MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN? THIS ELECTION SEASON I’D SETTLE FOR MEDIOCRITY.

 

Earlier today I blew up on Facebook. I called friends who generally share my views stupid and those who don’t stupider. Much of my heartfelt enmity is the result of the rise of Drumpf.

Why do I refer to him as Drumpf? You can thank John Oliver for that.

Immediately after my viewing of this episode I downloaded the Chrome extension that converts Drumpf to Drumpf (I have found I can’t even type the actual name here without it undergoing the transformation) on stories in my browser. It is one small consolation to see this at work in the headlines and stories I see on Slate, Huffington Post, Rolling Stone, and elsewhere, even on sites that lean farther right.

I deplore the lowlghts from all the 2016 campaigns. Our Presidential  electoral process is in the gutter, dragged there by Drumpf who has been joyfully joined there by Marco Rubio  who questions the size of Drumpf’s penis; by Ted Cruz simply being Ted Cruz; by Jeb Bush forced to defend charges of being a mommy’s boy; by Ben Carson, who fell in while sleep walking; by John Kasich, who destroyed any possible claims of being a moderate by defunding Planned Parenthood; and by the millions of presumably sentient human beings who listen to all the crazy talk about immigrants and an out of control government who couldn’t pass a U.S. citizenship/civics test if it were an open book exam and the original Declaration of  Independence and Constitution were splayed in front of them.

Holding them hostage there are David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremicist groups armed to the teeth courtesy of the National Rifle Association, crazed Evangelicals who believe Drumpf somehow possesses better Christian bona fides than the Pope when The Donald is probably more likely to provide a quote from a Smokey Stover comic book than from II Corinthians when asked about his favorite Bible passage.

Let us not forget the Secret Srvice which somehow has improved its training to the point that a reporter who wanders 10 inches outside the designated journalist area at a Drumpf rally is strong armed when only a few months ago intruders inside the White House grounds stole President Obama‘s favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe before being hustled to the requisite nearby mental hospital for observation.

Oh I’m not forgetting the Democrats. Their participation is in somewhat shallower waters near the curb cutouts that allow wheelchair crossing rather than in the middle of the block, but where the H2O is equally putrid. This time it is not so much the candidates themselves…Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton …hurling invectives at each other so much as it is the so-called BernieBros who have been accused of ugly misogynistic characterizations of the other camp while feminist icons Like Gloria Steinem, though using politer language, are equally sexist in how they portray young female Sanders enthusiasts.

And from these nominal Progressives come the enabling threats to withold their vote from the nominee should he or she not be the one they love to death at this moment. Enabling threats because by doing so they will practically guarantee that our next President will have a bulbous red nose, bizarre multi-colored makeup, a fright wig,  and will be making nonsense noises as he struts around the circus ring. Of course all but Drumpf will need to be fitted for this outfit.

Accompanying this flotsam down the gutter where it will eventually empty into the stream that will make the water supply of Flint, Michigan seem utterly pristine by comparison are various pundits, analysts, economic gurus, and the like offering opinions that may be parsley, rosemary, or thyme, but most certainly not sage.

Perhaps the only good that is coming from this is Spotlight. No, not the latest Oscar winning film but the harsh relentless glare focused on the entire Presidential nominating process that places premiums on a candidacy that begins within weeks after the prior election and is fueled by endless speculation, pollmongering profiteers, the need to fill cable TV news with anything but substance, and the proliferation of web sites whose sole purpose is to promulgate lies, denigrate anyone with opinions different from theirs, and disregard anything remotely likely to benefit the America they all profess to love but which they incessantly subject to virtual domestic violence while declaring their fealty between bruising blows.

Super Tuesday is an agglomeration of primaries in states and American Samoa which would be significant just for the sheer numbers of opportunities for voters to express their choices were it not for the media telling us that the issues have been decided by the primaries/caucuses already consigned to history in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina and whch have a combined poulation dwarfed by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania whose own 2016 primary is not until April 26, a date by which the names of many former candidates will be not even a memory and which may represent only the merest possibility of ultimate success to the horses (asses) still in the race.

All this makes the Swiftboating of John Kerry in 2004 look more like the highest level of forensic debate by comparison.

Oh, hell. I’ll admit it. I, too have awkwardly stepped off the curb and fallen into the slime. But the murky waters are deep and I really can’t swim so I am about to drown in this torrent I am now a part of.

In splashing around for survival I might occasionally send splurges of nastiness into the open mouths of others, but they were there first voluntarily.

NONE IS SO BLIND AS HE WHO WILL NOT SEE

This old adage is often attributed to the Bible though it appears that some credit should go to one Matthew Henry, an English Presbyterian minister, for popularizing the phrase which was a proverbial English saying.  http://www.quotecounterquote.com/2011/04/none-so-blind-as-those-that-will-not.html

However the saying may have a Biblical origin. Jeremiah 5:21 reads

Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not:

That is exactly how I would characterize many on the far right of our current political spectrum. The willful ignorance of verifiable facts is appalling enough, but to apply preconceived, illogical and factually baseless assumptions to their shortsighted governance is unforgiveable.

Last June when the Supreme Court ruled on the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) the individual mandate to purchase health care coverage from private insurers survived but the provisions requiring the states to expand Medicaid coverage…with the federal government picking up the tab…was overturned. Instead the states were allowed to implement the broader Medicaid coverage if they wished, but could opt out if they so chose.

South Dakota has now joined the list of states with Republican governors who are rejecting participation. They usually cite cost as the controlling factor but the respected and independent Kaiser Family Foundation has determined that those costs generally will not increase more than 3%. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/05/dennis-daugaard-obamacare-rejects-medicaid_n_2244970.html

But Medicaid has salutory effects beyond merely providing health coverage to poor people. It is an economic and jobs generator. Generating jobs means people are earning money. People earning money means fewer people are in poverty and in need of Medicaid.

A number of studies support this contention. One examines the issue as to the impact in dollars and jobs in each state if cuts to Medicaid, as some propose, are effectuated.  http://familiesusa2.org/assets/pdfs/Medicaid-Cuts-Hurt-State-Economies.pdf

And a November 2012 study by the University of Missouri reveals that if that state takes on the Medicaid expansion there will be enormous benefits to its economy. http://web.mhanet.com/uploads/media/MU_Medicaid_Expansion_Economic_Report.pdf

One would think that even Republican governors would be interested in protecting thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars of economic activity within their borders.

From the paranoid delusion department on Wednesday the Senate rejected the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).   

This treaty essentially promotes and encourages the full rights of persons with disabilities in the signatory states (nations). Equal access to facilities, education, employment, and other everyday aspects of life are covered. It is up to each state (nation) to establish and protect these rights through their own regular processes and to report on their efforts to a committee. This link provides the full text of the treaty.  http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/disabilities-convention.htm

Nowhere does the United Nations have the power to determine or impose any standards on individual nations. But that does not mean the blue-helmeted U.N. bogeymen cannot be spotted around every corner.

The CRPD would have created a new layer of bureaucracy on the international level to take care of disability issues. New regulations, ordinances, social services would have been created over the US government without the consent of the American people. Such a massive change could have threatened America’s sovereignty in a clear way, by having to listen to unelected foreign technocrats without popular consent. http://www.examiner.com/article/senate-rejects-un-disability-treaty

That is one example of the nonsense promulgated by the right wingnuts.

Although 61 Senators voted in favor of the treaty, 66 votes are required for ratification. John Kerry and John McCain joined together in calling for its passage and Bob Dole, in a wheelchair and partially disabled due to his WW II service returned to that chamber in support. Former President George H.W. Bush also endorsed it.

This incomprehensible obsession with the nonexistent power that the U.N. holds over us is absurd.

Lastly from the laughingly delusional department comes this. The results of a post-election poll show that 49% of Republicans believe Obama’s return to office was guaranteed due to the efforts of ACORN. Of course that organization became defunct in 2010 so had no role in 2012’s campaign.

Now that number is down from 2008 when 52% of Republicans “blamed” ACORN for Obama’s electoral victory. But at least ACORN was still in business that year (and no proveable fraud was committed by it).

The wingnuts NEVER let facts get in the way of their strange theories and opinions. I could spend the rest of my life submitting evidence of this for your consideration.

All I can say is that these people most definitely are NOT Living In Reality.

POLITICS AIN’T SUCH A WONDERFUL LIFE

Going to the movies is a favorite pastime of millions of Americans, and has been for decades. During the Roaring Twenties Silent Movies peaked and quickly morphed into the “talkies”. Folks suffering the effects of the Depression welcomed the escape to the cinema. The flicks in the forties reflected the war and subsequent post war boom.

The fifties and sixties had their signature films as color became the norm. The seventies continued the trend of edgier films from the previous decade and took it to new heights—or depths.

During the past thirty years it seems the bulk of Hollywood output fits into one of five categories.

1. The blockbuster. If you don’t have geeky fans dressed like the film’s characters lined up around the block and willing to return time after time the first week the movie is out then you are an absolute failure as a movie producer. And it won’t matter how many explosions and car chases you included.

2. The raunchy comedy. 1978’s Animal House set the standard. There have been hundreds of attempts to match that standard. Few have truly succeeded. If this trend continues expect to see a ninety-three year old Robert DeNiro, having lost his Oscars like Reggie Bush lost his Heisman,  starring with the perennially fifteen year old Michael Cera in The Superbad Fockers.

3. The sequel. Harry Potter 7. Rocky 6. Sounds like a dull football game to me.

4. Slasher flicks. Hitchcock scared the hell out of us just anticipating the character was soon to die. Karloff and Chaney were more menacing than eviscerating. Today if no semi-naked sexually exploring teens have had their throats split in the first ten minutes, the audience will simply continue texting and yelling obscenities across the aisle.

5. Animation. Disney’s wonderful takes on the traditional fairy tales have been replaced by an army of computer nerds trying to impress each other with all the new groovy special effects they have created. That many of these films turn out to provide great, entertaining stories seems almost an accident.

Remakes are also popular. Everyone’s favorite Christmas movie, It’s A Wonderful Life will return to the screen for the 2012 holiday season, but titled It’s Still A Wonderful Life, part deux It will be a combined animated/live action flick.

In it George has retired and is traveling with Mary on his dream trip when he’s suddenly called home. Zuzu, left in charge of the Bailey Building and Loan comes home to that “old drafty house” and finds her teenagers have trashed the place with a huge booze and drug party replete with filthy lyric-spouting rappers, male AND female strippers, and two mules performing numerous sexual perversions with Shrek. And it’s funny as hell.

But also some of the teens are missing. Their bodies, minus some parts, begin showing up around town. It turns out their killings are the work of Mr. Potter. He now has a souped up powered wheelchair, “The Super Hoveround” (product placement is big, too) and dons a hockey mask as he wields his sling blade. He’s jealous of the sexually active teens since his nuts were chewed off by the pit bull he used to keep by his side to intimidate loan applicants.

When Potter’s not slashing he begins destroying the houses Bailey financed in a series of ever diabolical ways. His coup de gras is the destruction of Martini’s abode. Potter uses some of his billions (2011 taxes paid $12.98) to hire an alien behemoth spaceship that creates a forcefield around Martini’s house to prevent escape, tortures him and his family with repeated playing of YMCA and then disintegrates house, humans and all to the strains of You Light Up My Life.

George arrives back in town, learns of the havoc raised, and contrary to his normally congenial nature he becomes so enraged he turns into The Hulk, with the powers of Superman. He chases Potter through Bedford Falls with catastrophic results for the town’s infrastructure until, when cornered at the edge of the town’s namesake falls, Potter revs up his wheelchair and flies out over the raging waters and seemingly plunges to his death, a la Thelma And Louise.

George then flies backwards around the equator six times at the speed of light to return the date to just before the killing spree started.

Now movies are fantasy, not real, and often not even possible in real life. Yet watching our politicians at work you begin to wonder? is that live or is it Cinemax? If today’s movies have a large share of sequels, watching our pols at work can be quite reminiscent of that phenomenon or even the Saturday morning serials kids loved in the forties.

Observing our elected representatives entering the Capitol is similar to watching the dumb folks  in the movie enter the deserted house. You know what is about to happen inside won’t be pretty and the people going in will do something incredibly stupid to worsen the situation.

Many office-holders appear to have viewed the same cinematic masterpiece over and over.

During the recent debt limit fight, whenever John Boehner went to the White House to meet with the President, he’d bring an ax to crack the door open, stick his head in and announce “Here’s Johnny!”

In the weeks after 9/11 as Bush contemplated what act of revenge to undertake, he had a screening of Animal House. Thus he took to heart the words of Otter:

No, I think we have to go all out. I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part!

and he invaded Afghanistan.

When John Kerry was beset in his 2004 campaign by the Swift Boaters and accusations of flip flopping, he did a Paul Crewe in The Longest Yard and quit on his team (the voters backing him). Unlike Crewe he did not put himself back in the game and rally his side to victory.

This applies to political pundits, too. When the idiots on Fox News are spouting off about the economy and taxes and class warfare they reject any evidence that the truth is quite different from their bald assertions. And the office campaigners have this blind spot also. Therefore one can yell at them “You can’t handle the truth!” A Few Good Men (and women) indeed. Far too few.

Politicians often fail to recognize and understand nuance, apparently adhering to this from that great movie hero John Wayne:

If everything isn’t black and white, I say, ‘Why the hell not?’

 Wayne must be the favorite cause a lot of pols live up—or down—to this.

Life is hard; it’s harder if you’re stupid.

But somehow seem to have ignored this one:

Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It’s perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we’ve learned something from yesterday.

Most pols must have been Seinfeld TV fans, too, all too frequently conforming to George Costanza’s

… just remember, it’s not a lie if you believe it.

 And many would qualify to say this (are you listening Rick and Michelle?)

I lie every second of the day. My whole life is a sham.

Doesn’t the sorry ass state of American politics cause you to long for a Kirk Douglas admirer who’s not afraid to stand and proudly declare

I am Spartacus!

PLEASE HELP ME!

I am lost. No news to those who know me personally, but for those familiar with UMOC only through this blog you will be surprised to learn that I’m stumped for an answer. It rarely happens to me. I have been told through the years that the three words “I don’t know” are basically in a foreign language utterly unfathomable to me. I am surprised I was able to type them coherently.

My dilemma is this. If not already a dilemma it is rapidly approaching that level of undecideability. It is a conundrum. An enigma. A Gordian knot. A Sword of Damocles. I may be left with a Hobson’s choice. I may be between a rock and a hard place. I may have to settle for half a loaf. I feel as if torn between two lovers. I am in a Catch 22. Ah, hell, I may be just shit out of luck.

Before I fully explain and seek your counsel, let me review.

My political leanings have been developed over sixty years of observing politics having given full attention to the nominating conventions of the fifties. In 1960, as did my Republican family, I wholeheartedly supported Richard Nixon for President. In 1968 I voted for him. In the interim I flirted with admiration for Barry Goldwater.

From there it was a haphazard journey to becoming the unabashed liberal I am today. From original registration as a Republican, to changing to Democrat in the seventies and then a registered Independent since the nineties, I have voted for members of both parties on a regular basis. I usually look to the more liberal one, though in many local elections that is not even a factor.

I don’t necessarily examine their liberal bona fides but do look for their views on several issues important to me. No candidates/politicians approach perfection in their adherence to one side or the other, but consistency is important.

Fast forward to  2000.  George W. Bush was not elected President, unless you call a 5-4 decision by the Supreme Court an election. But Gore conceded and for the betterment of the country most of the rest of us grudgingly accepted Bush as legitimate.

In 2004, after Bush had initiated a war in Afghanistan I hated, and manufactured a war in Iraq that totally infuriated me, I turned to any Democrat to get rid of Dubya. To my despair, the one who emerged,  John Kerry,  apparently had forfeited the fighting spirit he exhibited as a Swift Boat commander in Vietnam then as an outspoken critic of that very war upon his separation from the military.

Damned if Bush didn’t win, this time with actual votes submitted the normal way, in a ballot box. So we had to endure another four years of Papa Smirk and the Smirk family. Oh how I wanted to smack the shit out of him to wipe that perpetual smirk off his little blue face. Cheney and Rumsfeld would have been perfect targets for the same treatment.

So now we’re at 2008 when, with the economy tanking and wars continuing, the White house was ripe for plucking by almost any Democrat who had never been caught molesting the domestic help.

A fast-rising Illinois politician, Barack Obama, moved from the horizon to the fore. In a tough nomination battle narrowed down to between him and Hillary Cinton, he emerged as the nominee. He fairly trounced the GOP nominee, John McCain and after the first Tuesday in November we had our first President with Negro blood. A black man. An African American.  The historical signifigance was nearly overwhelming to anyone of color, or who had borne witness to the meanness and often horror of segregation.

But I voted for Obama because I honestly believed he had the right vision for the country. He would, I felt confident, soon reverse the destructive and expensive conduct of two wars. He would vigorously push for reforms in our health care system which is expensive and inefficient and doesn’t protect even working families very well. He would end the reprehensible use of Guantanamo as a prison. He would cease the excesses of Bush achieved through the Patriot Act or simply by ignoring the law.

With Democrats in control of Congress I expected Obama to propose and have passed legislation that would benefit the majority, not just the wealthy and would restore the marginal tax rate to what it had been under Clinton.

Now since his inauguration Obama has scaled back an economic stimulus act to appease Republicans, allowed GOP interference to water down his health care reform, half-heartedlymoved toward ending one war while simultaneously broadly expanding the other. He has not closed Guantanamo. He has not ended civil rights abuses by those claiming to act in the name of national security.

Despite all the assertions from the right that Obama is a wild-eyed Socialist, he’s not even a liberal, more like Republican Lite. For those familiar with Bud Light, Miller Lite, or Coors Light, you know how insipid that is. Turns out voting for Obama was like entering a bar and ordering what you think is a fine world-class beer. The first few sips are wonderful, but you begin to realize they’ve watered down the product. By the time you get to the bottom of your glass you feel cheated.

I want a full-bodied brew. One that asserts itself like Guinness or Yuengling Black and Tan or one of those craft beers from a micro-brewer that can stand on their own and are not used merely to wash down an otherwise unpalatable meal.

Watching the Bush tax cuts being extended for even the rich was unpalatable but I washed it down with the Republican Lite of extended unemployment benefits and the repeal of DADT.

Watching the debt ceiling battle was unpalatable but I washed it down with Republican Lite in the form of no immediate severe cuts in the “entitlements” and possible roadblocks ahead in slashing them.

Dammit! I want a more robust brew. One that asserts itself. One that stands out from the crowd. One that, if someone sees me with a big mug of it in my hand, there is this reaction, ” That man knows his beer!!!”

Please help me shop for this ideal concoction. I’d like to stock up with eight years worth. I’d be willing to toss out the four years worth of the Lite stuff (not The Right Stuff) I have remaining in my cooler.

THE ICEMAN COMETH

If you recall reaching the debt limit was one of two cataclysms predicted for this week. Fortunately rain has been so prevalent both were postponed. Your rain checks will be emailed to you.

Well, actually breeching the debt limit was avoided by the very astute Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner who simply paid the cable bill from the grocery money so our multi-media access is intact.

But the implosion of our economy, predicted by the GOP if the limit was reached, is simply one of the scare tactics they’ve been using in trying to bully their way through the exercise of their political leverage in Congress.

Not that the Dems are above such tactics when a perceived need to do so arises. But particularly over the past dozen years or so invented bogeymen have served to provide impetus to the GOP to move forward on various measures that act to consolidate power and wealth among the already powerful and wealthy, which is bad enough, but to the direct detriment of those outside those parameters which is even worse.

For the sake of argument I will not attribute evil motives to GOP  personages here. I’ll even grant, again for the sake of argument, that if  they are fully aware of the devastating effect some of these policies have or will have, in their ideal world, that will merely be a temporary setback and that either private or non federal entities will take up the slack as our nation grows stronger overall.

But my view is that these ideals they profess; less government, more individual initiative, free enterprise acting  to spread greater prosperity for all, are nothing but pipe dreams.

Like the characters in Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh Gop leaders are delusional and dream of things that never were and make promises impossible to keep.

The Iceman Cometh is set in Harry Hope’s decidedly downmarket Greenwich Village saloon and rooming house, in 1912. The patrons, who are all men except for three women who are prostitutes, are all dead-end alcoholics who spend every possible moment seeking oblivion in each others’ company and trying to con or wheedle free drinks from Harry and the bartenders. They tend to focus much of their anticipation on the semi-regular visits of the salesman Theodore Hickman, known to them as Hickey. When Hickey finishes a tour of his business territory, which is apparently a wide expanse of the West Coast, he typically turns up at the saloon and starts the party. As the play opens, the regulars are expecting Hickey to turn up soon and plan to throw Harry a surprise birthday party. The entire first act introduces the various characters and shows them bickering amongst each other, showing just how drunk and delusional they are, all the while waiting for the arrival of Hickey.

In this case John Boehner is Harry Hope.

Harry Hope is the proprietor of the bar and, though he is constantly saying otherwise, has a tendency to give out free drinks.

Boehner promises not to hand out earmarks but will sneak some in if he can.

Newt Gingrich is Pat McGloin,

a former police lieutenant who was convicted on criminal charges and kicked out of the force. He says he is hoping to appeal, but is waiting for the right moment.

Newt left the House of Representatives in a cloud of scandal and considers now to be the time for his appeal, in this instance to the Court of Public Opinion.

Mike Huckabee is Hugo Kalmar.

Hugo Kalmar is a former editor of anarchist periodicals who often quotes the Old Testament. He is drunk and passed out for a majority of the play and is constantly asking the other patrons to buy him a drink

Like Kalmar being passed out and missing much action, Huckabee keeps his distance from the active political fray with his show on Fox. He’ll spout Biblical phrases and has demurred from running for President for the nonce since his income means Fox buying his drinks as well as  everything else. Though not a former anarchist editor, he is a former governor of Arkansas. You tell me the difference.

Allen West and Herman Cain are vying for the role of Joe Mott.

Joe Mott is the only African American member of the group and is the former owner of a black casino. He insists he will soon re-open the casino

John McCain is Cecil “The Captain” Lewis.

Cecil “The Captain” Lewis is a former infantryman of the British Army who fought Piet “The General” Wetjoen, a Boer, during the Boer War. The two are now good friends and each insists they’ll soon go back to their nations of origin.

Perhaps John Kerry can have a cameo as his former adversary.

Donald Trump is Ed Mosher.

Ed Mosher is Harry’s brother-in-law, Bess’s brother. He is a former circus box-office man and con-man who prides himself on his ability to give incorrect change. He kept too much of his illegitimate profits to himself and was fired, but says he will get his job back someday.

Wouldn’t we all like to tell the Donald, “You’re fired!”?

There are three prostitute characters. For the life of me I can’t imagine anyone in those parts.

Tim Pawlenty, as they say in Hollywood and on Broadway, IS Hickey.

Finally Hickey arrives and his behavior throws the other characters into turmoil. He insists, with as much charisma as ever, but now together with the zeal of a recent convert, that he sees life clearly now as never before, because he is sober. Hickey wants the characters to cast away their delusions and embrace the hopelessness of their fates. He takes on this task with a near-maniacal fervor. How he goes about his mission, how the other characters respond, and their efforts to find out what has wrought this change in Hickey take over four hours to resolve.

The interplay of the characters is typical of any tavern I’ve ever frequented. So much bullshit and so many unrealistic aspirations, to remain inchoate forever. Just pipe dreams and lies told to each other. Each character knows he lies and knows he’s being told lies but in the comfort of the bar these lies seem somehow palatable, somehow believable, somehow accomplishable.

So goes the GOP in their comfort zone, either House of Congress, or the gatherings to display unity and promote their joint agenda. or their public rallies.

They spout their pipe dreams as if conjured from a fount of wisdom and foresight when the truth is these pipe dreams are nothing but a product of the heady brew of intoxication consisting of equal parts hubris, subservience to their financial backers, and the secret pleasure found in getting away with murder.

No, not literally murder, though it seems our friend Hickey wends his way to a confession of offing his own wife. As his dramatic monologue of confession unfolds Hickey

 realizes that he went insane and that people need their empty dreams to keep them going

Hickey had already made his own call for the cops to come get him and as the scene becomes settled

The others all go back to their empty promises and pipe dreams …

Of course my GOP analogy doesn’t square 100% with the scenario established by O’Neill. After all, Tim Pawlenty is Hickey who is described as having charisma, a charge for which Pawlenty could never even get indicted let alone convicted.

But really any of the GOP “actors” could fill most any role. as  their pipe dreams, individual though they may be, ultimately merge into the same illusion, verging on delusion.

No matter the trauma, no matter the interjection of reality, they, too, just as do the habitues of Harry Hope’s bar, always return to the pipe dreams that sustain them.

All character and plot descriptions courtesy of Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iceman_Cometh