Rick Horowitz

"The Obama Recession": Their Kingdom for a Scapegoat!

            My cousin Barry is turning the radio dial, and he’s heard this static before. 

            When he’s in the car and things are boring, he tells me, he’ll spend a few minutes listening in on the Folks Who Fulminate.

            Right-wing radio, that is.   And what he’s been hearing from them lately has him amused.  And amazed.

            And thinking back.

Sarah Palin: McCain's Revenge?

            She won’t go away, will she?  She won’t shut up, will she?

            Not to be too conspiratorial about it, but what if it was all part of the plan?

            Here’s John McCain, already meeting with Barack Obama to see how they can work together.  And here’s Sarah Palin, still flapping her gums to every journalist with a microphone handy and five minutes to spare.

            But what if Sarah Palin is Johnny Mac’s revenge?  One final flip of the bird to the wing of the party that’s been flapping at him for years?  The wing that’s been a continuing frustration to him, when it hasn’t been an outright embarrassment?

At the Pump: Down with Gas!

            MILWAUKEE -- At exactly 12:01 p.m. on Saturday, November 15, 2008, I saw something I was sure I’d never see again in my lifetime.

            I saw a “1” as the first digit of a gas-station sign. 

            That’s right:  Gasoline -- good old American, straight-from-the-Persian-Gulf-or-somewhere-just-as-scary gasoline -- at under $2.00 per gallon.

A Job with Obama? First, a Few Questions

            “President-elect Obama made a commitment to change the way Washington does business, and the vetting process exemplifies that.”

            Obama transition-team spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter, explaining the seven-page questionnaire with 63 separate requests for personal and professional records.

  

           * Please provide certified copies of all state and federal tax returns filed for you, your spouse and all members of your immediate family for the past 15 years.  For each of these years, please also provide annual statements of all holdings in stocks, bonds, commodities and “cash on hand” exceeding $5,000, and full documentation of all transactions within any of these categories during this period.

            * It’s getting brutal out there, isn’t it?

            * Think we could borrow a little until April or so?

Paulson's Bailout: So Much for That Idea!

            You know what it feels like?  This is what it feels like:

            You’re walking down the street, minding your own business, when the guy in the scruffy clothes approaches you with his tale of woe.  He used to be a productive member of society, he tells you, but then things took a turn, and lately he’s been down on his luck and struggling to keep body and soul together.  What he could really use, he tells you, is a dollar so he can get something to eat.  He hasn’t had a meal all day, and he’s just a dollar short of a sandwich.

            So you reach into your pocket and press a crumpled bill into his outstretched palm.  He thanks you, and wishes you a wonderful day, and as you continue down the street, you cast one last glance over your shoulder and see the guy walk into a liquor store.

            That’s what it feels like.  Only multiplied by 700 billion.

Post-Election: Call It Decompression

            He did the strangest thing last night:  He turned the TV off.

            There he was, still in the early part of the evening, with another hour or two of political shows still ahead of him -- updates and interviews and analyses and predictions -- and he reached for the remote and chose...

            Silence.

            Blessed silence.

            Don’t get the wrong idea -- he wasn’t shutting the world out completely.  By that point in the evening, he’d already watched the network news, and something from the BBC, and Jim Lehrer.  (He couldn’t miss Jim Lehrer, could he?)  He’d already read a newspaper or two, and part of a magazine, and surfed the net, and listened to NPR.  Twice.

            So he wouldn’t exactly call himself unplugged.

"Support I Have Yet to Earn": Obama's Victory Speech

            “I guess a community organizer is sort of like a small-town mayor, except that you have actual responsibilities.” 

            “And actual accomplishments,” Barack Obama might have added, had he actually uttered that first sentence on Tuesday night.  But being a more charitable sort than you or I would have been under similar circumstances, he somehow resisted the urge to have a last laugh on those who had spent months mocking that particular line of work.

            Barack Obama was in the No-Gloat Zone.

Never Fear: Your Exit Poll is Here!

             As American as apple pie!  As reliable as your 401(k)!  Yes indeed, boys and girls -- it’s time once again for the Ten-Foot Poll, the nation’s most distinctive look at who did what and why on this historic Election Day just past.

            The Ten-Foot Poll was created to plug some of those glaring gaps in the election coverage offered by the networks, the cable outlets and even the internet.  Our carefully chosen sample of 2,361 randomly invented voters provides the kind of insight you simply won’t find anywhere else.

            But enough palaver -- let’s crunch those numbers!