WASHINGTON (The Dissociated Press) - Barack Obama Tuesday delivered his first address to a joint session of Congress, and millions of parents across America reacted with predictable melancholy, having lost the sense of pride they had felt, the past 8 years, knowing that their seven year-olds could be president too.
Mr. Obama's appearance came amidst an air of unprecedented excitement and celebrity, with the House Sergeant at Arms, Wilson "I'm Not a Volleyball" Livingood, forgoing the traditional call-to-order of "Madame Speaker, the President of the United States," and instead choosing to signal the President's entrance into the chamber by standing stiffly before the audience and announcing, "For all of you out there tonight, right here on our stage, we've got a really big shoe!"
In the ensuing pandemonium, members of both houses of Congress, from all parties, and every imaginable gender, threw themselves at the young, new president in an attempt to get an autograph, an article of clothing, body hair ... anything that could serve as a keepsake for the moment.
Women screamed and swooned. Men sobbed and tried to hand him their babies. Massachusetts Representative Barney Frank tossed his underpants onto the podium. And then, Mr. Obama --- handsome, dignified, confident --- lifted his arms in a gesture not unlike that of Moses (or Charlton Heston) raising his staff and commanding the waters of the Red Sea to part, and said ... "Yo homies! Whaddup!?!"
The President proceeded to speak calmly and candidly to the American people, for close to 55 minutes, explaining the dire straits the country is in and why he and his family are moving to Bermuda.
He discussed health care and the economy, the environment and the economy, education and the economy, steroids and baseball, the deficit and the economy, and how his administration proposes to tackle the formidable problems America faces, all the while speaking in complete sentences and in a recognizable form of English.
"There's no doubt, it'll to take some getting used to," said Nick McGregor, a homeless Vietnam War veteran, who was listening to the President's address on the radio, from a sidewalk steam grate a few blocks from the Capitol.
Obama called on Congress to invest in things "the country has too long neglected," like renewable energy, universal health care, and public education, while stressing the need to reduce the federal budget deficit, which, according to the latest report from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, currently stands at "roughly $120 billion more than all the money in the world."
"I suffer no illusions that this will be an easy process," the President said, "but I do have occasional fantasies that someone in the Republican party might actually listen to what our plans are before branding them as Socialism. I also have fantasies of being a runway model during Milan Fashion Week, and it's just killing me right now that I can't be there!" he said.
Following President Obama's speech --- and his subsequent dash on foot through the streets of Washington, with Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and the Jonas Brothers, to escape the horde of crazed teenagers, and Oprah Winfrey, that threatened to engulf them --- the obligatory "Republican response" was delivered by Louisiana Governor, and recovering lithium addict, Bobby Jindal.
Jindal, 38, is considered to be a "rising star" in the Republican Party, a category which, beside Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and animated TV character Homer Simpson, also currently includes former New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller and former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard and South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, both of whom are presently decomposing underground.
During the first two hours of his response, Governor Jindal spoke on a very personal level to the American people, telling of the pain and hardships he and his older brother, Salim, faced while living with their single mother in the predominantly Muslim slums of Mumbai.
After their mother was murdered by a mob of rioting Hindus, Bobby and Salim left Mumbai, scraping out a hardscrabble existence by begging and committing petty scams. They met and teamed up with an orphan girl, Latika, with whom Bobby, despite not yet having reached puberty, fell hopelessly in love.
Through dangerous and heart-wrenching circumstances, Jindal became separated from Latika and estranged from Salim. He spent years working odd jobs for little pay until, largely by luck, he got the chance to appear on the wildly popular Indian TV game show, "Are You as Smart as Pandit Nehru?!" where he won 20 million rupees (roughly $1.83) and was reunited with Latika.
"It was at that point," Jindal said, "that I decided to move to America and enter politics."
Jindal spent the rest of his response doing what Republicans have come typically to do when Democrats propose trying to help people: charging that if the government isn't going to spend its money on immoral, illegal, and horrendously damaging overseas military ventures, it has no business spending money at all!
Jindal characterized the President's $780 billion stimulus package as "misguided and wasteful." As an example, Jindal cited $100 million the package provides for the US Geological Survey to develop and deploy a volcano monitoring system that would give early warning of imminent eruptions.
"We Republicans believe that, if the American people want early warnings of volcanoes, American ingenuity, entrepreneurial spirit, and free markets will provide them much more efficiently than government will," said Jindal, whose state's largest and most famous city, New Orleans, has been at the bottom of the Indian Ocean since 2005.
Laughing out loud here, as usual when I read The Disassociated Press.
Posted by: Meg | March 01, 2009 at 02:37 PM