Archive for May, 2012

An Open Limerick To Mitt Romney

Thursday, May 31st, 2012

Birtherism is but one of Donald Trump’s bad qualities. And yet the Mitt Romney-Donald Trump alliance is going strong, making some people wonder how Romney looks at himself in the mirror without throwing up.

An Open Limerick To Mitt Romney
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Dear Mitt, some are feeling concerned,
Cuz what little respect you have earned,
Will go right down the drain
Should you really retain
Your Trump clown-act. He needs to be spurned.

Limerick Ode To An Amateur

Monday, May 28th, 2012

It’s a sad day when highly respected LBJ biographer Robert Caro loses his number one New York Times non-fiction slot to his polar opposite: hit job “author” Edward Klein.

Limerick Ode To An Amateur
By Madeleine Begun Kane

The Amateur, hit job and whine
On Obama by error-prone Klein,
Has slimed up to first
On the Times list — we’re cursed:
Public taste for the facts on decline.

Limerick Memo To Republican Parents

Friday, May 25th, 2012

Memo To Republican Parents of College-Age Children: When federal student loan rates double this July, you’ll only have yourselves to blame:

Senate Republicans filibustered a bill to extend the current interest rate on federal student loans, blocking an extension from moving forward by a vote of 51-43 (with 60 votes needed to advance the bill). They blocked a similar effort earlier this month. Without an extension, interest rates will double in July from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent.

Limerick Memo To Republican Parents
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Sen. Republicans live in a bubble,
Untroubled that loan rates will double:
They repeatedly block
A Dem bill that would lock
In low rates, treating students like rubble.

Limerick Ode To Mitt “Job Creator” Romney

Tuesday, May 22nd, 2012

So let me get this straight: Mitt Romney has disavowed his singular accomplishment as Massachusetts governor (universal health care). And for the most part, he’s resting his claim to the presidency on his Bain-related expertise and accomplishments. He even asserts (without any proof) to have been a big “job creator” there. And yet Romney has the audacity to declare his Bain years off-limits to examination and critique by Obama and other Democrats.

As Ezra Klein points out:

Romney’s national platform … calls for doing less for the victims of the global economy. He wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which would guarantee that workers would get health insurance even if they lost their jobs in, say, a private-equity led restructuring. He wants to pay for large tax cuts and more defense spending by cutting funds for Medicaid, for food stamps, for worker retraining, and for housing subsidies. He wants to cut Social Security benefits. He has no detailed plans to improve the continuing education system, or worker retraining programs, such that displaced machinists have a better chance to find a new job.

That’s why the ads in which laid-off steelworkers say Romney just doesn’t care about people like them are so effective. As head of Bain, it was Romney’s job not to care about them. But as a presidential candidate, it’s his job to show that he does care about them. So far, he hasn’t.

Limerick Ode To Mitt “Job Creator” Romney
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Romney brags of his Bain expertise—
Says it’s earned him the White Houses’s keys.
Yet he’s sore, slams the door,
Says how dare we explore
What exactly he did for those fees.

Dear Mitt, you can’t have it both ways.
Your record’s reviewed in this phase:
When you proudly proclaim
You know biz, it’s fair game
To appraise your Bain management ways.

State of Embarrassment (Limerick)

Monday, May 21st, 2012

Note to Sarah Palin and Ted (Tea Party Express, Texas) Cruz, a would-be Republican nominee for U.S. Senate: Just because Texas and Kansas both end in “as” doesn’t make them the same state:

Sarah Palin called with a tip that Cruz was the man for the GOP.

Thank goodness the Cruz campaign directed a robocall to my office of the Topeka Capital-Journal.

Getting meaningful political advice from Palin was a treat.

“Hello, Texas!” she blasted into my ear. “I’m Sarah Palin.”

State of Embarrassment (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Dear Sarah, when trying to aid
Mr. Cruz, all your robocalls played
On phones through the state
Of Kansas ain’t great,
When it’s Texans you aim to persuade.

Poking a Hole In Romney’s Odds (Limerick)

Friday, May 18th, 2012

Here’s a bracing historical factoid: The last man to be elected U.S. president despite losing both his home and birth states was President James Knox Polk back in 1844. Why’s it bracing? Because Mitt Romney is very likely to lose his native state (Michigan) and home state (Massachusetts.)

Poking a Hole In Romney’s Odds (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Mitt Romney is likely to lose
His birth and his home states. Great news,
Because history says
That for Mitt to be prez
He needs one of those states … or Polk’s shoes.

Please Say It Ain’t So (Limerick)

Wednesday, May 16th, 2012

Every so often I read a news item that sounds so crazy, I’m sure it must be from the Onion. For instance:

Two months from now, [George W. Bush] plans to publish a book outlining strategies for economic growth.

Please Say It Ain’t So (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

An economy book by George Dub,
Whose presidency was a flub:
That’s the news of the day,
And I’m sorry to say
That this isn’t a joke — there’s the rub.

Limerick Ode To Michele “Swiss Miss No More” Bachmann

Friday, May 11th, 2012

I got very excited when I learned that Michele Bachmann had become a Swiss citizen, courtesy of her Swiss-born husband, Marcus Bachmann. Silly me — I thought maybe she’d become another nation’s problem. A nation with a lovely universal health care system, I might add.

But alas, the dual citizen thing rubbed Bachmann’s wingnutty constituents the wrong way. So Michele seems to have pulled a “never mind” in a letter to the Swiss Consulate withdrawing her Swiss dual citizenship.

Oh well … it was nice while it lasted.

Limerick Ode To Michele “Swiss Miss No More” Bachmann
By Madeleine Begun Kane

I enjoyed a brief moment of bliss
When Bachmann turned partially Swiss.
I’d assumed ’twas a flight
From our “socialist” blight
And an anti-Obama type diss.

But alas, it appears she is staying
All-American. Damn, how dismaying!
Guess it’s hard to accrue
Swiss-style benefits too,
While you keep anti-health care inveighing.

Jonah Goldberg’s Dust Cover Dustup (Limerick)

Wednesday, May 9th, 2012

Remember Jonah Goldberg? The fellow whose pundit career got a huge boost from his mommy Lucianne Goldberg’s role in the Bill Clinton impeachment.

Well, he’s out with a new liberal-bashing book. I wouldn’t even mention it, but for the amusing dustup over its dust cover:

On the dust jacket of his new book, “The Tyranny of Clichés: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas,” best-selling conservative author and commentator Jonah Goldberg is described as having “twice been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.”

In fact, as Goldberg acknowledged on Tuesday, he has never been a Pulitzer nominee, but is merely one of thousands of entrants.

What’s surprising in Goldberg’s case is that he has been called out for the same résumé padding before, when his previous book was published.

Jonah Goldberg’s Dust Cover Dustup (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Jonah Goldberg has written a book
Claiming liberals cheat, as its hook.
Check its dust jacket. Why?
To laugh at this lie:
Nominee for two Pulitzers? Schnook!

Limerick Ode To Mitt “Afraid of the Fringe” Romney

Tuesday, May 8th, 2012

Mitt Romney’s cowardice surfaced yet again today: Romney failed correct a woman who said Obama “should be tried for treason.”

Limerick Ode To Mitt “Afraid of the Fringe” Romney
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Dear Romney, a gal in your crowd
Called Obama a traitor out loud.
Though it’s clear that you heard,
You said nary a word
To dispute it: You’re shamefully cowed.

Is Ron Paul Out-Maneuvering Mitt? (Limerick)

Monday, May 7th, 2012

Rachel Maddow has long been covering Ron Paul’s stealth delegate strategy. Well finally, the rest of the mainstream media is starting to take notice. Here’s the Christian Science Monitor on Ron Paul’s big delegate wins in Maine and Nevada:

… Mr. Paul’s strategy of organizing the grass roots and working arcane delegate selection rules is paying off. And that could mean big trouble for Mitt Romney and his plans to smoothly pivot to a campaign aimed solely at incumbent President Obama.

Is Ron Paul Out-Maneuvering Mitt? (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Should Mitt be concerned about Paul
And his stealth, oddball delegate haul?
A Ron Paul power play
Could create disarray —
Tampa might not be dull, after all.

Plain Advice For Obama (Limerick)

Saturday, May 5th, 2012

Uh-oh! The pressure must be getting to Obama:

Shortly after landing in Columbus, Ohio, for his first rally, Obama walked off Air Force One under gray skies, ready to descend the stairs and greet some grassroots supporters. But after a few short steps, the president quickly doubled back, apparently realizing he had forgotten someone: the first lady.

Plain Advice For Obama (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Dear Obama, to best avoid strife
In your marriage and family life,
When you exit the plane
You’ve little to gain
By leaving behind your dear wife.

Mitt Romney’s Grenell Gaffe (Limerick)

Thursday, May 3rd, 2012

It can’t be easy to simultaneously piss off liberals, conservatives, gays, and homophobes. But Mitt Romney managed to do it.

How? By hiring and (under pressure from anti-gay conservatives) speedily muzzling and forcing out his openly gay, misogynistic, wingnutty foreign policy spokesman Ric Grenell.

Mitt Romney’s Grenell Gaffe (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Mitt Romney would love to dispel
His panicked farewell to Grenell:
Bigots bitched, so he jumped —
His gay spokesman, he dumped,
Selling out at alarm bells, pell-mell.

Limerick Ode To Mitt-Simplicity

Tuesday, May 1st, 2012

I’ve been meaning to comment on Mitt Romney’s cluelessly callous remarks to students at Otterbein University in Ohio:

…Mitt Romney told students that, his friend, Jimmy John, started a business by borrowing $20,000 from his parents at a low interest rate. Romney suggested anyone in the audience could do the same:

“…Take a shot, go for it, take a risk, get the education, borrow money if you have to from your parents, start a business.”

In other words, Romney wants students to be “job creators,” but he has no plans to help them. Now if you’re a rich “job creator,” that’s another story.

Limerick Ode To Mitt-Simplicity
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Dear Mitt, I was grateful and glad
That you shared the quick fix to be had
For youths who can’t pay
For college today:
Start a biz with a loan from your dad.