today in black history

March 29, 2024

Football great Emlen Tunnell, the first Black player inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame was born on this date in 1925 in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.

Not Playing with a Full Deck

POSTED: February 06, 2009, 12:00 am

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So, while the nation’s economy is going down in flames, the very team that lit the match has nothing better to do than to sit back and take cheap shots at an administration that is barely three weeks old. First, the Grim Reaper himself, Dick Cheney, warns of impending doom because the Obama administration has moved to act within the bounds of law and respect for human rights in the interrogation of terrorist suspects. The former vice president, who likes to talk loud and perform his macho shtick, seems to think that diplomacy is for wimps but who, if he were of age, would probably be the last to actually serve. If that sounds like we are questioning his patriotism, you’re right.

Then there is the case of Andrew Card. In the midst of the most significant economic crisis since the Great Depression, and the first that is truly global in nature, this Nero decides to critique President Obama’s Oval Office attire while the country burns. It seems to us that George W. was in business attire on most occasions and we quickly discovered that it was an empty suit. Card seems to forget that it’s Barack Obama’s office these days and if he chooses to wear Hawaiian print surfer shorts, then it’s his prerogative. He is the President or perhaps Card did not get that memo; along with the forecasts that showed a mortgage and credit meltdown of epic proportion.

Neither man – Cheney or Card - is playing with a full deck.

Cheney and Card represent the worst of Republican irrelevance, both captured by symbolism over substance. One, Cheney, is fixated on prognosticating the worse possible terrorist attack – a nuclear explosion – that his feeble mind can conjure. The other, Card, was the steward of a White House team that will go down as one of the most inept in history. Yet, both men feel entitled to offer their two cents (perhaps in this economy we should scale that back to one and half cents, courtesy of Mr. Bush) in a way that is neither constructive nor instructive for the betterment of our nation.

While we expect the worse from Dick Cheney, the criticism by Card seems particularly shallow. Are we to believe that a jacketless Barack Obama is less effective than one in a suit jacket? It is actually refreshing seeing a President who is in shirt sleeves, working and engaged; rather than a suited cardboard cutout that most us never felt was truly in charge. Enter Dick Cheney. Has there ever been a grumpier, more gloom and doom vice president than the errant hunter? It seems as though his aim is still off. Barely out of the Vice President’s residence at the Naval Observatory and Cheney feels compelled to critique the administration. It was a low blow and classless.

What is really going on is the Bush II team is attempting to write a new narrative about a failed presidency. Wasting no time, the Bushies are busy trying to sell their snake oil to anyone who will listen. Some of it will be by way of attacks on the Obama administration while other ways will include outright fabrications of how events unfolded, particularly as they pertain to the economy and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, under their watch. We do not intend on giving these two, and any other Bush loyalists, any room to escape from the painful truth of their eight years in office. If the truth shall set them free, we plan to give them enough truth to feel truly liberated.

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