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OPINIONOPINION

 Mountain Views NewsSaturday, August 24, 2024

RICH JOHNSON 

NOW THAT’S RICH

STUART TOLCHIN

AFTER ALL, IT’S ONLY 
POLITICS

There may be no greater need for humor than in the months leading up to an 
election. It’s hard to keep ahead of all the bloviating being bloviated.

What does bloviating mean? Bloviate: To speak a lot in an annoying way as 
if you are very important. (I may be many things, but I don’t think I’m very 
important.) Phew! Dodged that bullet!

Question: How are politicians like diapers?

Answer: They both need to be changed regularly, and for the same reason.

President Reagan, diffusing concerns about his age, often joked about it. An example, “I 
have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of na-tional emergency, even if I’m in a 
Cabinet meeting.”

A robber held up a well-dressed man, pointing his gun and yelling, “Give me all your 
money!” The man replied, “Don’t you know who I am? I’m a U.S. congressman!” The robber 
retorted, “In that case, give me all my money!”

True story. One of our president’s was arrested for speeding, while he was president. 
President Ulysses S. Grant was pulled over twice within 24 hours. A truly bold police officer 
arrested him. By the way, police did not ar-rest the horse Grant was riding. (Also by the way, 
President Grant’s middle initial stood for nothing. It was a typo on his application to West 
Point.)

21st U.S. President Chester Arthur held a yard sale at the White House while president. He 
sold two dozen wagon loads of presidential merchandise and used the month to hire an 
interior decorator. It was the first and last White House yard sale…so far!

Can you guess what Ronald Reagan, Dwight Eisenhower, Franklin Roose-velt and George 
W. Bush shared in common (other than being president)? They were all cheerleaders at one 
time or another.

We had a president who was president for just one day. His name? David Rice Atchison. 
He was in office for one day because Zachary Taylor, in 1849, refused to be inaugurated on 
a Sunday for religious reasons. So, he had Atchison stand in for him. He may go down in 
history as our best presi-dent ever.

Two clever presidential quotes:

“If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?” Abraham Lincoln

“You know nothing for sure…except the fact that you know nothing for sure.” John Kennedy

I’ll end this chaotic column with comments from the masters regard-ing politics:

“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly 
and applying the wrong remedies” Groucho Marx

“Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be president, but they don’t want them to become 
politicians in the process.” John F. Kennedy

“Things are more like they are now than they ever were before.” Dwight D. Eisenhower

“Congressman should wear uniforms like NASCAR drivers so we can identi-fy their 
corporate sponsors.” Unknown

“Ninety Percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputa-tion.” Henry 
Kissinger

The difference between a politician and a statesman? “A statesman is a politician who has 
been dead ten or fifteen years.” Harry S. Truman

“Democracy is being allowed to vote for the candidate you dislike the least.” Robert Byrne

“Conservatives are satisfied with present evils; liberals want to replace them with new ones” 
Unknown

Shameless reminder. Saturday night, August 31st, my band, JJ Jukebox will be playing at 
Nano Café. Showtime: 6:30-9:15. Great food, great servers, great ambience, full bar, dance 
floor, clean bathrooms. What more could you ask for? Oh…(626) 325-3334 for reservations 
(or just come). 322 W. Si-erra Madre Blvd., Sierra Madre.

MOUNTAIN 
VIEWS

NEWS

PUBLISHER/ EDITOR

Susan Henderson

PASADENA CITY 
EDITOR

Dean Lee 

SALES

Patricia Colonello

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WEBMASTER

John Aveny 

DISTRIBUTION

Peter Lamendola

CONTRIBUTORS

Michele Kidd

Stuart Tolchin 

Harvey Hyde

Audrey Swanson

Meghan Malooley

Mary Lou Caldwell

Kevin McGuire

Chris Leclerc

Dinah Chong Watkins

Howard Hays

Paul Carpenter

Kim Clymer-Kelley

Christopher Nyerges

Peter Dills 

Rich Johnson

Lori Ann Harris

Rev. James Snyder

Katie Hopkins

Deanne Davis

Despina Arouzman

Jeff Brown

Marc Garlett

Keely Toten

Dan Golden

Rebecca Wright

Hail Hamilton

Joan Schmidt

LaQuetta Shamblee


PUT THE LIGHTS ON

MEMORIES AT AN OLD AGE

 Yesterday the DNC was probably the most 
entertaining four hours of television that I 
watched all year. It was not a boring political 
program where speakers talked about ignored 
policies and tentative future programs. It was 
more like a gathering together combining 
elements of funerals, weddings, graduations, bar mitzvahs and 
bat mitzvahs and the sharing the memories of past successes and 
disappointments.

 As you should know the parents of Kamala were both PhDs 
who met while students at UC Berkeley already with a commitment 
to Civil Rights. I was at Berkely at the very same time also forming 
a lifelong interest and commitment to Civil Rights. Perhaps I was 
at the same meetings where they met. In any case, neither of these 
parents should be seen as non-accomplished working-class people 
and I resent the implication. They worked hard and studied hard 
and had big dreams which they tried to fulfill. Nevertheless, like my 
children, she was raised primarily by a single parent and Kamala, 
like 1 in 8 Americans, worked at MacDonalds.

 That is the heritage of our present Vice-President and to 
characterize her as lower middle-class person is comical. Democrats 
are attempting to portray her in this way to appeal to lower middle 
class hesitant voters by pretending that she is one of them. There is 
something condescending and patronizing in this appeal; and, more 
importantly, I do not believe there is any need for it.

 The entire convention displayed a kind of humanity, dedication, 
and humility that is seldom shown in politics. The Old Warrior Joe 
Biden was reluctantly stepping aside because of concerns about his 
age, not his concerns but other people's concerns. Nevertheless, 
he displayed remarkable energy matched by strong conflicted 
feelings. His wife and daughter presented him to the convention. 
After his speech he walked off holding the hand of his four-year-
old granddaughter named for his deceased son, Bo. It was Bo who 
had first brought Kamala to his attention after they had worked 
together as States Attorneys General. This was not mentioned but 
I remembered.

 There were many impressive speakers displaying great racial and 
age diversity. There was old Maxine Waters who I knew almost 
fifty years ago as a Deputy to Los Angeles Councilman David 
Cunningham. There was Georgia Senator Reverend Raphael 
Warnock who served as the pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church 
in Atlanta the former pulpit of Reverend Martin Luther King. I met 
pastor Warnock during the brief time I worked with the Southern 
Christian Leadership Conference in Mississippi. There was a 
wonderful speech by Steve Kerr, yes, the Olympic Basketball Coach, 
who never mentioned his connection to world conflict. I know 
about this because I took a class from his professor father who was 
an expert on Middle Eastern Conflict. He became the Dean of the 
American University of Beirut where he was assassinated by two 
shooters associated with a militant organization. Steve Kerr never 
mentioned this, but I knew about it.

 Memories came back to me. There were several mentions of 
Shirley Chisholm the first Black Woman to be elected to the United 
States Congress. In 1972 she had rallies supporting her candidacy 
for President and I was there. The speech of Hilary Clinton was 
remarkable, and it reminded me of my disappointment in 2016 that 
the other person was elected, on February 21, 2017, the day after 
the other person’s inauguration my wife and I were in Washinton 
attending the Women's March. 

 I should stop here. The presentation of the Convention evoked 
memories of my own life and experiences together with my 
awareness of the conflicted feelings of many of the speakers. I was 
reminded how memorable my own life has been, although on most 
mornings, now, I cannot even remember the day before. Today I 
agreed to do some volunteer work for the Democrats and am now 
looking forward to it. Hooray for memories and a renewed sense of 
purpose! I hope it lasts for a while. I hope I remember to watch the 
second day of the convention.

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DICK POLMAN

THANKS TO THE AGING CRIMINAL AND 
HIS CULT, KAMALA SEIZES THE AMERICAN 
MAINSTREAM


Amidst all the damage 
Donald Trump has 
wreaked on the 
supine GOP, one 
political felony stands 
out: By narrowing 
and shrinking its 
ranks to assorted cultists, dolts, and 
insurrectionists, he has ceded the 
American mainstream to Kamala Harris.

She had only one month to get her act 
together, an unprecedentedly herculean 
task all by itself, but the aging criminal 
made her job easier. Thursday night, in 
a fervent acceptance speech that plucked 
at our heartstrings and sang to the better 
angels of our nature, she capitalized big 
time and captured the flag.

She laid claim to the all-American 
virtues that MAGA has left on the table 
– in her words, “freedom, opportunity, 
compassion, dignity, fairness and endless 
possibilities.” Plus “optimism and faith.” 
Plus patriotism (“I love my country with 
all my heart”). Plus fealty to democracy, 
not to foreign dictators. Plus respect for 
our military (“I will ensure America 
always has the strongest, most lethal 
fighting force in the world…I will always 
honor and never disparage their service 
and their sacrifice”). Plus “the rule of law.” 
Plus “free and fair elections.” Plus “the 
peaceful transfer of power.”

Plus “country over party.” Let’s linger on 
that one.

All week long, Democrats sent up 
signal flares to disaffected Republicans, 
urging them to join with Harris to save 
the American experiment. Harris, in 
her speech, buttressed that invitation, 
accepting her party’s nomination “on 
behalf of every American, regardless 
of party.” She said we should view each 
other “not as members of any one party or 
faction, but as Americans.”

Granted – and I can say this, having 
watched and/or covered every convention 
since the 1980s – virtually every 
presidential nominee makes rhetorical 
overtures to the opposition. But this 
convention was unique. A parade of 
Republicans and MAGA drop-outs were 
given air time, typically in prime time, 
to prosecute the case against Trump and 
invite old allies into the fold.

Dems rolled out the welcome mat for 
Stephanie Grisham, a former Trump press 
secretary, who told the national audience 
that her ex-boss “has no empathy, no 
morals, no fidelity to the truth,” and 
denigrates his own followers as “basement 
dwellers.” Dems welcomed ex-Mike Pence 
aide Olivia Troye: “Being inside Trump’s 
White House was terrifying, but what 
keeps me up at night is what will happen 
if he gets back there.” Dems gave podium 
time to Jeff Duncan, a former Georgia 
Republican lieutenant governor, who 
addressed his “Republican friends at 
home watching. If you vote for Kamala 
Harris in 2024, you are not a Democrat, 
you are a patriot.”

And Dems gave a prominent speaking 
slot, on the climactic final night, to 
ex-Republican Congressman Adam 
Kinzinger, a lieutenant colonel in the Air 
National Guard: “My fellow Republicans…
Democracy knows no party. It’s a living, 
breathing ideal that defines us as a nation. 
It’s the bedrock that separates us from 
tyranny…If you think those principles are 
worth defending, then I urge you, make 
the right choice.”

Generations of Republicans have flocked 
to candidates who flex strength on the 
world stage. Trump, given his penchant 
for groveling to dictators, has ceded that 
ground to Harris as well. One of her tasks 
last night was to pass muster as a credible 
commander-in-chief. Republican-leaning 
voters (perhaps enough to swing a district 
or state) may well have been pleased to 
hear passages like this, delivered with 
badass fervor:

“I will never hesitate to take whatever 
action is necessary to defend our forces 
and our interests against Iran and Iran-
backed terrorists. I will not cozy up to 
tyrants and dictators like Kim Jong-un, 
who are rooting for Trump. Because they 
know he is easy to manipulate with flattery 
and favors. They know Trump won’t 
hold autocrats accountable – because he 
wants to be an autocrat himself. And as 
president, I will never waver in defense of 
America’s security and ideals, because in 
the enduring struggle between democracy 
and tyranny, I know where I stand and I 
know where the United States belongs.”

This race is not a slam dunk, despite all 
the blue exuberance of the moment. But 
now that Harris has cornered the market 
on the key American verities, she can 
potentially expand her electoral map 
– charting a victory path through the 
Rustbelt and the Sunbelt, and making a 
play for North Carolina, which has gone 
red for decades except for Obama in 2008. 
Harris has long been underestimated, but 
no longer.

As for Trump, he was reduced to phoning 
the friendly co-hosts at Newsmax and 
babbling this: “Caracas was a very unsafe 
city, and now it’s safe. In fact, some day 
the three of us will have to go there – let’s 
bring your husband with us also, right? – 
and we’ll bring some of the other people 
that are with you because I like the people 
that are with you.”

Great idea! To avoid being eviscerated by 
Harris in the impending debate, Trump 
has 18 days to flee to Venezuela.

Dick Polman, a veteran national political 
columnist based in Philadelphia and a 
Writer in Residence at the University of 
Pennsylvania, 


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