It’s Friday, the first day of September, and the start of a three-day holiday weekend for most people, as we (supposedly) celebrate Labor. And Bill and Hillary will be visiting my fair city today, to attend the NY State Fair. They first started coming here back when Bill was still president (and before Hillary was “officially” a candidate for Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s Senate seat). It was kinda cool to have the first family in town for a few days, I must say (yes, they even dragged Chelsea here). I know, I know, Bill Clinton was no liberal (why do the wingnuts continue to insist that he was?), and apart from being a disappointment in lots of respects, some pretty shitty things were passed during his tenure (NAFTA, Welfare “Reform,” and the completion of media deregulation begun under Reagan, among others). But, say what you want about Wild Bill, he is one helluva great speaker, and when he visited other countries, he never made me feel embarassed to be an American. I think he was the best Republican since Eisenhower, at least. Plus, he had Buddy, whose picture we used to have above Siggy’s food bowl.

And Hillary. Ah, I had such high hopes for Hillary. Before she announced her candidacy, she travelled all around these parts – the parts that those of you from downstate NY have sorta kinda vaguely heard about (my favorite, I think, was in the movie Tootsie, where they come up here to visit Jessica Lange’s father in Syracuse – which consists of a barn out in the woods :rofl2:), and she listened to what people had to say, and – amazingly enough – she didn’t say anything. She just listened. When she finally did run for the Senate she came back, and she started talking about jobs and families and education and all the things that she’d been listening to everyone talk about. All the things that were important to us regular folks up here, in one of most economically hard-hit areas of the country (at that time, especially, with manufacturing having all but deserted us).

Poor Rick Lazio never had a prayer. Hillary not only stomped him down in NYC, but she won quite handily up here at the barn in the woods, too. All Lazio’s campaign could muster was that Hillary was a carpetbagger, but what he didn’t quite get was that, up here, Long Island might as well be Chicago, or Arkansas – or Mars. Hillary spoke our language, and seemed to know who we were. And a Republican that can’t win in Upstate NY aint going very far.

But, well, Hillary’s turned out to be even more of a disappointment than Bill was. Until pretty recently, it wouldn’t have taken much to turn my opinion around. All she had to say was, “I was wrong. I handed that madman the keys to the country, and he drove us off a fucking cliff, and I never should have done it, and I’m sorry.” But, no, she polls, and panders, and parses, and I don’t know what it is she’s trying to do, but I don’t want her doing it to me. I’ll vote for Tasini in the primary, and if she’s still way ahead come election time, I’ll vote for Howie Hawkins (and if it’s gonna be close, then I’ll hold my nose and vote for her on the Working Families Party line, because principle, schminciple, these bastard Republican Bush enablers need to go – then we can work on the Democraps).

So, what the hell. I’ll still take Bill and Hillary over dubya and Laurathorazine. But I’d rather see Marc and Mishna.

Anyhow, go out there and get this Friday over with, and get crackin’ on the weekend.