The Tears of a Clown

It’s like watching the proverbial train wreck unfold right before your eyes. John Boehner is drug addicted and not in control of his emotions, and he is third in line to become President of the United States, should both President Obama and Vice President Biden be unable to serve (sort of like being the runner-up in the Miss America contest). Someone please pull the emergency cord before it’s too late and we find Boehner “driving that train, high on Merlot”

I am sure there have been abusers of drugs and alcohol in the House and Senate and in the Oval Office before. Richard Nixon drank heavily throughout his final days as the leader of the free world. Now that was a scary situation, but under the circumstances, I can understand his need to hit the bottle. He was under great stress and strain. But John Boehner is under no such duress, yet he is a heavy smoker and drinker, both of which he has admitted he cannot control and has no intention of quitting. As a result, he is an emotional wreck, unpredictable and a potential threat to our nation, should he have to take command of the country’s leadership.

Boehner is frequently crying and over-emotional at public events and during sessions of Congress. He sobbed uncontrollably during a 60 Minutes interview last year (Boehner Crying) and again last week during an interview with Bob Schieffer of CBS News (maybe he has a thing for CBS).

The evidence strongly supports intervention -- Boehner’s stability is suspect. So far he has been given a free pass from the public and the press. Why is he not under greater scrutiny for public crying and sobbing, like Edmund Muskie in 1968 or Hilary Clinton during the New Hampshire Democratic primary of 2008?

Boehner himself admits that he is addicted to drugs (tobacco is a drug as classified by the AMA) and is unable to quit. Read his own comments on the subject from this news article: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/09/12/ftn/main6858709.shtml

If you want to use drugs and alcohol, and are willing to accept the consequences, then I’m not one to interfere with your choices. As long as it doesn’t affect other’s health or well being, if you want to abuse your body and mind, it’s your choice.

However, if you are third in line for the Presidency then your drug use should be the concern of all citizens.

“The limbic system, which consists of the hippocampus and septal area of the brain, controls memory and emotions. The affect of alcohol on this system is that the person may experience some memory loss and may have exaggerated states of emotion.” From Bloodalcohol.com

John Boehner is clearly suffering from the effects of alcohol use, as evidenced by his frequent public emotional breakdowns. He displays exaggerated states of emotion with the slightest provocation. I can understand the recent speech on the floor of Congress regarding the assassination attempt on Congresswoman Gabriella Giffords, in which he could barely speak through his tears. That was a difficult situation for Boehner, as he no doubt was full of emotion and personal guilt for not speaking out against gun violence and voting to repeal the assault weapons ban in 2003.

But when he is simply talking about his boyhood jobs, or how he wants the American dream to come true for the youth of our country, and cries uncontrollably with heavy sighs, blubbering like an overly dramatic soap opera star, you have to question his mental stability.

He should have the good sense to resign from Congress and allow a more capable and stable person to take over the House leadership. He needs to go into treatment and cure his addictions. I am sure his family is troubled by his frequent emotional breakdowns and they would be relieved if he quit Congress and sought help. We all would be relieved if John Boehner found a way to manage his addictions and become emotionally fit to serve our country again.

But if the alcohol and tobacco have impaired his judgment to the point where he cannot see what is best for him and the country, we the people will have to pressure the Republican leadership to remove Boehner from office. Write your congressman and write to the Republican leadership and demand that they remove Boehner from office before he becomes the nation’s train conductor. Or that proverbial train wreck might just become a reality for you and me.

Retreating from Responsibility

The cause of the recent Tucson shootings and attempted assassination of Congresswoman Gabriella Giffords has been debated extensively this past week. Many have already found their explanation for the crime, convinced that the polarized political climate and hate speech from various politicians contributed to the killer’s actions. Others believe it to be the lone act of a crazed man, who acted on his own without influence from the raw political climate. What I found most interesting about last week’s debate, however, was the response from the two politicians many believe may have contributed to the gunman’s motives.

Last year Sharron Angle and Sarah Palin both used gun imagery and statements promoting the use of gun violence to achieve their political goals. In response to the onslaught of criticism for their hostile statements, both Angle and Palin refused to take any personal accountability for the power of their political messages. They responded that they couldn’t possibly be culpable, that the gunman was solely responsible for his actions. I find it incredulous that Palin and Angle refuse to accept any personal responsibility for their political statements and symbols, especially since they so vividly suggested the use of guns to achieve their political goals.

When Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle said last March during her campaign to unseat Harry Reid “Well it's to defend ourselves. And you know, I'm hoping that we're not getting to Second Amendment remedies. I hope the vote will be the cure for the Harry Reid problems,” I want her to take personal responsibility for her statement. A Second Amendment remedy means that if you don’t like the outcome of the Nevada senate vote, someone should take up arms and kill Senator Harry Reid. What other interpretation is there? So why is Angle surprised when someone grabs a Glock pistol with a 31-bullet clip and attempts to kill a congresswoman? After all, the Tucson killer was simply following her instructions to use a Second Amendment remedy to settle a political difference.

And when Sarah Palin placed crosshair symbols on a map of several congressional districts, including the district of Congresswoman Giffords, then announced on the same day the map was published, “It’s not a time to retreat. It’s a time to re-load,” and then someone doesn’t retreat, but reloads a Glock handgun and kills innocent citizens and attempts to kill a congresswomen from one of the districts targeted by Palin, why doesn’t Palin take personal responsibility for her statement? She put a rifle’s crosshair over Congresswoman Gifford’s district and then made her now infamous re-load speech and someone took her suggestion and attempted to kill the congresswoman. Don’t retreat from your statements and crosshair map now Sarah Palin, take personal responsibility.

Palin, of course, denies that the map was anything but symbolic (please spare me the feeble attempt to call the crosshairs a “surveyors mark”). But it begs the question – what is the limit to Palin’s crosshair’s map? I suppose that since it was an innocent use of a symbol, Palin would use it again, right? So if the great-granddaughter of Martin Luther King, Jr. were running for congress, Palin would use the crosshair symbol to target her congressional seat, right? And if John F. Kennedy’s great-grandson were running for Senator in Massachusetts, certainly Palin would use the cross-hairs symbol to target his campaign. In Palin’s world it is an appropriate way to politically target a candidate, so she would surely use it to target the descendants of Martin Luther King, Jr. and John F. Kennedy, right?

I’d like to think that even Sarah Palin and Sharron Angle would know not to use crosshairs on a map or make statements using gun imagery and violence if a King or Kennedy descendant were the candidates. So how can it be acceptable for Palin and Angle to use those same statements and symbols against Senator Harry Reid and Representative Gabriella Giffords?

I don’t believe that Palin and Angle’s political statements were directly responsible for the events in Tucson last week. But when you make statements invoking the use of violence – kill Harry Reid – or you place a gun sight crosshair over a congresswoman’s district and tell people to re-load, you can’t then deny any personal responsibility for the actions that may follow. Even if the inexplicable acts are those of a crazed gunman.

You Can Only Return Once

Well, it’s been awhile since I’ve added my thoughts to the blogosphere, so I suppose I owe all of my faithful followers an explanation for my absence. It’s really simple actually.

As I wrote articles for this blog I found that I suffered from a serious case of “if it’s not perfect, I can’t publish it” disease. I guess this is a form of writer’s block, but it was really debilitating and prevented me from making a regular contribution to the blog. There were many, many attempts to write, but in the pursuit of the perfect column, I ended up unwilling to put something out that I thought wasn’t “just exactly perfect,” as Bob Weir used to tell us before the start of a show at Winterland. Go back and read my last blog titled “In-Alienable Rights” and you’ll understand why I wasn’t very happy with myself. That column was terrible, yet it had great potential. And I failed to bring out that potential. So being disappointed about my failure to capture my thoughts perfectly, I quit.

But here is the interesting thing about this period of time, and why I am now returning to my blog now. I recently went back and read some blogs that I wrote but never published, and they were actually pretty damn good (IMHO)! But at the time I just couldn’t see through my “it’s not perfect” lens, and as a result, I refused to publish them for public consumption. Those blogs are now quite dated, so they are not worth sharing, but let’s just say that John Boehner and Sarah Palin should count their blessings.

But no doubt Boehner and Palin will surely provide grist for the mill again, so I’m going to give it another try. I’ve learned that I have to trust my instincts and sometimes just go with a first draft. The endless editing in search for perfection can actually detract from achieving, well, perfection. I can now see that over-editing took the spirit out of my message, so somehow I have to find the balance between editing for clarity and grammar, and editing out the emotion I was feeling at the time.

My best writing seems to come when I get upset about something and I sit down and write my first impressions about the issue. Take for example “The Mean Streets of the Republican Tea Party,” my contribution from March of last year. That Tea Party rally in Ohio struck an emotional and personal cord in me, and I wrote that in one sitting with very few edits. I need to cultivate that “fired up, ready to go” emotion in future columns and not trade perfect for passion.

So I’m going to get back on the horse, and be true to my sub-header and produce “frequent ramblings and nonsense about the world and what makes it interesting.” I hope you are still there to read and share.