AddieStan

Your blogstress is pleased to inform her readers that she has received a copy of the GOP playbook, signed by Sen. Rick "Man on Dog" Santorum , for looting the Social Security program. Alas, she is still struggling with the technology that would allow her to place this 120-plus-page book in the Breakaway Republic. (She will figure it soon, she promises. Or, rather, one of those very smart geeks in her thrall will.) In the meantime, should you wish to have a copy, please e-mail the Webwench , and she will happily send it your way.

Though your cybertrix has a torrent of bon mots to offer on this inaugural occasion, she has suffered such daunting technical difficulties while blogging the festivities, that she is giving up until later. Do check in later, though, for some amusing anecdotes.

Whoa--some benediction, huh? When's the last time you heard a political benediction that asks the Creator for deliverance from the "Evil One"? (Who we talkin' 'bout here? Satan? Osama bin Laden?) Rev. Kirby John Caldwell also offered an act of confession in an appeal for forgiveness "for being ensnarled in petty partisan politics." Your Webwench suspects that Tom DeLay has purchased an indulgence on that count. And how comforting to find the eschatological subtext continued in this celebration of freedom with the reverend's reference to the "latter days" of Americans, which he said would be better than our "former days." In the words of Robert Anton Wilson in The Illuminatus Trilogy , let's hope the administration fails in what could be viewed as a plan to "immanentize the eschaton."

Your blogstress is having a hard time discerning which lines in the president's speech were the creepiest: his reference to "a day of fire," which reads like the Book of Revelations, or his invocation of "a new order for the ages," which invokes the Illuminati. (Must be a Skull & Bones thing.)

Were the president's second inaugural speech not delivered with a tongue planted firmly in cheek, it might actually be an uplifting speech--at least at this juncture, to quote his dad. But as this administration chips away at the Bill of Rights, what does one make of a line like: "Rights must be more than the grudging consent of dictators."?

The rector of St. John's Episcopal Church, apparently thinks a 19th Century Christian Socialist named Francis Bellamy was among them. He's the one who wrote the words: "one nation [under God], indivisible, with liberty and justice for all" that the good reverend attributed to the Founding Fathers.

Okay, so Cheney's veep again, having just been sworn in by House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). Let's make a toast to the president's health.

Well, Lott's address, which seemed to feature the word "freedom" quite a lot, was so forgettable that your Webwench has already forgotten what he said.

Your blogstress is pleased to report that she is yet to see a sniper on her roof, living, as she does, several blocks away from the U.S. Capitol Building. Her television, however, is turned up to the level customary in nursing homes in order to overcome the drone of helicopters overhead. His Smugness, the president of the United States, has just taken his place in the inaugural viewing stand, awaiting his call to the podium. Note to readers: Is you cybertrix the only one who finds irony in the fact that the nation's capital is in virtual lockdown for something called "A Celebration of Freedom?" Lott has just assumed the podium. Let's listen, shall we?

Thanks to a well-placed friend, below you will find the original White House e-mail on Social Security reform that is currently kicking up some dust in the media: -----Original Message----- From: Wehner, Peter H. Sent: Monday, January 03, 2005 2:57 PM Subject: Some Thoughts on Social Security I wanted to provide to you our latest thinking (not for attribution) on Social Security reform. I don't need to tell you that this will be one of the most important conservative undertakings of modern times. If we succeed in reforming Social Security, it will rank as one of the most significant conservative governing achievements ever. The scope and scale of this endeavor are hard to overestimate. Let me tell you first what our plans are in terms of sequencing and political strategy. We will focus on Social Security immediately in this new year. Our strategy will probably include speeches early this month to establish an important premise: the current system is heading for an ic...

All right, dear readers, your blogstress has learned her lesson. Never again will she declare her breakaway republic to be a spleen-free zone , the resultant loneliness being more than she can bear. For ever since she asked her devotees to spare the spleen and pass the erudition, she has received not one bit of postable correspondence from her once enthusiastic public. Today's proclamation, therefore, will declare AddieStan.com to be a confection concocted with Spleenda, a low-invective derivative of spleen that is safe for consumption by cardiac patients, bi-polars, bi-sexuals, hypertensives, hyperbolics and just plain old hot-heads. Her readers will recall that, in the wake of the horrifying results of the presidential election, your Webwench despaired of the fact that the highly articulate outrage of Very Smart People in the upper reaches of medialand was actually playing into the hands of the righties with its contemptuous portrayals of the moralists who voted for ...

Over the course of the last week, your blogstress has received all manner of angry, amusing and rueful missives and graphics from her faithful readers. Bai Lon, our beloved White Dragon, was the first to send the now-famous "Jesusland" map (admittedly funny); Beltway Breaker sent some witty screeds from the London Daily Mirror , the fabulous Frankie G. (your blogstress's partner in musical crimes) passed on a vast array of visual gags and expressions. Others sent evidence of rage and frustration, as well. Though the impulse to post on these was strong, and your Webwench went so far as to request links to much of the amusing material, in the end she refrained, momentarily obeying the Victoria's Secret angel on her shoulder who whispered, "What does this do for us?" There being no shortage of cyberspace available, indeed designed, for the venting of spleen, your cybertrix has declared, for the time being, her breakaway republic to be a spleen-free zon...

As Arlen Specter (R-Penn.), upon winning his fifth term to the U.S. Senate, prepared to assume the chairmanship of the chamber's powerful Judiciary Committee, he let it be known that he was in no mood to pussyfoot around. When asked about the kind of jurists likely to ascend to the Supreme Court, Specter said, "When you talk about judges who would change the right of a woman to choose, or overturn Roe v. Wade, I think that is unlikely." The media promptly reported Specter's comments as a warning to the president when considering nominations, and the right went nuts. James Dobson, creator of the Focus on the Family empire, said on ABC's "This Week," that Specter "is a problem, and he must be derailed." According to the Washington Post 's Susan Schmidt : Senate offices were swamped with calls about Specter late last week, and the uproar is "not going to go away," Dobson said. "Republican senators know they've got a probl...

Okay, America, so we're screwed. Time to put on our thinking caps and figure out, what next? Hey, your blogstress has this idea: How 'bout organizing around something other than an election? The liberals, progressives, and people who just like having some civil rights, did a mighty fine job of organizing folks and getting them to the polls. It would be a shame if, like too many liberal endeavors, that was declared "Mission Accomplished," because we know that the real war has just begun--so strip off those flight suits, kids. One thing your cybertrix is hearing over and over again from people just back from organizing in the field is what an uplifting and inspiring experience it was. It seems not to matter where they were--Columbus, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, East Cleveland, Seattle--they've all come back in a state of subdued bliss. Let us not forget how Pat Robertson and Ralph Reed built the Christian Coalition out of the mailing lists from Robertson's...

As much as it pains your Webwench to extend the ever-widening platform afforded the we've-got-a-three-percent-mandate-so-get-outta-the-way other side, it would be unfair of your blogstress not to commend Barry Johnson of The Hopeful Cynic for his thorough examination of why the exit polls were so off the mark in the presidential election. Since polls drive so much of the campaign process, this is a must-read for those who wish to consider the mechanics of confusion. Read Johnson's piece on the polls Of course, your blogstress prefers to believe that the exit polls were actually correct, and the voting machines just wrong. (Which is actually possible, even in a republic as great as ours.) More likely, though, Bush did really win by his slender margin--by boxing up people's fears and selling them in swing states as religion. NOTE: Why can't these self-described Christians just read the New Testament, and do as Jesus instructed them? As our friend, the Sp...

WASHINGTON, D.C.--This morning, 9:00 a.m., intersection of North Capitol and D Streets, NW: On a bicycle, a sixty-something lady in a billowy raincoat of Wedgewood blue, pedaling away in navy-blue nylons and matching pumps. Nice legs.

Our friend Mallemaroking sends this note of encouragement: Somehow, we will muddle through this. I love this country to the depths of my soul and I refuse to believe that BushCo is what we are about. We will sail to a better place and fulfill the opportunity that was given us. Of this, I have no doubt.

WASHINGTON, D.C.--Please forgive, dear readers, your delinquent cybertrix for being a bit behind the eightball in posting all your brilliant comments. You all wrote with such a fury, and your Webwench is presently not up to doing much more than lolling about the Oppo Factory in her cat suit. Do bear with.

From your blogtress's good friend, Deep South (who had the misfortune of lending his well-muscled form to one of your Webwench's many ill-planned moves between apartments), comes this: As of today, November 3, 2004, my life is proceeding along happily with the assumption that President Bartlett (a.k.a. Martin Sheen) retains control of the White House. I can rest assured that he will use force abroad only as a last resort, that he will attempt to unite the country, that he will maintain a balanced budget, and that he is acutely aware of history and the true dynamics that drive the world. I will get my news only from NBC on Wednesdays , at 9:00-10:00 p.m. Denial is bliss. Deep goes on to rhetorically ask whether reality could really be that much worse than his alternate televised universe, only to arrive at the conclusion that, well, it could--and probably would--be, but only should he wish to marry the man of his dreams ("I'd have to FIND one first, right...