Saturday, January 19, 2008

WHAT WOULD HARRY EAT?
Imagine the late President Harry S. Truman going over to the House of Representatives’ Cafeteria to shmooze with the boys, and now girls, over some political issue. Harry was the last Democrat President to come from and represent the workingman. He is also known for his blunt language. He would be served Mahi Mahi as his main course and a "fruit and cheese side dish with two small wedges of brie and cheddar, six grapes, two saltines and one strawberry." As he gazes at his plate, I hear blunt language coming forth from Harry. That is delicious.

Nancy Pelosi, Democrat Speaker of the House, vowed there would be many changes in the House of Representatives when she assumed power in January of 2007. Polls say that her leading Congress to its lowest approval rating in history is her biggest change, certainly not an accomplishment. But her most unappetizing change is the gentrification of the House Cafeteria menu to conform to her elite, patrician standards. Out goes Velveeta, favorite of the lower classes, and in comes Brie, the favorite cheese of the French and poseurs in the wine and cheese crowd. The cultural elites have always believed that if you can’t do something of substance, like pass responsible legislation, do something of style that is vacuous but scores points with other elites. So, out goes Jell-O, in come raspberry kiwi tarts. Bye- bye meatloaf and hello mahi mahi (fish). Gone french fries; in sweet potato fennel hash. All are part of Pelosi’s "Greening the Capitol" plan to make the House more environmentally friendly and socially progressive.

I am always surprised that so few pundits recognize that there has been a major realignment of our political parties. The Democrat Party, which once was the party of the workingman, has morphed, since Truman, into the party of the cultural elites, the truly wealthy and hucksters. This triumvirate represents a turnaround from the Party’s three, old values of family, honest work and patriotism. Old liberalism has been jettisoned to favor ‘special’ groups’ rights, welfarism and internationalism, a dynamic trio. Amazingly, as the Democrat Party’s philosophy has changed, it still manages to garner the votes of the Harry Truman Democrats who they have abandoned. The three (what gives? ) main Democrat candidates for President have one thing in common. Not one has ever held a productive job in their lifetimes ( I exclude any job held as paperboy or babysitter). Their careers have been based upon living off the toil of others. Hillary Clinton became an "activist"in college, now considered an honorable profession among elites, and spent most of her early career "agitating" for change while not producing. Then as the wife of a politician, she received plum positions in law firms and seats on boards of directors of companies having business with her Governor husband. John Edwards has had a career extracting money from corporations through many dubious lawsuits; productive contribution is nil. Barrack Obama, like Hillary, went from college right into being an "activist" and then rotated into politics. Do politicians produce anything? Yet they claim to be the standard bearers for the workingman. Harry Truman was an artillery captain and small business haberdasher who knew success and failure unlike today’s candidates who have had artificial successes served to them by a corrupt political system.

Those who control the finances of the Democrat Party are the billionaires, like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and George Soros. Remember that 95% of Ivy League college professors are Democrats who dream up policies, which in turn are sold as the Democrat program to the American people by Hollywood celebrities, such as Barbra Streisand, Sean Penn, Michael Moore and Oliver Stone. The common thread is that even though no cultural elite has anything in common with the workingman, he or she deigns to know what is best and the workingman better obey.

Nancy Pelosi’s gentrification of the House of Representatives serves the interests of the elites as the common workers complain that the higher prices affect their pocketbooks. The reply seems to be "eat your veggies, we know best"; besides, the changes are politically and environmentally correct ( the light bulbs have been changed too) so knowing that everything is biodegradable should make you feel warm and fuzzy. The biodegradable straws have caused some problems. They wilt when put into a warm drink causing some staffers to muse that they need a dose of Viagra to straighten them out. A grumpy Republican Rep. Boehner, of Ohio, complains, " I like real food, food I can pronounce the name of." Possibly he refers to the arugula, jicama, frittati, focaccia, turkey escabeche and pepper coulis. In the liberal view, these are truly ‘choices’ because if Mr. Boehner doesn’t like them he can go hungry or sneak out to McDonald’s which, unfortunately, with its supposedly unhealthy, junk food menu, is already on the liberals’ hit list.

I anxiously await Speaker Pelosi’s dress code for House members. The avant garde San Francisco ‘look’ usually calls for lots of heavy gold chains, ear and lip piercings, pastel suits and loud color print shirts. If that’s what the men will look like I wonder what the code will be for women members. If the Party of the workingman dressed Harry Truman today, wouldn’t it be a drag?