Neon Leon.....and DiFi the Whore from Hell

I have spent the last couple of afternoons at the deathbed of my restaurant/real estate/politics godmother.

Mary is unresponsive....sleeping peacefully it seems.

"Processing things" as her daughter says.

Good call.

Processing.

Mary is not alone in the processing thing.......I am trying to process 32 years myself.

Since I am as old as dirt.....and corny and uncool as can be.....in these situations the old Eagles song comes to my mind continually.

"My Man"....not one of their hits. A song they wrote for Gram Parsons....and if I have to explain who he was, then you are not older than dirt.

"Tell me the truth....how do you feel?
Like you're rolling so fast that you're spinning your wheels?
Don't feel too bad....You're not all alone.
We're all trying to get along.

Everybody else trying to go their way....
You're bound to get tripped...
And what can you say?
Just go along until they turn out the lights.....
Nothing we can do to fight it.

No man's got it made....
Till he's far beyond the pain....
And we who must remain....
Go on living...
Just the same."

Mary has it made.....she's gone far beyond the pain.

And we who must remain......

Go on living just the same.....

Well, almost.

When you have had a major force.....like a strong breeze.....constantly at your back....through thick and thin.....someone who steers you skillfully through the minefields that your own passions inevitably lead you to......

And is so much more passionate about all the same things.... that you can feel calm while contemplating revolution and worse in defense of Thomas Jefferson style democracy.

And she is not your Mom, and not your wife.

She is Mary.

As Mary fades slowly into the Beyond.....Leon Panetta is named to be Director of Central Intelligence.

Mary was the earliest of early supporters of Leon Panetta. When Leon ran for Monterey County Supervisor.....she was there to raise money for him.

She was right there for Leon when he ran for Congress.....I lost half the vision in my right eye at a party she ran for Leon with Tip O'Neill as horsefly a million billion years ago. Champagne was involved....to no one's surprise. At this point I was not drinking it.....just absorbing corks.

Mary stayed with Leon for years......through Alan Cranston, Cecil Andrus, Leo McCarthy....names that mean nothing to anyone anymore.

She split with Leon in 1984...when she thought Walter Mondale was an old school whore fuckhead douchebag. Leon and his wife Sylvia went with Mondale.....the Hillary Clinton of then.

Mary ran the Gary Hart campaign against their interests......and even though they had the Landmark private jet, and all the bad money S&L dough behind them (the mortgage crisis of then)....Mary's team won all across the board in Monterey.

(And we paid all our bills. We were the only Hart campaign that ran at a profit. Mary's rule: we are running again in four years. You have to pay the bills.)

I was the last guy on the ticket....and I came in ahead of Sylvia Panetta. I got to go to the 1984 Democratic Convention as an alternate delegate.......Sylvia has not spoken to me since.

Leon has been an Establishment guy ever since. Not a cradle rocker.....but the kind of guy who delivered a balanced budget at OMB.....and mangaged Bill Clinton's White House successfully to everything but a couple of blow jobs.

We go way back with the Panetta's. When I first came to town I worked at Fernand's in the Valley....where Corkscrew is now. Carmelo Panetta was in Middle School....and was my busboy. Carmelo is now a cardiac surgeon in San Francisco.

Carmelo was also a Candy-Striper (Hospital volunteer) at CHOMP in 1984. One day that year, Brendan helped me with the compost behind our kitchen, and suddenly collapsed and went into convulsions. I scooped him up and raced to CHOMP. His pulse was thready.......the docs contemplated all the scary shit that you see on ER and House: paddles, heart injections.

Brendan was and remains my only contact with Earth.....along with Conall and Dylan. I lost it when I heard "epinephrenin injections to restart the heart". Carmelo was 15, and the guy who took me aside, calmed me down, and brought me to a place of peace.

Leon's kid.

Brendan turned out fine.....a fever that caused un-noticed dehydration that the four-year old kept working through because he wanted to help.......

Carmelo is money....and his family is money.

So.....today when Daddy Leon gets named to be head of CIA, when I am waiting for his earliest supporter to die......I felt a sense of vindication for Mary. We all whispered the good news to her, and hoped she could hear.

A brief aside:

As Mary's political godson, I started calling all the old pols to let them know of her condition: Leon and Sylvia, Sam and Shary Farr, John Laird and Bill Monning, etc. When you call a politician, you get staff. You leave your message and your contact info, and.....have a nice day.

I called Sam's local office at 3pm on Monday, in the middle of our chaotic prep for Monday Night.

"Sam's old friend Mary is dying. She is at Carmel Hill Care. This is Michael at such and such number."

"Thank you, blah, blah, blah, blah."

Sam called back within 15 minutes. From his cell phone. At DC airport, on his way back to Congress, where he is trying to move his offices to the new, better place. He was wrecked about the news.

This tells you all you need to know about Mary.....and about Sam Farr. A guy who actually loves his some odd million constituents.....and honors his origins and history and is not lost in the political moment.

Well.....One out of 535 ain't bad.

So.....back to the point.

Dianne Feinstein is pissed because Barack appointed Neon Leon to DCIA without tickling her fancy parts.

To me, I would be happier if we had Larry Craig as our senior Senator from California. Larry may be conflicted about his sexuality, but he is not a slimy, corrupt whore from hell.

If you ever wonder why we had George Bush and eight years of horrible, incompetent, corrupt Republican rule.......just look over at Dianne.

The voters decided they would rather put the entirety of America in the trash compactor.....military, industry, science, trade, finance, security......the whole ball of wax.

Anything to stay away from Democratic freaks like Dianne Feinstein.

Years from now, when folks are burying me, or looking out over Point Lobos and the Carmel Canyon and congratulating Brendan on taking me fishing rather than pay the million or so dollars that Mary is now paying to sleep in Hospice Hotel.......I hope everyone remembers that I enabled Triple M to barf on Dianne Feinstein's shoes during the St. Paddy's Day parade in 1985.

At it was projectile vomitting.

One of the jobs of the Senate in the "Balance of Powers" that is supposed to define our style of government is "Oversight".

The Senate oversees the edicts of the Executive, subject to the further supervision of the Judiciary.

I know this, not just from my New Jersey high school education...but because I have to explain how it doesn't actually exist to my students desperately trying to pass their citizenship exams.

DiFi oversaw, among others....Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee; Chair of the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Terrorism; Subcomittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights; Committee of the Judiciary; Chair of the Senate Rules Committee; Select Committe on Intelligence; Subcommittee on Defense. There is more.

Dianne Feinstein has been substantially in charge of oversight for every nasty, fucked, invasive, random, destructive action that George W. Bush's handlers have exposed America and Americans to for the last eight years.

Dianne voted for the Iraq War. For immunity for telcoms for illegal spying. For torture. She sponsored the extension of the Hitlerian Patriot Act. She also sponsored deep criminal penalties for burning red, white and blue colored cotton. She also was one of only six Democrats to vote for supine fuckhead Michael Mukasey as Attorney General.

Check with me later for the websites with petitions to WalMart to hire Alberto Gonzales and Michael Mukasey as Greeters.....since no one else will.

I won't mention her role in reforming bankruptcy law to the benefit of now bankrupt rapine bankers currently being bailed out to the tune of trillions.

I won't mention her steady support for the Alien Torts Act......that would deny foreigners the right to sue American corporations in American courts for environmental negligence.....both accidental and deliberate. In other words, if her major campaign contributer Chevron has a tanker truck hauling liquid mercury through the mountains of Bolivia, and the driver stops for a blow job, and hundreds of gallons of liquid mercury pour through the streets of a mountain town and the kids all think it is neat and play with and drink the silver liquid.......and die by the score......Chevron should not have to pay shit. Hey, they are brown, small, poor, and far away. Fuck 'em, right?

Dianne Feinstein is so much worse than Larry Craig that I have this strong desire to move to Idaho. Hey! It worked for River Phoenix.

Oh. Not so much.

OK.......Friends.

Let us take a break and drop back to the English Language.

You remember that one, right?

My mom....at age 82....still drives out to Cachagua twice a week to spread the wealth of English to her friends.

We intensely value the English language in my family.

My copy of the American Heritage Dictionary defines "oversight" as:

1) an unintentional omission or mistake;

2) Watchful care or management.

Dianne Feinstein has had "oversight" over every mistake our American leadership has made in at least 8 years.......and for me, going back to not quite dodging MMM's barf as it landed on her shoes in 1984........

Dianne Feinstein has had oversight of all of the horrible shit that led us to the horrible place we are today........

MMM's barf was the best of it.

Which definition of oversight?

I am thinking #1: omission or mistake. Watchful care would involve treason.......and images of nooses and firing squads.

Let me add "Treasonous" to my definition of DiFi.

Treasonous Slimy Corrupt Whore From Hell.

Has a nice ring........

So.......

When Dianne Feinstein......the most corrupt female politician since the Agrippina.....thinks that Leon Panetta is a bad choice for DCIA?

Competent. Kind. Scrupulously honest. Insanely organized. Capable of inspiring trust and hope. Beset with visions of a better world.

Maybe Leon should be King.

I can see why Dianne Feinstein would feel threatended. Leon is everything she is not......and never could be.

Obama is not a dummy.

His nomination of Neon Leon without consulting DiFi is not a faux-pas.....it is notice that she and Jay Fucking Rockefeller (DiFi's toe-sucking minion) need to start packing their bags.

Imagine an America where competence matters over politics and money.......

I wish Mary had hung in for another couple of weeks......

She would be rolling in clover......Obaman wins, Leon rules, DiFi has to eat shit.....

But maybe she already is rolling in clover.

She earned it......

There is a God....

And She has a sense of humor......