Alright, I'm a good loser. (Some would say I have had a lot of practice.) My father raised me to be magnanimous in victory and gracious in defeat.
I remember walking through the Capitol rotunda in 1992 the day after Bill Clinton's election when Chuck Chvala taunted, "Ha, Ha, Blaska. What do you think of that?"
I responded that I wished the new president well, for if he succeeded we all succeed.
"Well, um ... yes, of course," Chvala muttered before skittering back into the shadows.
In that generous public spirit, I was willing to give Barack Obama the benefit of the doubt. If he succeeds, yadda yadda. But what has happened since his election? The stock market has gone down 929 points, as measured by the Dow(n) Jones industrial average - a good 10 percent - "as recession fears accelerate."
The people are voting with their stock sell-orders and, I got to think, converting their pennies on the dollar into Euros, krugerrands, and cases of Scotch whisky.
The proprietor of Stately Blaska Manor therefore reaches this momentous conclusion: It is time for Barack Obama to step aside gracefully.
At long last, sir, have you no decency?
Yes, Blaska's Blog makes more history by becoming the first media outlet anywhere to call for Obama's resignation as president-elect. (Please, no autographs.)
It is time to put his eloquence to good use and give the un-inaugural. Fill Soldier Field (it already has the Greek columns), pass out the noisemakers, and announce "mission accomplished." Who needs the aggravation of being President? Just think: no Nancy Pelosi, Biden will never shut his pie hole, and I'm a Dinner Jacket won't speak to you without setting HIS pre-conditions.
Go out on a high note. Not only are you the first son of Kenya/Hawaii/Indonesia/Kansas parents to be elected President, you came out of the Daley machine and the Illinois legislature without seeing any corruption. That should be good for another book. "Eyes Wide Shut."
Or a blog. I know some people could help you with that.
Back to the Classic Coke
I kid about that, of course. (I have to spell that out because the Basfords, Herr R-M's, and Franklyn Pangborns have no sense of humor.) I am proud of this country and my fervent hopes and best wishes go to President-elect Obama.
But the notion that the Republican party is doomed or that the nation has swung to the far left Nichols/Garvey-ism is ridiculous. In fact, we conservatives can declare victory and go home, to some extent.
- You've got Harry Reid bragging about all the pro-gun Democrats elected from the West.
- Even the leftwing columnist E.J. Dionne writes that "It is the majority of a culturally moderate nation that warmed to Obama's talk of the importance of active fathers, strong families and personal responsibility."
- The bipartisan Battleground Poll conducted by George Washington University found that the American electorate who identifies itself as "very" or "somewhat conservative" has grown to 59 percent in 2008 from 53 percent eight years ago. But their putative party lost its way with pork barrel spending, scandal, and the abandonment of true conservative principles. [says author Jonathan Gurwitz.]
- "The era of limited government is over." Not true. There remain some things government can do well and others it cannot. Obama will expand government and prove that point, it says here. Government did not make America a wealthy and democratic nation - the people and their enterprise did. Obama's people are now "tamping down expectations." That is something they did not think to do BEFORE the election!
- The passage of bans against gay marriage in California, Florida, and Arizona prove that cultural conservatism is not dead. Most remarkably, black and Latino voters are culturally conservative.
Exit polls in California found that 70 percent of black voters backed the ban. Slightly more than half of Latino voters … favored the ban. [New York Times 11-06-2008]
- No major political party will ever again nominate a Michael Dukakis, who in his first term alone commuted the sentences of 21 first-degree murderers and 23 second-degree murderers, vetoed the Pledge of Allegiance in Massachusetts schools, gave convicted first degree murders weekend furloughs, and boasted that he was a "card carrying" member of the ACLU.
- Obama remains a re-distributionist but the fact is, when the economy is in the crapper, everyone is a socialist. When times are good, everyone is a venture capitalist. The history of this great nation is that the good economic times outweigh the bad.
Remember: Republicans were dead after the Barry Goldwater massacre in 1964. They retook the White House only four years later. And that 1964 campaign sowed the seeds of an enduring philosophy: Reaganism. It remains to be seen if Obama can substitute his own "ism" - but I'm willing to be convinced.
They called but nobody's home
So, we have the latest dropped phone call to the county 911 system. This one combines the creeping disintegration of our public spaces in the city of Madison with Michael Dukakis-like indifference to public safety of the county executive and her Progressive Dane/enviro lobby followers.
Despite calling the emergency communications center twice Monday night, no police were dispatched to tiny Lake Edge Park east of Monona Drive and south of Cottage Grove Road. Much later, police found the body of a man who had been beaten to death. Another death that could have been prevented.
I maintained during Kathleen Falk's bid for attorney general two years ago that she was really running for her old job as public environmental intervenor. Her endorsements almost exclusively came from enviro groups like the Sierra Club. Her entire history of governance is to short-change public safety. But there is always money to buy swamp lands.
Just last week she found $4.3 million for over 1,000 acres along the Wisconsin River that features "great woods along with areas for prairie and wetlands restoration." Note the standing water in this photograph. It's time for The Kathleen to put on her waders and keep walking.
Mitch Henck on his WIBA radio program Thursday morning nails Kathleen Falk's hide to the wall. "There has always been this Falk policy of putting public safety not at the top of her priority list. ... It's caught up with us - this whole refusal to be serious about public safety by the county executive. ... There we are: another person is killed and we get this re-invention of the wheel-thing again."
His guest, Supervisor Eileen Bruskewitz, said something that has not been properly appreciated. She said the $100,000 public safety communications center report completed in 2004 that called for better systems and more help ...
"... wasn't shared with the full County Board. We keep getting excuses for why 911 hasn't been fixed yet. Since the Brittany Zimmerman murder, the county executive did not even put the [$2 million computer assisted dispatch system] in the budget until we made so much noise about it. This county executive does not take public safety seriously."
[Listen for yourself. Mitch also plays tapes of the two emergency phone calls.]
And where is the county board in its oversight role? The fact is the majority, led by the Progressive Dane/co-opted Democrat team of chairman Scott McDonell and vice chairman John Hendrick, are Falk's go-fers. The County Board, for all intents and purposes, is the lady's politburo, there to rubber stamp her agenda.
This just in!
Now Matthew DeFour of the Wisconsin State Journal is reporting that seven months after the slaying of Brittany, the 911 center remains under-staffed - and that Falk's current budget proposal still does not fix the problem!
The study of the beleaguered center, by Andover, Mass.-based Matrix Consulting Group, found that the county should add more positions than the five that Falk included in her 2009 budget proposal.
"Current staffing levels are insufficient to provide for workload and policy driven staffing objectives without relying on overtime," the report said.
Excessive overtime in the high-pressure world of emergency dispatch means reduced morale and deteriorating effectiveness, experts agree. [Read it and weep.]
I am making my own emergency calls, but not through The Kathleen's 911 Center. Calling Nancy Mistele! Calling Tom Clauder! Calling Rick Raemisch! Calling Vern Wendt! Calling Terrence Wall! Calling Mark Bugher! Calling Gary Hamblin! Calling Elieen Bruskewitz! Calling [Your Name Here]! We need a new county executive!