Obama ignores Irish at his peril

And yet, the senator from Illinois may have problems himself with the color green. No doubt his advisers will eventually prod him into attending a forum on Irish-American issues; but he may have already lost the upcoming primary in Pennsylvania after Senator Clinton wowed the quarter of a million Gaels who turned out for the Pittsburgh St. Patrick’s Day Parade.
I happened to be playing Steel City that night while on maneuvers with the infamous Irish-American terrorist group, Black 47, and can testify that the streets were literally humming to the name of Hillary.
I had to wonder about Obama’s absence, not to mention his political instincts. Does he know or care that there is an Irish-American working class vote? He sure as hell will do around 9 p.m. April 22nd.
That’s not to say that he can’t still win. Western Pennsylvania is now firmly entrenched in the Greater McDonalds Belt: most manufacturing industries having long fled. It’s certainly time for a change.
But who will bring it? Not Senator McCain, a decent man, but one who probably wouldn’t qualify for his own proposed health insurance plan because of a predisposition to cancer.
Still and all, he’s content to let those paragons of compassion, the insurance companies, call the shots. Just add a little competition, he reasons, and Bob Marley’s yer uncle, “every little ting’s gonna be all right.”
If the Senator from Arizona was smoking some of Bob’s wacky weed you might cut him some slack.
But it’s not just health coverage; after five years of an unnecessary war that’s beggaring the country, he still can’t tell the difference between Sunni and Shia.
It’s hard to blame him though; unless, you’re one of those educated commies who reads the fine print of the New York Times every day, how can you be expected to know about such trivia?
However, the world and his mother know that Senator Obama can’t throw a bowling ball to save the 82nd Airborne Division.
Likewise, if you get your news solely from the boob tube you might well think that the Shite cleric, Moqtada Al-Sadr, is a fully paid up member of the Sunni outfit Al Qaeda in Iraq.
You’re unlikely to be informed that after his father, uncle, and two older brothers were assassinated by Sadaam, Mookie was visited by the dictator’s bullyboys and made “an offer he couldn’t refuse.”
Guess what? He told them to stuff it, lived to tell the tale and now tweaks our nose on a daily basis.
This guy is no angel but he’s got two things going: the Mahdi Army and enormous street credibility. We should have had him on our side from the git-go; but the White House brains trust – too busy whipping up paranoia about WMDs – never even heard of him.
Senator McCain worries about what will happen if we leave Iraq? He should have asked that question five years ago; it makes little difference now – one way or another we’re out of there. The mortgage/foreclosure crisis made sure of that.
I spoke to a returned army officer recently. “Sure, the surge helped,” he said. “But the real difference is that we took a note out of Sadaam’s book: we’re paying and arming 90,000 Sunni Sons of Iraq.”
No problem with that except that many of them until recently were blowing up our people.
So, hey you got a problem with your mortgage? Head over to Anbar Province, toss on a little desert headgear and the Feds will make your payments.
One consolation. When we do pull out we won’t have to worry about Al Qaeda in Iraq – although the name is probably misleading since no one is even sure that they have Osama’s cell phone number.
Whatever! Mookie Al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army will be all over those Sunni fascists. The Shia have about 1300 years of scores to settle.
Or just maybe good sense will prevail: both sects will sit down and work out a modus operandi for running the country as happened in the north of Ireland.
In the meantime, Senator Obama, get your act together! We’re going to need someone to bail us out of Baghdad before we’re all flipping burgers in McDonalds. You can still clinch the nomination in Pennsylvania, but that won’t happen until you can hum a few bars of forty shades of green.