Halftime in America

Halftime in America...

The rusty voice of Dirty Harry stirred up the dust at the big football party. I guess. I wasn't there to see or hear it.
A video replay is available at:
http://www.oregonlive.com/playbooks-profits/index.ssf/2012/02/clint_eastwood_portlands_wiede.html

Truth be told, I sure don't miss Nixon. I also don't miss the amnesia of President Ronald Reagan's "Morning in America" feel-goodism.

Same President Reagan who answered the most difficult questions concerning some presidential conduct (Iran-Contra, arms for hostages in Iran, no less) with the immortal words,
"Uh... well... I don't recall."

Truth is, he may have been telling the truth.

But long before his sad descent into Alzheimer's disease, one of his White House speech writers said that Reagan had "this marvelous ability to reinvent reality." You could play back to Reagan a recording of what he had just said 10 minutes ago, and Reagan could insist passionately and sincerely that he had never said such a thing.

His own speechwriter said that...

It may explain how President Reagan could be seen as a fiscal conservative yet embark on a $5 trillion defense buildup while never proposing one balanced budget during his eight years in office. Years later, V.P. Dick Cheney took that fumble and ran with it, crowing, "President Reagan proved that budget deficits didn't matter." Maybe not at the time...

But it's our fault as a free people, because we chose not to make deficits matter to us. If somebody could make us feel good... RR did that for some of us. For a while.

We have so much to do in this country. Amid a tsunami of negative political campaigning with tidal waves more yet to come, I found the replay of the Clint Eastwood pep talk an absolute breath of fresh air.

Next best thing was that I read that Karl Rove was "offended" by it. Really? SWELL!!!!

Personally, I've always been pretty offended by Karl Rove. He was not alone by any means, but if any one person in the USA helped steer us to the negative polarities and stagnation we are at now, it was Mr. Rove.

Here's something from Mr. Rove's bio. I read a few years ago that Mr. Rove had attended six colleges but had degrees from none of them.

There are people who are geniuses who don't need degrees. I'll grant that. And Mr. Rove was indeed a master of his craft in the same way that Bonnie and Clyde were masters of theirs. For a while.

But there are also people whose work ought to be peer reviewed. And as Apostle Paul reminded the Corinthian Christians who believed that grace had made all things "lawful" for them, even incest and feasting on idol's food, "Not all things are helpful." (1 Cor 6:12)

We might ponder this. On Sunday when the two teams were in the locker rooms, were their coaches hammering them with 99.5% negative ads?
Not all things are helpful.

Shalom,
Roger