My Favorite Survey Ever

C-SPAN recently released the results of its 2009 Historians Survey of Presidential Leadership, in which sixty-five presidential historians ranked all of the previous Presidents on ten attributes of leadership. Mr. Bush was ranked 36th out of the 42 former occupants of the White House. (I obviously feel that he should be ranked last but you take what you can get.) And although Mr. Bush ranks below such Presidents as Herbert Hoover (Great Depression) and Richard Nixon (Watergate), here are the six individuals below him:

37. Millard Fillmore: As part of the Compromise of 1850, Fillmore signed the Fugitive Slave Act, which declared that all runaway slaves be returned to their masters.
38. Warren Harding: After Harding appointed many of his allies to prominent political positions, various scandals erupted, most infamously the Teapot Dome scandal.
39. William Henry Harrison: Delivering an inaugural address which lasted almost two hours and contained 8,444 words (the longest in history), Harrison did so in a cold and wet day without a hat or overcoat. As a result, Harrison passed away on his 32nd day in office. Yes, Mr. Bush was able to beat someone whose presidency lasted just over a month.
40. Franklin Pierce: By signing the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, Pierce provided settlers in those territories with the ability to determine if slavery would be allowed within their boundaries.
41. Andrew Johnson: An ardent white supremacist, Johnson opposed multiple initiatives of Reconstruction, including the 14th Amendment. Due to his actions, Johnson was the first U.S. President to be impeached. (Oh, that sure would have been nice during the last eight years.)
42. James Buchanan: Aside from numerous other poor decisions, Buchanan's inability to avoid the Civil War has been assessed as the worst single failure by any President of the United States.

In regards to the specific categories, Mr. Bush is ranked next-to-last in the area of international relations, just above William Henry Harrison (yes, the guy who died a month into his presidency). For economic management, Mr. Bush is only ranked above Herbert Hoover and James Buchanan.

This Unfortunate Day in History

On February 21, 1965, Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little) was assassinated while speaking at a meeting of the Organization of Afro-American Unity in New York City. After being shot seventeen times by three members of the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X was pronounced dead shortly after he arrived at the Columbus University Medical Center.

There are two astounding aspects regarding Malcolm X and, more importantly, his death. First and foremost, the reason that Malcolm X was murdered is because he publicly spoke out against the Nation of Islam after leaving the organization due to his fundamental issues with the Nation of Islam and its leader, Elijah Muhammad. And one of the individuals behind the assassination plot (regardless of his denials) was Louis Farrakhan, who is now the Supreme Minister and National Representative of the Nation of Islam. With that being said, I am not sure if you could consider this quote from Farrakhan in 1993 a denial: "Did you teach Malcolm? Did you clean up Malcolm? Did you put Malcolm out before the world? Was Malcolm your traitor or was he ours? And if we dealt with him like a nation deals with a traitor, what the hell business is it of yours? You just shut your mouth and stay out of it. Because in the future, we are going to become a nation. And a nation gotta be able to deal with traitors, cutthroats and turncoats." Bringing up Farrakhan leads to my second point. If certain members of the African American community placed more emphasis on Malcolm X's life (both before the Nation of Islam and after) and embraced his views, the current black leaders would be a whole lot different than Jesse Jackson, Alan Keyes, Al Sharpton and, of course, Farrakhan.

Recommended Films of the Week

If you would like to be both entertained and scared shitless at the same time, I highly recommend two documentaries available for viewing now. Recently released on DVD, the first documentary, "Religulous", stars and was written by comedian Bill Maher. The second film, "Right America: Feeling Wronged - Some Voices from the Campaign Trail", is airing on HBO right now. This documentary was written and directed by Alexandra Pelosi, who is the daughter of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, (D-CA), the current Speaker of the House. (However, don't hold that against Alexandra.)

Oh, How Times Change

During the presidential race, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin announced that 17-year-old daughter Bristol and her boyfriend Levi Johnston were expecting a baby and asked for everyone to "respect our daughter and Levi's privacy". It didn't take long for many individuals on the right (Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, etc.) to claim that the "liberal media" was not adhering to that request. For example, Nancy Pfotenhauer, an advisor to John McCain's presidential campaign, uttered this during an episode of "America's Election HQ" on FOX News: "Shame on them for trying to make a political issue out of a private family matter. And I think in the end that ultimately they just hurt their own credibility when they do this. The American people are kind and understanding and this is real life and they know that. And I'm sure their hearts go out to the family. Their hearts go out to the young woman who is having this played out on national television."

Privacy for a young mother and father? I can certainly agree with that. However, if privacy is so important to this teenage couple, then why did Gov. Palin and her daughter conduct a two-part interview earlier this week with Greta Van Susteren on FOX News's "On the Record with Greta Van Susteren"? I'm just speculating here but maybe it's because the presidential race was decided in November. With that being said, we all know that, if one of President Obama's daughters had reached trailer trash age and announced that she was pregnant during the presidential campaign, the McCain/Palin camp and the media (both liberal and conservative) would be talking about that story non-stop. By the way, did you happen to see Bristol's response to a question from Van Susteren regarding contraception? "I think abstinence is, like -- like, the -- I don't know how to put it -- like, the main -- everyone should be abstinent or whatever but it's not realistic at all." Priceless.

I Couldn't Make This Stuff Up If I Tried

During recent broadcasts of "The Rush Limbaugh Show", Limbaugh has obviously been discussing the economic stimulus bill. However, aside from his general aversion to the stimulus package, he shockingly had this to say about the legislation as well: "[The Democrats] have reformatted the bill. They've made it a PDF file when they posted it. Now, for those of you that don't use computers, basically what that means is that it cannot be keyword searched. A PDF file is essentially a picture of a page and so you can read every page but you cannot keyword search it. It's not a text file as legislation normally is, as posted on these public web sites. They don't want anybody knowing what's in this. They want it happening as fast as possible so nobody can know what's in it."

Apparently his delusions of grandeur are slowly eating his brain. Or maybe he just forgot that the air of secrecy left with the previous administration. The fact he doesn't know (but more than likely he does) that you can simply use Ctrl + F to search for a keyword in a PDF file, including the economic stimulus bill (http://appropriations.house.gov/pdf/Recovery_Bill_Div_A.pdf). But, Rush, don't take my word for it. Here is what the Adobe Help Resource Center has to say about the search function: "You can run a simple search, looking for a search term within a single file, or you can run a more complex search, looking for various kinds of data in one or more PDFs. You can run a search using either the Search window or the Find toolbar. In either case, Acrobat searches the PDF body text, layers, form fields and digital signatures. You can also include bookmarks and comments in the search." Hopefully that clears things up for Limbaugh and the other two members of the U.S. population with electricity who are baffled by basic computer technology. Rush, let me know if you need help sending an e-mail.

Typical Pathetic Hypocrisy From the Right

On Friday, the United States House of Representatives thankfully approved the economic stimulus bill, otherwise known as the American Recovery and Re-Investment Tax Act of 2009 or H.R. 1. Not surprisingly, some Republican members decided to conduct a little conservative grandstanding, regardless of how duplicitous it may have been.

First, Rep. John Mica (R-FL), the ranking Republican member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, praised President Obama for designating $8 million in funding within the stimulus plan, applauding "President Obama's recognition that high speed rail should be part of America's future". However, in his press release, Mica did not bother to point out that he actually voted against the stimulus bill, along with every other Republican member of the House of Representatives. When Justin Harclerode, the Republican committee spokesperson, was asked to explain why Mica did not mention his opposition to the measure, Harclerode simply stated that "I guess it just wasn't the focus".

Next in line was Rep. Donald Young (R-AK), who is just another Alaskan politician with absolutely no clue. Famous for his strong support of numerous unnecessary earmarks (including funding for the Bridge to Nowhere), his ties to imprisoned lobbyist Jack Abramoff and the federal investigation for his alleged acceptance of bribes and illegal gifts, Young boasted after the House vote that he had "won a victory for the Alaska Native contracting program and other Alaska small business owners last night in H.R. 1". Apparently one provision within the bill would have made it hard for minority businesses to win contracts and, according to Young himself, he supposedly "worked with members on the other side of the aisle to make the case for these programs and was able to get the provision pulled from the bill". But guess what? Young didn't vote for the bill either. In actuality, Young claimed that "This bill was not a stimulus bill. It was a vehicle for pet projects and that's wrong." And if anyone should know about pet projects, it is Young. As a matter of fact, Young informed The McClatchy Co. that he would have included earmarks or local projects in the bill if he had been permitted to do so. But President Obama is still the one that we need to fear?

New Versions of Benedict Arnold

Earlier today, two prominent Republicans decided to continue the game of dirty politics typically played by the right wing. On CNN's "State of the Union With John King", Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) claimed that President Obama's political strategy is off to "a bad beginning because it wasn't what we promised the American people, what President Obama promised the American people". And then on ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos", Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) declared that "If this is going to be bipartisanship, the country's screwed. I know bipartisanship when I see it."

No one should be at all surprised that these comments were uttered by two sore losers from the presidential race: (1) McCain and (2) Graham, who served as national co-chairman for McCain's campaign and constantly wore a Cheshire cat grin while standing behind McCain at numerous campaign stops. However, you will have to forgive me when I say that their words are complete bullshit. Let's not forget that so far Obama has retained the Bush nominated Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense, selected Rep. Ray LaHood (R-IL) as his Secretary of Transportation and nominated Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) for the role of Secretary of Commerce. Of course, it is important to note that, although Gregg personally contacted President Obama a few weeks ago and actually offered his name for the Commerce post, Gregg eventually withdrew himself from consideration, stating that "It just became clear to me that it would be very difficult, day in and day out, to serve in this cabinet". Well, why then did you express interest in serving on President Obama's cabinet? Have you not been watching the news for the last two years? (This whole thing seems awfully suspicious to me, with the Republicans trying to take some of the focus away from President Obama's economic stimulus bill and making him look bad in the process.)

Speaking of the stimulus bill, McCain's and Graham's comments were directed at the supposedly lack of bipartisanship with that piece of legislation, despite the fact that Obama conducted meetings with Republican governors and numerous members of Congress at both the White House and Capitol Hill. (Obviously President Obama should not be blamed for McCain, Graham and other Republicans picking and choosing when they want to participate in negotiations.) At the same time, the two grumpy old men don't bother to mention the alternative stimulus measure drafted by Republican senators without any input from Democrats. I should also point out that Senate Democrats previously removed two spending programs ($75 million for anti-smoking programs and $400 million for the prevention of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases) from the stimulus bill as a "symbolic gesture" to Republicans.

Let's Hope Their Mothers Weren't Watching

During his first presidential press conference from earlier this week, President Obama was asked two questions by Helen Thomas, a columnist for the Hearst Corp. and member of the White House press corps: "Mr. President, do you think that Pakistan and -- are maintaining the safe havens in Afghanistan for these so called terrorists? And, also, do you know of any country in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons?"

Aside from reporting on every President since John Kennedy, Thomas was the first female officer of the National Press Club, the first female member and president of the White House Correspondents' Association and the first female member of The Gridiron Club. However, apparently those impressive credentials are not enough for Bill O'Reilly. On "The O'Reilly Factor" from later that evening, O'Reilly compared Thomas's voice to "the Wicked Witch of the East". He also stated that "If I were Obama, I would have poured water on her and she'd dissolve". If O'Reilly actually had the ability to use his brain at all times, he would easily remember that (1) the Wicked Witch of the East did not speak in "The Wizard of Oz" because Dorothy's house lands on her in the beginning of the movie and, in turn, (2) the Wicked Witch of the West is the one who melts when water is thrown on her.

During a later segment on the same episode, O'Reilly asked journalist Bernald Goldberg if his comments regarding Thomas had been too harsh. I guess not. Why do I say that? Well, Goldberg had this to add: "Helen Thomas's fifteen minutes were up during the Lincoln administration."

Wolves in Sheep's Clothing, Part II

Earlier this week, Wells Fargo abruptly canceled an expensive trip to Las Vegas for numerous employees after receiving criticism for misusing $25 billion in economic assistance that the company received from the federal bailout plan in October. Initially defending the "conference" as a company tradition, Wells Fargo reported that it had booked twelve nights (starting yesterday) at the Wynn Las Vegas and the Encore Wynn Las Vegas hotels. Before abandoning the plans for the trip, a spokesperson from Wells Fargo claimed that this was a "unique opportunity" for the company to "focus on continuing to do all we can for U.S. homeowners". The trip was to come on the heels of the news that Wells Fargo lost more than $2.3 billion in the last three months of 2008.

Rooms at both hotels are consistently among the most expensive in Las Vegas and both properties contain high end retail stores, such as Chanel and Manolo Blahnik. With a total cost of $2.3 billion, the decor of the Encore Wynn Las Vegas includes a 27-foot Asian dragon made from 90,000 Swarovski crystals. Previous all expense paid trips for Wells Fargo employees have included helicopter rides, wine tastings, horseback rides in Puerto Rico, camel rides and fortune tellers. Aside from a private concert by Jimmy Buffett in the Bahamas for more than one thousand of the company's top employees and guests, these trips have also included performances by Cher, Jay Leno and Huey Lewis. When employees returned to their rooms each night, there was a new gift on their pillows.

On another note, Morgan Stanley, another bailout recipient, had been planning to send its top employees to a hotel in Monte Carlo this April. However, that trip, as well as a similar company event in the Bahamas, was cancelled this week.