There was a story in the New York Times this week about a real estate agent who makes $60,000 per year but cannot get health insurance for less than $27,000 because she once had cancer. One sixth of Americans do not have health insurance, and one third of those have household incomes of more than $40,000. Many realtors are independent contractors and do not have health insurance. OK, so the U.S. needs a real health care system, and that’s a big issue these days, but wouldn’t the point have been better made by highlighting the case of a group of folks a little less despicable than realtors?
Thomas Eagleton died this week, and it turns out he may have been the sanest politician ever. He won three elections after his 18-day trip as Vice Presidential candidate in the immortal McGovern ’72 campaign, and quit the Senate when he decided he didn’t like the role money was playing in politics. One of his Republican friends – Eagleton wasn’t crazy, but he was still a far-out dude – said Eagleton “saw the ridiculous in things.”
I wonder what was a bigger disappointment for voters my parents’ age: McGovern in ’72, Gore in ’00 or Kerry in ’04. I didn’t vote in 2000 because I figured the absentee ballot I’dve had to send from Mexico wouldn’t get counted. That was a mistake. Not because my California vote would have won the election for Gore, but because I didn’t “stand up and be counted”. I swore I’d never not vote in a Presidential election again. When 2004 rolled around, I was walking out of my polling place at 8:00 a.m. high on what passes for democracy. Needless to say, that night I was sick to my stomach. Feeling I’d prostituted my principles by not voting for Nader, I swore I’d never vote for the Democrats again.
But come 2008, put me down for Obama. I’m already looking forward to voting FOR someone for a change. And I know we can’t call him “articulate” because he’s (half) black, but I think that after six years of Bush it’s fair to get excited about an “articulate” candidate.
Here’s Frank Caliendo doing Bush on Letterman:
2 responses so far ↓
TC // 11 March 2007 at 3:01 pm
That Obama guy is articulate.
One Sorry Blog’s resident vanguard film expert Ryan Hernández bugs out at new “Thriller” video « One Sorry Blog // 26 July 2007 at 2:28 am
[...] posted only one week ago, on July 17. Other videos backed by One Sorry Blog are the comedian Frank Caliendo on Letterman, and Emil Dauncey on the red website [...]
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