Published July 20, 2011 in the Naples (FL) Daily News:

From Teddy Roosevelt’s Bully Pulpit to President Barack Obama’s embrace of social media, presidential communication tends to define communication as a cultural phenomenon.

The public — and policymakers from Capitol Hill to nearly every other level of government and society — tend to listen when a president of the United States communicates. The way in which a president communicates has also become nearly as important as the words written or spoken.

Former presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson set a tone for our early days with their letters — hand-written and usually hand-delivered. Abraham Lincoln’s speeches defined our nation in its most troubled times.
The first telephone was installed in the White House in 1877 by Rutherford B. Hayes, a single line running only to the Treasury Department next door.

Regular and frequent telephone calls into and out of the White House would have to wait another 50 years until Herbert Hoover installed the first telephone into the Oval Office.

The age of mass communication between the White House and the American public began famously with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Fireside Chats on the radio. Embracing the earliest form of mass communication, Roosevelt’s effectiveness and success is legendary.

Both FDR and, later, presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson knew how to work the phones effectively and all three effectively used off-the-record conversations with journalists as part of a mass media strategy.

President Johnson famously had three televisions set up in the Oval Office to monitor all three — at the time — major television news organizations.

Perhaps no form of presidential mass communications compares in its effect on the body politic as greatly as the 1960 televised debates between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. The medium became the message and helped determine the outcome of the election.

Live televised speeches directly to the American public have become almost routine for presidents from Kennedy to Obama. And the annual State of the Union address to Congress has become an evening of great television theatre.

Obama’s uses of the “new” forms of social media in 2008 are widely credited with propelling a relatively unknown senator from Illinois to the White House. (Lincoln used trains and debates with Stephen Douglas.)

The Obama administration continues to employ many forms of social media in its daily communications. With a few quick keystrokes, millions of Americans are able to occupy front-row seats in the White House and Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

From its primary Internet portal at www.whitehouse.gov/engage, visitors can subscribe to a wide range of electronic newsletters and blogs, can visit and engage with other Obama administration initiatives like “Let’s Move” or “Joining Forces” or the new “Champions of Change” initiative.

From its Facebook page and Twitter account to its presence on LinkedIN to its White House channel on YouTube and Vimeo, constant uploading of photos to its Flickr account and podcasts on iTunes, the Obama White House is communicating online constantly to millions of Americans just about every aspect of this historic presidency.

“This White House is committed to being the most open and transparent in history,” said Katelyn Sabochik, director of online engagement for the White House Office of Digital Strategy.

Her title and office pretty much says it all. Social media is the message for the Obama administration.

And by, “aggressive secularism,” he means Anglicans and Presbyterians and, please, don’t even bring up the Methodists!

Okay, whatever. Maybe Madam Tussaud can post Thomas Cromwell’s head on the London Bridge once again. Just for old time’s sake.

Oh yea, and by, “aggressive secularism,” he means the printing press.

Back across the pond, however, Gutenberg would be shocked and awed by the speed with which we can aggressively circulate revolt, if not outright repulsion.

Fewer than five days after appearing onstage at the VMAs wearing a meat dress (complete with meat purse she asked Cher to hold), the unstoppable Lady Gaga is taking Sen. John McCain to task on the Twitter for rumors we may try to filibuster the inevitable end to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

“SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN is attempting to stop the DON’T ASK DON’T TELL repeal vote this tuesday, with a filibuster,” Tweeted her Gaganess, only to follow up with, “All hands on deck Lil Monsters: Key senate vote this Tues. on #DADTrepeal. We need 60 senators. Call your senator now.”

She meant, “deck.”

Sen. McCain, always the Maverick, responded with, “Who is Lady Gaga and why would anyone want to wear a dress made of meat? Don’t ask me. Don’t tell me.”

“And if the Pope is going to London does that mean King Henry finally gets his divorce?”

I’m just making all that up, of course. Sen. McCain just barely remembers the 16^th Century.

But that doesn’t mean the current GOP isn’t trying to take us back there.

Judging from the candidates the TeaParty-GOP has fielded in Nevada, Kentucky, Colorado, Florida and, now, Delaware, it is clear retro-politics has once again become fashionable among the silk-stocking cowed…er…crowed.

It’s just not good politics without a heavy dose of fear and judgment thrown in. And for God’s sake, follow the advice of the GOP’s newest poster child, Christine O’Donnell and don’t try that masturbation thing at home! Leave it to the professionals.

Fortunately for us, aggressive secularism is a hallmark of this great country. That’s why we wrote that whole Constitution thingy to say a state shouldn’t be forcing religion on anyone.

But just the same, when we are ready for a new religious leader, 17 percent of us are ready for that leader to be…drum roll, please….that’s right: Glenn Beck! (At least according to a poll published by the Public Religion Research Institute.)

It’s reassuring, I know. But religious leadership is really such a fleeting mantle. Look for those numbers to change by the end of October when Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert hold their competing rallies on the Mall in Washington: the Rally to Restore Sanity and the Keep Fear Alive Rally…respectively.

Look for pigeons to fly over as a sign from God.

Sarah Palin, the former half-governor of Alaska, which can see Russia from its front porch, may be on to something.

We’ve become a nation of such intellectual giants we can only hope, now, to elect presidents in the future based on the number and obsequiousness of words they completely make up.

Forget writing books – and I mean really writing books, not having someone else write it. No more, Profiles in Courage. Forget about, The Audacity of Hope.

We’re talking, here, about the audacity of dopes. We’ll just make up words, apply them with malapropitude and may the best mangler win!

This is why Palin is tied with – or maybe even leading – President Obama in 2012 polls.

Make up words! Dazzle the Dilberts with shiny syntactical objects! Go ahead, you’ve the legs for it!

Performing magic tricks on the Faux News tee vee box show with Shame Humanity, Palindrome suggested the President should REFUDIATE the NAACP (or maybe the NCAA) for suggesting the racist TeaParty is racist.

Within moments, the blogosphere and twitscape were ablaze with chortles and guffaws. (“Have you been injured in a humorous accident? Call the law firm of Chortles & Guffaws, LLP.)

Realizing the linguistic lapse, after a while, Palin tried to distance herself from the gaff.

Ha-ha-ha! No, she didn’t.

She chose to compare herself to Billy Shakespeare who was also elected president by making up words – right after he invented the fishing pole.

“Refudiate,” “misunderestimate,” “wee-wee’d up.” English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it,” she tweeted…really, not making it up.

So, with all the refugnance due the intellectual leader of the Refublican Party, she will refulse any grandiosity toward resfect for the English language of which she speaks and move our refublic toward a refroachful refrobation of refulsve refose.

After all, who needs any intellect to be president? No the Refublican Party! (See: 2000 to 2008.)

President Obama would do well to heed the warnings and begin immediately a program of language mutilation if he hopes to have any chance at all in 2012 with the half-wits.

Even if he has not the legs for it.

It is the yin and yang of it.

I see this tweet, yesterday. (A tweet, for you great unwashed and disconnected, is a 140-character message posted on Twitter, the micro-blogging social medium which – like politics – offers both concise brilliance and enormously short-sighted inanities.)

So, I see this tweet yesterday.

“Obama hates Jews,” it read. WTF, I thought. That’s just stupid.

Doesn’t President Obama make a big deal of celebrating an official White House Passover Seder?

Not being able to simply let such obvious moronic thoughts pass without a rebuttal, the message was re-tweeted with this note: “this is simply a bald-faced lie.”

Turns out the original tweet was sent by a fervent believer in all things inane and right-wing conspiratorial. The poor woman couldn’t help herself.

“You disagree with me?” she wrote back. Being busy, I didn’t see that tweet for way too many minutes in her mind.

“I want proof that he does not hate Jews,” she insisted. “Give me some facts, quotes, etc.”

And in just a few minutes more:

“Have you come up with a response for your ass-kissing, pathetic president? It doesn’t matter if you’re gay.”

A quick check of this troubled tweeter’s profile revealed her to be “conservative, mom of 2 wonderful boys, politically savvy, real estate agent, creative, marketer and MU Tiger.”

With a heavy sigh – and realizing one never wins a Twitter battle with a stone wall twit – the response finally went back out, in good Southern manners: “Bless your heart. It must be difficult to carry around so much hate.”

But, you see, hate has become the currency of the simple minded wading into the oil-soaked waters of politics.

Take South Carolina – please. (No, wait…sorry…twist on an old Henny Youngman joke.)

The front runner for the GOP nomination to succeed Appalachian Trail hiker Mark Sanford as governor is a woman, Nikki Haley. Because she’s a woman, she’s been accused of sleeping around by a right-wing blogger and former political hack for Sanford and, as it turns out, Haley.

But there’s more. Haley is now Christian – a Methodist, even, which some say is just barely Christian. But she was raised by her Indian parents in the Sikh faith and given the name, Nimrata Randhawa, at birth…in South Carolina.

So along comes her GOP primary opponent, a fellow state senator named Jake Knotts (no relation to Don), who loudly and flatulently proclaimed yesterday, “We already got one raghead in the White House. We don’t need another in the governor’s mansion.”

If you’re keeping track, mark another one down in the column of gross, ignorant and insipid.”

That and by rolling back airport security measures for people from countries where most people look kinda dark and swarthy, sorta like Jesus probably did.

But, hey, it’s Holy Week in a number of ways and the time of year when lots of religions celebrate something. Jews observed Passover this week (at which point the whole Easter thing started in the first place.) Muslims just celebrated the birth of the Prophet.

Buddhists celebrate every day and the Hindus are rolling around both Hanuman Jayanti and Baisahki. The Zoroastrians just celebrated Naw-Ruz and the Rastafarians celebrate every time a good crop comes in.

Each of these festivals was celebrated in traditional ways in the White House, this year; along with the Kenyan socialist holiday of Sean Hannity’s birthday.

The Fox Nation is celebrating Sarah Palin’s new show on the TeeVee Box, panned almost universally among anyone with any sense about what makes up good TeeVee.

“Palin is disconnected from the show,” says the New York Daily News. “Having her follow the taped pieces with interviews gives the production the feel of a telethon, without the pitch for money.”

Surprising, really, that Glenn Beck didn’t object to the debut of the Sarah Palin Variety Hour on Maundy Thursday. Hmmm…must have slipped past him.

And just in time for Easter, the crazies who think its okay to end baby-killing by killing doctors almost had a new martyr of their own to celebrate.

Scott Roeder, convicted of killing Kansas City doctor George Tiller was sentenced to life in prison, eligible for parole in 50 years. He can get out when he’s 104.

Lots of murder cases get the death penalty. But not this one.

At his sentencing hearing, Roeder was defiant saying the blood of justice will sweep over the nation “like the prairie wind.” Whatever that means.

It’s been a tough week for the Republican Party, too. In a single week, the GOP has gone from the Party of No to the Party of No-Holds-Barred when it comes to kinky bondage-themed L.A. clubs and phone sex.

Finally – and in the spirit of what Easter is REALLY all about – a high school in Palo Alto, California – ironically called Gunn High School – decided to counter the hate laid at its doorstep with a rally to promote peace, tolerance and love.

Click here to read the story and watch the video.

(Thanks to @jeangfl on the TwitterMachine for the heads up.)

Peace.

Not really. That would be unseemly. Caning is the preferred method of corporal punishment in the Congress.

But the before the day is out, Rangel will be but a humble House member – sorta – and Jim Bunning will still be a Senator with a Hall of Fame ego and…oh yea…crazier ‘n bat guano.

Who can forget the 1964 season in which Bunning pitched a perfect game for the Philadelphia Phillies and led the Phils into what looked like a lock for the World Series – only to then lead the Phillies into one of the most famous September pennant-race collapses in Major League history?

Bunning, as a pitcher, was famous for shaking off signs from catchers and throwing whatever pitch he damn well wanted.

Hmmm…things haven’t changed much.

As we all know by now, Bunning finally accepted a sign from the catcher (GOP Senate leader and fellow Kentuckian Mitch McConnell) and ended his temper tantrum which was holding up unemployment checks and money for federal highway projects and was, in turn, forcing the furlough of thousands of highway construction workers….which means hundreds of thousands of struggling people have to struggle a bit longer.  Everybody say, “Thanks, Sen. Bunning!”

The joke going around the Magic Twitter Machine on Tuesday was: “Jim Bunning says, I abject!”

Meanwhile, President Obama will release yet another health care proposal which will include Republican ideas – some tort reform and health savings accounts – and Republicans will still say, just like Bunning…NO!!…and we’ll end up with an even more watered-down health care reform measure.

But never mind all that, Texas Gov. Rick Perry now faces a critical decision: run for president of the teabaggers or run for president of the Republic of Texas.

Perry whipped Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, a former TeeVee news reporter and unabashed Bush sycophant for the Texas Republican gubernatorial nomination. If elected in the general in November, Perry will serve a third term and become the longest-serving Texas governor in history.

He also defeated in the primary the teabaggers’ choice for governor, somebody named Debra Medina, and he will need the teabaggers’ support if he’s going to take Texas out of the Union or run for president of it.

Oh yea, and if he’s going to win a third term as Texas governor he will need to defeat the very popular former mayor of Houston, Democrat Bill White.

And finally, in case you missed it, the Associated Press is reporting leaks from a book by Bush Svengali Karl Rove in which Rove admits the war in Iraq damaged the Bush Administration’s credibility.

Um..yea…credibility…and badly damaged nearly beyond redemption two entire nations, not to mention the stability of the entire world!!

Republicans agree to health care reform!

Ha-ha-ha…Wait, no they didn’t.

Despite repeated attempts Thursday to come together, sitting around a square hollow table, over 30 of our nation’s most distinguished square hollow legislators continued to fuss and fight.

And 30 more people died while they were arguing. At least, statistics suggest so.

At the beginning, President Obama acknowledged Democrats and Republicans have different views of the world but insisted, bless his heart, they could talk out differences.

No, they can’t. No Kumbaya…no hookah will help.

“I don’t know that those gaps can be bridged and it may be that at the end of the day we come out of here saying, ‘Well, we’ve had some honest disagreements,’” the president said, according to the New York Times reporting. “But I’d like to make sure that this discussion is actually a discussion and not just us trading talking points.”

Yea, but the Republicans can’t help sling talking points and proceeded to do so for the rest of the day.

Whatever.

Before it was even over, Republicans were launching press releases saying the summit was a failure. And the National Republican Campaign Committee produced a satirical ad on the Innertubes comparing the summit to a scary movie with the message: “They’re trying to cram it down your throat.”

This was not, to be clear, any comment on recent sex scandals that have plagued Republican office holders.

What’s even more clear is that despite every effort, the GOP is not going to give Obama any chance at all to “win” at anything – including and especially health care because…well…that might actually benefit Americans.

So, in the end, Obama said he’d give the lawmakers six weeks to agree and if the Republicans still won’t agree, well, maybe then we’ll go back to that old “majority rules” thingy and pass it without their help.

From the start, GOP minions were alive and well – and mouthing off on the InnerTubes and in Magical Twitterland.

“Thanks for your opening comments, Obama. We’re all dumber for having heard them,” wrote one Right-Wing Twit.

“Obama saying Common Sense & Healthcare in same sentence is like Jihadist praying to Jesus Christ,” said another.

“Exactly when did we change from WE THE PEOPLE to WE THE CONGRESS?,” asked one more (Answer: hum, it’s called The Constitution.)

“If healthcare is a right, why is food not a right too? Food is more important for survival than healthcare.”

Okay, whatever the point was of that last one.

Here’s the deal: Democrats have the majority in both the House and the Senate. The American people are behind you. This is what we voted for in 2008.

Just do it.

The Legend-Before-Its-Time Summit on Health-Care-Reform-Arguing will take up six hours of time Thursday on the TeeVee Box.

The Winter Olympics will be suspended. Wall Street will shut down. Trains and airlines will grind to a halt. And Republicans will put cotton in their ears, stomp their feet and act like petulant children being dragged to the principal’s office.

Okay. None of that is true – except the last part.

The White House, in preparing for the summit to be broadcast live from Blair House, spent the better part of the past week arguing with Republicans over the size and shape of chairs, the size and shape of tables, the color of lamp shades and drapes and which incense to burn during scheduled guided meditations.

A grateful nation heaved a sigh of relief earlier today when the Republican congressional delegation finally agreed to a square, hollow table – because it suits them.

According to Politico, that thoughtful online apologist for big business, the Democrats unstated goal of the health care summit is “to make congressional Republicans look like a bunch of whiny, cynical, ideologically bankrupt crybabies who don’t have a plan of their own.”

Ha-ha-ha, congressional Republicans are doing a pretty darn good job of that all by themselves.

But don’t be fooled. Despite holding overwhelming majorities in both the Senate and the House, Democrats can’t quite seem to adopt measures to reform the nation’s health care system.

So, given study released in late 2009 by the Harvard Medical School which suggested 45,000 Americans are dying each year because of our flawed for-profit health care system we can expect 30.8 people to die during the six-hour health care summit…and another 30.8 will die each six hours the Congress fails to adopt needed reforms.

We don’t mean to say Congress isn’t doing ANYTHING.

The Senate actually managed to adopt key measures toward a jobs bill…and five Republicans voted with the Democrats!

But Downtown Scotty Brown, the newly-elected nekkid truck driver who is now sitting in Ted Kennedy’s seat, found out just how mean his teabagger buds can be.

The angry malcontents spanked Brown’s nekkid truck drivin’ butt loud and hard on the Facebook thingy and Magic Twitter Machine after he voted with the Democrats on the jobs bill.

“LYING LOW LIFE SCUM HYPOCRITE,” was, I believe, a representative post.

“BROWN, YOU JUST REMEMBER DOUCHEBAG…WE ARE WATCHING YOU!!!!,” was, I believe, another. Both in all caps.

Ha! Fun, ain’t it, Scotty? That’s a really nice crowd you hang with. This will also probably mean less interest in his daughters.

Canada said to be amassing troops at the border…somewhere along the border…if we can find them…to invade in retaliation!

Okay, not really. But this does not bode well for US-Canadian relations. Making matters worse is the fact the USA is leading in the Canadian Olympics medal count.

How can this happen under an Obama Administration? That’s exactly what Republicans will be asking this week as they gather – reluctantly – under the klieg lights for another Obama Rodeo in which he will, no doubt, rope and hog-tie Congressional Republicans under the guise of getting agreement on health care reform.

Now, he has added incentive: holding off the Canadian invasion threat by trying to make our health care system look more like their health care system. The president will today announce a cap on health insurance premium increases – some of which have topped 31 percent lately – in an effort to appease the unruly and clearly agitated Canadians.

Republicans will be put in a tough spot. They will either have to go along or be blamed for not appeasing the Canadians and acquiescing to the looming invasion.

This is nasty business.

There is good news for Republicans, however. Texas Congressman Ron Paul won the CPAC straw poll over the weekend. Paul, the Libertarian, captured nearly one-third of the votes cast by the nearly one-third of CPAC attendees who bothered to cast a straw poll ballot at all.

This means Paul, who waged an independent run for the presidency in 2008, beat out the ever-lovely and vapid Mitt Romney for CPAC prom king, an embarrassing turn of events for Romney and Massachusetts because “the Mittens” has won the last three CPAC straw polls.

Unfortunately for him, he could not this year get support from even 25 percent of the nearly 30 percent who bothered to vote. Let’s see…25 percent of 30 percent is…divide by three…carry the one…um…not very many people.

And for the record, Sarah Palin only got 7 percent of the vote while Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, who spoke at the confab, garnered 6 percent of the vote…of the one-third who bothered to vote.

Oh well, the CPAC crowd is always much bigger on bombast and idle threats than on actual participatory democracy so votes and voting – not so much.

Meanwhile, some actually-elected Republicans are having a tough time ‘splainin’ why they so readily accepted money from President Obama’s initial stimulus plan when they railed so loudly against it.

According to the Wall Street Journal, more than a dozen Republican lawmakers supported requests for stimulus money while, at the same time, calling the $787 billion Obama program the worst thing since processed cheese.

Republican Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, who called the stimulus, “the socialist way,” asked for $15 million in socialist cheese for his state’s cogongrass eradication program.

Wisconsin Republican Congressman Paul Ryan, who called the stimulus a “wasteful spending spree”, asked for enough socialist cheese to create 1,000 new jobs…perhaps in the Wisconsin cheese industry.

Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn explained in a Tweet from his magic Twitter machine there is no hypocrisy in this at all: “No contradiction to vote against reckless stimulus but if majority hell-bent to spend the money anyway, make sure Texas gets fair share.”

It’s just that kind of messed up day. The New York Times can’t even report on the winter storm, apparently, because none of its reporters can get out of the building. The Old Grey Lady sent out a tweet earlier today – desperately seeking  help to report the story..

“Send us your stories,” read the tweet. “We’re trapped and we’re cannibalizing the once proud craft of journalism!”

(Okay…made up that last part…kinda.)

Don’t know why everybody wants to make fun of Sarah Palin’s hand job for the teabaggers last weekend. She was just trying to give them want they want.

Even the comic genius that is White House press spokesman Robert Gibbs stroked the meme by revealing to the White House press corps a short grocery list written on his palm. Ha-ha-ha…yea, that was a good one. Maybe when he’s done at the White House his brothers, Barry and Robin, will take him back and they can go on the road again…”stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive…”

Elsewhere in the White House, First Lady Michelle Obama was rolling out her campaign to end the epidemic of childhood obesity in a generation.

And when we say, “rolling out”… we don’t mean the kids who are…wait for it…so fat…wait for it…that when they sit around the house, the really sit around the house!

Okay, okay…sorry. This really is a serious problem for the US of A…mostly in the A and mid-section of kids who, studies suggest, consume an average – AVERAGE – of 145 pounds of high fructose corn syrup each year, mostly from soft drinks, fruity drinks, so-called sports drinks and processed foods.

The First Lady’s, “Let’s Move,” campaign is not a signal to Republicans the Obamas are ready for a new address come 2012 but rather a call to put down the Twinkies, get off the freakin’ couch and play some hoops…for heaven’s sake!

And speaking of Republicans, that fun-loving and clever bunch over at the Republican National Committee is doing its part to spread the VD love by offering Valentine’s Day e-cards for your friends or sex partners, even same-sex partners or all three!

You can send cards bearing the likeness of Rahm Emmanuel saying, “Happy [expletive] Valentine’s Day.” Or an ACORN spokesman saying, “We’d like to help you set up a tax free romance business.”

Oh, those witty RNC staffers…a barrel of monkeys are those guys! They missed a real opportunity, though, to send out Valentine’s Day cards from the likes of Gov. Mark Sanford, Sen. David Vitter, Sen. John Ensign, Rep. Mark Foley…or, even, Newt Gingrich or Justice Clarence Thomas.

Finally, our dreams have been answered! Google has given us YET ANOTHER social network through which we can totally waste what little time we have left from wasting our time on all the other social networks!

Google Buzz will offer diversions straight from your Gmail and keep you updated on what your friends are doing and posting on all their social networking sites. Great! SQUIRREL!!