“IT IS AN ILL WIND”, I am told by proverbial tradition, “that blows no one any good”. And perhaps there can have been no event in history to make us more mindful of the truth contained in this statement than the lamentable destruction of a great swathe of the US Eastern Seaboard by the unfortunately-named “Sandy” hurricane that has devastated much of the tri-state coastal area and particularly the city of New York.
ALMOST AS IF FORESEEN IN THE LYRICS to the song “New York, New York”, by Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, “Sandy” has “done the Sinatra thing” in fulfilling “I want to be a part of it”, and “I want to stray right through the very heart of it” and “I want to wake up in that city that doesn’t sleep”. Indeed many citizens of New York City, I am now seeing, have not been sleeping for a short while. And those of Hoboken, New Jersey, which is in fact the early stomping ground of Francis Albert Sinatra, will not be sleeping in their own beds for quite a while. If they can find them. Thus their “little town blues” will not be “melting away” for a time.
THE ADVANTAGE OF THIS, OF COURSE, is that everyone can make a “brand new start of it”, and thus put the US economy back on track through what was always its major source of employment, sales and investment: construction in the North East.
THE ILL WIND, HOWEVER, brings political good news to Barack Hussein Obama. Only a week ago the polls and surveys were suggesting that he was fighting for his political life against Romney the Mormon, also a dubious choice for the populace at large, but one who was in the money enough to launch a massive final week charge to the White House based on spreading out dollar largesse.
THUS STYMIED, ROMNEY KNOWS NOT HOW, to use the XVII century Mormon language of his mentor Joseph Smith, who was writing in the XIX century in texts that are obviously fake, to advance. His attempt yesterday to hand out five thousand dollars of “candy” to the homeless in a shelter was filmed on live NBC, ABC and Cable stations. When one “homeless” said that candy was no use, that they wanted money, Romney started doling out cash from his own pocket. All interpretations of this on every channel I have watched have stated he was being idiotic and that he is dead in the water.
DEAD IN THE WATER, HOWEVER, may apply to many things after “Sandy” has swept across the East coast and been shown nation- and worldwide.
OBAMA SUPPORTERS OBVIOUSLY THINK that “Sandy” is a home run. I am not so sure. For 80% of American voters Sandy means nothing. Many had already voted by post. And I am minded of the great 1977 movie “New York, New York”, with Liza Minelli and Robert De Niro. According to the producers, it was “box office gold”. Then the director, Martin Scorcese, changed just one line in the final cut, and turned a cert billion grosser into a turkey. One line at the end of this campaign could do the same.
(My photo shows Governor Romney "pissing in the wind" according to Democrats)
The GOP is an absolute cavalcade of stupidity, these days. It's almost ridiculous the amount of material they supply their opponents with. Though, I am not quite sure just what is more ridiculous; that the Democrats do not seek to defeat them in proper, reasoned debate and argumentation, or that the Republicans toss vulnerabilities into the air like they are partying for the 4th of July.
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