crowd of strangers in the dark and stumbling upon a Ritz-Carlton, with hospitality, kindness, and mothering care in every direction K. turned.
* A woman with a voice as loud, clear, and strong as Kate Smith sang lullabies to the crowd through the night, to ease the discomfort of sleeping on the dirt, grass, and rocks of the park. Not too loud, so if you wanted to sleep you could, but powerful enough so that her voice stretched across the crowd, with everyone able to hear, including mighty Lincoln himself up in his memorial. She sang patriotic songs, like God Bless America, the National Anthem, the Battle Hymn of the Republic, My Country ‘Tis of Thee, as well as Amazing Grace and other religious-inspired fare. FROM MEMORY. All verses. No song book, all a capella. She sang all through the night until the sun rose and dawn arrived, like an angel of the night whose soothing voice passed time and kept the mood of all those huddled in the dark calm and serene. Perhaps this was her way of contributing to the event, doing what she could to make sure tempers never flared and the crowd stayed peaceful and friendly. It was very rough for some sleeping out on the dirt, grass, rocks, and cement, and we’ve seen people lose their manners and temper at large events like this in Chicago, waiting just an hour or so for some program to start on the lawn in Grant Park. But there were no arguments we could hear…no incidents of people acting out in anger…no fights over territory on that grass. We think most of that’s attributable to the fact that people who came out for the Restoring Honor rally just aren’t the sorts of people to behave so terribly, but we also think that moonlight singing angel set the tone with her measured voice to ensure peace and tranquility ruled the day. This was her contribution to the rally, her astounding voice, and she employed it to do her part to make the event a success. What talents do YOU have like this, and how do YOU use them every day to help America?
* At around 6am, the Park Service woke everyone up and made an announcement: anyone sitting, sleeping, or standing on concrete had to move before the rally started because the concrete paths were emergency paths and had to be cleared. No one could block those paths throughout the day. Immediately, people got up and moved, even if they had been camped out in those spots since the day before (the Park Service, in its government wisdom, did not proactively tell people about this “no-concrete” rule hours before, as they should have, so people who thought they had a good spot, and had been there since midnight or before, now had to scramble to find a place elsewhere). Well, people who were standing on the grass or mud, and were fine as far as the Park Service was concerned, didn’t think this was fair, and didn’t want the concrete-campers to have to go to the back of the line with people who were just getting there (that stream of ants up the hill never stopped, ultimately filling the mall with a million people). So, everyone just took it upon themselves to make room on the grass, to shift their things over, to move their blankets so the people displaced from the concrete could have a place near where they originally camped out. Not only did the crowd make sure everyone got off the concrete and was happy, but that was the ONLY TIME during the day that the Park Service had to make that announcement about staying off the concrete. They only had to say it ONCE, and then the crowd just politely told anyone who would come later, not knowing, that they had been told to move from those paths and that we needed to keep those paths cleared in case of emergencies. No one argued. No one tried to defy the system. No one thought they were entitled to break the rules. They just peacefully complied and policed themselves…and the paths were clear for emergencies all day.
* By the time the rally was about to begin, the McCallister family had dispatched itself to find anyone in a wheelchair and bring them close enough to see. They found three men in wheelchairs and one grandma. All four of them became “honorary McCallisters” too, and we all sat together in the space the McCallisters had reserved. Throughout the day, the McCallisters treated them (and K.), like honored guests of their family, doted on them, and made sure everyone had a good time. That was part of their mission in coming to this rally, to make sure those around them had a good time, and that everyone could see, hear, and participate in the event.
* We all saw, at various times, people get up from their places to make coffee or donut runs. When they would get up, they would ask the people immediately around them if they wanted anything too. This way, everyone didn’t have to get up…they would be happy to go get you some coffee as well, since they were going anyway.
* As the rally was getting closer to starting, we saw people all throughout the crowd hold up garbage bags and ask if others in the crowd could take some of them and disperse them, so that no trash would be left behind. These were just rally attendees — all of them women, we noticed, and clearly moms — who took on the expense and duty of bringing the industrial-sized stretchy Glad Bags with them so that they could not only take care of their own families’ trash, but the trash of those around them too. Throughout the day, these Momma Grizzlies periodically called out for trash and made sure those Glad Bags were passed around. We’re beyond “glad” they did that, as the rally site looked CLEANER when Glenn Beck’s crowd left than when we all got there…unlike what the Obama cultists did to the National Mall for his Inauguration.
* Throughout the day, as people would try to make their way through the crowd, returning from coffee runs or bathroom breaks, people were so kind in letting them pass through and get by. ”You need to get back to your family? Here, let me help you,” they’d say, with thank-yous extended in return. The one time we saw anyone get a little frustrated was a woman who had been up and down, up and down many times as a parade of people passed by her, making her move many times. It was just a small flash of anger at the fact that she suddenly found herself in an aisle that had opened in the crowd, and it disappeared almost immediately when an elegant southern woman passed by her and told her “Today is about love” and that she would “Pray for you to gain patience”. That’s all it took, and the woman decided to accept the duty of aisle guardian so that people would walk by her to get reunited to their families. She chose to not be inconvenienced, but to see it as an honor that she got to be the one to make sure an aisle existed so that people could get to where they needed to go. Instead of just sitting there, she saw herself as providing a needed service, and took ownership of that.
* Two men had a large wooden cross with them that they displayed for the rally; when they walked by, people cheered and cried and let them pass so the cross could go all the way to the front. Though it obstructed some views, no one complained, no one minded. They just craned their necks to the side to look around the cross, instead of demanding it be taken down so they could see. Everyone thought having the cross there added to the event, and if they were mildly inconvenienced by it, they just shifted their positions to compensate.
* At several points in the rally, children became separated from their parents. One was a little girl named Lucy who was from Oregon and got lost. They announced Lucy needed to go to the Family Reunification Tent, but evidently had trouble getting there, because the announcement was made several times over the course of about an hour. During that time, the crowd kept wondering and talking about Lucy. ”Does anyone know if Lucy is safe?,” we heard multiple people ask. ”We need an update on Lucy!”, they’d say. And, of course, Lucy was fine…and when they announced on the speakers that she had been reunited with her family, along with the other misplaced children, the crowd cheered.
* At 10am, just as the rally was about to start, a flock of Canadian geese flew directly over the reflecting pool, like the Blue Angels buzzing the city at an air show. It was stunning, and the whole crowd stood up and cheered together, sharing that moment. Strangers hugged each other and felt so pumped up for the rally to start that they saw this natural act by a flock of geese as a signal to prompt this display of friendship and love between them.
* During the rally, no one spoke while speakers on the stage were talking. No one presenting material that day had to talk over the crowd. No one had to ask the crowd for silence. People were respectful of each other, and the fact that many spent a lot of money and took a lot of time to make it to Washington for this event. So everyone in the crowd seemed respectful of one another, and tried to make sure they did nothing to take away from the enjoyment of those around them. So, there was no talking. There was no loud eating. There was no distracting behavior. It was the most respectful any of us have ever seen a large crowd behave.
* When Governor Sarah Palin spoke at the rally, and told stories about wounded veterans, the crowd became incredibly emotional and we saw many people crying. STRANGERS gave them comfort, held them, and joined in for a tear or two because the Governor was so moving, and the tales she told so patriotic and full of emotion. It was incredible. Whenever anything at the rally became too emotional and heart-felt, and someone was overcome like this, the crowd made them feel safe to express their emotions…adding the comfort and support they needed, when they needed it.
* As the sun really started to beat down, and people really started to feel the heat, the Momma Grizzlies made sure everyone around them had water. They had brought more than they needed because they figured strangers would need water too. We saw one woman with two children who was not prepared for the day: she had no cooler, no backpacks, nothing…as if she was just out in DC and happened upon the rally. Well, a Momma Grizzlie spotted the kids and saw they looked hot and thirsty so she — quietly — went up to the mother and gave her three big bottles of water, one for each of them. We saw the look on the mother’s face, and she was surprised by this kindness, and then so relieved she had this to give to her children. Those kids guzzled that water in a minute. Who know how many cases of heat exhaustion or stroke were averted because of Momma Grizzlies all throughout that crowd of a million.
* As Glenn Beck spoke to the crowd about Faith, Hope, and Charity, and Restoring Honor, he brought the best out in so many people. Strangers became friends, and in some cases, honorary family. K. now has a place to stay if ever he’s in Wilmette, North Carolina. The rest of us now have places to go and visit where people we met at this rally live. And they expect us all to come. These were not just throwaway “let’s do lunch” invitations. It was incredible.
* As the rally concluded, the Momma Grizzlies brought the trash bags out in full force. All they had to do was stand there, holding them over their heads, and people knew what to do. Fathers showed their sons how to sweep through an area and clear it of trash. People made a game of it, seeing how much they could fill a bag with in as little time as possible. People left the area in an orderly fashion, walking out like streams of ants, in single file lines, just as they came in. Elderly people who had trouble walking on the uneven ground got the assistance of everyone around them. Paths were cleared, without anyone having to ask, for those in wheelchairs. As we’ve noted before, but can never emphasize enough, THE LAWNS LOOKED BETTER WHEN THE CROWD LEFT, THAN BEFORE WE CAME.
* Goodbyes were said, and the rally ended not as a million strangers going home, but as a sea of new friends parting until they see each other again.
We’d be so grateful if you could pass these acts of kindness we witnessed onto Glenn Beck for us, by sending him a link to this piece, and others we have written about the Restoring Honor rally:
Our experience flying out of O'Hare Airport here in Chicago on Friday and Saturday of last week
Please read this story over at HotAir about the TSA at O’Hare Airport allowing two Muslims to board a plane to Amsterdam with what were deliberately made to look like bombs in their bags…in what seems like an attempt to test security and see if they could get these items through.
We’re going to reiterate what we’ve said on this site before about TSA and security in general at O’Hare and Midway here in Chicago: it’s terrible, and the people working for the TSA are unprofessional, lazy, lackadaisical, and often, in our opinions, far too young and immature to have these jobs.
Whenever we ride the trains to or from these airports, the cars have a half dozen or so TSA agents on them: they behave like wild animals on the trains, while in their TSA uniforms. They act, in fact, much like the Chicago Public School students who ride the CTA buses and trains to and from school. They throw things at each other, scream and yell, pull each others’ hair, talk loudly on their phones, etc.
WHILE IN THEIR TSA UNIFORMS.
At the airport, flying American Airlines to Reagan National on Friday morning, one of us spotted a whole gaggle of TSA agents — four or five of them — huddled in a corner to the side of the security check-in, laughing, quacking, telling jokes, having fun, pushing each other, and paying no attention at all to the security needs of the airport. Surely this was not a designated break area, so we have no clue what they were doing there, acting like that, if they were on the clock. We’re surprised they weren’t drinking.
Meanwhile, the security line was so long, and took so long to process (45 minutes), that one of us came close to missing our flight. We believe taking one or more of these confidence-in-the-system-draining TSA “professionals” off laughing-and-pushing duty and re-assigning them to actual security duty would have been a good decision on the TSA’s part. Maybe the union wouldn’t allow that.
The TSA, at least here in Chicago, might as well employ graduates from the Barnum & Bailey Clown College. We can’t understand why they don’t have better people working for them, because the pay is very good, and so many good workers in Chicago are unemployed.
It looks like they are recruiting directly out of Chicago Public Schools, though, because some of these TSA screeners appear to be 19 or 20 years old, and far too lacking in maturity to take their jobs seriously and stop Muslims with items that look like BOMBS from getting on airplanes…which is what these clowns are supposed to be doing all day.
Tuesday Open Thread: August 31st, 2010
What’s on your minds this Tuesday?
What are people talking about in your part of the country?
What’s the latest on the Alaska GOP nomination?
