The Backbencher

My Candidacy for Higher Office

Some time ago, I wrote that the following week I would be announcing my write-in candidacy for president of the United States of America.

I delayed my announcement. Why? I couldn’t really think of any issues.

But now, my fellow Americans, I have issues. Or, at least I have one issue. And I’ll tell you what that issue is, but first, as I embark upon my campaign for elected office, I need to tell you that I don’t think I have the maturity and experience necessary to be president of the United States. After all, this is the first election where I am actually old enough to run.

So, that’s why I have decided, my fellow Americans, that today, with a great sense of humility, I am announcing my write-in candidacy for vice president of the United States of America.

I feel I must run for vice president because: (1) Sarah Palin, the Republican nominee, has proven to be too controversial and too polarizing, and (2) no one knows who’s running for vice president on the Democratic ticket.

At first, I delayed throwing my hat in the ring because I wasn’t even sure you could run for vice president without being the running mate of someone who is running for president. On every ballot I’ve ever seen, you vote for both the president and vice president by punching the same hole or filling in the same circle. But then I realized, since I am running as a write-in, this is really your problem, as the voter, to figure out how to vote for me. Other candidates may say “This election is about you!” I, however, am the only candidate who is actually putting the onus on you of figuring out how it is even possible to cast a ballot for me.

So, you’ve been waiting to hear my issue.

My issue is lasers. Lasers allow us to print documents, whiten teeth, protect America from incoming nuclear missiles, erase tattoos, permanently and safely remove unwanted hair, point at things when we are making a presentation, excise tumors, and even create “Laser Light Spectaculars,” each of which has successfully put paying patrons in the seats of financially strapped planetariums when the prospect of mere “astronomy” failed to deliver.

Lasers can do almost anything. What else can they do? We don’t know. But has anyone even tried using lasers on the economic crisis? I will. As vice president – assuming I have the president’s permission – I will aim lasers at our burgeoning federal deficit, and I will permanently and safely laser away unwanted spending. I will also use lasers to stimulate the credit markets, loosening the flow of capital to small businesses across this country.

Now, I understand that the office of vice president, under our Constitution, is a position without much formal power. This is okay by me. For one, it’s more power than I have now.

But for another thing that you are allowed to do under the Constitution, is preside over the Senate. And I pledge I will do that just about all the time. It will be easy for me to keep this campaign promise, because I like watching myself on TV. And I’ll TiVo C-Span every day. I promise.

Better than that, my three-year-old likes watching me on TV. I once heard Jon Stewart complain that when he appeared on Sesame Street, his kid acted totally unimpressed. Well, my son is not like that. One day at Target, Joe noticed that he could see me captured on closed-circuit television. He acted like I was a rock star. “Daddy! Look! You’re on the TV!”

So, Jon Stewart, eat your heart out. Everybody else, this November 4, cast your ballot for Eric E. Johnson for vice president of the United States of America. If you do, I promise you won’t regret it, especially if you live in a non-battleground state and are generally forgetful.

Why We Need the Bailout

We, as a nation, are facing a critical choice: Should we give Wall Street something in the neighborhood of a trillion dollars so that it can continue doing the outstanding job it’s doing? Or should we let Wall Street collapse and see if the rest of America can get by without all those "financial services" that Wall Street provides?

To help you, and all Americans, understand why we need this bailout package – and we urgently do – I’ve decided to answer all your questions. Right here, right now.

Why should we give this money to Wall Street? I mean, if the economy needs to be spurred by an injection of billions of dollars, why not give it to us?

That’s a funny question. You already have it! Ha ha! What sense would it make to take money from taxpayers and give it straight back to taxpayers? That’s just silly. The whole point is to take the money from taxpayers and give it to someone else – preferably some hedge-fund manager who doesn’t pay taxes at all thanks to his tax-sheltered yacht parked off Antigua. I know it’s hard for you to understand, but the fact is that, after all is said and done, the money actually will come back to you, the taxpayer. How? As a result of rescuing Wall Street, banks and yacht captains will be able to extend loans to people on Main Street. That way, Main Street businesses will be able to make the investments that are needed to keep the economy going.

If the problem is that people on Main Street need loans, then why don't we just loan the money directly to them, instead of giving away it to the people on Wall Street?

You need to look at the broader picture. Farmers need to buy seed for their field, ranchers need to buy feed for their cattle, and bankers need to buy drinks for their congressmen. Everybody plays their part. That’s how the economy works.

I completely fail to understand why it helps anything to buy bad loans from banks. If banks made bad loans, shouldn’t the banks suffer the losses?

The problem, with all due respect, is that you simply don’t understand enough about economics and finance to form your own judgment about these sorts of things. Don’t forget that officials in the Bush administration have carefully thought this through. Do you think you could have done a better job evaluating pre-war intelligence from Iraq? Or deciding exactly how many days to wait before sending help to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina? I’m sure you don’t.

More importantly, you need to realize that this situation is not the fault of the bankers. Everybody thinks they can Monday-morning quarterback the whole situation, but that’s unfair. It’s easy now to say, “Well, you shouldn’t have accepted loan applications filled out in crayon.” Or, “It was a mistake to give five mortgages to a single 19-year-old who listed his employment as ‘watching Flip That House! on cable tv.’” The fact is, it’s not productive to look backward. We need to reject the impulse to lay blame, and we need, instead, to figure out how we are going to solve this crisis.

Hmmm. Let me see. Um. Oh! I’ve got it! How about we keep our money and just see how things go?

That may seem like a tempting course. But we simply cannot wait. As the Bush administration has explained, without the bailout, Wall Street will collapse, and the misery will quickly spread to Main Street.

How? How exactly will the misery spread from Wall Street to Main Street?

Think about it this way: If Wall Street collapses, tens of thousands of investment bankers, stock brokers, and other financial-industry professionals will be out of a job. While they will retain their education, skills, and knowledge, the companies they work for will no longer be able to pay their salaries. At that point they will be forced to leave Wall Street and come to your town looking for work.

Do you really want them to set up a hedge fund inside your local Wal-Mart between the optical center and the portrait studio? I didn’t think so. You wouldn’t be able to get from the self-checkout to the greeter table without some pinstriped MBA trying to sell you a collateralized derivative-backed forward-swap debenture. And believe me, you don’t want that. It’s worth however many hundreds of billions we have to pay to keep these people in lower Manhattan, where they just sell these things to each other.

Okay, you’ve convinced me. How can I help?

Please, support the bailout by writing or calling your congressional representatives as soon as you read this. Do it first thing in the morning. If you wait until 3 p.m. in the afternoon, they’ll probably have already left to go drinking with the bankers.

Un-Conventional Wisdom

It was lousy timing for the Democrats to start their convention the day after the Beijing Olympics ended. It really brought into stark contrast the boringness of national politics compared to sports – even sports like synchronized diving.

No matter how much of an ardent Democrat you are, you have to admit, there was not a single speech given at the Democratic National Convention that couldn’t have been improved by having the speaker deliver it while jumping on a trampoline.

One of the problems with the convention was its pre-determined outcome. With sports, unless it involves Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps, you really never know who’s going to win. But the Democratic convention was, of course, entirely staged, with Obama’s people making sure that there was not a single thing left to chance. Ironically, this was done by the campaign in order to custom tailor the convention for television. Yet the whole thing ended up not even having the requisite level of excitement necessary to justify a PowerPoint presentation.

If political parties want people to watch conventions on television, then they’ve got to give us a reason to tune in. Television is not rocket science: To be watchable, the convention’s got to be either funny, dramatic, sexy, or chock full of home-decorating advice. Since politicians aren’t funny or sexy, and since they don’t like to talk about the lobbyists who paid for their home decorating, that leaves dramatic as their only option.

Back before Hilary Clinton conceded, it looked like the Democratic convention could actually get dramatic. Most of the expected drama seemed to hinge on the question of what the “super delegates” might do.

Having delegates that were “super” was an inspired idea, but they turned out to be a big-time let down. Long before the convention started, they all decided to fall in line for what was “good for the party,” which is politico-speak for “bad for television.”

Politicians are always saying that this country is tired of “politics as usual.” Great. I agree. It’s time for them to put their money where their mouths are, nix the super delegates, and try these instead:

CELEBRITY MYSTERY DELEGATES – These would be delegates whom no one would know the identity of until they were revealed during prime-time at the convention. Imagine this: A curtain goes up, and silhouetted mystery delegates are suddenly illuminated with spotlights. A baritone announcer booms:

From “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” please give a warm welcome to Tom Bergeron! Next, you know her as that gold-medal-winning darling from the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, please give it up for Kerri Strug! And finally, the father you remember from “Growing Pains,” and most recently host of the “All New 3’s a Crowd” on the Game Show Network, ALAN THICKE!!!”

SURPRISE DELEGATES – These delegates would be ordinary folks – just like you and me – who, while sitting at home, would find out that they have been picked to board a plane in the next two hours to travel to the convention and to help pick America’s next president! Of course, to keep television ratings high, they would have to call within 10 minutes after their name was announced on television, otherwise someone else would be picked to go in their place. Ideally, the names would be revealed by opening aluminum briefcases held by models, and Howie Mandel would emcee: “Susan Brykowski of Lake Ronkonkoma, call in now to confirm your place as a Surprise Delegate! Hurry, you have just seven minutes left!”

CASTAWAY DELEGATES – How awesome would it be to see bitter defeated candidates sitting on a jury of castaway delegates, with the would-be nominees taking their questions and groveling for their votes? Imagine Dennis Kucinich asking Obama, “Do you remember in New Hampshire when my campaign got lost on the way to the Laconia Senior Center, and your campaign told us to go the wrong way on Route 11A, and we ended up in Meaderboro Corner before we figured out where we were? Do you think that was political fair play? And if not, why should I still vote for you?”

Bare and Balanced in the Sin City of the Upper Midwest

You are probably like me in that you’ve been wondering for several months now why in the world the Republicans would hold their national convention in that great bastion of liberalism, Minneapolis.

Minnesota, after all, is so liberal, it was the only state to vote for Mondale instead of Reagan in 1984. In fact, the Land of 10,000 Lakes is so left wing that more than 50 percent of the radio stations are National Public Radio. If you don’t believe me, come on up and give the radio dial a spin. And bring some cassette tapes with you. Anything you can spare. I’ll listen to Air Supply’s greatest hits at this point – I’m that desperate.

Well, I have figured out why the RNC picked the Twin Cities. It’s as simple as this. Republicans want to party. And for conservatives, Minneapolis is a virtual buffet of sin. It’s where Republicans can go to let their hair down, kick off their heels, and wag their feet.

You’ll recall that late last year, Larry Craig, Republican senator from Idaho, was caught soliciting sex in the Minneapolis St. Paul Airport by making certain foot motions under the divider of a bathroom stall.

Now there’s this: I can report, as the result of my own investigative journalism (or at least my bored wanderings during a layover) that at the very same airport, and just yards away from Mr. Craig’s haunting grounds, the voice of American conservatism, Fox News Channel, is selling pornography. Yes, that’s right. Fox News is selling porn. And not just any porn. We are talking videos literally labeled “HARDCORE”.

No joke. I obtained photographic evidence, which you can see above right. On close inspection, you may be asking if I actually pixelized a portion of one of the photographs. Yup. Not family friendly, I’m afraid. Wow, this blog actually has a stricter decency policy than Fox News Channel. There you go.

I should note that these pictures were obtained at great cost. That is, at great cost to Fox News Channel. Or at least I figure as much. Anytime someone whips out a camera around the porno-mag rack at a newsstand, there’s gonna be some lost sales. I know I saw one guy scurry away.

Now, in all fairness, I should point out that there is no indication that Fox News Channel is selling pornography for prurient purposes. Their slogan is, after all: “We report. You decide.” In other words, “We sell porn. You decide what you’re going to do with it in the privacy of your own home, including using it as research for your upcoming Heritage Foundation white paper.”

Nonetheless, I’ve got to say that this is a disappointment coming from the network that employs Sean Hannity.

Sean Hannity is a great American. How do I know he is a great American? I know because everyone who calls into his radio show tells him, “Sean, you are a great American.”

Then Sean, without missing a beat, turns around and says, “Thank you, and you are a great American, too.”

Now, how does Sean know that all his callers are great Americans? I’m assuming that his call screeners, after thorough investigation, flash a message on his monitors: “CALLER IS GREAT AMERICAN.” Otherwise, it’s possible that Sean considers the act of calling into his radio show to be sufficient in itself to make someone a great American. And I’ve got to say, of all the ways there are of becoming a great American, such as dying for your country in combat, I would definitely recommend going the route of being a caller on the Sean Hannity radio program.

Let me just anticipate the comments some of you will have. “It's not fair to say Fox News Channel is selling porn when this is clearly just a newsstand at an airport which has a logo-licensing deal with Fox News Channel.”

To that, I have to pull out my intellectual-property-professor card and say, under trademark law, you are your trademark, and vice versa. The only way a trademark license can be legally acceptable is if the trademark owner controls the quality and characteristics of the thing on which the trademark appears, which, in this case, is the newsstand. To wit, viz., ERGO:

Fox News Channel is selling porn.

So, to the thousands of Republican delegates traveling to the Big Minne, I hope you whoop it up and have a grand ol’ time together. But on the off chance that you find yourself lonely, at least you know where to go to find a few hundred pages of great Americans to keep you company.

CNN Focuses on Georgia (Again)

I watched CNN’s coverage of Super Tuesday last night, and what I learned, mostly, is that Georgia is the key to the whole thing. CNN went IN-DEPTH in their analysis of voting in the Peach State, nearly to the exclusion of talking about anything else. Reporter John King used a giant interactive map to go county-by-county. “This one we’ll be watching all night!” he would say. Of course, many of you who do not watch CNN may not understand the importance that Georgia has to our nation. CNN regularly interrupts their CNN Newsroom programming to feature BREAKING NEWS of such things as a traffic light that has gone out in an Atlanta. Tony Harris and Heidi Collins will then guide viewers through analysis of aerial shots that show the devastating effect on tens of commuters.

Many people have written about a conservative bias in Fox News. What troubles me is the anti-Georgia bias that Fox News has. When Gwinnett County schools hold a science fair, is Fox News there to cover it? No. But not only does CNN cover it, sometimes they will elevate it to the status of a SITUATION, in which case Wolf Blitzer will monitor it continuously from his purpose-built facility, The Situation Room.

Hmmm. Wait a minute. This just in: CNN’s headquarters are in Atlanta. Hold on, you’re not suggesting CNN is obsessively focused on Georgia merely because they are located there? I think you are confusing cause and effect. Why, I’m sure they moved there precisely because Georgia news is the most important news in the United States. You’ll see what I mean when Headline News moves its studios to Aruba.

(This post was originally published on PrawfsBlawg.)

Abstain From Message Wallpaper, and My Vote is Yours

I hope you enjoyed Super Monday. Didn't you notice? It was the Monday between Super Sunday and Super Tuesday. Super Monday! I celebrated in a traditional North Dakota fashion by eating canned foods and shivering.

Now that it's Super Tuesday, I am laying down the gauntlet and putting out my challenge to the candidates. My vote is yours to command. Just demonstrate that your candidacy is about REAL change, by doing any of the following:

When asked why you want to be president, admit that, at least part of the reason is, "Flying around on Air Force One would be kind of awesome."

Confess that, based on what you learned when you used to drive your own car and shop for your own groceries, "Frankly, at least 50% of Americans really bug me."

Go for an entire week without giving a speech in front of a backdrop that says "JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS" or "CHANGE CHANGE CHANGE CHANGE CHANGE CHANGE" or any other sort of message wallpaper.

Have the sheer guts to show up to a debate wearing a tie that is neither red nor blue. (Ooooh, the audacity of purple!)

Pledge that, if elected, you will never embarrass this nation by wearing a "PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES" windbreaker. Believe me, if you win, people will know who you are because they've seen your face 43 million times and, not to mention, you showed up in a 32-vehicle motorcade. Here's a guideline, if wearing something would get you beat up if you were in junior high, leave it in your closet.

Admit the following: "I probably could read a bunch of books and teach myself more about [the economy, foreign policy, America's youth, etc.], but there are just some things that, honestly, I'm probably not going to get around to learning more about unless I end up watching something relevant on the History Channel. And even then, probably only if I'm watching DirectTV because I'm flying Jet Blue instead of Air Force One."

(This post was originally published on PrawfsBlawg.)