Day: May 24, 2006

Columnist Rick Casey tells us why we should note the passing of Lloyd Bentsen.

I didn’t serve with Lloyd Bentsen. I didn’t know Lloyd Bentsen. Lloyd Bentsen was not a friend of mine.

But I think I can safely say to all of today’s Texas politicians: Sirs, you are no Lloyd Bentsen…

Unlike so many of the chicken hawks now in power, Bentsen eagerly signed up to go to war, immediately after finishing law school…

He was a true moderate, liberal on some social issues, and a fiscal conservative. As President Bill Clinton’s secretary of the treasury, he was a key player in balancing the budget…

He carried himself with a courtliness that was both respectful and commanded respect (although he showed, in his vice-presidential debate against Dan Quayle, that he was quite capable of going for the jugular).

It’s impossible to imagine Bentsen saying to a TV reporter who had asked an uncomfortable question, as Rick Perry did after he thought the taping had ended, “Adios, mofo.”

Casey also notes that Bentsen maintained bipartisan friendships and even voters, serving as he did in the pre-DeLay/Rove era. If nothing else, thinking of Bentsen reminds us what it was like before lockstep partisanship turned Republicans into yammering clones led by cynical, greedy louts.

All great religions, in order to escape absurdity, have to admit a dilution of agnosticism. It is only the savage, whether of the African bush or the American gospel tent, who pretends to know the will and intent of God exactly and completely.

— H.L. Mencken (1880-1956), American editor, critic

Too little, too late: Man, Zacarias Moussaoui must be pissed. A tape purported to be a recording of Osama bin Laden has surfaced on which a disembodied voice identified as bin Laden says Moussaoui had nothing to do with the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Unfortunately, that info comes just weeks after Zack dodged the death penalty and was sent up the river to the Big House for life.

Of course, having the most-wanted man in the world as a witness for the defense probably wouldn’t have swayed the jury, but it certainly would have added to the circus atmosphere that characterized Moussaoui’s year-and-a-half trial, which oscillated between the insane and the ridiculous. Suffice it to say, however, that bin Laden’s belated benignancy is no “Get Out of Jail Free” card for the hapless Moussaoui.

The old comic strip “Li’l Abner” has a memorable character named Joe Btfsplk, a harmless fellow who was jinxed, wandering the earth with a perpetual black cloud over his head. Seems to me that Zacharias Moussaoui is the Joe Btfsplk of al Qaeda — even after being sentenced to life in prison, his luck just keeps getting worse.