Walker-Talker

David Farenthold’s piece in today’s Washington Post (Click here.) wonders what happened that Scott Walker – “the [Marquette] campus’s suit-wearing, Reagan-loving politico – who enjoyed the place so much that he had run for student body president” – what happened that that guy “had left without graduating. To most of the Class of 1990 – and later, to Wisconsin’s political establishment – Walker’s decision to quit college has been a lingering mystery.”
       Farenthold investigates; but if he sets out to solve the mystery, he doesn’t succeed. Nor should he.  Walker’s political legacy at Marquette is a matter of record. As a freshman he was elected to the student senate. He also ran for a higher student government office that same year and lost to a write-in candidate. Undeterred, as a sophomore he ran for student government president and lost again.
       His academic record is also a matter of record.After four years at Marquette, he was still a year’s worth of credits short of graduating.
       But no one really knows why he left, perhaps Walker least of all.

I’ve always thought Scott Walker was a pinhead and now I know how much he thrashed about

Walker talking.

academically – at Marquette, which lists among 

its most famous alumni, another noted pinhead, Joe McCarthy[1] - I’m convinced of it. So, as Farenthold’s article points out, he was interested in other things; so was I – far more important 

than campus politics, not to mention sweeter smelling (for the most part); but I graduated,

from a school with a somewhat better academic reputation than Marquette, and I’m hardly the sharpest knife in the drawer.[2] College is just 

not that hard if you can read and write when you get there – and know your times tables.
       But acucapution aside, does Walker, “a spokeswoman for [whose] political committee declined to comment” for Farenthold, owe any 

of us an explanation? I don’t see it. I’m not revealing what or who smelled sweeter than academic success to me. Nor would I be, if I 

were a candidate.  It’s not so much the embarrassment – not to me but to who (especially considering the what). What is the relevance?
       What we do in our late teens and early twenties is of no weight, if we weren’t a child prodigy or tried as an adult.[3]  It doesn’t explain us, even if we – by some odd stretch of imagination or reason and the truth – can explain it. I’m not even sure, looking at my own crooked career path, I’m interested in what a political candidate in his fifties did in his thirties (or hers).[4]
       On the other hand, given Walker’s experience – what we know of it – at Marquette, we may begin to understand his wanting to defund the University of Wisconsin – that is, to piss off its smart-ass alumni; because it is the smart-asses that will be particularly offended.
       And in the dish best served cold, the odor of others’ offense is the sweetest smell of success.

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[1] But also, in an entirely other head category, Chris Farley, who was leaving just as Walker was arriving.
[2] Farenthold, incidentally, is another matter – a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard, a school with a somewhat better academic reputation than mine.
[3] Or a figure skater or a gymnast, in which case we’ll likely do nothing of weight again.
[4] And I mean this to be read either way: “I don’t care what a political candidate in her fifties did in her thirties.”  Or, “I’m not interested in what a political candidate in his fifties did in her thirties.”

Not Funny

Why I will not, assuming I live, vote for Hillary Clinton.

Uncle Albert, but not his tie.
This is from a recent letter from him
to me. By permission.

How many have I read just this week? – dozens of articles on Hillary: What are her chances against M, against R, against TC, or the clever JB? (Good, good, and good. Yes. So smart money says.) How much money (smart, stupid, and in between) can she command when she announces? When will she announce? But especially, what is she doing in the meantime?  If the articles are correct, and they are by writers that clearly want her to succeed, absolutely nothing of substance.

There is not a word in any of them about policy; everything is about strategy. There is absolutely no interest by the writers or by Hillary in what should we (as a people) do but only in how can we (as a candidate) get people to do what we want them to – that is, to like us, or failing that (because we are not always very likeable), to vote for us nonetheless.

All is about being the nominee, nothing about any stand the nominee might take; all about being elected president, nothing at all about being president, much less doing president, presiding over the republic.  All about how we make this happen for us, nothing about the nation or the world (both "them"!).

Moreover, (I wish I weren't but) I’m convinced: she has never in her life laughed at herself except to make the point that she could if she wanted, or needed, to – to get you to do what she wanted you to .

 

Bowling Them Over

According to Reuters, one Israeli ambassador and two other Israeli diplomats “face possible dismissal for publishing posts on Twitter critical of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”  The tweets come in the midst of Netanyahu’s campaign for a fourth term in office, which includes a stop in Washington, DC on March 3.

Reuters identified the three as Yigal Caspi, envoy to Switzerland, who “retweeted remarks by journalists accusing Netanyahu of endangering already shaky relations with Washington,” Assaf Moran, a political officer at the embassy in India, and Yaron Gamburg, staffer at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem.

“Deputy Foreign Minister Tzachi Hanegbi described the tweets as ‘outrageous,’” adding that “‘These people must identify with all of the state’s positions, regardless of politics, and by the state I mean Bibi.’”

The Reuters article was written by Dan Williams with editing by Luke Baker and Mark Trevelyan, and additions by me.  The original may be found here: http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/02/05/israel-election-diplomats-idINL6N0VF2YR20150205.

I mean Bibi, because létat, c’est lui.  Just ask him.

In related news, two University of Southern California at Rancho Cucamonga social scientists, James Willoughby and Wilfred Patterne, have come up with a standardized test to measure E.Q. (egoism quotient).  The test will measure egoism according to the Willoughby-Patterne scale, whose scores will correlate roughly with the I.Q. measurements.  Thus, 100 will be average, and in this case, healthy; 130 inflated; and anything over150 will be, if left unchecked, insufferable.

Beta testing will soon begin in California, Nevada, and Washington, D.C.  In the meantime, Willoughby and Patterne have recommended to the Arthur Mack Foundation (AMF)* for Ego Genius awards, former president Bill Clinton, Vladimir Putin, and Netanyahu.

“We’re not talking about I.Q.,” Patterne told Go Around Back.  “We’re not talking about ח.Q. (Chutzpah Quotient),” Willoughby added: “This is just about good old fashioned Louis XIV narcissism.”

______________________

*Applications for Ego Grants available at pinsetters.com.

Pie in the Sky

The shape of the 8th

Hoping against hope and kicking against the pricks (to use two favorite phrases from The Apostle, who knew much about hope and more about , , , never mind), a handful of proposals for the U.S. Congress for 2015 - three about rules and two about language:

• that the Speaker of the House and the Majority Leader of the Senate (beginning immediately) never be from neighboring states and that at least one must be from either north of the Mason-Dixon Line or west of the Missouri River. (No part of Ohio south of Delaware can properly be considered as north of the Line.)
• that the Senate be returned to majority rule.
• that in the House the Hastert Rule be repealed. (My Uncle Albert has declared that he is happy to write Dennis “to condole with him on the demise of that piece of political jackassery.”*)
• that the term “in power” (as in “party in power”) be expunged from legislative discourse.  (The “party in power” shall become the majority; it may not be in power, if certain other (even more pious hopes) be realized.
• that “concession” also be expunged and that “compromise” never be uttered with a sigh or weary smile.

For proposals about the much more politically fraught realm of professional and college sports, see here.

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*Uncle Albert wants to know, incidentally, how the current speaker can describe the House of Representatives as “the people’s House,” as long as the rule remains in effect.

Light Into Darkness

Speaking of hope: Three propositions about professional and three more about college sport. (I do not including the obvious, that Major League Baseball give up on the Godcursed designated hitter.) 

• That the National Basketball Association ban tattoos.
• That the National Football League rewrite the rules to treat quarterbacks
  like other backs, wingbacks, fullbacks, tailbacks, halfbacks, corners, and safeties.
• That in return, they be allowed to call their own plays. In fact, they will call their own plays:
            - that electronics be banned from the floor of the stadium.
  __________________

• That the college football “regular” season be limited to 11 games and bowl games be limited to 5, all to be played in Texas, Florida, and Southern California on New Year’s Day.
• That the college basketball “regular” season be limited to 24 games and so-called March madness end by February 28.
• That college basketball coaches coach only during the week and at halftime. None shall be in the arena during the game itself. Further,
            - that no time-outs be allowed in the last three minutes of any half. What
               is this time-out sh** anyway? - sounds like a play-ground rule, like
               backsies.