McSteamy Goes to Washington

 

Imagine for a moment you walk into a bank and standing there are two tellers.  One is a very plain bookish looking woman with a tan business suit on who doesn’t smile much, and somewhat resembles Kathy Bates.  The other teller is a tall, extremely handsome gentleman, with a winning smile, blue eyes, and looks like this is his side job, when he’s not working as a Chippendale dancer in the evenings.  No one is in line at either teller and you have your pick.  Who do you choose?  If you said the one that looks like Kathy Bates, male or female, you would be in the minority.  Most people would choose the Chippendale.  This is essentially what happened in Massachusetts this past week when Scott Brown, or as I will continue to refer to him, McSteamy, won the Senate seat that Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy held since 1972.   Quite simply, the nation was rocked!  The Republicans celebrated! The Democrats did shots of Jagermeister to numb the pain!  FOX news held a giant tea party while Glenn Beck tea bagged Bill O’Reilly!  It was absolute mayhem! It seemed that with this one election, President Obama’s entire agenda would be in jeopardy!  How could this happen?  Well, we will get to that in a minute. First let’s ask ourselves, who really is Scott Brown, I mean McSteamy?
 
McSteamy, born September 12, 1959, was a practicing attorney before winning the senate race in Massachusetts.  Before that, McSteamy, at the ripe age of twenty two, won Cosmopolitan magazine's "America's Sexiest Man" contest and appeared nude in the June 1982 issue. Cosmo described him as "strong but huggable."  I’m sure Harry Reid has never been described as “strong but huggable,” at least not by anyone except Mrs. Reid.  Indecently, doesn’t Harry Reid sound like one of those fake names they give porn stars?  (along with John Boehner, John Dingall.)  Little known fact, Joe Lieberman was 1982’s sexiest man according to the Boca Raton News.  McSteamy, a triathlete, enjoys bicycling, running, swimming, long walks on the beach, sunsets, nice people, and looking in the mirror.  He is pro-choice, against gay marriage but favors civil unions.  He was initially in favor of the health care bill, but says he now opposes it because most people in Massachusetts have health insurance, and Massachusetts would be subsidizing the rest of the country.  Incidentally that seems like a pretty pathetic reason to be against the health care bill.  Maybe we shouldn’t help the people in Haiti, after all we didn’t have an earth quake here, and everything is fine.  Maybe we shouldn’t give help to the homeless.  After all I have a house, don’t you?  Actually there are about 64,000 people in Massachusetts with no health insurance.  I guess McSteamy does not have a problem with that. 
 
But let’s get back to what this article is really about.  How could this happen?  How could Senator Edward Kennedy’s Senate seat be ripped away from the Democrats so easily?  After all the Democrats held this seat for 48 years!  This was a shoe-in!  It’s a Democratic state!  How could the Democrats loose there super majority in the Senate and put in jeopardy every initiative that the Obama administration wants to achieve over the next three years?  Who is to blame for this?  Well, before I tell you that, let’s understand that if the only issue here was that the Democrats lost Massachusetts this would not be much of an issue.  The real issue here is what this loss was a symptom of.  This loss was a symptom of the failure of President Obama to effectively communicate to the American people why he has pushed through the agenda that he has and how it will benefit this country.  The Republicans, on the other hand, did a masterful job of communicating a message of fear to the American people.  The have the Washington experience and know how to combat any positive initiative that the President has tried to push through.  The Republicans have successfully made intelligent rational Americans believe that not being denied insurance due to a pre-existing condition is a bad thing, that removing a lifetime cap on your insurance is a bad thing, that reducing the cost of health insurance is a bad thing, that getting 45 million more Americans who don’t have insurance, coverage for themselves and there families, is a bad thing, and some how they made people believe that giving Americans more choices in health insurance is the same thing as the government is going to control your health care, limit your coverage, and put grandma before a socialist death panel.  The President has admitted on television that this year was definitely a learning experience for him on how to play the game in Washington.  This is where he failed.  In a recent interview after Scott Brown won the election he said that it was much easier to get his message out when he was on the campaign trail but as President it is much more of a challenge. On the campaign trail he communicated with the American people every day because there was always something to combat from the other side.  As President he became much more relaxed in his efforts to communicate.  He pushed through his agenda but did not communicate why.  He pushed through health care but did a terrible job of communicating how it would benefit everyone.  He left too many questions unanswered and left the door wide open for the Republicans to fill the void.  And fill it they did.  The Republicans and the conservative media did a masterful job of communicating why everything that the President was pushing through was, according to them, harmful to our country, even if what they were communicating was not true.  The truth did not matter.  What mattered was that the only message getting out was the Anti-Obama message and any information that supported what the President was doing was not being communicated.  In August, after the Republicans spent a month throwing tea parties and having town hall meetings that resembled WWE wrestling matches that did nothing but spread fear about the Presidents, the President made a speech before a joint session of congress to answer his critics and put health care reform back on track.  He said that he would no longer stand for the lies being told and if he hears these untruths being spread any further, those spreading these lies will be dealt with.  It was tough talk and sounded like he would finally put those who were spreading fear about health care reform in there place.  He sounded like the man we saw on the campaign trail, not the President who had not been communicating to the American people. Then the speech ended, and the tough talk turned into no talk.  The Republicans continued to spread there fear, to reinforce there agenda that had nothing to do with benefiting the American people and only had everything to do with returning the Republicans to power at what ever the cost was to the American people, and the end result was Scott Brown stole the seat in Massachusetts away from the Democrats.  How did this happen?  I’ll tell you how.  The President and the Democrats delivered it to the Republicans gift wrapped with a big shiny bow on top.  It wasn’t Scott Browns smile, or his truck, or his centerfold, or even the seemingly dissatisfaction of the people of Massachusetts.  It was the utter failure of the President and the Democrats to effectively communicate to the American people why health care reform is so important, why we aren’t out of Gitmo today, why we have spent billions of dollars on bank bailouts and how this will benefit all of us.  People have a natural fear of the unknown and the Republicans took full advantage of that fear, and they did it like a party fighting for its life, and they were virtually un-answered by the Democrats.  The President and the Democrats had all the power, and had absolutely no idea what to do with it.  If the President wants the next three years to be successful and hopes to see a second term he needs to re-evaluate how he is conducting his presidency.  He needs to be the man that we saw on the campaign trail.  He needs to be the man who promised all of us change, who gave us hope, who said yes we can, who promised transparency in government, who made us feel that this presidency will be different from all the others, because if he does not there may not be any health care reform, there may not be any second term, and I may be writing an article about President Palin!  Imagine that for a moment.

Explaining Martin Luther King to a Six Year Old

 

Last night, before my six year old son went to bed he said to me, “Happy Martin Luther King day tomorrow dad.”  I said, “Same to you Big Guy. By the way, do you know who Martin Luther King was?” knowing that he was asking me because he knew that this was the reason he had no school the next day. He said, “Was he a king?”  I said no and tried to explain to my six year old, briefly who Martin Luther King was and why we have a holiday for him.  Leaving the room I knew that I had done an incredibly inadequate job of describing this man whose life was so important to this country, that we celebrate his birthday every year.  I told him before I hugged him goodnight that maybe we could find a book on Martin Luther King and learn more about him.  That night I thought about how I could describe to my six year who this man was and what he accomplished.  I thought how difficult it must be for a little boy who is growing up in a world where it is perfectly normal for a black man to be our president to be able to understand that at one time black people and white people went to different schools, couldn’t drink from the same drinking fountains, couldn’t be on professional sports teams together, where black people had to sit in the back of buses, and where it was unheard of for people of different races to date each other.  How do I explain to him the civil rights movement, Brown vs. Board of Education, Emmet Till, Rosa Parks, Jackie Robinson, the march from Selma, and the Voting Rights Act?  How do I explain slavery and the inhuman way black people in this country were treated simply because of their race. How to I explain these things to a boy who does not see the color of a persons skin, and does not see it as amazing that a black man is our president because to him he is simply a man.  And then I realized I don’t have to because in a way I already have.  I do not need to explain these things but instead lead by example.  The details he will learn in time, but it is our job to make the dream of Martin Luther King a reality by showing our children that people are not defined by there race, there religion, or their age, by their sex or sexual preference, by their abilities or lack there of, and that no man or women is better then any other. It is our job to teach our children to celebrate the differences among people and that anyone with enough will and determination can be anything they want to in this country. It is our job, through example to teach our children the words that Martin Luther King spoke in his “I have a Dream” speech that, “…one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,’” It’s our job to teach our children the same dream that King had for his own children when he said, “I have a dream that my four little children we will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”  This is what my father taught me and he taught me these things through example.  My father never specifically told me not to use the “N” word or any other derogatory term for any person, but in 75 years I never heard him use them himself.  My father never specifically told me to treat all people equally, but that was the example he always set for me.  My father never specifically told me of Martin Luther Kings dream, but through his actions, he lived up to them, and that is how I will teach my children, through example, through my actions, and if I do my job, if I teach my children well, the dream that Martin Luther King started will live on through them.  That is my dream.

 

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Caribou Barbie Reporting, Now Back to You Glenn

 

This week FOX “News” hired Sarah Palin to be an on air commentator.  No, this is not the first line to a really bad joke.  It is actually true.  They really did hire her and I say good for them!  What better way to show that you are a credible, “Fair and Balanced” news network then to hire an extreme right wing nut job who believes that the decision to place the words “In God We Trust” closer to the edge of coins is part of a conspiracy by the Obama administration to remove religion from our lives.  Also she didn’t know that North and South Korea were separate countries.  You know I don’t really have a problem that FOX “News” isn’t fair and balanced.  What I have a problem with is that they keep saying they are.  I listen to the local progressive radio station during the day and they are justified in calling themselves progressive radio because that is what they are.  I am puzzled why FOX "News" can’t just step up and call themselves what they are.  So if they ever want to I have some suggestions for a new tag line.
  

Fox News – Fair and… Oh Who Are We Kidding
Fox News – Bushariffic!
Fox News – Your Official Tea Party Station
Fox News – We Make the Facts
Fox News – Because You’ll Believe Anything
Fox News – And by “News” we mean Lies

 
At least Rush Limbaugh doesn’t claim to be in the center.  He says what he thinks and doesn’t claim that he is anything but an ultra conservative right wing commentator.  (You see I was nice there.  I could have called him a fat arrogant, woman hating, gay bashing, right wing blow hard…but I didn’t.)  When Sarah Palin took this job with FOX she said that she is proud to be with a news organization that is so Fair and Balanced.  Oh come on Sarah.  Fox “News” is about as fair and balanced as you are smart.  I’m not saying you’re stupid but…well yes I am…You’re stupid.  I don’t mean this as an insult.  I mean, to be fair and balanced and everything, you’re just an idiot.  It’s a fact.  It’s like saying global warming is real, or President Obama does not have Death Panels, or our current economic situation is due to the faulty policies of George W. Bush and the billions that we spent on the Iraq (not Iran Sarah, Iraq) war and never included in a single budget.  It just is what it is.  Not that you believe any of those things to be true, but they are.  The weird thing is that Sarah Palin seems to appeal to a demographic that is about as stupid as she is.  Sarah Palin’s base is the uneducated, religious white trash that will believe anything that FOX “News” or Rush Limbaugh through at them without checking it out for themselves to see if it is true.   But then that would require using that new fangled internet that all the kids keep talking about.  Recently I watched a video of Palin Heads lined up for a signing of her book that you can now get in the closeout sections for $4.95, and it was amazing how stupid these people were.  Person after person was asked what are the issues that Sarah Palin supports, that you support as well.  Not a single person could give a intelligent informed answer.  They would just start to giggle nervously, or turn to their friends and ask, “What’s her issues?” or as one women said, “Now you’re asking for specifics, Oh I don’t know I just like her.”  It was like watching Sarah getting interviewed by Katie Couric.  But what is scary is that these are her supporters and there are millions of people out there like them.  They see themselves in Sarah and they really don’t care what the issues are.  All they know is that she is like them and they are happy to let Fox “News” and Rush tell them what to think, no matter how wrong and twisted it is.  The scary thing is that there may be enough of these people to actually get someone like Sarah Palin elected President. 
 
Sarah Palin is part of the Ultra-conservative religious right.  These are the people who make it their mission to continuously push their religious beliefs and agenda down our throats and damn us all to hell if we don’t repent and find Jesus.  These are the people who protest abortion clinics and refuse to condemn the murder of a doctor shot at those clinics.  Palin herself was asked in an interview with Brian Williams, with John McCain sitting right by her side, if she would consider the bombing of an abortion clinic an act of domestic terrorism.  Her answer, to what should have been the easiest question of her campaign, was that she finds the bombing to be unacceptable, but "I don’t know if you’re going to use the word ‘terrorist’ there." (Watch the video)  Her response showed exactly how extreme to the right this woman is, and how out of touch she was with the Presidential candidate sitting next to her.  I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall in the McCain camp when that came out of her mouth as the collective expression of "Oh Crap! She did NOT!" filled the room!  This is a woman who believes that abortion is wrong even in the extreme cases of rape and incest.  In an interview that she just did with Glenn Beck, to the question, which is your favorite founding father her answer was, “All of them…” to which Beck replied “Bullcrap.” (Watch the video) The problem with anyone, including Palin who is on the far religious right is that they represent religious extremism and any type of religious extremism and politics just don’t mix.  Religious extremists can use their religion to justify any action.  A Christian religious extremist can gun down an abortion doctor and claim religion as a justification.  Sarah Palin can push to deny woman there right to abortion in extreme circumstances and claim religion as a justification.  Muslim Terrorists can fly airplanes in to buildings and claim religion as there justification.  A Jewish extremist can gun down the Prime Minister of Israel in the name of religion.  Extremism breeds intolerance and in this society in which we all must live together we must have tolerance.  Homosexuals can’t marry each other because of intolerance.  A doctor can’t legally practice abortion because of intolerance.  And then you have Pat Robertson who said of the tragedy in Haiti, that Haiti has a pact with the Devil, “they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you'll get us free from the French. True story.  And so, the devil said, okay it's a deal."  Apparently according to Pat Robertson the Christian thing to do is blame the Haitian people for their own tragic situation.  I suppose Pat Robertson would blame the Jews for what happened to them in the Holocaust.  According to Pat Robertson, “the U.S. is under a cloud of divine wrath and is headed for financial ruin.” He said, “G-d won’t bless an America that institutionalizes homosexual rights and abortion while prohibiting prayer and Bible reading in public schools.”  Also according to Pat Robertson, 9/11 is the fault of “the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say: "You helped this happen." (Watch the video) This is the extreme religious right.  And what is truly scary to me is that thousands of people believe this craziness.  Thousands of people listen to a man who actually stated that he does not believe that the Separation of church and state exists is in our constitution.  Whether the extremism comes from the religious right, or the radical Muslims, it is all intolerance.  They can cloak themselves all they want behind a veil of religious righteousness, but any group or person whether religious or not that is intolerant of the others around them, or lays blame with the victims of tragedy or injustice should look only at themselves for whats wrong with society.  If I have learned one thing in this life it is to accept others for whom and what they are and not who we think they should be.  Whether you are gay or straight, black or white, Christian, Jewish, or Muslim, male or female, young or old, we are all people, with one world, on one planet and we must all be tolerant of each other, and that my friend is fair and balanced.
 

Hug a Politician...Just Make Sure to Shower Afterwards.

"My choice early in life was either to be a piano-player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference." - Harry S. Truman

 

The one thing that I really love about this country is that our elected officials truly represent us, the people.  They put there own self interests aside and never let big corporate money influence how they vote.  Our politicians do what is best for us and believe with all there heart that if they are meant to be re-elected, they will be!  They give of themselves and…Ok, I’m sorry, I just cant keep a straight face here while saying such utter bullshit!  I tried, really I did.  You see, there is an old saying that goes power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely.  There have been many examples of this through out history, Saddam Husain, Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, Milosevic.  These leaders were monsters and there own power and actions are what eventually led to there ultimate down fall.  In this country we are fortunate to have a system of checks and balances that would never let a Stalinist type leader ever come into power but that does not mean that our leaders do not abuse the power they have.  The problem is that most of the time, the power they abuse is within the letter of the law. They work within our inherently flawed system.  Fortunately for us, if we do not like what our leaders as a whole have done, we can vote them out of office.  We are not stuck with them until they die, unlike the citizens of Cuba, North Korea or Arizona. 
 
You might be wondering to yourself at this point, what the hell is he getting at?  Well what I am getting at is this.  As a private citizen, I have learned a hell of a lot over the last few months watching our House and our Senate go through the process of debating health care and I have concluded that if this is the way most of our bills are decided, if this is how things are run in our hallowed government halls, in which most of us pay little attention to, even though we have more access to it, and more ability to have direct influence over our legal process then at any other time in our history, then to put it simply, we are all collectively screwed.  And by all, I don’t mean just all Progressive Democrats, I mean all of us.  While we would like to think that the power is in our hands because we can vote, and we can make calls, and we can e-mail and sign petitions, the real power, the absolute power that has corrupted our government truly lies between the corporations, the lobbyists and our elected officials who, when it all comes down to it, care more about increasing there bank accounts so that they can get re-elected, and the perks they are given in the form of vacations and hand outs, then simply doing what is the best for there constituents.  And it does not matter whether it is a Republican, a Democrat or an Independent, most of them get into power and it is not long before they are corrupted by the power they are given.  Sure there are exceptions to this rule such as Senators Al Frankin, and Bernie Sanders. Senator Sanders of Vermont has proven that you can vote your conscience and be true to your constituents and get re-elected with out being owned by corporate interests.
 
The facts are this, and I repeat these are facts.  This is not my opinion, or a Democratic point of view.  Poll after poll of average Americans from June of 2009 until today, taken by independent sources, consistently show that most Americans favor a Public Option being included as part of the Health Care reform bill, a bill that will be presented to President Obama, at the exceedingly rushed pace that is it being pushed through, so that the President can stand before the nation at his State of the Union address later this month and declare the great thing he and the Democratic Party has done to reform our health care insurance.  I repeat, most Americans consistently favor a public option.  So have the members of the House and the Senate done there jobs and represented the people of this country as they were elected to do?  Have they listened to there constituents and made sure that a public option will be in there bills, because that is what most Americans want to see?  To give credit to our House of Representatives, the answer is yes, they did.  They presented a bill that includes the Public Option.  It was, except for one Republican, an entirely Democratic effort, but they did.   But the Senate, on the other hand, has demonstrated on both the Republican and Democratic sides that there self interests, party lines, and the interests of the corporations that pay them millions of dollars each year in campaign contributions, and not the interests of the people they represent, are what matter to them.  The Democrats in the Senate bought and sold there votes.  They made bargains to get the sixty votes needed to pass, that if done on the State level would be investigated as pure bribery.  They ignored what the people want and made this into a game in which only themselves and the corporations that control our health care will win, and we as a people will all loose.  The Republicans were not much better, but they do not control congress.  They do not currently have the power to do what ever they g-d damn want to. But they could have one-upped the Democrats by showing us that at least they had the moral high road, but they didn’t.  They could have ignored party lines and voted strictly there conscience, like the one Republican in the House, Rep. Joe Cao of Louisiana did, but time and time again I have watched the Republicans in every vote since the Democrats took power vote strictly on party lines. And if this is how our laws get passed, if no matter who we elect, our representatives can just be bought and sold, if the only thing that matters on both sides is party lines, and how much the corporation that has the most too lose pays the politician that can help them gain the most, then we are all screwed and it does not matter if you are Republican or Democrat.  The game will never change. The Democratic Party has the power.  They have the choice on how to use that power.  They have a choice to represent there constituents, or not.  They have a choice to help people who really need the help, or not.  They have a choice to make real change for this country that will really matter for decades to come, or not. And they have made there choice.  They have a choice as to who they are going to truly represent with this power.  The Democrats in the Senate have chosen not to represent the people that got them elected, the people they represent, the people who can get them re-elected…or did they?  

The North Shore Dad, The 2009 "Daddie" Awards!

 

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the first annual North Shore Dad, Daddie Awards!  Here we will honor achievements however dubious and ridiculous they may be of those individuals who touched our lives in ways that often we could have done without, and issues that forced us to take notice.  And now here is your host for the evening, the North Shore Dad himself,…Brian Dann! 
 
Thank you, Thank you!  Before we get started I just want to make an announcement, Joe Lieberman has just left Judaism citing Hanukkah as costing too much to celebrate and has converted to Islam.  He will now be known as Abdul Mohammed Goldstein.  And now for our first award.
 
Our first award goes to the individual most unable to recognize a good thing when he had it.  And the Nominees are:

• David Letterman - for his affair with a staff intern.
• Governor Mark Sanford - for his “hike through the mountains.” (is that what you call cheating on your wife these days)
• Tiger Woods - For using Tigers Wood way too much.

And the Daddie goes to…Tiger Woods!  At the risk of sounding redundant, are you a frigin’ idiot?  First of all your wife is smokin’ hot, and second, you’re not.  Third of all, what’s the story Tiger? Are you making up for all those years when you couldn’t get laid as a young geeky kid playing golf all the time?  You don’t just stick your club in any bimbo that wants to play with your putter!
 
And now on to our next award.  This next award is the George W. Bush Lifetime achievement award for the most stupid things said in one years time.  And the Nominees are:

• Rush Limbaugh - "Exercise freaks ... are the ones putting stress on the health care system." June 12, 2009
• President Obama - "UPS and FedEx are doing just fine, right? It's the Post Office that's always having problems," Undercutting his argument for health care reform while trying to make his case.
• Glenn Beck – “This president…has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture... This guy is, I believe, a racist."
• Sarah Palin - "The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel.'"

And the Daddie goes to… Sarah Palin! Oh please this was way too easy!  Was this even a contest?  Lets review some of the quotes that gave her this award.
 
“That was fun!” – Said after pardoning a turkey while other turkeys were having there heads chopped of behind her.
 
"I think on a national level your Department of Law there in the White House would look at some of the things that we've been charged with and automatically throw them out." – The Department of Law in the White House… does not exist.
 
"It may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep your head down, plod along, and appease those who demand: 'Sit down and shut up,' but that's the worthless, easy path; that's a quitter's way out." – Said as she QUIT her position as governor of Alaska.
 
Oh there were countless others that I could have included from the Katie Couric interview or other things she said while on the campaign trail but only the last 12 months can be considered.  But I am fully in favor of her running for President, Oh please if there is a god in heaven let her run for president.
 
The next award is the Shock and Awe award and goes to the biggest honor bestowed this year that may have been ever so slightly questionable.  There was only one Nominee for this award this year.
 
And the Daddie goes to... President Barack Obama for his award of the Nobel Peace Prize!  Now granted I like the president and all, but don’t you think that on the day they announced the winner, Mahatma Gandhi rolled over in his grave and said, “Are you Fuckin kidding me!”  I’m not going to question whether he deserved this prize or not, but if he didn’t have enough pressure on him already, he does now.
 
This next award is the Biggest Scam award and goes to the individual or individuals who pulled off the biggest hoax of the year.  And the Nominees are:

• Bernie Maddof – He easily pulled off the largest ponzi scheme in history, with some help from the SEC.
• Richard Henne – Better known as the Balloon Boy case.
• Michaele and Tareq Salahi – The couple who crashed the White House State Dinner. Actually that took a hell of a lot of balls! Kudos to them!

And the Daddie goes to… Richard Henne!  Oh sure Bernie Maddof scammed many more people out of billions of dollars and wiped out the life savings of everyone from some of the wealthiest people in the world to others with modest nest eggs to retire on, as well as some of the top charitable organizations in our country, but no one pulled off a scam with the same utter stupidity and disregard for their own young children then Richard Henne.  This idiots hair brained scheme included telling his children that they should lie to the national media and he was convinced that if he pulled this off it would land him on a reality TV show.  So much for teaching good values to your kids and getting an honest job. 
 
The next award is the coveted Douche-bag award!  This goes to the biggest Douche-bag of the entire year.  With out a doubt there is no contest here and only one nominee. 

The Daddie for this year’s Douche-bag award proudly goes to Senator Joe Lieberman!  This is the only man in history who is the Yin to his own Yang!  Joe was originally elected as the Senator from Connecticut as a Democrat.  He even ran for Vice President with Al Gore on the Democratic ticket.  Joe became an independent when he lost the Democratic primary election in 2006 and ended up winning the election as an independent even though he highly resembles the cartoon character Droopy-Dog. At that time he also promised to uphold the ideals of the Democratic Party as an independent. He pretty much sealed his fate as Douche-bag of the year the moment he campaigned for the Republican candidate John McCain rather then the Democratic Barack Obama. Yes, I know this happened before 2009, but it was such a Douche-bag move that we can’t help but in consider it for the award.  Gotta-Go-Joe then further sealed his fate as a world class back stabber by pledging to filibuster during the Senate debate on health care reform, further betraying the Democrats and then went on to enter the ranks of hall of fame back-stabbers by promising to side with the Republicans by opposing both a Medicare-buy-in and a Public Option.  Way to go Joe! What a Douche-bag!
 
And the final award of the evening goes to the NorthShoreDad “Reader of the Year”! 
 
And I am proud to announce that this years Reader of the Year award goes to my Uncle Rick!  Oh sure I have had many loyal readers over the past year and many who have told me that they liked this article or that article, but Uncle Rick is the only reader that has read almost everyone of my articles and has actually made a point to comment, in writing, on most of the things I have written.  Oh, don’t assume he got this award because he agreed with everything I said, he absolutely did not, or that he praised me for my insightful opinions on politics and our new president, which he should have. You see, me and Uncle Rick are as about as opposite in political views as two human beings can be, but the fact is he commented, and that is the reason that I created NorthShoreDad.com in the first place, to encourage the debate.  I created it to encourage the intelligent exchange of ideas that makes this country a great place to live.  Here we can say anything we want about what ever we want with no fear of censorship.  I don’t think there has ever been an occasion where my Uncle Rick and I have agreed on anything in politics but that is ok.  How boring would this world be if all we did was agree on everything!  So please follow Uncle Ricks lead and comment.  Below each article is a link that says “Comments.”  If you read something you like or dislike about what I write, or just want to add some incite, comment.  It makes this world and this blog a more interesting place to visit.  So congratulations Uncle Rick!  You are the 2009 “Reader of the Year!”  Dont get too excited.  There's not actually a statue or monitary award.
 
And that wraps up this years 2009 North Shore Dad “Daddie” awards!  Untill next year this is the NorthShoreDad, Brian Dann saying thank you for the past year!  Have a Very Happy New Years, and remember I’ll turn this blog around right now kids, So Sit Down!