Rick Horowitz

They're Withering About His Dithering

            If you look before you leap,

            And worry that you’re in too deep,

            If flag-draped coffins cost you sleep,

            You’re “dithering.”

 

            If you bring the experts in

            To see if there’s some way to win,

            And think about the next of kin,

            You’re “dithering.”

Sound and Fury: The Cheney Show

  

    If I were Dick Cheney -- not to worry; the Lord works in mysterious ways, but there are limits -- I’d be kicking up a fuss, too. A really good fuss.

            I’d be scowling for whatever sympathetic cameras I could still find. I’d be flinging accusations of political payback, or institutional ingratitude, or diplomatic naiveté at the people who succeeded me.

            I’d even let the occasional curse word fly, just to prove to one and all how ticked off I am.

            If I were Dick Cheney, in other words, I’d probably be doing exactly what Dick Cheney is doing.

            It beats going to prison.

Kennedy: The Lion at Rest

          

    Senator Edward M. Kennedy, dead at 77 -- and thank goodness for that.

            Thank goodness for the “at 77,” that is. Not to say that “at 78” wouldn’t have been even better. Or “at 79.” “At 80” would have been miraculous. But losing Ted Kennedy at 77? It’s hard to feel cheated.

            None of his three brothers -- his three “older” brothers -- made it to 70. Or 60. Or even 50.

            Who’d have predicted that the last of the boys would be the only one to receive the gift of years? Or that he’d put those years to such extraordinary use?

            Or that he’d find, in the autumn of those years, a peace and a balance that had eluded him -- or that he had eluded, had disdained, with such awful consequence -- in his own life for so long?

Health Care: The Presidential Campaign of 2009

            Silly me.

            Silly you.

            Here we were thinking that the presidential election of 2008 was over and done with in -- well, in 2008. And that the winner was a certain junior senator from the great state of Illinois, who rolled up a victory margin of landslide proportions (at least by modern-day standards, and certainly by George W. Bush standards, to pick a name at random).

            Anyway, you were somehow under the impression that all of that was settled business.

            Fat chance.

Sarah's Verbal Essence

            “We are facing tough challenges in America, with some seeming to just be hell-bent maybe on tearing down our nation, perpetuating some pessimism and suggesting American apologetics...”

                                    Sarah Palin, in her farewell speech as Alaska’s governor

 

            “So how ‘bout, in honor of the American soldier, ya quit makin’ things up!”

                                    Sarah Palin, same speech, addressing the media

 

            “How could we make this stuff up?”

                                    The Media

 

            “I’m makin’ stuff up.”

                                    Rick Horowitz

 *   *   *

             “Hey, everybody -- everybody calm down and find yourselves some seats and we’ll be starting in right away. What an absolutely beautiful day it is, and it is my honor to welcome you to the first class or what some would call the inaugural class, even if that has a different meaning sometimes, here at the Sarah Palin Academy for Really Fluency.”

            “We love you, Sarah!”

            “And right back atcha! And it’s a real pleasure to be carrying that true Alaska spirit soaring through the rest of this great American country of ours by the dawn’s early light. Now -- ”

It's Sarah, for Better or for Verse

            In Sarah-land so far away, where polar bears and tankers roam,

            It doesn’t matter where you’re from -- a palace or a mobile home.           

            They have their way of doing things, it’s not like any other state,

            In Sarah-land the rules are diff’rent from the Lower 48.

                         

Palin and Gingrich: Enough Limelight for Two?

            Newt and Sarah,           

            Sarah and Newt,

            One so brainy,

            The other so cute.

             They make a lovely couple, don’t you think? And wouldn’t you just love to be right there in a room with the two of them when they start discussing...anything?

            What a feast for the senses that would be! The Old Professor, with his rumpled ways and his cerebral bent, his million-dollar-vocabulary and his slash-and-burn tactics. And the Hockey Mom, with her soap-opera family and her down-home-Up-North “You betcha”s and her heart on her sleeve. (A designer sleeve, of course.)

            From all outward appearances, so little in common that you --

            Well, there is one thing. But it’s such a minor thing, it’s hardly worth mentioning:

Cheney, Selling Cheney

             There’s another way to look at it.

            Dick Cheney’s “I’m Not Going Anywhere” tour, that is. You can’t turn on your TV these days without seeing the former veep filling the screen with his latest account of what they did back when they were in charge, and why they did it, and how wonderfully it all worked, and how if it didn’t work it was somebody else’s fault. (Think George Tenet. Think Richard Clarke.) And most of all, how the new guys are messing everything up.

            Cheney’s former boss -- and we use the word loosely -- may have slunk back to his beloved Texas when his time was through. But not the veep.

            And the question is, “Why not?”

GOP on Obama: Complain, Complain, Complain

             They don’t like his Broadway shows.

            They don’t like his standing Os.

 

            They don’t like his condiments.

            They don’t like his elegance.

 

            They don’t like his way with words.

            They don’t like his fawning herds.

 

            They don’t like his cushy life.

            They don’t like his pushy wife.

Sticks & Stones: Who Says the GOP Doesn't Have a Strategy?

             You can understand how disappointing it must have been, especially for the folks who’d dreamed up the idea in the first place. They had to compromise, and compromising is never fun, especially when you really believe in what you’re doing. And these folks certainly believe in what they’re doing.

            That was the bad news -- the compromising, I mean.

            The good news? The good news is that there are still plenty of other ways for the Republican National Committee to embarrass itself.