Rush-oman.

You know, these days you don't feel so bad about having that little bit of sentimentality that lets you equate the statement of an artist, i.e., that of revealing what life is like, with that of that poetic politician--such a bad word--who strives to be clean, simple, in a Jeffersonian way, i.e, reason of enlightenment forward, who has something to say about what is fair. Fairness, the implementation of that mystical good stuff of the founding documents, such as the right to life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. (Provide for the common defense. Promote the general welfare.)

MacGowan has a great respect for JFK. And I think it would extend the other way too. Poetry informing policy.

As a legislator--we've all heard this criticism, and there's something to it--what did JFK achieve? The comparison to LBJ is obvious. What did RFK achieve? Again, a comparison. Inspiration, some great speeches--one would would say, in cynical mode--but what could he have accomplished?

For that matter, what did Lincoln accomplish? Well, my thoughts are that he helped promote the definitions of the nation, dusted off the good stuff of Jefferson, clear, clean, the stuff of Virginia Bill of Rights, Declaration, Constitution, and breathed fresh life into them, so that dusty ideas would take a hold, light up, in some brains of the citizens.

Martyrdom, no, no one likes that personally, but between Lincoln and Kennedys you have some guys who, maybe though not being so great in that arm twisting 1000 page slurry of compromises and promised fireplaces and parking spaces and telephone bravery of superhuman LBJ big and earthy stuff (leaving anatomy out of it), all that greasy corn pone stuff, you have, at least for intellectuals, something that makes a good nation still live and breath air and do good things and have life itself.

So, as we watch all them journal pundits bicker on Inside Washington, in the meanwhile, something sits here and there, in Archives, in Smithsonian, in public minds, in books on shelves for you and I to read, some good stuff that is sound thinking, not of any particular religious stripe (and Jefferson would have wished it so, and sat in his rotunda), but of real political geometry. As if to say, look, if we're going to do this, the implication is we must do that. yes, a war was fought over that. If we give it to some people, we got to give it to all people.

This makes me not feel so bad when I feel like I am pressed into glowy hagiography over poor Bob Kennedy shaking hands with people in all parts of the nation and saying some really interesting lines about the GNP (and what it includes.) It makes me feel better, and back in touch with some part of history, the feelings that must have existed if we were to speak of inspiration, that came from JFK Inaugural...

I think it is worth bearing in mind, that the greatest legislators weren't always the greatest legislators. That is the beauty of what happened here away from British soil how many score and how many years ago. Some dudes sat down and put down some good stuff that has made us strive and be upright and decent people, sharing people, kind people, thoughtful people.

And the ground trembles again when someone comes forth and has good ideas, can read into old words and not devolve them, but advance them, make them more inclusive, broader, greater, bring back their shine.

These days, there is such a magnifying glass on the details... You have to step back and look at the canvas. The broad Da Vinci /Giotto /Michelangelo /Norman Rockwell painting of the possible nations of the world as they exist un-Mubagied and un-Putined. (Not killing journalists with actual bullets.) (Maybe there should be museum day for all who work on Capitol Hill.)

There have been martyrs who in words and deeds have subtly and magically and beautifully helped define our country, any country, moral barometers and so forth. (In Western Europe, art and style and realistic living are so that basic agreements that weren't possible back in the day of the Pilgrims, have come to pass somewhat happily.) And one shouldn't feel bad to stop and kneel and pray, and be happy, just as we are happy to watch It's a Wonderful Life, you know, if some old lawmaker steps away from moralizing judgmental 'you are a sinner, whilst I am pure,' kind of crap.

So, who's going to go talk to Rush, the great hater? Obviously the guy is frustrated. He wants to be an artist? He should quiet down and go meditate. He apparently has some great concern to tell us. He should draw it up in some Constitutional sort of thing. What is it? One has the right to hate? To Bully? To wield negativity when people are trying to accomplish some basic balancing of rights and freedom for all? Rush, listen to me, go be Jeffersonian, whatever you have to say, draw it up in some 10 lined form about what we all need in order to get along better, be happier, live longer, have more freedom.

In the meantime, I, not paid as well as you, not having such sponsorship and weighty clout (I am skinny, Rush, where you are meaty... I do yoga and ride a bike and serve people food and drink and chit chat where you yell and shout into a microphone listened to passively and brained-washedly by bitter millions as they drive to work, radio on to numb the inner voices of their own cruel insistent non-ignorable fears, I drink wine and get naturally poetic--or not--where you are into the pharmacy's eithery speed and numbness) will go on hoping that we all have, through the efficient single payer that here is Medicare, that in Europe is an efficient state system, France, Germany, Switzerland, the PUBLIC OPTION, the right, yes, the right to Insurance, the right to good health. Imagine what that would do to the health/medical industry. They would become bloody DaVinci geniuses, think forward, go good work, not just zap your pre-cadavar with x-rays. They would solve problems of head and body and mind/body interfaces, through simple vitamins and instructions as to how to use your body. Think of all--Come on Rush, you are a positive guy, come sing this with me--Think of all humanity could do if they had some good basic feeling that their basic health was looked after. We've all suffered enough, don't you think, after 9/11, that we all might be blown to dust by some other hateful person... why must we negate ourselves in this basic need for maternal milk and peace? (Hmmm, it pays to think out loud, at least for some hearts.)

Yes, again, where are you, Rush, in terms of Jefferson and Declarations and Constitutions? I guess you're freedom of speech. Freedom to pollute. Freedom to poison school buses with the pornography of adult political hatred. Freedom to take deceny away from that said school bus. Freedom to make money from the sweat of other faces. I hope you are enjoying yourself. And I hope you are in good health, really. Take a walk. 30 minutes, every day. Do some yoga. It's good for you. Can you do that for the rest of us, since you're so concerned about the rest of us and our health? Go read Mark Twain. Be Huck Finn for a day, take a raft with an uninsured black man called Jim. Come to Washington. Sneak up on a monument and listen to the profound silence that is not hatred and chatter. Come read Lincoln on two walls, a chair in between with a man who thought about what he said before he said it. Watch Mr. Smith.

You give people the basic freedom of having health insurance, of not having to seriously worry about losing everything to some honest basic human fallibility of poor health, skin, guts, heart and blood and mind and disposition, (as happens to everyone in their crucial forties) and there is no telling what they can do. That would be a great economy, and no wonder all the previous bullshit built on huge money for very few, measly wages for the rest, has basically failed by all definitions of what a nation should be about. It was, it is, a Tower of Babel, and no fifty states goes anywhere without an equal playing field where talents come forth.

(Kanye West, did you see that, taking a microphone away from an honest artist and beautiful talent in her moment? It's not his fault. It's just a sign of the times. Disparity, conflict, the insured versus the uninsured. Kanye has been trained to take advantage, selfishly, of the great undemocratic Rushian inequity. I got a fast car, you don't. I got the microphone and the cognac in my hand and you don't. I can get my hair cut in this way and wear fine clothes where you can't. I'm big and loud and don't know how to respect other people. There is inequity, and I am happy with that, happy with basic inequality, because, hey, I'm successful and you aren't. I don't want us all to have a chance, because "I Made It and I am Beautiful and I am Better than You." My success makes me the arbiter of taste, and to hell the country upstarts.)

I can't find it in myself to find Shane MacGowan any less of a statesman than Jack, Bobby, Abe,FDR, Teddy R. They all know/knew life as it is.

(Cromwell was a public figure too. Big and listened to. Yeah, real decent guy to the Irish. If there's someone who has a self-styled nation, like "Obama Nation," it was Cromwell in Ireland and every now and then one should read and have some respect for history.)