780 I Love You Mr. President, But You're Wrong.

780 I Love You Mr. President, But You're Wrong

Paul Harvey put it that way first. It was May 1, 1970. Mayday. And he was addressing Richard Nixon about the Vietnam war. The ultra conservative Harvey decided America couldn't win and that enough lives had been lost, and that it was time to cut bait. Walter Cronkite had said pretty much the same thing almost two years earlier and President Lyndon Johnson credited or blamed him for turning the hearts of the American middle class.

But this is not about Vietnam and it's not about Nixon or Johnson. This is about economics and it's addressed to Barack Obama.

Sir, you cannot appease irrationality and there is no defense against random acts of stupidity, either yours or the other side's. You are being slowly assassinated and a lot of it, you're bringing on yourself. You keep trying to compromise with people who cannot and/or will not compromise. Tax cuts, health care, Afghanistan. You are surrounded by aides and officials who have turned your head away from the major issue, jobs. You spoke of "shovel ready" public works projects that don't exist. You allowed those advisers and officials to bail out the big banks, "walking zombies," as Jim Kingsland calls them, and AIG, Fannie and Freddie. The country is not going to see a profit on those "investments," nor will it see a good result from buying Treasury bonds from ourselves at what probably will mean trillions of dollars.

Meantime, the rest of us are facing rising interest rates, lower incomes and lots of worry. You have allowed your party to squander its majority in congress. You are currently visiting a country, India, which is second only to China as the sink into which American jobs are draining. We continue the Bush legacy of kowtowing to the European Union on trade matters.

The auto industry bailouts are iffy. Even though the relative quality of GM cars is skyrocketing, America remains Chevy-shy and should. GM is, as Lee Iacocca said of Chrysler when he ran it, "shipping crap." It's just slightly better crap than a few years ago.

Mr. President, Paul Harvey and Walter Cronkite would never have suggested this to a President in public. But please go into the bedroom of the White House Residence, open the clothes closet and look in the full length mirror. See that thing sitting on top of your neck? It's your head, sir. And it has a good mind and brain inside it. Everyone knows this. Now comes the hard part. Please drop your pants and your undies and look at what's between your legs. Using your mind and good will is one thing. But you also need to use your balls.

Shrapnel:

--The bathroom scale, a digital, electronic, state of the art marvel of modernity has been accused of inaccuracy for months now, so it's been replaced with a standard, old fashioned, low tech, state of the mechanics version, which reads exactly the same weight as the supposedly defective one it replaced. There is a conspiracy of liars somewhere in those scale factories.

--Another verification that motion and action are not the same: The waiter, a nice young guy who looks like a football player, is dashing around the restaurant at a speed rate far faster than sensible. And everyone at his tables continues to wait for food or for the correction of errors, while the tables at every other waiters' tables have everything they need in front of them.

I'm Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you're welcome to them.®

©WJR 2010