little boy blue

japan's ongoing nightmare, the kiddie version:

quote of the week

rare candor from 91-year-old nazi-sympathizer and freshman martin harty (r-of course):

i'm a new hampshire republican representative. got slid in during the republican landslide last fall. so far i really don't know what i'm doing. the whole process is so alien to anything else. a new rep really needs a coach along with him at first but there is no room for anyone to sit with him, and no way they could holler at him in a committee meeting.

am learning the hard way. little by little. i think that a few of the other first time reps must be in the same boat with me. we're all sort of bluffing it out. the few votes i've made so far i really didn't know what i was voting for or against. just looked at the people around me and went along with them.

there is so much pomp and circumstance connected with the legislature. you have to separate the real doings from all the fluff. people who obviously are making very generous salaries come and go as witnesses before the various committees with tidbits of usually self-serving information. you wonder where the money is coming from to pay these people.

yes, slowly if i keep my health, i'll master this trade and hopefully be of some use to the state. i like to write about things and applied for this job mostly to have the opportunity to write about politics from the inside. they say the pen is mightier than the sword but you've still got to get your scribbling read by the people.

quote of the day

courtesy of pz meyers, one-man walking existential threat to church ladies everywhere:

i have zero sympathy for intelligent people who stand before a grandiose monument to lies, an institution that is anti-scientific, anti-rational, and ultimately anti-human, in a place where children are being actively miseducated, an edifice dedicated to an abiding intellectual evil, and choose to complain about how those ghastly atheists are ruining everything. those people can just fuck off.

domino theory

birther pangs

longtime usurper family crony and newly-installed hawaii governor neil abercrombie may just have been crazy like a fox when in december he very publicly took it upon himself to "put this particular canard to rest" — referring of course to lingering birtherism — by finding "ways to change state policy to allow him to release additional proof that the president was born in honolulu in 1961."

hoocoodanode that the governor's shocking abandonment of his quest barely a month later would bring the ever-vigilant birthers roaring out of the deep funk they'd been stewing in since the bruising guilty plea and jailing of their hero and now former army ltc terry lakin, the usurper's latest political prisoner?

AND OBAMA SURE ISN’T GOING TO REQUEST THE BC BE MADE PUBLIC.

ZERO KNOWS ONLY HE CAN GET THE BC MADE PUBLIC.

HE REFUSES TO REQUEST THE BC, BECUASE IT DOESN’T EXIST.

THANKS GOV ABERCROMBIE.

by marty62

the surprise metastasizing of the still-ain't-quite-dead movement did not escape the notice of the lamestream media — its natural enemy — which was finally forced to admit, via ppp and cnn polls, what every real american™ always knew: that birthers rule! (well, at least in the gop ...)

... i wear the "birther" title proudly, just as i wear the "vexatious requester" title proudly.

someday i'm gonna sing, "i was ‘birther' when ‘birther' wasn't cool." lol

they've thrown all the rotten tomatoes that they have at us and we've come out of it unscathed. what are they gonna do now - bleed on us? wave their privates at our aunties? taunt us a second time? lol.

we are the little bunnies they ridicule but in the end they will be the ones soiling their armor. lol. the only question is whether they, in their figurative death throes, will bother to write out, "aaaaaaaaaaagggggggggghhhhhhh" (with a gutteral sound, in the back of the throat). lol

by butterdezillion

so now — with last november's return of congress' lower chamber into its rightful hands; with the oversight committee in the hands of darrell issa, from whose belt already proudly dangles the scalp of a onetime governor; with the ship of state's sails filling with a now-impossible-to-ignore whirlwind sweeping straight off the plains of central birfistan — elected and unelected officials no longer need tiptoe around the most important constitutional crisis in world history. birthers can therefore expect congress to stand with them arm-in-arm and heads held high as they launch those long overdue impeachment hearings ...

john boehner: "it's not my job to tell the american people what to think ... the state of hawaii has said he was born there. that's good enough for me ... the president says he's a christian. i accept him at his word."

eric cantor: "i don't think it's an issue that we need to address at all ... it is not an issue that even needs to be on the policy-making table right now whatsoever."

tim pawlenty: "i’m not one who questions the existence of the president’s birth certificate."

mike huckabee: "the idea that he's not a citizen, to me, y'know why that's nonsense? because if there was any shred of truth to it, hillary clinton and her wonderful investigative opposition research machine would have found it and would have used it and for republicans to even be bringing it up, i think it's a waste of energy and time. let's focus on the issues with which we have disagreement, not on, really, the extraneous personal things that are immaterial."

michelle bachmann: "it isn't for me to state; that's for the president to state ... when the president makes his statements, i think they should stand for their own."

sarah palin: "it’s distracting. it gets annoying. let’s stick with what really matters."

darrell issa: "mine is not the committee that asks where the president was born ... it doesn't ask what ministers that he went to think. all that stuff is a distraction. i'm not the overseer of the president."

... or maybe not.

annoying?

she's starting to annoy me.

by little jeremiah

i got a fundraising call today from someone claiming to be calling on behalf of john boehner. i let the poor girl have it. i told her that i had no respect for boehner and all the republicans who are so timid that they are afraid to demand that they see obama's birth certificate, and then suggested that she call me back for a contribution after boehner grew a pair, and did the right thing.

by ml/nj

this may explain obama’s refusal to resolve this issue. the progressives are using birtherism as a divide-and-conquer tool.

this explains why the sudden interest in whacking pubbies with ambush questions about obama’s birthplace.

the media can then sort people by this characteristic, and can safely ignore anyone tainted by the birther brush.

by dbrow

well of course that’s the media's strategy. the question is are we stupid enough to fall for it. the answer is probably. just look at the vitriol aimed at bush and romney on this board. hey, romney is not my choice and bush could have done a lot of things differently but i would crawl across broken glass to support romney, chuckleberry, gingrich or really anyone on the GOP side (well not sure about paul) if it means getting rid of the disaster we have now.

by marlon

you sir are a GOP kool-aid drinker. romney’s wothless, and elmer gantry’s [huckabee] a fraud. if any of them are the nominee, i’m staying home election day 2012. if the usurper is re-elected, we’ll deserve it for not running a true constitutional conservative.

by emperor palpatine

well...there goes the perception of [bachmann's] strength and integrity. and, i rather liked her, too.

overlooking what may well be one of the greatest frauds ever perpetrated on the american people is no way to win hearts and minds among the populace.

by publiusmm

michelle bachmann did not dismiss or diss birthers....she handled the situation as best as she could.

palin said for the "GOP to distance itself from birthers" (words to that effect). palin dismissed the issue and the birthers....bachmann did not.

its time for the palinStinians to get real. sarah palin is a liberal RINO...and this is not the first time she has gone RINO. the palinStinians would still support and propagandize for palin if she joined al-qaeda.

by ucfroadwarrior

a good lawyer knows that you never ask a question unless you already know the answer.

any republican who sides with the bither "theory" would be lambasted until they could prove their assertion.

since there is currently no definitive proof one way or the other regarding obama's birth status, prominent republicans should stay neutral on the subject until there is.

as for me, i will be convinced about obama's status when i see the proof. until then, he is just another kenyan usurper gangsta with a karl marx fetish.

by kickass conservative

i know every conservative candidate will be asked if obozo is a citizen. my vote will go to the one who has the metal to say: whether he is a citizen or not, i do not know; but i know he is not a natural born citizen and therefore is a fraud and usurper; who is not eligible to be president; and so he should be impeached; prosecuted and imprisoned.

by polosec

america is doomed.

conservatives are heading in so many directions that there will never be a unified voice amongst us....

and no where has that been more obvious that right here at freepers.

not once has a freeper backed candidate made it to the white house.

why is that?

by halgr

the most powerful man in the world, operating out of the most powerful office in the world, situated in the most powerful nation in the world, and he can’t produce the most believeable fake in the world?

don’t bet the next election on it. obama’s been playing with this issue, he’s been loving it.

if he needs a BC, one will be fothcoming.

by balding_eagle

while i'm in no position to know if our marxist muslim overlord is "loving it" or not, i can admit that i most certainly am.

like the birther said: THANKS GOV ABERCROMBIE.

the evolution of a revolution

(story and art by vadillo, 1972)

good question

ed quillen @ the denver post:

have you ever heard of any campaigning politician, in any other industrial democracy, promising to provide "an american-style health-care system"?

so long, jack

the original tv fitness guru, jack lalanne, dead at 96:

would you get your dog up every day, give him a cup of coffee, a doughnut and a cigarette? hell, no — you'd kill the damn dog!

488 days ago

... but who's counting?

a question for sharron angle

from seneca doane @ daily kos:

i'm tired of beating around the bush arguing about evidence of whether jared loughner was or wasn't motivated to assassinate rep. gabrielle giffords last saturday by far-right-wing craziness. of course the republicans can disavow him — his being "crazy" and a "lone wolf" and all — as quickly as they like.

my interest is: can they disavow his actions — categorically? is what he did fundamentally wrong, in their eyes? or did he just choose the wrong target? the wrong time? the wrong place — what with all those people around? they're sorry, they're sorry, they're incensed at being presented as in some way sympathetic to these actions — but why?

if you want to keep a rifle in your house in case the oppressive government comes after you, then i think i understand what you mean by a "second amendment remedy." but we're not talking about home defense here; we're talking about guns in public, about shows of force. what i want to hear from republicans (and others who favor the NRA line) is: why in their opinion was what jared loughner did not a legitimate appeal to a "second amendment remedy"?

that's a question i'd love to see answered.

is it because "it's polling poorly"?

due to work, i've missed full coverage for the past two days of the festering counter-reaction to this weekend's righteous rejection of the rhetoric of death, so maybe others have already started asking this pointed question: why is what jared loughlin did wrong?

it's not because it's murder. a "second amendment remedy" will inherently involve murder — or at least killing someone, under an attenuated theory of self-defense. it's not even because bystanders were killed as well — these things happen in a revolution. had he shot rep. giffords and then threw down his gun, does anyone want to say that their reaction would be otherwise? (let him or her speak up, if so. i'd like to be forewarned.)

in fact, the problem with "second amendment remedies" is that this is what they look like.

here, listen to sharron angle:

you know, our founding fathers, they put that second amendment in there for a good reason and that was for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical government. and in fact thomas jefferson said it's good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years.

i hope that's not where we're going, but, you know, if this congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those second amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? i'll tell you the first thing we need to do is take harry reid out.

well, wasn't jared loughner fighting against a "tyrannical government," as represented by rep. gabrielle giffords — who at a similar 2007 event had had the temerity to reply to his question about the government's using language for mind control by replying to him in spanish?

don't we get to decide for ourselves what constitutes "tyranny," under this theory? surely we don't have to wait for the government to say "we're officially tyrannical now, so as a matter of constitutional law it's ok to start shooting at us."

well, jared loughner was more convinced that the government was tyrannical than most of us will ever be convinced of anything! so, why was his acting on that belief illegitimate, second amendment supporters from the republican and tea parties? because we disagreed with his judgment?

did he look around and say "my goodness, what can we do to turn this country around?" well, he probably didn't say "my goodness." but let me ask you, those of you who think that this wasn't "political" — do you think he would have shot gabrielle giffords and all these others if she had lost rather than won this past election by 1% of the vote? do you think he would have gone to find her at her old family tire store and shot her there? i highly doubt it (and not just because they sold it to goodyear.)

"i'll tell you the first thing we need to do is take harry reid out," is what sharron angle said — and the first thing loughner thought he needed to do was to take gabrielle giffords out.

isn't this what it's all about, fans of violent rhetoric? in what sense was his action not legitimate — by the standards of what those who blather about being "armed and dangerous" and who shoot up pictures rather than people and who pointedly remark about murder as a conceivable alternative to political victory?

please explain! please do explain — the children are listening. i'm sure they'd like to understand the distinction.

i don't have to explain why i think what he did was morally repulsive. i don't talk about "second amendment remedies" because i know that when we enter the arena in which logic and civility are no longer the means to victory, i've lost my advantage. i'll fight in the gutter if dragged into the gutter, but the gutter is not where i want to be.

is the real problem that republicans and tea partiers have with jared loughner is that he, unlike them, turned out not to be a poseur? that he actually went and did something that was only supposed to be threatened?

if so, then they need to do a better job of explaining "the rules" to those whom they influence with this sort of talk.

so in the meantime, if no one has already had the chance to do so, i'd really like to see someone ask sharron angle and sarah palin and michele bachmann and whoever else why jared loughner's "second amendment remedy" — his attempt, frankly, to overturn the results of an election with the bullet when the ballot didn't work — is illegitimate.

i don't even want to hear it — assuming they'll have a coherent answer — for my own benefit. but i sure would like the alienated 22-year-olds — who are watching jared loughner, head like a clenched fist, in the wake of this massacre and silently thinking "well, he sure went and did it. he had the courage of what he believed, what i say i believe" — to hear it.

explain to them, please why — believing in second amendment remedies in a political culture such as ours, as opposed to that of nazi germany or communist czechoslovakia or such — why what jared loughner did was wrong.

i know what i think it was wrong, but those sorts of kids won't listen to me.

they'll listen to you, maybe. so please, sharron angle and others, explain why this "second amendment remedy" was wrong.

at the movies

speaking strictly for myself, i know, upon seeing a madman charging headlong at me with teeth grit, nostrils flared and extreme prejudice in his eye, that my first impulse wouldn't be ... to charge headlong at him.

which is probably why i'm not an action hero:

on the other hand, who hasn't savored all the little emotions flitting across your opponent's face, as he slowly comes to the cold realization that you've just defaced him — literally:

a new year's guarantee, revisited

exactly one year ago birthers promised me a few healthy giggles for the new year:

the 2010 new year's resolution of all good conservatives should be to achieve the goal of restoring the u.s. constitution this year. if the kenyan usurper is still in office a year from now, we will have failed.

yes, that was way too easy, but i'll get my yucks in where i can ...

♦ ♦ ♦

update: leave it to the birthers to never disappoint. i'll be looking forward to reposting next year these resolutions for 2011:

... i have up here a few resolutions, just a few, but i hope we can all agree on them.

number one — i think we can all agree on this: defend and obey the u.s. constitution. we have — don't have that, we have nothing. no order, no rule of law.

number two: hold congress accountable. they're starting to listen, we voted a lot of them out, we can vote these — wonderful people — out as well.

number three, and almost as important: hold the media accountable. and that includes fox news. that's one of the reasons i'm standing up here right now, on new year's eve.

[number four:] free the patriot [former] lieutenant colonel terry lakin. he put it all on the line for his country. a true patriot. we must stand behind him and free him — with honor.

number five falls in line with all the above: expose the truth about barack obama. one of the catalysts for me standing up here right now — aside from glenn beck, as you all know — is [fox news reporter] megyn kelly and the ludicrous, asinine news show she has. where she covered abercrombie, neil abercrombie, the governor of hawaii, and used as a forum to insult concerned americans. was she fair and balanced? well, i don't think so. uh, megyn ... ? call me!

and that leads me to the last one: if necessary — and this is not something i necessarily wanted to do — glenn beck, are you listening? a new internet and/or tv news show. we need a real news show and — not entertainment, not megyn kelly showing her cleavage, making fun of concerned americans. real news. real fair and balanced news. and if necessary, i'll be involved in it. this may be the first show ...

... giggles guaranteed.

a message to you, rudy

it is a dog-bites-man story. the military justice system proceeded in a way that was not merely predictable but predicted. the case makes our top-10 list largely because the dog was barking-mad and there was a three-ring flea circus performing on its back.

— JAG dwight sullivan, CAAFlog

i'm not gonna mince words, rudy: we told you so.

we told you so from the very beginning and at key steps along the way, but you refused to listen and you continued to insist you were right, in the face of folks actually paid to know what they're talking about and in the face of your perfect 0-70+ record for being wrong — though if you were the type to listen, you'd never be a birther, now would you? and as a birther, you thought that this was the case that was somehow gonna be different.

well, rudy, as it turned out, you were right: terry lakin's court-martial was in fact different. your hero and would-be martyr pulled an about-face on you, chose not to carry your cross and entered a guilty plea. i know that had to hurt, rudy.

as you jeered from the sidelines of previous court thrashings you could always find yourself some space where you could pretend you'd won something. you could always find some rickety perch where you could self-righteously puff yourself up (often just over the effort of getting into a courtroom) in preparation for the usurper's demise, where you could ignore all your previous losses and crow and spin and dive feet-first down the throat of anyone rude enough to point that out.

but not this time, rudy. because this time you were up against the u.s. military and like an efficient, well-oiled machine, they took your nonsense and checked it at the door, leaving you nothing to salvage from this trial, nothing to take home and proudly show off to momma:

no obama, no birth certificate, a guilty plea, a lengthy, thorough and painful allocution by the accused rejecting birthers and everything you claim to stand for, real punishment, no throngs of supporters or admirers or protestors and no military rebellion as a consolation prize.

and last but not least of all, the knowledge that just about every turn of the case was predicted, weeks in advance, by everyone you love to hate. clearly that proved just a bit too much for your bloated ego to take:

... as my friends fall away, and as my social circle of friends gets smaller and smaller ...

i guess sacrificing friends and family is a small price to pay for your country and constitution, but on this trial you bankrupted yourself thinking that the outcome was ever in doubt or could be spun any other way.

computer comix v2.0

we are currently seeing the business world transformed by a microcomputer implementation called desktop publishing. ... it can be likened to having your own little printshop right on your desk. — mike saenz, 1988

color. vector drawing tools. page layout. 3d modeling. less than three years of rapid advances in technology allowed artist and graphics software pioneer mike saenz to follow up 1985's "shatter" — the first comic series created entirely on computer — with 1988's "crash", a full-length 63-page graphic novel featuring marvel comics' high-tech hero, the invincible iron man.

... however, today's off-the-shelf tools are still evolving and are not yet suitable for my own specific need: the ability to create professional quality film for color offset lithography. that capability is a tall order. but it can be done. crash is proof. ... the macintosh ii was forthcoming from apple at that time. it was generally known that the mac ii was a powerful, color, open architecture machine. this was vital to the concept. only with the emergence of the mac ii in the early summer of 1987 could i enlist the help of fellow associate william bates of knowledge engineering. ... i presented bill with a written and illustrated wish list of the program that i wanted for crash. from there, bill coupled my ideas with his and code that he'd developed over the course of two years. bill called the resulting program lithographer. also, i enlisted the help of michael miller ... of umecorp ... a diversified research and development company which has developed such products as high tech toys to real-time expert system shells — the kinds of things tony stark would use. mike functioned as a technical consultant on the character iron man. ... finally, i enlisted the help of fellow comic artist pepe moreno. pepe is well known throughout europe and the u.s. his books, rebel, zeppelin, joe's air force and gene kong are much acclaimed.

rounding out saenz' software arsenal was a new type of drawing program called illustrator '88 and a dimensional modeler called pro 3d. the results were a futurist's wet dream narrated in glorious techobabble.

working in a commercial program that i co-developed called comicWorks (mindscape), i was able to create the 10 megabytes of bitmaps that compose a good 75% of crash. while comicWorks was designed to create black and white, low resolution comic art pages, it was used on crash as a dedicated bitmap editor/creator. using a selection of graphic tools that i designed into that program, i was able to do just about everything required for raw black and white bitmap entry. once imported into lithographer, we could color them. ... lithographer was written as a 32-bit program, stepping beyond the 256 color limit of color quickDraw (apple's graphic system for drawing color images on screen) and utilizing the full range of the mac ii's color capability for display: 16.8 million colors. lithographer can process black and white images into 24-bit color and allow the user to blend the images. the resulting graphics are free of the jaggy-edged quality of low res bitmaps. the higher resolution and greater range of colors can fool the uninitiated into thinking that parts of crash were created by conventional means. this process can be seen on many pages in crash. it looks like oil painting.

a much more precise and memory conserving method of creating complex graphics is to use computer drawing tools. computer drawing involves designating points, lines and curves without being forced to render all of the bit data in between points. for the mac, adobe illustrator is such a program. using illustrator, i was able to create the crash cover, recreate marvel's S.H.I.E.L.D. logo (designed by bill sienkiewicz) and other graphics throughout crash. the result is black and white artwork with smooth and precise bezier curves and lines. ... while the results were very satisfying, due to the inherent time limitations of computer drawing input and output, i could not use this technique to create more graphics in crash.

using pro 3d (enabling technologies) for the mac, i built all of the 3d models required for the book. fury's osprey, stark's limosine, the robots, the shield levicarrier and others were created with pro 3d. using pro 3d's tools — which resemble a carpenter's lathe and jigsaw tools on screen — i was able to fashion the models and take "snapshots" of their various positions in a postscript file format. the pro 3d data was black and white so bill wrote code in lithographer that could import the data, display it, and allow me to compose it on the page and assign colors to it.

finally, lithographer automatically created 4 files for each page, one for each process color (cyan, magenta, yellow and black) and downloaded them to a linotronic 100 machine. the lino is a laser raster imaging device. it uses a small helium-neon laser to image and expose all of the millions of tiny dots directly onto black and white film. after proofing the film on a color proofing system, we could tell, and marvel's printer could tell, just how well the color separations came out. there really is no "original art" created for the production of crash. the entire book exists as magnetically encoded data on floppy disks. to my way of thinking, this is an advantage. that data is flexible and could be useful again some day.

(story, art and software design by mike saenz; art assist by pepe moreno; programming and software design by bill bates)

see also:
computer comix v1.0
computer comix v3.0

computer comix v1.0

back in a galaxy not too far away, back before photoshop, back before color even, back when there were only two programs, called macpaint and macdraw, and back when only a few guys actually knew how to use them^[1] ...

as first comics managing editor mike gold wrote in december 1985:

well, of course it had to happen. when we released the first shatter special last february, we thought it would do well — after all, nobody had ever done an entire comic book on a computer before. but curiosity value wears thin pretty fast. we took a chance with the shatter special and printed higher than our distributor's orders might indicate — something that is very, very rare for first comics (when our books are gone, they're gone; we're not in the back issue business and nearly all of our comics "sell out.")

those extra copies sold out very, very quickly. the distributors could not keep the book in their warehouses. in fact, we were under a lot of pressure to do a second printing. "what the hell," we figured. "it's not a regularly published comic book, let's do a second printing." that second printing "sold out" four days before it shipped from the printer — every copy we had was committed to the various distributors' warehouses all across north america and england. so as we were thinking about doing a third — and final — printing on the shatter special, mike saenz and i started talking about what we'd do about shatter after our experimental six-issue back-up series in jon sable, freelance. we couldn't stay there — mike grell wanted his book back! ... actually, there was only one possible solution: shatter would have to appear in his own book.

the only question was how we would approach the project. we learned a lot from our six short experiments, and computer technology — particularly as it relates to apple's macintosh — evolved quite a bit since we started working on shatter. what you are seeing in this issue is a far cry from what you saw in the shatter special. the library of type fonts has expanded greatly, so the words in the balloons should be a lot more readable. we learned when to use digitizers and special effects, and — just as important — when not to use them. apple came out with two giant leaps forward: they perfected macdraw, a new graphic arts program that can be used along with their macpaint. macdraw is fantastic: among other things, it allows mike to draw each object as a separate entity which he then can place behind or in front of other objects. shatter is no longer simply dots on paper.

better still, apple came out with their laserwriter, an unbelievable printer that produces crisp, sharp printouts of mike's work. for graphic art reproduction, the difference between the laserwriter and traditional dot-matrix printers is like the difference between glossy coffee table art books and paintings on cave walls. and even better still, the folks up at apple gave us a laserwriter. that sucker isn't exactly cheap; it's nice to know you're appreciated. thanks, apple!

(story by peter gillis and art by mike saenz)

see next:
computer comix v2.0
computer comix v3.0

---

[1] in fact, when artist saenz left the series after only a few issues, the book temporarily returned to traditional production methods since no one else knew how to use the computer equipment!

life imitating art

art:

life:

actually, allow me to set the record straight: birthers aren't imitating cartoons — birthers are cartoons ...

the friendly skies

(photo by m. trombly)

quote of the day

john cole @ balloon juice:

why the hell do we even make pilots go through security screening in the first place? if they want to bring a plane down, they don't need nail clippers, a lighter, four ounces of hand lotion, or the rest of the stupid shit the TSA morons confiscate from the rest of us. all they need to do to bring a plane down is to ... point it down.

thank you for your concern

con•cern troll |kən'cərn trōl|

noun

a creature out of greek mythology; a pretend pal, notorious for bearing gifts of dubious merit:

one and done: to be a great president, obama should not seek reelection in 2012

president obama must decide now how he wants to govern in the two years leading up to the 2012 presidential election.

by douglas e. schoen and patrick h. caddell
the washington post

in recent days, he has offered differing visions of how he might approach the country's problems. at one point, he spoke of the need for "mid-course corrections." at another, he expressed a desire to take ideas from both sides of the aisle. and before this month's midterm elections, he said he believed that the next two years would involve "hand-to-hand combat" with republicans, whom he also referred to as "enemies."

it is clear that the president is still trying to reach a resolution in his own mind as to what he should do and how he should do it.

glad you asked, mr president! we just happen to have a great idea you're just gonna love ...

this is a critical moment for the country. from the faltering economy to the burdensome deficit to our foreign policy struggles, america is suffering a widespread sense of crisis and anxiety about the future. under these circumstances, obama has the opportunity to seize the high ground and the imagination of the nation once again, and to galvanize the public for the hard decisions that must be made. the only way he can do so, though, is by putting national interests ahead of personal or political ones.

to that end, we believe obama should announce immediately that he will not be a candidate for reelection in 2012.

that's right! quit — for the sake of the country! look how happy everyone is after sarah palin quit!

if the president goes down the reelection road, we are guaranteed two years of political gridlock at a time when we can ill afford it. but by explicitly saying he will be a one-term president, obama can deliver on his central campaign promise of 2008, draining the poison from our culture of polarization and ending the resentment and division that have eroded our national identity and common purpose.

we do not come to this conclusion lightly. but it is clear, we believe, that the president has largely lost the consent of the governed. the midterm elections were effectively a referendum on the obama presidency. and even if it was not an endorsement of a republican vision for america, the drubbing the democrats took was certainly a vote of no confidence in obama and his party. the president has almost no credibility left with republicans and little with independents.

... and no one cares what democrats think!

the best way for him to address both our national challenges and the serious threats to his credibility and stature is to make clear that, for the next two years, he will focus exclusively on the problems we face as americans, rather than the politics of the moment — or of the 2012 campaign.

quite simply, given our political divisions and economic problems, governing and campaigning have become incompatible. obama can and should dispense with the pollsters, the advisers, the consultants and the strategists who dissect all decisions and judgments in terms of their impact on the president's political prospects.

obama himself once said to diane sawyer: "i'd rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president." he now has the chance to deliver on that idea.

no need to thank us, obama ... this was all your idea! really!

in the 2008 presidential campaign, obama spoke repeatedly of his desire to end the red-state-blue-state divisions in america and to change the way washington works. this was a central reason he was elected; such aspirations struck a deep chord with the polarized electorate.

obama can restore the promise of the election by forging a government of national unity, welcoming business leaders, republicans and independents into the fold. but if he is to bring democrats and republicans together, the president cannot be seen as an advocate of a particular party, but as somebody who stands above politics, seeking to forge consensus. and yes, the united states will need nothing short of consensus if we are to reduce the deficit and get spending under control, to name but one issue.

because, after all, we can't — and shouldn't! — expect republicans or anyone else to rise above politics!

forgoing another term would not render obama a lame duck. paradoxically, it would grant him much greater leverage with republicans and would make it harder for opponents such as senate minority leader mitch mcconnell (r-ky.) — who has flatly asserted that his highest priority is to make obama a one-term president — to be uncooperative.

and why would the GOP back down? duh! because we say so, that's why!

and for democrats such as current speaker nancy pelosi (calif.) — who has said that entitlement reform is dead on arrival — the president's new posture would make it much harder to be inflexible. given the influence of special interests on the democratic party, obama would be much more effective as a figure who could remain above the political fray. challenges such as boosting economic growth and reducing the deficit are easier to tackle if you're not constantly worrying about the reactions of senior citizens, lobbyists and unions.

moreover, if the president were to demonstrate a clear degree of bipartisanship, it would force the republicans to meet him halfway. if they didn't, they would look intransigent, as the gop did in 1995 and 1996, when bill clinton first advocated a balanced budget. obama could then go to the democrats for tough cuts to entitlements and look to the republicans for difficult cuts on defense.

on foreign policy, obama could better make hard decisions about iran, north korea and afghanistan based on what is reasonable and responsible for the united states, without the political constraints of a looming election. he would be able to deal with a democratic constituency that wants to get out of afghanistan immediately and a republican constituency that is committed to the war, forging a course that responds not to the electoral calendar but to the facts on the ground.

if the president adopts our suggestion, both sides will be forced to compromise. the alternative, we fear, will put the nation at greater risk. while we believe that obama can be reelected, to do so he will have to embark on a scorched-earth campaign of the type that president george w. bush ran in the 2002 midterms and the 2004 presidential election, which divided americans in ways that still plague us.

and why would anybody else back down? duh! because everyone loves a quitter, that's why! (and because we say so!)

obama owes his election in large measure to the fact that he rejected this approach during his historic campaign. indeed, we were among those millions of democrats, republicans and independents who were genuinely moved by his rhetoric and purpose. now, the only way he can make real progress is to return to those values and to say that for the good of the country, he will not be a candidate in 2012.

should the president do that, he — and the country — would face virtually no bad outcomes. the worst-case scenario for obama? in january 2013, he walks away from the white house having been transformative in two ways: as the first black president, yes, but also as a man who governed in a manner unmatched by any modern leader. he will have reconciled the nation, continued the economic recovery, gained a measure of control over the fiscal problems that threaten our future, and forged critical solutions to our international challenges. he will, at last, be the figure globally he has sought to be, and will almost certainly leave a better regarded president than he is today. history will look upon him kindly — and so will the public.

and everyone gets a pony!

it is no secret that we have been openly critical of the president in recent days, but we make this proposal with the deepest sincerity and hope for him and for the country.

[snicker]

we have both advised presidents facing great national crises and have seen challenges from inside the oval office. we are convinced that if obama immediately declares his intention not to run for reelection, he will be able to unite the country, provide national and international leadership, escape the hold of the left, isolate the right and achieve results that would be otherwise unachievable.

---

patrick h. caddell, who was a pollster and senior adviser to president jimmy carter, is a political commentator. douglas e. schoen, a pollster who worked for president bill clinton, is the author of "mad as hell: how the tea party movement is fundamentally remaking our two-party system."

ok, everyone can stop laughing now.

395 days ago

... but who's counting?