The tragic irony of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is that it was supposed to be an improvement. After Groovy Bill won the election — we saw him play sax at a Mac Court rally in Eugene, although he failed to demonstrate for the assembled stoners How Not to Inhale — he grandly instructed the Secretary of Defense to prepare for ending gay discrimination in the military.

And then it all blew up in his face.

What followed was not unlike Hillary joking that she was too butch career-minded to bake cookies, then hastily calling a photo op to prove she could tollhouse with the best of them. Rather than stand by principle, Bubba mounted a strategic retreat and not-so-grandly declared that if gays would be so kind to stay in the closet, he promised nobody would throw open any doors.

Fourteen thousand doors pried open later, here we are.

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Part the First:

Arizona’s Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio told WND he has assigned a five-member “Cold Case Posse” to investigate the authenticity of Barack Obama’s birth certificate.

The decision, he says, is simply a matter of doing his duty.

“This investigation does not involve politics,” Arpaio told WND. “I listen to all the residents of Maricopa County who come to my office with complaints, regardless what their politics are.”

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Bill O’Reilly: “I have more power than anybody other than the president, in the sense that I can get things changed, quickly. I don’t have to go through the legislative process; I don’t have to do any of that. I can just bring it to the people, and say, look, this has gotta be dealt with.” [Daily Beast]

“By the time I feed my family, I have maybe $400,000 left over.” –Louisiana GOP Congresscritter John Fleming, adding that “class warfare has never created a job”. [ThinkProgress]

Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman is worried about The Preznit’s prospects next year:

But there is good news for the president. I checked the Constitution, and he is under no compulsion to run for re-election. He can scrap the campaign, bag the fundraising calls and never watch another Republican debate as long as he’s willing to vacate the premises by Jan. 20, 2013.

Goodness! If such a staunch Obama partisan as Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman is recommending quitting—

Hold on, the Producer is screaming in our earwig. Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman is a conservative? Then why would Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman want Obama not to—

Ohhhhhhhhh.

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Title: “That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back”

Authors: Thomas L. Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum

Rank: 13

Blurb: “They offer a way out of the trap into which the country has fallen, which includes the rediscovery of some of our most valuable traditions and the creation of a new, third-party movement.”

Review: “One particularly good example for why a different way of thinking and approaching problems is needed comes from Friedman’s discussions with Byron Auguste, a managing director with McKinsey & Company.”

Customers Also Bought: “On China”, by Henry Kissinger

Footnote: There’s nothing wrong with our parties that a different population wouldn’t fix.

That Used to Be Us [Fuck Amazon]

In the course of background research for a recent post — always check spelling! — we discovered one of the most delightful automated interactive features we’ve stumbled across in quite some time.

Oddly, you don’t get the delightful feature for fuck, shit, cocksucker, or twat. But happily, “hornswaggle” is as great a word to know as muff.

Poontang [Dictionary.com]