Is over. On the eve of the new decade, we were in Provincetown, but were unable to have our annual beach fire because of snow and high wind. At the annual ritual, we jot down things we want to burn up from the old year and toss them in the fire.

Some whiny friends seemed relieved that we called it off, but even I could not have gotten my secret fire starter, the duraflame log [known in Manhattan as deli-wood] started. And the snow would have wreaked havoc with our planned paper mache piñata of Joe Lieberman. Instead we lit our papers as we stood on the front porch and let the wind take the ash onto the snowy garden. No telling what that mulch will do to the day lilies come spring.

We clomped back into the warm house for a potluck dinner that had been intentionally carbo-loaded for cold people returning from the rigors of a long winter beach fire. My Indianized lasagna, loaded with hoarded leftovers – curried chickpeas, coconut green beans, and reduced turmeric ricotta – was a big hit. Everyone had “just a sliver” of chocolate mousse cake with the dark chocolate frosting with white frostinged “Peace, Love, Forgiveness and Joy” brought by our favorite Buddhist

After dinner, before the torpor of the holiday meal hit, we talked. From the probable retirement of Supreme Court Justice Stevens, to the gay death penalty in Uganda, gay marrying in New Hampshire, to the David Boies/Ted Olsen Prop 8 gambit, to repeal chances for Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, to the yummy chocolate mousse cake. I brought that up.

Though not as dreary as some glum dinners during the Bush years, we bummed ourselves about President Obama’s challenges in the new year: The Great Recession, The Health Insurance Bill, bankster bonuses, joblessness, mid-term elections and the Christmas terrorist threat. Not the papal tackler at the ten o’clock midnight mass at the Vatican. Real gate-crashers. Despite all kinds of dots to connect – a distraught father at the US Embassy, a name on the terror watch list, and a one-way ticket – the CIA, the FBI and Homeland Insecurity are still getting on like cats in a sack.

One astute guest wondered, “Why do terrorists even buy one-way tickets?” They are a first alert red flag for terrorist watchers. Ask anyone who has just been frisked in the line for the NY to DC shuttle. Round-trip tickets are cheaper. It’s not like terrorist ticket buyers are going to be penalized if they don’t use the return flight. They’ll be above the friendly skies with their seventy-two black-eyed virgins or golden raisins, depending on which Koran translation you’re using, fundamentalist or food channel.

Everybody was allowed to leave before ten p.m., the new Catholic midnight, to observe his or her own rituals for bringing in the New Year. Even though I think it might be bad form to tell you, I burned “television watching”. Nonetheless, as we were cleaning up the kitchen, I turned on the TV so we could watch the ball drop, get annoyed by the uberhost Ryan Seacrest and worry about Dick Clark, but our two-year-old TV had died! Dead. Perhaps the CNN Kathy Griffin appearance killed the TV when we weren’t looking.

I hope the rest of my incinerated items get as immediate a response. Again, I won’t tell you what they were, but here’s a hint: look at the top of the cake.

Just returned from emceeing the 25th Annual Gay & Lesbian Leadership Conference in San Francisco. The opening night reception was held in the gorgeous SF City Hall, with a welcome by the equally gorgeous Mayor Newsom. We toasted to the courage of SF’s Harvey Milk who thirty years ago urged gays out of the closet, into the streets and then into the seats of power.

The next two days featured panels [life not death panels] on the state of the movement, social networking; plenaries on international LGBT work, green economies and a great conversation with WI Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin and CO’s newbie Congressman Jared Polis moderated by the witty Jonathan Capeheart. Hidden in the bowels of the hotel there was a boot camp training for 40 LGBTs who plan to run for office. They emerged tired and squinting, but bursting with info and enthusiasm for running a successful campaign.

Of course there was also lots of schmoozing, adult beverages and late night appreciating of SF. I prefer to call it ideation. The Victory Fund is fully committed to getting LGBT leaders elected to office from the local to the national level. It’s nothing I have the stomach for – I fantasize adult behaviors like throwing pink smoke bombs onto the Senate Floor whenever Joe Lieberman speaks. I am glad LGBT people have the guts and cojones for elected office and I was honored to be with them.

My last official duty of 2009 was co-hosting the Out Music Awards, an ambitiously planned evening at Webster Hall in NY, to honor LGBT singers and songwriters. With many live performances, award presentations and acceptance speeches the bad news is that the night did run long. Good news? I finished my on-line holiday shopping, started and finished my greeting cards, gave myself and my co-host a manicure, learned Spanish and prayed that this wasn’t what hell was going to be like.

With the Yes on K8 tour complete, I have grounded myself for a few weeks and plan only to use my Xootr for transportation. I believe in hibernation and plan to use my time wisely. Since I finished most of my tasks at the Ouch Music Awards, I’m free to take naps, watch movies, see friends, read, write and plan for 2010’s Lady HaHa Tour. It’s going to be a lot of laughs.

Some have asked, “How did YOU get invited to the White House State dinner?” The incredulity of the question implies we were like the reality couple that crashed the dinner. They were the first couple we saw when we arrived by taxi. I’m not one of those new security behavioral observers, nor do I play one on TV, but they seemed odd.

They came with a camera crew and their exit from a black stretch Hummer limo was well-lit in the dim evening. She was a tall thin blonde in a garish red beaded sari-esque something and he was stocky, grinning junior high coach looking guy. They stood behind us in line. I heard her tell Pepsico’s CEO, Indra Nooyi how they’d just gotten back from India and that it was great shopping. Does wincing make a sound?

Okay is two paragraphs enough on that episode before the whole amazing evening gets derailed by those self-serving balloon boy gate crashers and the media makes a four day news cycle out of If-Obama-can’t-protect-the-White-House-how-will-he-protect-the-country-narrative like it was some kind of 9.11 breach? Ugh.

As an Indian and long time activist Urvashi was invited and she brought me. Since we were in a very diverse room for mainstream DC where media and government boldface names were gathered, we vowed to work it.

At the cocktail reception, we met as many people as we could and after suitably pleasant openers, pushed either for LGBT equality or for peace. Both if we had time. When we were hustled through the receiving line to meet the very cool President Obama, the very hot First Lady, and the Indian guests of honor, Urvashi thanked Mr. Obama for what he is trying to do and suggested he be tougher on the right wing. I seconded that. Urvashi and I held hands and represented as we walked past the press. We worked the dining room. At our table we again inserted peace and full equality whenever we could. It wasn’t like, “Pass the papardam, I’m a pro-choice, pro-peace lesbian, here’s the chutney.” But close.

During the entertainment, before Jennifer Hudson practically blew the tent down, I sat thinking how ironic it was that a month earlier we had been in DC for the Equality March. We weren’t gassed or thrown in jail and there we were at a state dinner sitting next to the CEO of Tata in India and the new US Commerce Secretary.

Others have asked, “WHAT did you wear?” Since you asked, Urvashi wore a red silk kurta with an embroidered shawl, and I wore a knee length black Nehru-esque jacket and pants with an orange scarf.

If you are coming to New York City during the holidays and you want to see a show – book some tickets to The 39 Steps. Based on the movie by Alfred Hitchcock, it is a comedic tour de farce with some of the best physical comedy I’ve seen live. Four actors play fifty characters at break neck speed with accents to match. Thank god for Velcro. Harriet Levy, my friend and Broadway producer maven, invited me to moderate the talk back after the show and I was honored to be close to such talent. Nearly speechless, actually.

Heck, while you’re in New York, go to the Natural History Museum. You won’t see Ben Stiller, but it’s amazing. I was there to see the award-winning documentary Edie and Thea: A Very Long Engagement in the Margaret Mead Theater. The documentarians, Susan Muska and Greta Olafsdottir and Edie her wonderful self were there to answer questions. After the film, we rambled out through the museum and wondered why we don’t go there more often. Or every day.

Since I was in New York, I had the honor of emceeing the outrageous 75th Birthday Party for Gloria Steinem at the Gramercy Park Hotel. It was good to be together with strong feminist women in the wake of the Stupak-Pitts amendment to limit abortion funding. But Gloria seems to sigh and soldier on; she’s an inspiration. Historian Blanche Wiesen Cook spoke and then Ann Hampton Callaway improvised a kicker birthday song to Gloria. As an extra bonus, the party benefited The Ms. Foundation.

And again, because I was in New York, I was able to do a last minute fill-in on an over-populated panel Joy Behar’s new CNN show. I got a few words in, but let me be clear that while Sarah Palin has been a comedy gift, she is dangerous and clueless about her folksy demagoguery.

I left New York to do the last show of my 2009 “Yes on K8!” Tour at the beloved Birchmere in Alexandria, VA just outside of DC. First I stopped at the Lambda Bookstore in DuPont circle, signed books and chatted with old friends and fascinating readers. What was a sad day in DC – the first Friday in forty years that the Washington Blade would not be published – was slightly improved by the appearance of “The DC Agenda” a thin broadside put out by the plucky Blade Staff covering news of DC City Council’s defense of marriage equality in the face of mighty bishoprics.

I write this from Syracuse, New York where I just attended the 90th birthday party of my dear comic mom, Jane Heitzman. I’ve known her for almost fifty years and it was Jane who introduced me to Nichols and May, Moms Mabley, Bell Barthe and much more. She would make me do dramatic readings in different accents of the many Christmas letters they received. I did some of my best early performances for her. She is as hilarious as ever and still appreciates a champagne cocktail.

If you have read this far, and thank you, I know you’re busy with holiday plans, you will look forward to my next blog with all the details of the White House State Dinner for the Prime Minister of India that I will attend with my dear partner on Tuesday night. I almost tossed the invite by mistake. Note to self: if it’s embossed, read it.

“Purpose of your visit?”

“To visit friends.”

“And you’re only staying one night?”

“It’s for a party.”

“Are you bringing gifts?”

“No.”

As usual I began my trip to Vancouver, feeling like a really bad friend. As we began our descent into the clouds over the beautiful western Canadian city, I was feeling a little feverish, and worried it might be the Swine Flu. But it turns out, it was Olympic Fever. The Winter Games begin in February and there’s a frantic undertone in the usual tranquility of Vancouver.

The veteran organizer Pat Hogan of Sounds and Furies Productions met me. She really is a production feminist friend from way back and seems to have longer days than most mortals. The show was in Wise Hall, an old cultural and sports center, that has been refurbished from its days as a post-game drinking hole for Welsh, Scottish, Irish and English teams. I had prepared for the requisite percentage of “Canadian content” but was mostly chagrinned to be describing our American struggle for marriage equality and healthcare. They have both in Canada. Their forbearance had just a tinge of justifiable smugness.

The next day, after hours of annoying if efficient immigration lines, I flew into Seattle, WA and hitched a ride with Seattle producer, Paul Bauer for a one hour drive to Olympia. Nothing like car rides for uninterrupted catch-up. That night I performed at the gorgeous Washington Center. Before the show, I stopped over to the Chica’s Café for a 50th birthday party my friend Kathy [aka Doodle] Smith hosted for her girlfriend. I’ll go anywhere for a Scorpio sister.

The next morning I left two days of rain and fifty degrees. In the Northwest they don’t say rain. They say drizzle, and only tourists use umbrellas. One woman told me since it rains all the time, you just can’t give into it. But what about my hair?
When I landed in Phoenix it was hot and dry. Luckily I had stored up hydration or I would have split down the middle.

But the ever-prepared Barbara McCullough-Jones, from Equality Arizona met me with a bottle of water. EA has done lots of events at the Fairmont Hotel in Scottsdale, so my lodgings were gratis. The place is a huge resort, but the man who took me to my room knew the way and it turned out he was from my hometown of Buffalo, NY. On our long trek, we shared about lake effect and the heartbreak of the Buffalo Bills.

That night I performed to a great crowd at the Wrigley Mansion. Yes, of the gum fame. Though not Nicorette, so what’s the point? Arizona is a state that has valiantly fought the Mormons and the right wing for marriage equality, so it was a great night to let off steam. Also good hydration.

After a great breakfast chat with Barbara about all the strategies they’ve been doing to change hearts and minds in AZ, I flew to Tucson. The town is a bit bluer than the red of Phoenix and that day they were having their huge annual Day of the Dead Parade. The lovely Kristen Birner, a friend from back in the Olivia, Redwood travel booking days, and a transplant to Tucson of six years, produced the show for the Alliance. At the reception after I met the Alliance board members, Lane Aldrich an artist and transplant from Bowling Green OH, special guests and a wonderful group of young LGBT and allies who work with Wingspan, their LGBT center.

The next morning at 5am, Jeff who with his partner runs The Royal Elizabeth B&B where I stayed very happily, got up and drove me to the airport. He wouldn’t hear of taxi. Jeff and Chuck are Long Island/DC transplants – I met one native Arizonan in two days – gracious hosts and political activists. I had one of the best early morning to the airport conversations I’ve ever had. Even better than the 430a ride to O’Hare with the vet at the Chicago Zoo who told me how she got rhino semen. Another story, another time.

Safely and happily home now in Manhattan. It’s freaky warm for November and about to rain, this day after my birthday. My life is a gift.

At 7:30 this election morning, we walked to our local polling place in the elementary school, past the “Vote Aqui” signs, past the bake sale moms, the cellophaned chocolate chip Frisbees and into the voting area. The elderly near-sighted, hard-of-hearing, darling polling ladies found our names. We signed the right spaces, went into the booth and voted. I love yanking that riverboat-sized lever that registers my votes. We walked out. It took about five minutes.

Last year we went to vote at 6 a.m., joined the end of a huge, line snaking down the block, dark morning air dotted with puffs of steam from coffee. Inside the packed, bikram muggy voting area, we were sent from one table to the next, stood in more lines and finally voted for Barack Obama. It took about an hour. It was just getting light as we left.

What a year it has been. No doubt you have your own ups and downs for your personal political highlights reel. When I view my own reel it seems to go into slo-mo on gay issues at first with Rick Warren, DADT and DOMA dallying, but then speeds up with the signing of the Hate Crimes bill and the lifting of the HIV immigration ban. I used the split screen function for economy, environment and education highlights. Obama’s got a lot going on. I spliced in a lot of art, music, vegetable garden, and Michelle footage. Lots of Michelle highlights. There’s too much quagmire footage.

I’m waiting to hear how my brother Bill did in his re-election bid to his city council in PA and for LGBT news from Kalamazoo, Washington and Maine. The governor’s race in NJ is too close to call. Our mayor’s audacious bid for a third term seems a done deal.

But mostly I am remembering last Election Day, stomach in knots, approaching-avoiding exit poll news, obsessively cleaning. That night at a friend’s house we watched, stunned as Barack Hussein Obama hit the required electoral count and heard the city erupt around us. Today a year after that historic election night, I realize I am happy to be a year into the Obama administration.

When people wonder to me about what I’ll do without George Bush, I tell them that I’ll always have the Pope. And of course, the Cheneys who are keeping America safe, but not from themselves. I could do a whole new ninety minute Pope show if it weren’t so annoying to my never or now non-Catholic friends. We lapsed Catholics find ourselves endlessly interesting, but it is a special ring of hell for listeners.

From his dubious just-following holy orders deep past, to his more recent past as Czar of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, under his old boss Pope John Paul II, who is beginning to look as benign as Mr. Magoo, Pope Benedict XVI’s highlight reel of his four years pontificating is a doozy.

Like a sandcastle basilica facing an incoming tide, the RCC is facing a sea of secularism, and the Pope is using his mitered shovel to dig a futile moat. Since attendance at confession is down, big time, he upgraded sins for the modern era: drug dealing, corporate greed, child abuse. He incentivized confession by bringing back indulgences. Think double coupon days. He got rid of Limbo, just when I was getting over the loss of Pluto. He went to Africa and recklessly said that condoms have nothing to do with stopping the spread AIDS.

The Pope brought back the Tridentine face to-the-wall Latin mass. The mass looks like a time-out-corner punishment in kindergarten. He said protecting heterosexuality from the onslaught of homosexuality is as important as protecting the rainforests from destruction, making LGBT the clearcutters in the virgin forest of heterosexuality. First he tried to root gay men out of seminaries and lately he has been rooting out American nuns, for the sin of liberalism and tirelessly running the church’s charities, hospitals, schools and cleaning up the altar after the mass. I have made our apartment a safe house on the underground railway for runaway nuns. Tell your friends. Password: Song of Bernadette.

And fall membership drives are no longer just the province of Public Radio. In a bid to boost his numbers, and annex the Divineland, the Pope preemptively cancelled the 450 year old split with Henry VIII’s old Anglican Church and welcomed them, individually, by parish or by diocese into the healing vortex of the RCC after just a wee bit of counseling in the sweat lodge. More hot rocks! He is one Spiritual Warrior.

Acquisition details are still being worked out with uh, no one, certainly not the middling Archbishop of Canterbury and not so much with Episcopalians, that gay-bishop ordaining American League branch of the Anglican Church. Married Anglican priests with the impeccable het credentials of the wife and kids are welcomed. In your dreams is it the beginning of married priests. All reactionary, angry, misogynistic, homophobic Anglicans are also welcome.

Meanwhile in upstate New York, my two brothers and their wives have been trying to keep their parish churches open. One brother from a small rural church first participated in prayerful sit-ins to forestall the closure and then occupied the church after the bishop ordered it closed. He went with his parish committee to Rome to plead their case. The church was shuttered. My other brother was in a liberal urban parish that welcomed the LGBT community, performed gay weddings and long participated in local anti-poverty and anti-war movements. He and his wife called their parish “The St. James Barely Catholic Church”. The church was one of the first closed.

As a lesbian I have very little tolerance for the Catholic Church. It has less for me. My Hindu girlfriend, with the cool belief in reincarnation and many-armed deities, urges me to have more respect for the Catholic Church. After this latest move by the Pope and the church’s usual denial of what is really going on in the back room, I have less respect for the church, but greater admiration for my brothers, their wives and all those who have struggled to keep their church open to all who practice loving spirituality in a secular world.

Today is my sister’s birthday! I have two older brothers and a younger brother, and when I was young I begged my mother for a sister, or a dog. I got a sister. My sister begged my mother for a sister or a dog. She got a crazy beagle named Saint Louie Marie de Montfort, patron saint of something, little sisters maybe.

This morning I called her and did one of my hilarious [to me] birthday rap songs. She listened and then busted me as only a little sister can. “You’ve been on the road for weeks. I have to read your website to know where you are. Where are you?”

So, dear sister[s] and brothers, a quick recap.

After my PTown summer season where I get to ride my bike to work at the Crown and Anchor every night, it was back to New York and bye bye bike, hello airplanes. First stop was San Fransisters, CA for a show across the bay at the Montclair Women’s Cultural Arts Club. Owned and run by Barbara Price, the club is a multi-purpose showcase. And it was like old homo week – I saw singer/songwriter Margie Adam, famed photographer Irene Young, and backstage maven Connie Lane.

After a great lunch at Poggio Tratorio in Sausalito with gals who bid on me at the NCLR auction [try the thin crust pizza], I got a ride with more wonderful NCLR volunteers to Sacramento for a show at the renovated Crest Theater. You’ve got to see the neon marquee! Sacramento is the epi-center of the budget Conan the Republican madness, so they were all ready to laugh.

From Sacto I flew to Long Beach CA, home of Billie Jean King, and performed in the beautiful Center Theater, where we had taped my 25th anniversary special. After the show, my pal Julie Goldman, a transplanted New York lesbo comic and star of The Big Gay Sketch Comedy Show, gave me a ride to my old friend Leslie Belzberg’s house. We laughed all the way. Leslie is doing a great job co-chairing the OutFest Board and my goddaughter Sophie is now officially as tall as I am.

The next weekend brought me to one of the longest running, all volunteer, community performance clubs in the country – The Ark in Ann Arbor, MI. The state of MI is hurting with job loss and foreclosures and everyone is feeling it. They needed the laughs. I got my usual ride to and from Detroit with my favorite scientific researcher, Carol Mousigan, who explained to me how they were containing a MI tree blight. I couldn’t have been happier.

I left Detroit and flew to Albuquerque – it was the balloon festival but it was too windy, so I didn’t even seen that Jiffy Pop looking balloon without Falcon in it – where I was picked up by Melissa Howden, a good friend from Holly Near and Redwood Record days. We yacked and drove up to gorgeous Taos for a show at the second annual Festival of Change held on the grounds of KTAO radio, a solar powered community radio and heart of the progressive community. Before driving back to Albuquerque, Melissa was a great guide through the Taos pueblo. And she’s a great cook.

After a few days home to see my gal pal, do laundry and pay bills, I flew to Orlando, FL for one of my favorite conferences – the Out and Equal conference. I emceed their big Outie Awards dinner for corporations and municipal organizations that bring LGBT diversity into the workplace. It is always inspirational, but especially this year when Hillary Clinton addressed the dinner via impeccable satellite [oh those Disney people, they have everything] on behalf of the LGBT employee relations group at the State Department that had won its first Outie.

From the muggy 92 degrees of FL, I flew to DC for the absolutely glorious Equality March. I met my galpal and we saw old friends and then marched with at least 200,000 LGBTs [more if you double up the bi-sexuals] and our allies to the Capitol. It was young and feisty and very exciting. Organized by brilliant young queers mastering the new social media, the crowds showed up and I’m still cheered by what I saw of the next generation. I got to introduce my girlfriend and she gave a kickass speech you can see on YouTube.

After DC I flew to Ptown for the 25th Annual Women’s Week and a nor’easter. Four days, five shows, three book signings, two showcases, one touch football game, one performer brunch, one literary panel, one casino night, several parties and several inches of rain later, I am back in NYC for a few days. And a nap.

Happy Birthday, Mary Harmonica. You’re my favorite sister.

Not to brag, but this summer, everyone coming out of my summer show in Provincetown told me it was my best ever. Oh, okay, not everyone. Two couples got up and left in a huff shortly after I described the Republican Party as ‘the other white meat’. And that’s such an old line. I should not get any more cash out of that clunker.

Out in the lobby two of the guys tried to pick a fight with our darling ticket taker – “I love my country! I fought for my country! I have friends who died for this country. She needs to be taught a lesson.” [We’re in sync on everything, even the last sentence, but I need a lesson in hydraulics, not civics.] Their wives tried to prod them gently out the door, but they weren’t having it. They were escorted out. Perhaps they mistook my show for a town hall meeting.

When security told me after about the incident, I thanked them for their solicitude. One guy said, “Heck no, we weren’t worried about your safety. We were worried about their safety. If they went back in there, and started something, we were afraid you would turn your audience on them.” This summer everybody was achin’ for a breakin’. I am happy to report no pinkies were bitten off during my shows. That I know of.

In my family it was a sin to get a swelled head, so I’ve been critiquing the feedback that it was my best show ever. When people tell me I’m brilliant, I’m no dummy. I know it is just because we agree. My Ptown neighbor who watches FOX all day long does not think I’m the brightest motion sensor bulb on our block. In the beginning of the summer, I proposed an experiment. He would only watch MSNBC and The News Hour. I would only watch FOX and Lou Dobbs. At the end of the summer, we would compare notes. He said he just couldn’t do it. I was relieved. Then he went into a tirade about ACORN.

But I’ve been assessing the feedback that it was my best show ever and I would agree. While the events of Summer 2008 – Hillary Clinton, the primaries, the conventions, Obama and Palin – were great material for my show it was about getting rid of Bush. Other summers were more Bush-centric. I had no idea how bored I was of Bush Inc. nor how deadening Bush Think can be. I was plum out of permutations on the Bush-is-bad simile. Evil really is as banal as a bike helmet.

Even though no one was shot in the face, Summer 2009 was a rip-roaring time to be a comic. Town hall meetings, Supreme Court hearings, teachable moments, healthcare, warfare. It might be no drama for Obama, but our dear democracy is in a parlous fight for its life against the armies of corporate capitalism with its legions of banksters, insurers, pharmaceutical and arms dealers. The color threat levels are high. White resentment is armed and dangerous.

While I feel some disappointment with my new president, It is an old familiar disappointment, oddly comforting. It is nothing compared to the spouting, paranoid rage my neighbor feels about Obama. And it is nothing compared to the cement- block-on-chest despair I felt in the Bush years. Now there are glimpses of hope and change – friends tell stories of being listened to in meetings on the Hill, about being invited to share expertise, about available funding sources. Languished and forgotten legislation is burbling up through committees. Progressive LGBT friends are getting substantive jobs in the Obama administration.

While I agree that this summer’s Ptown show was the best show, I would change “ever” to “of the last eight years.” It had very little to do with me. Please tell my family I’m still the same hat size.

For all I know, Keith Olberman might still be doing his special extended commentary on the You Lie Guy, but I had to get to bed. I have not checked this morning to see if he is still going strong with his fulminating filibuster on stupidity, but he could be. There’s plenty of what a southern friend of mine calls “stupid out loud” for Keith to chronicle. It is much easier to talk about stupid guys than complex ideas.

So while we are at it, my favorite guy was not South Carolina’s Joe “A protégé of Strom Thurmond” Wilson. I could not get enough of the guy with the handmade “What Bill?” sign in his lap. Was he a holdover from the Clinton healthcare speech sixteen years earlier and the “What Bill?” indicated he still did not understand the importance of healthcare reform? Sometimes he acted as if the sign had dropped in his lap from the balcony. Or he was covering a wine spill from dinner. Or it was some Ciallis misfiring.

While others in his pod of pathetics were sternly holding up their white flags, he seemed ambivalent about hoisting his own placard. He pointed to the signage in his lap, “Look at this thing. It wasn’t my idea.” That whole Republican side of the aisle looked like a bunch of troublemakers I had in a 7th grade study hall that reportedly balked at doing the stand-up, sit-down quad-strengthening exercises for a substitute gym teacher.

Republicans treat President Obama as if he were a substitute and they are just waiting for the real deal to come back in the room. That would be a white Republican male. Their desperate efforts to delegitimate an elected president (not to be confused with their efforts to legitimate a selected president) remind me of their panicked response to the terror attacks on September eleventh, eight years ago. For many of them, it was their first experience being attacked. Unlike women, poor people, and people of color who know being attacked as a pre-existing condition, the white guys freaked. Their world order was rocked. They panicked, put the country in lockdown and retaliated against the wrong country.

Once again their worldview is being rocked – demographically, racially, economically, politically – and the Birthers, Deathers and Everything in Betweeners are not behaving well at all. I would suggest detention, but after Guantanamo, it has bad connotations.