New Movie- The Muppets Take Washington

I have here the official cast list as the Muppets use advanced body-snatching techinques to settle the debt crisis.

 Miss Piggy as Michelle Obama












Kermit The Frog as  Congressman Paul Ryan

  Oscar the Grouch as Sen. Harry Reid













Fozzie Bear as Rush Limbaugh

 Swedish Chef as Bob Sheaffer, CBS News



 Dr. Busen Honeydew as Sen. John McCain

 Beaker as Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi










             

Elmo as VP Joe Biden

                                           And Starring:

                                 Sam the Eagle as Speaker John Boehner

Grover as President Barack Obama

                   Cameo by Big Bird as the (Constantly invoked) Spirit of Ronald Reagan

And the old men in the balcony as Indiana Senators Dan Coats and Richard Lugar.

Sunday Stuff

My typical Sunday morning, as you know, consists of listening to a handful of preachers, starting with Ed Bousman on WLW, and then Bible reading and a walk with Scrappy to digest the lessons.  Today, I fought mightily to stay awake for Ed, read my Bible, and fell back to sleep, waking up in the middle of David Jeremiah discussing the failures of Job's counsellors ( not JOB counsellors, which is all google can comprehend) and the application to us.

If you never actually ready the story of Job, I'll nutshell it here.Job was a very righteous, and very rich, man.  Not only did he make atonement for the sins he wasn't committing, but for the sins he really didn't know if his many sons and daughters were committing.  Satan complains to God that Job is so faithful because God has never tested him.  To test this, God gives Satan permission, and soon, his kids have all died in disasters, his wealth has all been stolen, and he is covered in painful boils.  Not to mention his "loving" wife, whose solution to Job's plight is that he should "curse God and die".  Job, in silence, contemplates his fate in sackcloth and ashes, scraping at the boils.

Along comes three of his buddies, wise old men like himself.  In the wisest thing that they managed to do (says Jeremiah), they sat there in silence with him for one week.  Then, one by one, they began to tell him that he brought this on himself by some terrible, unconfessed sin.  The only sin he actually commits is when he defends himself, saying he did nothing wrong, and thus God is picking on him.

The whole thing is a lesson on A) that bad things happen to good people and B) how not to counsel someone in pain.  Among Jeremiah's points were: 1.  while suffering exists on this world because of sin, that doesn't mean that any particular suffering is because of any particular sin.  Job's buddies begged him to confess to some heinous crime, and were sure to let him know that against a Righteous God, he probably still wasn't getting what he deserved. 2.  That everyone's suffering is unique. How many times do we tell someone in pain, "I understand," even when we don't, just because we can't think of anything else to say?  3.That God has a plan that might not be apparent in the suffering.  The fourth counsellor, Elihu, makes this point later on.

I bring this up because during the last week or so, many of the bloggers I follow talked about some pain that they are in- and I kept basically silent because I didn't know what to say.  You can only say, "I'll pray for you" so many times without sounding, "yeah, sure."  And some of these people have only a casual belief in God, and that means nothing much to them.  Just throwing "I'll pray for you" out there casually robs the sufferer of the most powerful help you can be to them.  Rest assured, I am praying.  It is not a platitude to me.  But sometimes, there's just nothing else to add to that.  This week, I've been particularly frustrated over this.

I've lived a fairly blessed life, when you consider the things people are going through that I can't possibly say, "I understand," to.  But it doesn't mean I don't understand THAT you're suffering.  It doesn't mean I don't beseech God for solutions, healing, or comfort for you. Or to give you that hug I would if I were there (and you wouldn't slap a stranger for doing so).  I have a feeling that I'm not alone in this.  So, if I'm not among the people sending "bloggy hugs" or repeating the prayer promises and commiserating, I'm probably here, silently sitting in the ashes with you.

_____________________________________________

In the meantime, I've been wanting to share with you all the laziest scam e-mailer I've ever hit on.  Just to bring the mood up, here he is:

Sir/Ma



The management of central Bank has decided to pay your outstanding


payment of 10m USD, to our beneficiaries VIA MASTER CARD PAYMENT,kindly Re-


comfirm to me your INFO.Dr.Smith Ego

Mind you, it's not bad enough that they don't even come up with a good story; they can't tell us whether the "central bank" is in London, Benin, Lagos, or Libya, they can't end the letter with a "sincerely" (even Interpol says God bless you, remember), or even come up with the name of a supposed relative who died or rival trying to beat me to the account.  No, this guy can't even  get the entire word "ma'am" out!  I'm so glad I get these little rays of sunshine- I don't know what I'd do without the stupidest people still capable to work a keyboard to make me laugh!

The great 1960's countdown, week one

That's right, I finished that humongous project of my favorite songs of the sixties, and I thought I'd share them with you every saturday.  Now I got my list up to 300, so I'm thinking a twenty- a -week post, with little tidbits, and a video or two for the obscure.

Now one thing I need to say right off the top- good songs got left off.  Can't be helped.  Did everything get into the right order?  Well... mostly.  How could I not have (song name here) on my list?  Either A) I had no room, B) I don't know it, C) I missed the damn thing in either research or writing down, or D) I don't like it.  If you get curious about a song (it's possible presence or lack thereof), feel free to shoot me a comment.  I'll say A) it missed the cut and why, B) what the hell is that, C) Crap!  I need to put that in right there, or D) tough titties. Or E) be patient, it's coming up.  Also, this is MY list, and MY feelings.  Nothing to do with critical opinions, sales figures, or balance in taste.  I was on a album listing site where I took crap because I "didn't have enough of this genre" or "you put that on a list?", or "we really don't like greatest hits lps on the list". MY songs, my choice.  I'm sharing, not being authoritative.

As it is my list, you'll see definite leanings towards certain acts. In fact, by my reckoning, 18 acts account for 101 songs (33.67%); five of those acts log 45 of the songs (15%); and three of them alone account for 33 songs (11%).  And if I figured right, there are 157 acts on the list, and 103 only have 1 song apiece.

Now that the disclaimers are out of the way, here are the openning twenty.

300. These Eyes, The Guess Who.  Ever since I heard the Best Of the Guess Who Vol. 1 for the first time, I thought this song is an excellent way to kick off an album.  Burton, Randy, and the guys have four tunes on the list.

299. Hit The Road Jack, Ray Charles.  I used to be a fan of the NBC show Buffalo Bill starring Dabney Coleman.  The dream the lead character had about everyone being out to get him (which was true), accompanied by this song, was hilarious. One of two for Ray.

298. The Last Time, The Rolling Stones.  This is the first of just two Stones tunes on the list.  Sure I'll get heat for that.  Not that I don't like the Stones, but usually I go for songs I have emotion vested in.

297. Good Thing, Paul Revere and the Raiders.  I was kinda surprised I didn't have more than 2 songs by these guys on here- Hungry just missed.

296. Simon Says, 1910 Fruitgum Company.  What can I say, I liked bubblegum.  And I'll like it again- this is one of 2 for the firm.


295. Another Saturday Night, Sam Cooke.  A lot of people didn't know that Cat Stevens was a cover version for Sam Cooke's original.  A good song either way, and one of 2 for the late Mr. Cooke.

294. Tijuana Taxi, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. I have TB's greatest hits on cd.  The next two spots are two of my favorites.  Herb also solos up ahead, so I guess you could put him up for three, or them for two and him for one.


293. Spanish Flea, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass.  I figure you've all seen enough "The Dating Game" clips by now to know this one.

292. Crying, Roy Orbison.  Don McLean had a huge hit with his remake of this in the mid-seventies.  But Roy was an original, in every way.  One of three times he's in the countdown.

291. Memphis, Johnny Rivers.  I probably had to leave off more good songs by Johnny than any other artist.  Still, he hits the list 4 times.  One of his great live songs.

290. Expressway To Your Heart, the Soul Survivors.    When I got to the home stretch, this was one of those songs I was determined to squeeze in somehow, along with the next one.

289. Time Has Come Today, Chambers Brothers.  One of the great psychadelic songs of the era, a genre I wish I could have represented more heavilly.


288. Make Your Own Kind Of Music, Mama Cass Elliot.  A one of a kind vocalist, whether with the Mamas And Papas or solo.  Some of these songs I apreciated later in life.  This is one of those I apreciated from an early age- 8, in fact.

287. Oh, Pretty Woman, Roy Orbison.  Believe me, this song was great long before Julia Roberts got attached to it.

286. Ain't Nothing Like The Real Thing, Baby, Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell.  Marvin, before he got away from Motown so he could do his own stuff, was at his best with Tammi.  One of two for this duo.

285. Shakin' All Over, The Guess Who.  This was when it was still Chad Allen's band.  They later did a cool tribute to this on a later album, When The Band Was Playing "Shakin' All Over".


284.  1-2-3 Red Light, 1910 Fruitgum Company.  Like I said, I like bubblegum.

283. MacArthur Park, Richard Harris.  You had to work in a lot of pomposity to overcome the bizarre lyrics on this one, and the Camelot actor made it a classic.  Donna Summer did good, but lost too much in the lyrics that her single cut out.

282.  Return To Sender, Elvis Presley.  Okay, I got my earplugs in- only 2 Elvis songs in the countdown.  That was VERY hard for me.  Please save the death threats for someone who might warrant them (Harry Reid comes to mind).

281. A Kind Of Hush, Herman's Hermits.  This was also a hard group for me; of the four tunes on my chart, we'll hit all of them fairly quickly.  Actually heard the Carpenter's version before this (or so it seemed to my addled memory.  A lot of songs I know I had to have heard back then I really don't remember until after someone else remade them.

Geez, is that twenty already?  Wow, that goes fast.  On the way out, here's one more from this week's bunch. Enjoy!

Step into my time machine week sixty-six

Today on a very non-special Time Machine:
-Yet another unusually-named debut;
-Elvis has a birthday;
-Cheech And Chong go Up In Smoke;
-a couple of quick stops into cool jazz;
-and in a biiiig streeeetch, we connect Eternity's Children (who?) to Carl Wilson, using Liberace to get there.
All this plus Where Are You Now, Carly Simon?  (Answer: Never Been Gone.) Oh, and at the top, what's old is new again.
Climb in, and buckle up so we don't get pulled over (it is the end of the month) and let's go!

We crack things open with a ten-debut week on the hot 100.  Four are songs we all know (?); but the first one makes it solely on it's rather unusual name. At 97, we have one Michael Franks with a soft-jazz number called Popsicle Toes.  This is a neat little fun song that I scratch my head was ever released as a single, much less ever hit the charts, but if you need a smile or a little chuckle today, youtube it up. At 92 comes the hardest working man in show business, the late Mr. James Brown, with Get Up Offa That Thing. Just a notch ahead at 92 is the classic Don't Fear The Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult. Up ahead at 83 lies James Taylor with Shower The People ( a song I would probably rate much higher on my list except for the guilt I feel in not taking its advice).  And way up at 71 is Jefferson Starship from the album Spitfire with With Your Love.  Happy thirty fifth birthday to you all!  Celebrating 40th birthdays today are Aretha and the Heavyweights' version of Spanish Harlem; Blood Sweat And tears' Go Down Gamblin'; and Canada's Stampeders with Sweet City Woman.  Hitting 45 today are Wicked Wilson Pickett's Land Of 1,000 Dances and Jr. Walker and the All-Stars' original of How Sweet It Is(To Be Loved By You).  The Platters' I'll Never Smile Again turns 50 today; and it's the big double-nickel for the King and Hound Dog.  "Blow out the candles...."

Our big dropper is a "song" that peaked at 46 2 weeks ago- Cheech and Chong, from the movie Up In Smoke, with Framed.  It falls 19 to #69 this week.  Not their first or last foray into the charts- in fact, they made the top 40 4 times:  Santa Claus And His Old Lady (3), Basketball Jones (15), Earache My Eye (9), and Sister Mary Elephant (SHUDDUP!) (24).  The big mover was Boz Skaggs' Lowdown, up 16 spots to #50.

A glance at the top songs of other years takes us to the 5s.  1995 is a repeat honoree: Waterfalls by TLC. 1985's top dog this week was Everytime You Go Away by Paul Young (which, as I learned, is not the same Paul Young as the late vocalist for Mike + The Mechanics- silly me).  Last year, we were toasting the Eagles with One Of These Nights; in 1965, it was the Stones and Satisfaction.  And in 1955, we had another repeat honoree- Bill Haley and his Comets, in week 4 of their 7 week reign with Rock Around The Clock.

All of which brings us to #49 this week- Carly Simon's version of a Michael McDonald song that the Doobies would take into the top forty, It Keeps You Runnin'.   Carly has been active forever, but unless you personally follow her (or any artist from this era) its hard to know it.  The music biz has changed so much.  Acts like Carly get lost in the shuffle without sex scandals on TMZ and remade songs appearing on Glee.  In fact, this was frustrating Carly, who blamed her record company for not promoting a recent album.  Her son, Ben Taylor, advised her to channel that energy into a new album.  And so in 2009 she released Never Been Gone, filled with acoustic covers of old hits such as The Right Thing To Do, You Belong To Me, That's The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be, Coming Around Again, Anticipation, and of course You're So Vain (which I sampled last night and found very good, especially the guitar intro.) If you're an old Carly fan, check it out.

Just before we hit the top 40, a shoutout to Almost But Not Quite, I Need To Be In Love by the Carpenters.  Co-written by Richard, this song was Karen's favorite of all the songs they ever recorded, and was their 14th #1 on the Easy Listening chart- far and away the most of any act.  Though it peaked at 25 on Billboard and 35 here (slipping to 39 this week), It became the theme to a Japanese show in 1995 and on re-release hit #5 on their chart.

Movement into the top 40 is nearly stagnant once again this week.  Mama Mia re-enters at 38 (after dropping out last week), and the only true debut is Fleetwood Mac's Say You Love Me, up 7 to #35.

You better sit down- we have a NEW #1 album this week!  It was Breezin', George Benson's first foray into a more mainstream sound.  In addition to the title track (an instrumental I'm sure you'll recognize if you youtube it), there were five other tracks- all long jams of George's jazz guitar playing, including the 8-minute version of his Grammy winning This Masquerade and a Jose Feliciano track called Affirmation.

Three songs enter the top ten, three fall out.  Dropping are the Boys Are Back In Town, from 10 to 26; More More More, from 8 to 22; and I'll Be Good To You, from 7 to 14.

Coming in at ten was a song that seems like it might have been a better subject for 6 degrees than the one the Broccoli gods gave me- Get Closer by Seals And Crofts.  The back up singer, as I mentioned before, is Carolyn Willis, who (I didn't mention before) was a member of the Honey Cone ( remember Want Ads?), along with lead singer Edna Wright, who was the sister of another former honoree on the #1s of other years feature, Darlene Love.  The boys and their girl move up 2 to #10.  Queen pauses at 9 for a second week with You're My Best Friend. Zooming up 7 to #8 are Wings and Let 'Em In.  Elton John and his cohort Kiki Dee break 6 spots to #7 with Don't Go Breakin' My Heart.  Gary Wright slips 3 to #6 with Love Is Alive.  John Travolta is stuck at 5 again with Let Her In.  The Beatles climb to #4 with Got To Get You Into My Life.

And that brings us to our #3 song- the highest that is both without the bullet and not having been 6-degreed previously.  That would be Moonlight Feels Right by Starbuck, who though not a true one-hit wonder, was close enough to make this tough on me.  Starbuck was basically the baby of vocalist and keyboard guy Bruce Blackman and marimba player Bo Wagner.  Blackman was a founder of the "sunshine pop" band Eternity's Children, who had a minor (read: non top 40) hit with Mrs. Bluebird (which is also worth a listen if you're so inclined) back in 1968.  Wagner actually joined EC after Blackman left; and after they did a duo thing for a brief time, Wagner spent some time as Liberace's road manager.  Liberace in this time period was exploring the TV end of things; in addition to his command performance as a villain and his brother on the old Batman TV show, he also did a cameo with Desi Arnaz Jr. on Here's Lucy.  Desi Jr. had been in a mid-sixties band with Dean Martin's late son Dino and friend Billy Hinsche called Dino, Desi , and Billy (catchy, no?) who had a hit with I'm A Fool (#17).  Billy was the Beach Boys connection- he toured with them for a while, and his sister married Carl Wilson.  And there you have it: Starbuck to Bo Wagner to Liberace to Desi Arnaz Jr to Billy Hinsche to Carl Wilson.  Moonlight edges up a notch to #3.

Carl's family poses dockside, left to right: Billy Hinsche and his sister Annie Wilson-Karges (Carl's first wife), Britta Wilson (Justyn's wife), and Carl's sons Justyn and Jonah Wilson.



Which means that we have two former top dogs left.  Kiss And Say Goodbye (of which we have a Spanish version playing at work) slips back to the runner up spot after 2 weeks at #1.  Which means, back for a return engagement as top dog....

Starland Vocal Band with Afternoon Delight!!!

Allrightie then!  It's a wrap for this week, see you next time!

An Open Letter to IPFW and the Plex, Part two

Seeings as so many of you have commented on my post "An Open Letter..." I thought you might like to see the stuff you maybe haven't seen. 
First, I have an e-mail from my friend downstate who doesn't like to comment on blogger because of security/signing up issues.

Isn't it sickening? Our township is zoned rural/farm and they're doing their best to turn it into a barren wasteland. The church across the street had many trees on the property that dated before the beginning of that church (1863). They have pictures inside of horse & buggies tied to those same trees. All gone. They put in an asphalt parking lot. Several more were cut down just for convenience. No kidding, the moment those trees fell you could feel the temperature rise significantly.



A woods less then a quarter mile down the road south went down because the farmer was tired of farming around it. One the same distance to the west is slowly going down to make it 'productive'. A little farther along they are in the process of mulching a huge woods (huge for today standards). Home of coyotes, deer and kind. Who knows why? Just to add more fields?


It seems to be a trend because home owners miles in each direction are doing the same. Cutting down massive healthy trees because they might fall on someone or are in the way.


Not many years past driving home from town you could feel the temperatures drop each mile you headed. Home was always 2-3 degrees cooler then town. Sometimes more.


And the hypocrites have the gall to complain about that starving, poor man in the rainforests. One farmer even told me that global warming is increasing because we're having so many wars! Not because he just cut down a forest!

Damn right!  IPFW will tell you they are green and want to take care of the environment, but here they are disrupting a fragile ecosystem so that sweaty men can chase each other around in the shade.  Which maybe they wouldn't have to if we didn't need those two extra soccer fields so bad.  BTW, I have heard nada from the plex despite e-mailing the link to them.  IPFW, however, had no e-mail link so I put the original post on their Facebook page- and got the following conversation in response:


Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW) Thanks for sharing the post. I appreciate Chris' experience and insights. He's right -- it's hard to balance development, growth, and protection.
I believe the widened trail Chris spoke of is part of the Rivergreenway system expansion, anoth...er example of balancing development and protection. The Rivergreenway map (available at http://bit.ly/fwgreenway) shows sections of the trail running next to the soccer fields.
A pristine trail is truly a beautiful thing, no doubt about it. A paved trail encourages more use and gives accessibility to those with mobility challenges, exposing more people to the beauty of nature.
By helping more people experience the outdoors through an accessible trail, perhaps we can grow an appreciation to help protect what's still pristine.
Yesterday at 10:36am


(ME) This is not the treeline along the river. It is the woods on the OTHER side of the plex, clearly marked "IPFW property- no hunting". This is not the greenway's baby, it is your property, patrolled by your security. Perhaps the university should do a little more research into what the university is doing, before answering.


And by the way, a trail is not "pristine" - a natural area in its natural state is. So what is the plan, anyway. Are you going to pave it? Better use better quality asphalt than you did on the lower end of the main trail, it gets rivets ...worn into it every heavy rain. The thing that makes me mad is that, if you followed the deer in that woods around for months (as we have) you couldn't have torn out their preferred trails more perfectly or completely. I agree with your case about mobility issues. Instead of tearing up the home of a band of deer (which we'll probably never see again), why not push the greenway to get off their collective butts and finish the trail along the river like they've been promising? Then you could have left the woods they way it should be- AS IT WAS. Instead, now we have homeless deer, a ruined woods, and an unfinished stone trail just across the way. Nice job.
23 hours ago


Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW) Thanks for your reply... With the extra information, I was able to dig deeper. The path you describe is apparently part of an expansion to the Athletic Department's cross country track. It will be topped with gravel, not paved.
2 hours ago


(ME) Oh, well, that makes ALL the difference.


2 seconds ago

(Sigh.) Cross country and soccer.  I said it before: it's no crime, it's no sin.  Unlike the wanton whackjobs or militant extremists, I have no cause to grab my gun (which I don't own BTW) and shoot a random bunch of socceristas or make the CC team run faster.  But you know what, plex and IPFW? If you'd ever spent any time on this land just enjoying it, you might think differently about what you're doing.  But, go ahead, stay behind your desks, make your great decisions.  Who gives a damn about deer, anyway?

An Open Letter to IPFW and the Plex

If you wonder what my business in this is, scroll down and hit the tags, "walk", "animals", or "scrappy".  You'll see that for three years, Scrappy and I have been taking walks in the wilderness areas of the university-owned woods along the Plex property and the meadow beyond.  You'll see posts about animal encounters, especially deer and the cute little pair of foxes that used to live in the little patch of trees in the north end of the meadow.

Later on, you'll see my curiosity about the damage construction going on in the meadow- up to and including the tearing out of that little patch of trees.  I hadn't seen the pair of foxes since- until a couple weeks ago, we saw the little red one, roadkill on Washington Center near Maplecrest.  Nice job, homewreckers.

Today, Scrappy and I found the meadow had been bulldozed away, raised and flattened.  A crew was just getting off work, so I put on my best game face.  "What's the game plan, gentlemen?" I asked with as much chipper as I could manage.

"Couple more soccer fields, " they answered with return chip.

"Soccer fields," I echoed flatly.  I could almost feel them sensing the disappointment I was trying to hide.  I headed on towards the woods.

We entered at "north but one,"  aka the entrance where the stone trail through the woods becomes a dirt one.  Something here, too, was different.  The dirt trail was... wider.  Now I knew that just a few feet ahead was a flag marked line where they were either planning to or had in the distant past ran a water line to irrigate the existing fields.  There were small saplings cut down a few feet in from that, but then it stopped.  I returned to the trail, uncomfortable in the knowledge that the widened trail continued.

At the main deer track I've talked about so many times, a trail had been carved.  No little divot, this; a twenty foot wide strip of dirt in the midst of a sliver of sylvan paradise that followed the main deer trail faithfully until just before it hit the dry stream bed that runs north-south along the west side of the woods.  Then it took a south turn, winding around larger trees, careful to only remove saplings no more than six inches across and standing deadwood.  On it wound until it reached the point where the ravine flattens out; then it turned straight west until it hit the old wire fence that runs along the ditch that goes south into Stony Run Creek.  This was an area of thickets and heavy cover- read : was.  Now it was a 7-yard wide jogging path, complete with joggers already taking advantage of it.  The trail turned at the rim of the big drop off into the southern half of the woods north of Stony Run.  Then returning east, meeting the main trail about two thirds of the way from where we started to where the trail goes asphalt.

In other words, each and every point at which we used to see deer in the woods is now chopped, scraped, and weed-sprayed.  All of their normal paths have been swept away because joggers can't be bothered to step over a fallen log.  Scrappy and I never needed a twenty-foot thruway to explore and enjoy the woods.  You'll never be able to explain to me why the rest of the world does.

And so, we trade the beauty of wild life in the forest so that joggers can look at a different set of trees.  I thought IPFW claimed to be good stewards of the land, concerned about the environment.  Oh, they do appreciate trees.  They just prefer them spread out along a blacktop trail with identifying placards.

And maybe a fox lost its life, but what's that against having 22 soccer fields for our increasingly Hispanic population to enjoy, instead of just 20?

It's your land.  It's not a crime nor a sin to do what you did.  I just wish you understood how you lessened a precious slice of God's creation (or Mother Nature's if you prefer- I realize a lot of you are pagan/heathen), and we'll never get it back.  Don't mind me.  I'm just another neo-Luddite who hates change.

The Presidentiial Address, the Republican Response, and Me

The President's Side

It continues to amaze me how President Obama still feels the only way to get the sympathy of the American People is to wrap himself up in the banner of Ronald Reagan.  Of course, tonight he also wove in Jefferson, Bush the Elder, and Clinton.  His speech was alright if it was made to educate the American People in something they hadn't been hearing about for the last 8 months.  As it was, he made a fairly good- and fairly deceptive- case for the basics of the Gang of 6 plan, which for all its warts I still think is the better of the plans.  I have said before I'd like to know how rank and file Tea Partiers defend tax breaks to Exxon/Mobil, GM, and their brethren.  But, as usual, he didn't stop there.

It's All Their Fault

He did make a somewhat halfhearted effort to not lump all republicans together, and he did say that his own party needed to quit their crying and be willing to make tough choices on entitlements.  But then he very explicitly let us know who the villains of the piece were IHHO:  John Boehner and the newly elected "young gun" republicans.  He managed to slip in the pro forma "they want to eliminate Medicare" just before mentioning the demand for Medicare reform, thus putting the truth out there, but covering it first with the scary lie that makes you ignore it.  Instead of mentioning the $800 billion in new tax revenue that Boehner had agreed to before Obama changed the rules Friday night, he made the blanket "they won't allow for any taxes" and won't agree to making the richest Americans pay their fair share", which "they (the richest) have stepped up and been willing to do everytime this nation has had bipartisan agreement".  So the rich are ready to pay the new taxes- the GOP won't let them.  Hmmm.

Obama's big score

The one good hit the President got in was on Boehner's new "temporary ceiling raise" , which Obama called "kicking the can down the road another six months". And y'know what, he's right.  This needs to be finished, once and for all, NOW.

Overall

For all the "smoke coming out of his ears"  (said Bob Scheaffer) in this "tough speech"  (Bob again),  to my ears a reasonably educated high schooler could have written this and got a 'b' in his civics class.

Boehner Fires Back

The Speaker taught Bob the meaning of a tough speech.  If Obama had smoke coming out, Boehner had fire and brimstone.  Where I don't agree on the no taxes period approach, Boehner did score several hits.
1. Boehner said, "the President came to us in January wanting to do business as usual.  Mr. President, the days of doing business as usual are over."  Any of you liberals in the press and elsewhere that still want to cling to that myth of Boehner as a weepy guy who cries at the drop of a hat, you just keep telling yourself that.  You may soon find tire tracks down your back.
2. Boehner wasn't afraid to mention what all America has already heard- that they had a deal Friday night and the President shat all over it.  "the President changed the numbers, " Boehner said gravely.  I'd surely like to be a fly on the wall when these two get together.
3.  Boehner got to the heart of why he and the President have not hammered something out already:  "He came to us in January wanting a blank check.  He still wants it now.  And he's not going to get it."
4. Boehner's characterization of the democrat idea of a balanced plan; " We spend more, you pay more."  Not completely accurate, but the funniest line of the night.
5.  Boehner felt no need to wrap himself in dead presidents to make his point.  And he was right there.

I Hear A 'But' Coming...

I've said this on my CC&B vs GO6 post last week:  This spot is not the place to bring in a Balanced Budget Amendment.  I don't deny we need one, just that it needs to attach itself to this bill.  Boehner hinted that his new proposal (which I haven't seen) forgoes the requirement for a BBA and instead calls for a bipartisan committee to lay the groundwork for one.   If so, then let's put that into a deal which gets the cuts, caps the spending, and raises the ceiling now, not some six month patch.  Boehner also called the new taxes a job killer- and giving subsidies to companies that are charging us $3.80- 4.00 a gallon for gas ISN'T?? 

Overall

This was  the kind of speech you wish the Speaker could've gone first, so we could really see Obama at his pissed-off best.  Still, for all that, it was the kind of speech that, like Obama's you wish you could've heard months ago- and not with one week left before default.

And The Winner Is...

On style and substance, Boehner.  On sympathy, and pathos, Obama.  But for all the good it did us as Americans, they might as well have done this in the boxing ring.