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Dec. 11, 2009 In old Japan, during their feudal epoch, which ended with the Meiji Period in 1912, the Imperial Army had specialized personnel whose sole occupation was counting the number of severed heads on the battleground post-combat. Should any soldier come in with a defective number, determined I know not how, his daimyo would order his head removed. At this moment in time in this particular semi-feudal nation during the Obama Period, the last job I’d want would be the severed head-counter. There are way too many heads rolling around the landscape, especially the political one, to keep a correct headcount. One of the most recently decapitated and recognizable heads bouncing about out there belongs to Mike Huckabee (b. 1955), former governor of the great State of Arkansas, former candidate for president of the US of A, ordained Southern Baptist minister, presently a weekend talk-show host on conservative Fox TV. Mike was born in Hope, Arkansas which, I imagine, gave him his presidential expectations. If Bubba Clinton could pull it off, why not a Huckabee? Mike’s present problem and the cause of his beheading go back to his governorship in Arkansas. He got into the office in a rather bizarre manner. In 1996, the incumbent, Governor Jim Guy Tucker, was convicted of fraud, a more-or-less customarily governish thing to take place. Jim Guy insisted he was innocent (who doesn’t?) and appealed to have his resignation rescinded. Huckabee was all set to be sworn into the office on July 16, 1996 before the Tucker backfield went into motion with the revocation. Within a few hours however, Tucker reinstated his resignation, but only after Huckabee mentioned the word, “impeachment.” On July 15, 1996 Mike took the oath of office. Whatever else Mike did while in office, nothing compares with what recently took off his head. In 2000, Governor Huckabee signed onto clemency for an extraordinarily disturbed, dreadfully violent prisoner. Maurice Clemmons was a bomb about to detonate. He had assaulted his own mother, needed shackling in the courtroom during his trials, brought a gun to school at a very young age, and went from robberies to burglaries to thefts, petty and otherwise. The now 37 year-old Clemmons had received a 108 year sentence in an Arkansas court. Despite being under investigation in several murders, his sentence was commuted. Mike did it. That wouldn’t have been so bad if Maurice hadn’t moved back to Washington State after being released from prison in Arkansas. Picking up his bad habits in short order, Maurice was jailed for the rape of a child, second degree, and had been held in the county jail until he could come up with the $15,000 bail, which he did through the Jail Sucks Bail Bonds Company. (HONEST!) His sister, May, told the police that her brother was mentally ill and, if he had an encounter with police officers, things could go very bad staggeringly fast. She couldn’t tell them just what he would do, but she said Maurice was waiting for President Obama to come to Washington and announce that he, the President, was actually mankind’s Savior reincarnated. As it was bound to, the police encounter occurred. Later, Maurice Clemmons walked into a coffee shop and shot four officers to death while they prepared for their Sunday duties. Blame flew like autumn leaves in a typhoon. Ultimately, all fingers pointed at Mike Huckabee and his decision to commute Maurice Clemmons’ prison term. Mike took the responsibility like a man, but pointed out, like an ordained minister, that there were extenuating circumstances and that he should be forgiven on those counts. As I write this article, Mike’s head has not stopped rolling. This morning I woke to the rolling of another political head. The news announcement has Democratic Senator Max Baucus of Montana caught in a one of those no-nos that couldn’t be hushed-up because too many people knew all about it. Baucus nominated his former state office director, Melodee Hanes, as the next U.S. Attorney for Montana. Trouble is, the senator and the attorney have been “romantically involved” for some time. (Don’t you adore euphemisms? As if we didn’t know what Max and Melodee have been up to?) OK, the senator and his second wife, Wanda, parted in the summer of 2008 after 25 years of marriage. As things fell out, the President appointed another of the senator’s suggestions as Montana’s new U.S. Attorney. Now, Max and Melodee can live together in Washington, D.C., as they have been doing for a while now anyhow, without any foul looks aimed at them and their “arrangement.” Of course, we the public and the news people are still dealing with the Appalachian Trail Walker’s bouncing head. Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina faces impeachment, which looks to be a pretty certain decision. Senator John Ensign of Arizona, another Republican, refuses to admit his head has been rolling since June of this year when he admitted to having an on-going sexual affair with a married member of his staff. There’s more to Ensign’s macabre break with morality but it gets so greasy-sleazy I’m afraid it would slither right off the page. At any rate, Sen. Ensign’s system of ethics insists that he finish his senate term. It might be a touch difficult to carry this off while his handsome, white-haired head is bobbling all over the Senate floor. To my mind, these men have done so much more harm and hurt than embarrassing their friends and families and dealing those poor people closest to them a huge heap of pain. Worse, they’ve back-stabbed each and every voter who gave them their confidence, thinking they would be honest representatives of the people, particularly they themselves, those who imparted their votes to get them in. How can the populace trust a man who can’t hold back his own inclinations for the time spent in supposedly taking care of a nation-full of people’s hopes, lives and needs? The husband person and I talked about this question on one of our walks around the neighborhood. Luckily, none of our Southern Baptist neighbors overheard the discussion, we surely hope. Thinking he might have a handle on the situation since he is male, I asked the husband what was wrong with these obtuse chaps, all of them in public office and in the public eye. And all with higher political hopes. Didn’t they learn anything from John Edwards? Were they allergic to their marriage vows? Or were they just plain h0rny? “It’s the power,” he said, a little more sympathetically than necessary, I thought. “It goes right to their heads and eventually dribbles down to their pen!ses.” Although I enjoyed his use of the word, “dribbles,” I mulled over his causa for a moment and decided against the agenda. “It’s the other way around,” I exclaimed. “The problem starts below and raises to their heads where it takes over every square inch of available space and leaves the senator, representative, governor or whatever he is perfectly brainless.” “Could be,” said the husband, knowing how many times I’ve charged him with the same deficiency in our 51-year-plus marriage. “So delivering an ‘off with their heads’ won’t help at all? Their heads are, in point of fact, empty and useless?” I asked this more as a pacifier than anything else.
“Right.” He sighed. We walked on.
Writing was always my first choice in life. I began writing at the age of 8, small books about pioneers heading west. Little did I know then that I would be living in the most "western" of all the states, Texas. No one told the Texans that they are simply Southerners who, like Bugs Bunny, took a wrong turn at Albuquerque and wound up here.
I am sneaking up on 70 years of age and now own a vast store of useless knowledge. Happy to share any or all of it with you all.
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