Bye, bye Bernie? We'll see.

This week's news was hardly a shocker: "Bernie Sanders kicks off 2024 Presidential Campaign!"

This was lost in the announcement by Sanders that he is ending his 2020 campaign. But, as usual – like 2016 and long before 2024 – Bernie Sanders is not going to go gently into that good night. Besides repeating his stump speech, he said that he would continue to collect delegates between now and the convention for the purpose of power; to "exert significant influence;" and that he would "work" with Joe Biden. (There was no mention of an endorsement or even "support.") Yep – this was Sanders' signal to his supporters to cast a vote for ANYONE but the Democratic candidate.

Remember 2016? When Sanders harangued Hillary Clinton all the way to the convention despite the forgone conclusion that she would be the nominee weeks and weeks BEFORE the convention? Well, get ready for a repeat performance. That is unless, of course, Sanders decides to jump the Dems boat and run as an Independent, which would have made more sense in the first place given that he has presented himself as an independent for something like 35 of his 40 years in public service. But that probably won't happen and we'll continue to witness this phony insist that he's the one who should be on a national presidential election ballot as a Democrat-Socialist. Democrat-Socialist. Jesus. Think about that. That's a goddam contradiction in terms if there ever was one, anyway; it's like somebody asking you your favorite ice cream and you responding "chocolatevanilla."

Unfortunately, Bernie can't have it both ways. If he wants state institutions to give away their college educations, he's got to go full-blown Socialist. (Free college in a democratic society? That doesn't work.) Of course, the first thing he'd have to do as President/Comrade would be to shred that democracy-driven U.S. Constitution and start over, creating a document that sets the rules Socialist style – when the government runs the show rather than (ideally in a democracy) the people. This would align Sanders with Trump, who also wants to run the show. Of course, this isn't the only thing these two loud-mouthed New Yorkers have in common. Since he ran for President in 2016, Bernie has called for a revolution – a "major change" in the White House, as he said recently. Sound familiar? Right. So much for change.

In truth, Sanders and Trump are very much alike. And by the way, I first made this claim long before Trump was elected in one of the biggest surprises of the last half-century, going back to the fall of 2015 when I compared them BOTH to William Jennings Bryan. Both Trump and Sanders had tapped into a lunatic fringe of society by delivering promises that would never – COULD never – be kept.

At the beginning of March, things looked pretty good for Bernie. But it's different now. And he'll spend the rest of his life trying to figure out just how he didn't get those votes, blaming everyone but himself. (Doesn't THIS sound familiar? An out-of-sorts, self-serving, fantasy-filled New Yorker who refuses to accept blame for any problems that surround him.)

First, Bernie remains perpetually pissed at Big Media and the Democratic Establishment (of which, incidentally, he's been a part of for four decades.) And for weeks now, he's been unhappy with his principal constituency – the youth vote that he has not only coveted, but has been boasting about for five years. They just didn't show up.

Despite all the warning of the problems inherent in a scrambled, elongated process caused by supposedly too many candidates, the Democrats have their nominee. And they could do worse than Joe Biden. Mostly because we now have the contest that Trump has feared most: Joe vs. The Donald. Now if Bernie can just keep from fucking it up for the Democrats. Again.

Admittedly, Bernie didn't screw things up all by himself four years ago – he had a lot of help:
- Those righteous numbskulls who hated Trump but opted to cast a vote for one of the third-party yahoos
- The black vote which didn't show up like it did for Obama in 2008
- Hillary's poor campaign strategy
- The Russian interference
- The Trump Phenomenon

They all combined to put Trump in the White House. And in 2020, there will be no Sanders Phenomenon. The power has been consolidated; the alliances have been formed; and the Democrats now have a consensus candidate, much to the anger of Sanders and his minions.

[Quick side question: If Biden had been the lone moderate, would Bernie still be blaming the establishment? Probably.]

Many have been surprised to see Joe Biden end up as the nominee, claiming he ran a poor campaign. Did he? In truth, he seems to have gotten it just about right. And despite Bernie's claim during their lone solo debate that "I've got your back" should Biden get the nomination, don't count on it. We've already heard that one, Bernie, and we're not gonna buy it this time around.

The struggle continues, indeed.

Little Lindsey

I got a big bang out of Donald Trump's recent comments about the relationship – some sort of pseudo love affair, to hear the idiot Trump's accusation – between Mueller and Comey. Hell, at different points in time, Trump has been equally smitten with each of them. But what really makes the accusation interesting is that it's been voiced by a guy with his own dubious sexual history, both distant and recent.

Currently – and this is no big secret – there is clearly something special between our current President and U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, whose infatuation with Trump goes beyond professional admiration or mere party loyalty; it's obviously a deep-seated, very personal love.

Think about it: Here's Graham, the life-long bachelor without a proclaimed love in the world. He's always longed for someone to look up to in politics, but in his nearly three decades in public office, has really never had anyone. George W. Bush, the only Republican president during his time before Trump? Give me a break. John McCain? Well, they served as senators together, but were clearly cut from different cloth. McCain was the outspoken, self-proclaimed maverick, whereas Graham, heretofore, was the soft-spoken, quiet one. However, it seems that Trump has brought out the bitch in Little Lindsey, and not a moment too soon; Trump needs someone to back him up. And who better than his doe-eyed golf partner?

Even if poor, innocent Lindsey didn't know about Trump's past life of roaming the underbelly of New York city in the late '70s and early '80s with one of the most notorious closet queens ever, it doesn't matter now. Trump has given Graham something he never had – someone to love.

You get the idea.

Before Lindsey, Trump had Roy Cohn, the vicious attorney who railed against homosexuals then proceeded to die of AIDS in the early days of the epidemic. And it WASN'T because Cohn was an intravenous drug user. Cohn claimed at the time that liver cancer was taking him, but that was a lie.

By now, two-plus years into the Trump presidency, it's been discussed to death how Cohn was Trump's business/political mentor. But given the personal nature of the two men – hell, each is the only friend the other ever had – theirs was surely more than a business relationship, right?

In the immediate wake of Trump's association with Cohn all those years ago, with all of those voices a'waggin', Trump needed to do SOMETHING to protect what image he had and decided to go straight for the Trophy Wife. And, of course, has continued this habit for longer than any of the three women would like to remember, despite the rumor that has been floating around New York City for decades. Thankfully for Trump (and Cohn, who never really did come out of the closet, as it were), they were in a place – New York City – where people just really don't care about such things.

But throughout Red-state America, they do. And considering the conservative notions that pervade this nation of ours, one has to wonder how Trump's core constituents would feel if they knew what he REALLY likes to do when the lights go out.

Stormy Daniels is the least of it.

The Hateful Hypocrites of Cole County

Today's front page of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch features not one, not two, but THREE stories – all above the fold – on the recent anti-choice/anti-freedom/anti-women legislation that's sweeping portions of this sin-inflicted land of ours. Here in Missouri, over the long holiday weekend, the wise guys in Jefferson City passed their own such law. And by Jesus, they almost got it right, so to speak, ("right," that is if your mindset aligns with that of the He-man Women Haters Club), but they felt compelled to include an exception. What hypocrites.

This reminds me of my own macabre respect for none other than former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum. While we stand on opposite sides of the political spectrum, I've always admired his conviction when it came to his anti-choice stance: NO EXCEPTIONS. Not for rape or incest, not in the event of a diagnosis of a physical or mental abnormality, not for a victim of human trafficking, not even in the case of a medical emergency concerning the mother. NO EXCEPTIONS! NONE!!! A tough stance, and one that very few anti-choice politicians have the guts to take. That's because these politicians really don't give as much a damn about "protecting human life," as they do about controlling women. And by offering up certain "exceptions" to their anti-choice legislation, they're playing politics with the very embryo they claim to be protecting.

The Best of Intentions

There is probably no politician about whom I have been so conflicted over the past 25 years than George H. W. Bush. His death last week reminded me of this conundrum.

There have been a lot of knee-jerk reactions to Bush's death; not uncommon in such a situation. Typically, I extend my usual 24-hour waiting period by a number of days in the event of such a high-falutin' death. This allows time for a reality check after the initial sorrow. Hell, both Nixon and Reagan were remembered as choir boys in the hours after their death. However, as the "death week" wore on, we remembered that one was kicked out of office for his attempt to undermine the goddam Constitution while the other came within an '80s megabite of being put on trial for giving guns to the enemy. (Somehow, Reagan weaseled out of that one.) Anyhow, I like to give these things REAL time before commenting. In the case of Bush, the wait is over.

Amazingly, Bush the Elder escaped the taint of both of these political scandals – two of the biggest in American political history. His low-key demeanor and his talent for flying under the radar helped. And even when he bore ultimate responsibility – the choices of the idiot Quayle and the thoughtless ninny Clarence Thomas, as well as the decision to have Lee Atwater run his campaign – he rarely bore the brunt of blame. Even when he compromised his inherent principles and changed sides on the abortion issue in 1980 to secure a place on the Republican ticket as VP, there just wasn't much of a noise made. And this was AFTER he'd called out Reagan for the sham that was Voodoo economics, proving that he could be ahead of his time.

George was never the win-at-all-cost political monster that Nixon was, but he knew how to PLAY THE GAME. He was both a ferocious fighter and, at times, remarkably diffident. He never lived down looking at this watch during a '92 debate as a sign that he was "out of touch."

Bush was always an affable fellow and a gentle soul, his intermittent overgrown frat boy humor notwithstanding. He's certainly a retroactive breath of fresh air, given the loudmouthed peckerwood currently wasting space in the Oval Office.

It's always been hard for me not to like him, even though I never voted for the man; there are many things I admired about him. Certainly, his Navy service; his willingness to partner with Clinton on humanitarian relief initiatives; his ability to admit a mistake. This ability came to the fore in '92 when he reversed his "no new taxes" promise because he knew it would be good for the nation. He also knew it would cost him the election. He did it anyway. VERY admirable.

I even admired his efforts with regard to Iraq and Saddam. It was the right thing to do and he did it in the right way. Bush's speech on that January night in '91 announcing the war – complete with the details of the strategic thinking he and his team conducted, and the decision he had made – remains a masterpiece of SERIOUS political communication, as opposed to some "shining city on a hill" crap.

Of course, Iran Contra is where George and I part ways. We may never know the degree to which he was involved in the decision making on that one. And it remains a significant demarcation point in the quest to define Bush either as a devious co-conspirator or an innocent bystander.

In the end, thought, I'm convinced that some 90% of the moves he made – right or wrong, good or bad – were done with the best of intentions for the nation rather than himself. And for a politician, that's pretty rare.