Glory Days and The Ghost of Tom Joad

Glory days, well they’ll pass you by
Glory days in the wink of a young girl’s eye
Glory days, glory days

Nothing like waiting until the last minute, eh?

We’ve got, what? Less than twenty-four hours, right?

It’s near 10PM as I write this, by this time tomorrow, we ought to have a pretty good idea of who the next president is going to be.

Naturally, it’s now that Sarah Palin decides to weigh in.

It’s only fair, I guess.

After all Bruce Springsteen waited until the last minute to throw his considerable weight behind President Obama, and Palin is at least as big a rock star as is Springsteen these days – or as big of has-been anyway. Both of them are far past their sell-by date but still rolling along on inertia and the glory of fading stardom.

What?

Oh stop it, you know it’s true. Look, I love the man, but Springsteen hasn’t been the gritty, Jersey working man’s troubadour since the 90’s. He’s as long in the tooth as Madonna even if he is better preserved. His voice these days sounds like a gravel truck in sexual congress with a cement mixer after an all nighter gargling kerosene and razor blades. Which is not to say that he doesn’t put on a hell of a show, or that back in the day he wasn’t The Boss, because he most certainly was, or that I wouldn’t drop everything and go see him should he be in town.  The guy rocks.

But I couldn’t help but think how ironic it was that Springsteen decided to jump into Obama’s campaign right about the same time Palin decided to endorse Romney – apparently, here in the harsh cold light of November 5^th, she’s finally come to the realization that Newt Gingrich isn’t going to be either President or the first Governor of Moonbase Reagan.  Both Springsteen and Palin are celebrities, for different reasons certainly and only time will tell which one leaves a greater impact on history (personally, I don’t think it’s much of a contest, but hey, what do I know?), however you’ve really got to wonder what it says about the state of our republic when a) there are still significant numbers of undecided voters less than twenty-four hours before the election, and b) it is implied in any serious fashion that they can be swayed one way or the other by either a sort of has-been rocker or a sure as hell has-been politician.

You know, on second thought, maybe ironic isn’t the right word, maybe a better word is appropriate. Yes, that’s it. Appropriate. It’s appropriate that The Boss and The Pit Bull should be on opposite sides of this contest.

Since Springsteen has ventured into politics, I suppose it’s completely appropriate for Palin to cut a Greatest Hits album.

Now I think I'm going down to the well tonight
and I'm going to drink till I get my fill
And I hope when I get old I don't sit around thinking about it
but I probably will
Yeah, just sitting back trying to recapture
a little of the glory of, well time slips away
and leaves you with nothing mister but
boring stories of glory days

And did I say endorse?  No, that’s wrong too. Endorse is the wrong word. This morning on Facebook, Palin didn’t actually endorse Mitt Romney, she just implied that in her opinion Romney doesn’t suck nearly as bad as Obama.  You’d think on the eve of the election, she’d come up with something new, instead in her Facebook screed, Palin – like the protagonist of Springsteen’s Glory Days – rehashes all the tired and debunked Fox News talking points:

This Tuesday our country’s future is in our hands.

I’m going to take the high road here and not start out with a joke about Palin jerking us off.

What’s past is prologue. We know what we will get from a second Obama term because we’ve all endured his first term. We know how well he kept his 2008 campaign promises. Do we really believe he’ll keep his 2012 promises?

We’ve all endured Obama’s first term? Endured. Like it was some arduous journey fraught with great peril and hardship and full of giant rats and hungry cannibals. This from a woman who quit her job during the height of the economic crisis, became a multimillionaire while doing pretty much nothing, and is now getting paid for basically being famous.  Great work if you can get it, I guess.

Somebody remind me again what exactly this women has had to “endure?” Seriously, what’s Sarah Palin got to bitch about? Because from where I sit, Barack Obama is the best damned thing that ever happened to Sarah Palin. She should be campaigning for him.

Do we believe the word of a man who promised he wouldn’t raise taxes on the middle class, but then slammed the middle class with a massive tax hike in the form of Obamacare (and don’t forget that his own lawyers argued before the Supreme Court that the individual mandate is a tax)?

Um. No. Actually, administration lawyers argued that the ACA wasn’t a tax. In fact, what they said was that the ACA, specifically the Individual Mandate, was authorized under the Interstate Commerce Clause.  It was the Supreme Court who decided that it was, in fact, a tax and thereby perfectly legal. The deciding vote, if you recall, was the bench’s bestest conservative.

As to the “raising taxes on the Middle Class,” I guess Palin missed the whole debate over the expiring Bush Era Tax Cuts and who was on each side. But I digress.

Do we really believe he won’t raise taxes even more on every American in order to pay for his wasteful spending and his crony capitalism?

Palin and her goofy followers believe a lot of things, many of which bear only a vague semblance of reality.  I don’t suppose this is any different.

Also, word of advice, when an Alaskan politician bemoans cronyism, well, you know it’s time to put your boots on.

Do we believe that the same president who increased the debt in his first term by more than all the first 41 presidents combined will suddenly decide to cut the deficit in his second term?

More than the first forty-one presidents combined? Now there’s some creative, and misleading, math.  Using the same logic and disregard for things like, oh, inflation over two hundred years, you could say that Mitt Romney has more money in the bank than the Gross Domestic Product of the entire United States under George Washington.  It’s true, but what relevance it has to the current situation is beyond me.

Do we believe that the president whose reckless spending led us to the first credit rating downgrade in our nation’s history will suddenly become a responsible fiscal manager if we reelect him?

Except, of course, that Standard & Poor’s cited partisan extremism in Congress as the primary reason for the downgrade, and specifically Congress’ use of the debt ceiling limit as a means of political blackmail.  As to “the president whose reckless spending” led us to the downgrade, Palin deftly manages to avoid mentioning who it was helming the House Budget committee at the time and why she thinks that guy will suddenly become a “responsible fiscal manager” if we make him Vice President.

Do we really believe that a president who promised us that job creation was his number one priority despite month after month of dismal job numbers now has a credible “plan” for the job growth that eluded him for the past four years?

I’m sorry, who was it again who torpedoed every jobs bill that’s come up for discussion over the last four years. Who was that again? 

Now, in spite of congressional obstructionism, the jobless rate has fallen steadily for the last four years. Imagine what Obama could have accomplished if Congress actually cooperated and did their jobs. But, again, I digress.

Do we believe that the same president who shut down the Keystone Pipeline and blocks domestic oil and natural gas development at every turn is somehow going to reduce our dangerous dependence on foreign oil and lead us to energy independence?

Reduce our dangerous dependence on foreign oil.

Foreign oil.

Heh heh.

Say, here’s a funny question for you: If we build the Keystone Pipeline, where does the oil come from to fill it?

Last time I checked, Canada was a foreign country even if Palin can see it from her house. 

Also, here’s an annoying little fact: domestic oil and natural gas development is at an all time high.  So high in fact that Alaska’s vast supply of natural gas is virtually worthless at the moment.

Do we really believe that our country’s national security is safe in the hands of a president whose administration denied security and assistance to our consulate under attack on the anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on America, and then blamed that consulate attack and the death of our ambassador on a “spontaneous” protest over an obscure YouTube video despite all the real time evidence to the contrary?

Yes, I do believe that our country’s national security is safe in Obama’s hands.

After all, he’s the guy that has authorized the killing of more terrorists and pirates than the first forty-one presidents combined – including the mastermind of the worst terrorist attack on America in US history. You know, the one that happened on the last conservative’s watch.

Do we believe that a president who was caught on a hot mic telling the Russian president that he would have “more flexibility” after his reelection is being honest about his plans for a second term?

I don’t think you really want to bring up the subject of hot mics.

Palin goes on for a few more paragraphs and surprisingly avoids mention of either birth certificates or Islam, eventually she fetches up here:

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have offered a credible alternative to Barack Obama’s failed policies. Governor Romney understands how the free market works. His pro-growth economic policies will benefit all Americans. He has promised to move us toward energy independence, deficit reduction, and responsible entitlement reform that honors our commitment to our seniors and keeps faith with future generations. Governor Romney deserves a chance to lead. President Obama had his chance. He’s failed, and we can’t afford to go backwards.

We can’t afford to go backwards?  Unless, of course, you support a candidate who promises a return to the very policies that got us into this mess in the first place. Romney certainly understands how the free market works, he’s spent his entire life using it to his benefit at the expense of many others – and that’s one promise I’d fully expect him to keep. 

The really enlightening part of Palin’s entire post was this: Governor Romney deserves a chance to lead.

Deserves.

Not Romney has earned a chance, no, see, Mitt deserves a chance.

Deserves.

That’s how people like Palin see the world, as their divine right. That’s why when the media and the polls don’t report what they want, well Sir, then it’s the media who must be lying.  When the weather makes the current incumbent look good, the super-storm must be sent by Satan.

That’s why they talk about talking back their country come tomorrow. Not our country, all of us together, no, theirs.

They don’t mind if the game is rigged, just so long as it’s rigged in their favor.

Palin’s recapping of her glory days is the perfect summation of everything that’s wrong with the GOP. 

Palin is right about one thing though, tomorrow the country’s future is in your hands.

Use the power wisely.

 

 

 

Now Tom said "Mom, wherever there's a cop beatin' a guy
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
Where there's a fight 'gainst the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me Mom I'll be there
Wherever there's somebody fightin' for a place to stand
Or decent job or a helpin' hand
Wherever somebody's strugglin' to be free
Look in their eyes Mom you'll see me."