previous 36 found Keech manning the press boxes and trodding the sidelines under the employ of the Greensboro News & Record (and Daily News before the name change). During that span he put together as impressive a body of work as anyone this side of Al Thomy, yet, before last week, my name had never been referenced under his byline.
And quite a reference it was, albeit in a left-handed sort of way. Keech wondered aloud how I had managed to slip through security on the Iraq leg of the Bush Legacy Tour and hurl a pair of shoes at the object of my disaffection (whose name should be changed from Duh to Duck, except that that would be an affront to mallards everywhere).
Keech, true to his sportswriter heritage, impugned both my velocity and location, to wit: “His accuracy reminded me of Tim Wakefield on a bad day,” alluding to the Red Sox knuckleballer who has been known to serve up some fat 60 mph grapefruits when his knuckler isn’t doing whatever it is that knucklers are supposed to do. Yet, contrary to what my friend and mentor implied, I can prove that I was not the Hush Puppy hurler in question.
For all his heroism, the Iraqi reporter made several tactical blunders that I would not have. First of all, I would’ve gotten a couple of rows closer to the podium and moved a few seats to the side, cutting down on his reaction time and forcing him to use his peripheral vision. Also, I would have had both my shoes off before tossing the first one, in effect, pitching from the stretch after hurling the first shoe from the windup.
I would have set him up with a Sal Maglie-esque close shave, and while he was still hearing the chin music, plunked him with a Clemens-style high hard one betwixt the ears. Nothing like a Nettleton up side the noggin to knock some sense into such a no-nothing nudnick, eh? But since my new BFF, Muntazer al-Zaidi, flung such a dying quail at the lame duck, by Monday he was back on the domestic leg of the Let’s Rewrite History And Pretend Nobody’s Looking Tour. Proving yet again that the bubble in which he resides is impenetrable, he made one of the most galling, jaw-dropping statements since saying in an April 14, 2004 interview that he couldn’t recall making any mistakes since 9-11. In a creampuff interview with some sycophant from the conservative thinktank, American Enterprise Institute, he was explaining the thought process (if you can call it that) of why he was still fiddling while Detroit burned. After stumbling and bumbling through a non-explanation,
he then made this astounding statement: ”And frankly, there’s one other
consideration, and that is, I feel an obligation to my successor. I’ve
thought about what it would be like for me to become president during
this period. I have an — I believe that good policy is not to dump him
a major catastrophe in his first day of office.”
That’s
verbatim, brothers and sisters, he feels an obligation not to dump a
major catastrophe on Obama! Somehow this individual has the ability to
ignore every provable fact that his administration has not only not
solved any problems but has created and/or exacerbated dozens of them.
His reign has been one unending catastrophe.
The one constant
of his cabal has been that every Duh-cision has been for the benefit of
big business at the expense of the middle class. Deregulation and lack
of accountability and oversight is precisely why we find ourselves on
the precipice of economic disaster.
It would not occur to him that the global warming he refused to admit to
for seven years and had his flunkies falsify scientific claims to
lessen its seeming severity is courting catastrophe. Even now, he is
passing midnight laws to allow drilling next to national parks and
dozens of other probusiness, anti-environment loopholes.
Hey,
how about Gitmo? Who is going to have to figure out how to deal with
hundreds of prisoners who’ve been denied due process for seven years?
Certainly not Bush, because he did not know how to deal with it, so he
played Kick the Can. Are our borders, ports, nuclear facilities,
railroads, airports, etc. any more secure from a terrorist attack now
than the day after 9-11? And, for that matter, are we any closer to
catching the perpetrator, that bin Laden fellow? Oh, and weren’t there
a couple of wars still hanging, Duh? Where’s a Weejun when you need one?
Ogi may be reached at ogiman100@ yahoo.com and seen on “Triad Today” hosted by Jim Longworth on ABC 45 at 6:30 a.m. Fridays and on WMYV 48 at 10 p.m. Sundays.
