“From frights
and fears may we be spared by breath of wind and quiet of rain.”
— Madeleine L’Engle
This rune from a
children’s book seems to fit this week’s occasion, though I’m not
sure exactly why: The wind’s breath from Sandy is very wide and
dangerous, the rain hardly quiet.
Frankenstorm Sandy may
be a distraction from the holiday of frights and fears and the
coming election; but Halloween arrives, like Whoville’s Christmas,
regardless of weather or other external events, and so will the
election. Still I find the quote reassuring: I recall it was meant
to be helpful during some cosmic adventure.
During election years,
I often imagine my front porch visited by scary political creatures:
The Vampire Letstax,
which just flew in from the fiscal cliff on the 2013 tax hikes we
and the economy will get if Washington doesn’t act responsibly
during the coming lame duck session.
The lame duck itself,
acting like a victim of partisan politics that couldn’t do its job,
even though Democrats controlled both branches for two of the three
years they haven’t passed a budget.
Sen. Hairy Werewolf
Reid, pledging to continue the gridlock if he still controls the
Senate and Mitt Romney is elected.
The traditional Tierney
Trickster, carrying nasty attack fliers against his challenger —
twenty-two
of them so far, apparently created for independent voters who won’t
deplore “guilt by association.”
Democrat National
Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, her hair styled like
Medusa’s, assuming that women are dumb enough to believe that their
“reproductive rights” are threatened even by pro-choice Republicans
like Tisei and Brown, and it’s the only issue we can wrap our silly
female brains around.
Devil Patrick
accompanied by the Ghost of Massachusetts Present, with its abused
EBT cards; its appropriations intended for construction projects for
low-income families and programs for special-needs children but
misused for administrative indulgence; the bankruptcy of the Waltham
company that burned through $100 million in taxpayer “stimulus”
funds, including a $5 million loan from the Patrick administration
that now hopes to recoup the money “if possible.” What can be
scarier than guilty prisoners being freed because there was no
oversight of the crime lab at which an employee faked tests, or
people across the country getting meningitis because a Massachusetts
state board didn’t discipline a pharmacy that violated state
regulations since 2002? Is anyone doing management here?
I’d give Deval Patrick
a break if, while Democrats try to convince America that Mitt Romney
wasn’t fully engaged here as governor, our present governor wasn’t
running around the country campaigning for President Obama’s ongoing
incompetence. The creatures on my porch are minor goblins compared
to the most horrible event that hit America this year: the terrorist
attack on the consulate at Benghazi on Sept. 11, during which four
Americans died.
I’m afraid you may not
have learned enough about this ongoing issue from Major Mainstream
Media like The New York Times and its affiliates, or from the
network television that can’t be bothered with Obama’s misdeeds yet
covered Cindy Sheehan for weeks as she berated President Bush over
her son’s death in Iraq.
This is why it’s a bad
idea to vote early, as people can in other states, before major
events unfold. While we were told by the Obama administration that
the consulate was attacked by a Muslim mob outraged about some
obscure video, Fox News was doing a follow-up investigation. Its
report that the attack was carefully planned by well-armed jihadists
using the anniversary of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center
has been confirmed. Fox later reported that the Obama administration
was warned that this attack was likely, yet withdrew security
forces, then refused requests for adequate protection.
It gets worse. Fox now
reports that as the attack was happening, as Ambassador Stevens was
being murdered, on-site Americans were calling for help that never
arrived. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, asked why there had not
been a quicker response to the assault, said he and top military
commanders had judged it too dangerous to send troops without a
clearer picture of events. Then comes the accusation that armed
drones were flying overhead, then the question as to whether one was
armed and could have been laser-directed to take out the attackers,
then the refusal of Obama spokesmen to answer that question — which
we can assume means the answer is yes.
We are looking at
decisions not to protect our ambassador, followed by a giant
attempted cover-up that the Major Mainstream Media is allowing, at
least through the election. It takes me back to 1972, when Richard
Nixon handily won re-election, then was later forced to resign when
the Watergate cover-up was exposed — except that no one died because
of Watergate.
I am outraged about
this, and hopeful that Americans will insist on change again.
Well, the storm is
over, the election will soon be over, too. I’m ready to vote for
Romney, Brown, Tisei. Voting No on ballot question 1, Yes on 2, Yes
on 3, No on 4 and 5, Yes on 6 in Marblehead, then going home to eat
the last of my Halloween candy and watch the returns.
