Let Me Fix That Headline For You.

'Obama Punts Putts to Congress Over Military Action in Syria'

Or, as The Grey Man put it: The Blink Heard 'Round The World.

For The Grey Man.

He knows why.

A Word From The Management.

RSR would like to welcome it's first "guest author" (hey, that's what Blogger calls 'em -ed.): The Grey Man. He is an insightful sage of formidable intellectual and linguistic skills, and will be a welcome addition to our blogging bullpen.

But be forewarned, dear readers - if you wish to cross keyboards with The Grey Man we at RSR take no responsibility for the result. You will be challenging a man known to palpate cattle (that is, stick his arm up a cow's butt -ed.) while reciting the climactic soliloquy from 'Henry V' from memory. You will be in for the scrap of your intellectual life.

The Man Who Shot Osama Bin Laden.

(Note: Below is a guest post by The Grey Man, with his unique and insightful take on recent events. Read it all.)

Sometimes, life imitates art.

Today I am reminded of a 1962 classic film, one of the great stories written by James Warner Bellah. This film was also a rare pairing of John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart. Of course, I refer to "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance". There was even a very early sixties theme song.

For those of you who haven't seen the film, I'll have to summarize:

Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin) is the classic bad guy who terrorizes the town. The only man in town who will stand up to Liberty is a local tough, but good guy, Tom Doniphon (John Wayne). One day a lawyer, Ransom Stoddard (Jimmy Stewart) comes to town, carrying law books but no gun. Of course, Liberty and Ransom come into conflict, and the local law, Marshal Link Appleyard (Andy Devine) is no use. It has to be settled with a gunfight. Ransom Stoddard wins, and becomes famous as "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance". Because of his fame, he gets Statehood passed, gets elected to the Senate, as Governor, etc. And he gets Doniphon's girl in the process.

But all is not as it seems. Actually, Doniphon killed Valance from the shadows. When Stoddard tries to set the record straight many years later, the press refuses to tell the facts. The money line is "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend".

Today, I think we have seen President Obama's re-election campaign laid out.

The President has been polling very poorly among independents, the soft center. Obamacare, gas prices, unemployment, foreign policy, etc., weigh heavily on their minds. Yet they are a patriotic group.

For the next 18 months, I predict criticism of the President will be answered with "He's the "Man Who Shot Osama Bin Laden"". Calling your opponents racist at every turn is a negative, and has become ineffective. Now, the President's supporters have something popular to point to. There's already a theme song written for this role.

This seems, historically, somewhat silly. Did the press laud President Roosevelt for giving the order to assassinate Admiral Yamamoto during the election of 1944? Also how will ordering assassinations play with the President's base?

Regardless, it seems that, politically, we are in for a remake of this classic film.

How will we cast this remake?

Liberty Valance - Osama Bin Laden. The big bad guy.

Ransom Stoddard - President Obama. This is the apparent hero, who gets the credit for something others have done. While he does not actively claim credit, neither does he give the appropriate credit until way too late. He also takes the great love of the true hero.

Tom Doniphon - Seal Team Six, and the entire US military. These are the real heroes, who do the right thing time and again with no thanks. They put it all on the line, time and again, and don't complain when the credit gets given to someone else.

Marshal Link Appleyard - Eric Holder. This is the bumbling law enforcement officer who is totally ineffective at stopping the terrorizing of the town.

Major Cassius Starbuckle - Any Republican presidential candidate. In the film, Maj. Starbuckle is the man who runs against Stoddard for office at the Territorial Convention. He gets called "The Cattlemen's Mouthpiece". Expect any Republican candidate to be called "The Oilman's Mouthpiece" or in the pocket of Big Something or Other.

Hallie Stoddard - The American voters. Hallie is Doniphon's love interest, who dumps him for Stoddard. Never mind that while both Stoddard and Doniphon had the courage to confront Valance's terror, only Doniphon had the skill to stop it. The President is hoping our appreciation for a difficult and dangerous job well done will accrue to him, not the ones who have been fighting terror for years.

We will, of course, have to forget that the President has been slashing the budget of the very operators who carried out this mission. Ignore what you just paid for gas, milk and bread. Pay no attention to the man groping your crotch at the airport. Just keep humming "The Man Who Shot Osama Bin Laden".

The Grey Man, He Runs.

And is throwing his stethoscope in the ring for Mary Landieu's seat in 2014. Is he serious? Dunno. But who better to put down an old bitch that a veterinarian?

Friday Guest Post.

The Grey Man, he speaks:

I am about to be called a racist. Why? Because I think that Health Care has become Obama and company's Tar Baby.

First, it was "health care reform". Later it became "health insurance reform". I'm not really sure what it is now, because nobody outside Reid's inner circle has actually read it.

Why the changes? Well with each new evolution, it gets more unpopular. So they keep repackaging the product and slapping "New and Improved" on the label. And the product, far from improving, is getting more rancid by the day. It literally stinks.

And with each decline in the polls, they get more and more desperate. Attack talk radio? Oops, that failed. Okay, try attacking Fox News. Oops again.
Go after Insurance companies? Damn, still not working. How about unpatriotic TEA partiers? Crap, we're getting nowhere.

And the bill itself keeps changing. Abortion coverage is in. Nope, it's out. It's in. It's out. Single payer is in. It's out. It's in. It's out.

This thing has more in and out than a Tiger Woods date.

Right now, the Democrats have only two choices, and both terrify them.

If they fail to pass uber-liberal health reform after all this effort, they will look like a bunch of incompetent boobs to their base, and to the rest of us. But what terrifies them, what really and truly terrifies them, is if it passes, and they have to take responsibility for their actions.

Like Brer Rabbit, they aren't smart enough to realize that the more they fight, the more stuck they become. Amazingly, the party that demands an exit strategy for wars and tax cuts didn't think that they might need one themselves.

I know some reading this will blame it all on Fox or Republicans or a bad alignment of the stars. But the simple fact is that the Democrats could have passed anything they wanted to as soon as Franken was seated. Obama could have told his party what he wanted, and demanded it. He could have actually lead from the front. But he didn't. Reid could have lead. But he didn't.

What is really pathetic is that this effort will, at best, produce a hodgepodge law that nobody likes. And to do this, President Obama is throwing away his congressional majority, and ruining the careers of some of his party's most faithful. Mary Landrieu might not be up for election for a few years, but for the first time, she has an overall unfavorable rating in the polls. She will go down in flames come her next election. So will Reid next year.

Harry and Mary, this IS the "Change" you voted for. You've thrown your careers away. And you've done it all for nothing.

The Grey Man


(Note - the Owner of this blog takes no responsibility for the content or opinions of guest posts.)

The Grey Man Again.

Using Yamamoto, Shakespeare and Patton to remind the political elite that the "mob" they fear are not their dependents, but their employers - and the boss ain't happy:

A Guest Post.

(Note: The management here at RSR is trying out a little experiment. We have invited an acquaintance, who is known as The Grey Man, to do a guest post. We are doing this because he writes pretty well, it saves us the time of having to come up with this stuff, and because he doesn't want certian photos in our possession posted here. If this works out, he may become a regular. So without further ado...)

First, Red Stick Rant has graciously, or foolishly, asked me, "The Grey Man", to occasionally pen a bonus essay for your entertainment pleasure.

Second, we'll discuss the AIG bonus scandal.

My opinion mimics one of my favorite movie lines. "So what. Big deal". This is nothing more than a tempest in a Teapot Dome. Merely MUD (made up drama).

The new AIG boss had two Shakespearean choices. To pay or not to pay, that was the question.

He chose to pay the bonuses required by the employees' contracts, and is getting pilloried for it. We hear cries about "wasting the taxpayer's money", from the same Congress that tells us earmarks are no big deal.

It's not like this was a surprise to Congress or the administration. Senator Dodd inserted the language, at the behest of an unnamed treasury official, which means the administration left their fingerprints. And of course the Congress fully read and understood the bill before voting for it, right?

Let's say he chose option 2, and refused to pay. Then we'd be hearing about how he shorted the working man, and willfully breached contracts. Then the lawyers sue and collect. After legal fees, court costs, punitive damages, pain and suffering, in would cost more like 330 million instead of 165.

Either way, there would be scandal. But why?

That's easy. It was their turn.

We've all seen magicians on TV. And they all, even the female ones, have a very cute female assistant. Wearing a nearly NSFW outfit. No one who likes girls is watching the magician's hands.

For the rest of the audience, there are fireworks and sparklers and colored lights and streamers, so they're not watching the magician's hands either .

With no one watching the hands, we're all amazed when the magician turns an elephant into a walnut or a mostly prosperous republic into a bankrupt oligarchy.

The bonus scandal is mere razzle dazzle, mere distraction. It fits a pattern. Santelli then Limbaugh then Cramer, now AIG. It's about as mature as a boy in the schoolyard pointing and yelling "fight" so he can hop the fence and cut class. Also pretty effective.

Notice each of these lasts a week or so, then we get a new one. In a few days, we'll be dealing with a new distraction. The current favorite is White House and MSM vs. The basketball coach. Take the coach and give 2.5 points.

So what are the hands doing?

How about the Fed massively buying back bills with nonexistent cash. Holy inflation Batman! Or having a Ron Paul sticker makes you a domestic terror suspect. (Remember way back, last year, when profiling was wrong?). Or federal troops deploying on a "peacekeeping" mission. In Alabama.

I'll end by telling you a little lesson I learned while earning my DT. (Doctorate of Thinkology). Ignore the smoke and flame and lightning and thunder.

But DO pay attention to the little man behind the curtain.

The Grey Man