The Cure

      What should we do about the sleazy campaigns being waged against Barack Obama by the squirrels, snakes and turkeys fronting for the Republican Party?
      Simply re-elect him in November and let them go on chattering, hissing and gobbling for another term.
      They aren't dangerous. Just politically stunted.
     ---- The doctor.

doc

    I don't remember exactly when I discovered Doc Watson and his flat-pickin' bluegrass music, but it was decades ago. They've been a joy to me ever since.
     Sadly, this virtuoso of the guitar, Arthel Lane Watson, died this week in a North Carolina hospital at age 89. The newspaper says he influenced guitarists around the world for a half-century and that he could play so fast that he actually intimidated some.
    . I believe that.
    .When Doc was playing a headlong romp like "Beaumont Rag," it was hard to believe a man's fingers could fly like that  But then, after just such a clap of musical thunder, he'd let down with a swingy tuneful bit like "Way Downtown" that would have you tapping your foot and singing right along:
           " Way downtown, foolin' around,
              Took me to the jail.
               It's oh me, and it's oh my;
               No one to go my bail."
     Some folks you'll always miss..
 

lugar

Sen. Richard Lugar's primary defeat may not have been a surprise to political wise guys, but it was a miserable setback for excellence, virtue and general good sense in public life.
      It demonstrates once more the barbarity that has come to characterize the tea party-like legions within the present-day Republican Party. Moderation can be fatal there these days.
     Think about it, in Colorado terms. Would John Love, Will Nicholson, Gordon Allott, John Vanderhoof, Don Friedman and Jim Johnson have fit the rigid-right 2012 mold of the Grand Old Party.?.

coffman

Happily, I am not a constituent of Colorado Congressman Mike Coffman, but I can still be ashamed of him.
Consider, for instance, Coffman's recent comments about Barack Obama: Coffman said he didn't know for sure that the president was born in the United States (as the Constitution requires), but did know  that "in his heart, he's not an American."
Coffman later issued a weasel-worded apology. He admitted  that Obama truly is native-born, and thus is holding office legitimately. But he didn't look into the president's heart again to determine whether Obama is a genuine, true-blue "American" like himself.
There used to be a label for the Coffmans of public life: "peanut politician"