State of disgrace

Driven to distraction: Each week, it is this space’s charge to chew through the cynicism that coats our discourse like deep-fat-fried batter on a corn dog in order to bite down on the wrinkled, mystery meat of the matter and make sense of a world gone mad with hubris and greed.

And each week, this column fails miserably at its appointed task.

This time Bites blames, for starters, state Senator Carole Migden, the liberal lesbian who represents the hoity-toity “progressives” of San Francisco, Marin and Sonoma counties, a region where the median price for the average family home exceeds $1 million and preserving open space eclipses affordable housing as the primary political concern.

Much was made of Migden’s recent wild ride through the wine country and beyond, and rightfully so: She has been implicated in no less than three traffic accidents during the escapade, multiple infractions for which you, dear reader, would no doubt be serving time in San Quentin—one of the largest employers in Marin County, by the way—where, if legislation sponsored by Migden takes effect, your release will be delayed until it’s determined the rest of us are safe from your homicidal driving habits.

But no prison for Migden, who, like the rest of our elected leaders, stands a breed apart. After blaming the whole thing on leukemia medication, she’s voluntarily foregone driving, but hasn’t eschewed sponsoring boutique legislation like her recent bill requesting Congress to stop overextending California’s National Guard contingent in Iraq. Migden would save more lives by requesting the DMV to stop overextending her driving privileges.

Bait & switch: The war in Iraq is proving to be the perfect vehicle for do-nothing Democrats to drive their corporate paymasters into paroxysms of pleasure and their thoroughly frustrated constituents to the abyss of total disillusionment. The recent failed bid by congressional Democrats to cut off funding for the war was a case in point. Dems somehow managed to be for and against the war at the same time.

It’s like driving the wrong way down a one-way street in reverse. Or something like that.

Not to be outdone by their congressional colleagues, Democrats in the state Senate last week passed a nonbinding referendum to be placed on next February’s ballot that provides voters a chance to request that President Bush immediately withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq.

Whoop-dee-freakin’-doo. That’ll show ’im!

Republicans know a skunk when they smell one, and have correctly sniffed out this attempt to draw progressive voters to the polls, where overturning the state’s term-limits law and thereby extending their political careers are the Dem’s primary concern.

Middle East meddling: Peacemakers, that’s what our state legislators are! Anyone in need of further proof need merely consult the legislative record, where, on the day before the Iraq referendum was introduced, the Assembly unanimously approved Assembly Bill 221, which calls for California’s largest pension funds to divest approximately $2 billion from Iran, our next target in the so-called war on terror.

The reason? Iran’s alleged nuclear-weapons program and its belligerent attitude toward Israel.

Given, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a bit of a nut job, being a Holocaust denier and all and calling for Israel to be wiped off the map. But no one with real knowledge (i.e. not the Bush administration) about foreign affairs takes Ahmadinejad or Iran’s alleged nuclear program seriously, understanding that the real power in Persia rests with mullahs and that Iran’s grasp of nuclear technology is tenuous at best. But quicker than you can say, “What WMD?” California has rushed to become the first state to declare war on Iran.

Coincidentally, according to the indispensable political rag Capitol Weekly, those $2 billion in Iranian assets were helpfully identified by the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee. Apparently, AIPAC, not content with dominating the nation’s foreign policy, now hopes to dictate California’s.

Think Arnold has the cojones to stand up to them?

Forget about it, and enjoy that corn dog.