Did you know that George Bush inherited 9/11 from the Clinton Administration?

No kidding! Mary Matalin said so, and she said Bush inherited a recession from Clinton, too:

clipped from airamerica.com Former Dick Cheney adviser Mary Matalin told CNN’s John King the Bush administration “inherited a recession from President Clinton and we inherited the most tragic attack on our own soil in our nation’s history.” Those of us on planet earth know that the 9/11 terror attacks happened eight months after President Bush assumed office and that the 2001 recession technically began in March of 2001, well into Bush’s first term. The effort to revise the history of the Bush years appears to be in full effect. Just last month, former White House Press Secretary Dana Perino told Sean Hannity that there were never any terror attacks while Bush was in power.

Wow. Maybe Carville could keep Mary Matalin in the house and not let her push this trash out on the rest of us.

David Levine, the great caricaturist, dies at 83

I was sorry to read of the death of David Levine today. How many Book Reviews were illustrated with his wonderful caricatures? I couldn’t count.

I started enjoying Levine’s work almost fifty years ago when I was a freshman in prep school.

The NY Times, whose Book Review he decorated for decades, said:

Mr. Levine’s drawings never seemed whimsical, like those of Al Hirschfeld. They didn’t celebrate neurotic self-consciousness, like Jules Feiffer’s. He wasn’t attracted to the macabre, the way Edward Gorey was. His work didn’t possess the arch social consciousness of Edward Sorel’s. Nor was he interested, as Roz Chast is, in the humorous absurdity of quotidian modern life. But in both style and mood, Mr. Levine was as distinct an artist and commentator as any of his well-known contemporaries. His work was not only witty but serious, not only biting but deeply informed, and artful in a painterly sense as well as a literate one; he was, in fact, beyond his pen and ink drawings, an accomplished painter.

The Times compared him to the 19th Century greats Honoré Daumier and Thomas Nast, and I think they are correct.

Farewell David Levine.

Is this a surprise? Rosa De Lauro might go along with Senate’s abortion language…

The whole article that this is clipped from is in the HuffPo today”:

clipped from www.huffingtonpost.com A key pro-choice House Democrat, working on health care in Congress, hinted on Monday that said she might be willing to support the Senate’s abortion language. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) who has been tasked by leadership with helping hammer out a compromise on abortion between the two chambers, said she was not thrilled with either the House or Senate legislation’s provisions. But in an interview with the Huffington Post, the Connecticut Democrat did say she would support the Senate’s version of abortion-related language provided that she could confirm her belief that it did not go beyond current law. “There are some questions I still have,” DeLauro said. “And that’s why I want to see this side-by-side with the language. It’s not Stupak-Pitts [the House’s language]. So, it’s already [an improvement].” DeLauro is one of the strongest champions for women’s reproductive rights in the House; her blessing over the Senate abortion language represents a potentially major concession.

DeLauro says:

“It would appear that you’ve got the Catholic Bishops who aren’t happy. But [Sen. Ben] Nelson (D-Neb.) found his way there as did Senator Bob Casey (D-Penn.) [both pro-life Democrats]. And the pro-choice side said, ‘We don’t like this as much as we would like to not deal with this language.’ But, you know, we’re not going to defeat health care.”

Looking for work, moving Snark forward, and getting over the fall and bruising I had the other night…

It is hard in general to get anything of substance accomplished in the dead period between Christmas and New Years. There are few people around who are working at their jobs, schools are on break and stores that didn’t make their holiday scores are not in the economic shape to hire.

It’s the third day since I fell and I’m walking around pretty easily now, although using the old cane that I had to use when this happened a couple of years ago in Laurel. I feel like I’ve lost a significant chunk of time to be working on my future and now a new month… new year… is coming and I’m still an aging guy without a regular job. Imagine, two degrees, 40 years of mixed and accomplished experiences and a clear intent and I still can’t get work!

As to Snark, I’m 52 days away from opening at Full Circle Theater and I’m still short 1 baritone… small part and, if all goes badly, I can cover it myself, but I really don’t want to. Today I’m sending packages out to the whole cast so far… rehearsals start next Monday night.

So I hope everyone has a nice day… I hear bad weather is coming for New Year’s Eve and I don’t look forward to it.

-BT