My Andy Pettitte 'honesty will set you free' rave is now leaving my mental foyer.

Why the delay?

My muckraker medulla asked 'What's the angle on honesty?'

'Where's the story in straightforwardness?'

But after a very frustrating week for 'progressives' (never EVER use the L word!)...the mini-rave is loose.
Obama says Hillary misrepresents.
Hillary says Obama misleads.

Miz-direction vs. Ms-direction.

Which leads to more misery - leverage for the GOP.

Unacceptable.

The GOP does not get another term - not until those 37 huge oil spills have been cleaned up.

I like Mac better than W.
That's not hard to do.

But Mac's much more righty than Hillary or Obama are lefties.
He's not what we need now.
A wild horse to tame wild horses?
Enough with the Cowboy motif.
Maverick Mac is still very GOP - not the independent he pretends to be.

John Wayne R.I.P.

Timetable or no, the goal is out of Iraq.
For more reasons than fit into just one rave.

Mac talks 'finish the commitment.'
But he won't have to walk the talk.
Yes, he courageously survived Hanoi Hilton.
So that means more kids who aren't the sons of an admiral have to go through what he did without the attention of the President himself?!?!

???

Let's keep John McCain's uniform in mothballs.

We invaded Iraq based on lies of just a few.
Commitment voided.

Halliburton & Blackwater want to stay?
Those guys are technically independent contractors.
Contract voided.

By my count, we've lived 8 total years of political progress in my lifetime.

My math:

I was born in 1964.

The first two years of LBJ's full term were progress. The Great Society. But Republican - peaceniks that they were - used LBJ's commitment to Vietnam to undermine the progress. And said the Great Society was too expensive for taxpayers - even though Vietnam was the real money toilet.

Now add in the first two years of Carter: the progress was he wasn't Nixon or Nixon's pardoner. Then that old invoice for Vietnam was due. Reagan showed up to bury the body.

Finally, add the middle 4 years of Bill Clinton's 8.

43 - 8 = 35 too many years of Republican presidents and backdraft.

Check my numbers - I'm not very quanty.

So put the Andy Pettitte filter in the mouths and minds of Hillary and Obama.

It's a very specific filter.

The Andy Pettitte Filter -

It excises the lies.
Lets relevant truths through.
It doesn't self-censor.
It isn't thought control.

It just makes you a better person.

No saying mean things and then saying 'Well I was just being honest.'

We need Pettitte filters because progressives need to choose between two valid candidates without having to negate the progress made by women or people of color.

Imagine I'm the moderator of the debate.

Me: Welcome everybody. Before we start, I'll remind everybody that Senators Clinton and Obama are wearing Andy Pettitte filters.

Hillary: They're very comfortable.

Obama: Almost invisible to the naked eye.

Me: Great. Opening statements please.

Hillary: I believe I'm more qualified to do all the work that needs doing during this dangerous time. I am powered by the legacy of Franklin AND Eleanor Roosevelt.

(What the filter blocked: Obama isn't really your cool black friend, he's just an irresponsible pothead running for president.)

Obama: I believe the times are so dangerous that people need a leader as much as a worker. I am powered by the myth of Jack Kennedy - if he had lived long enough to stop the war before it really got started.

(The filter blocked these thoughts: And Hillary may know how to get around the Whitehouse better than I do right now, but she's still just a bossy girl running for president.)

Me: Now, for the love of JFK after the Bay of Pigs, both of you say you're sorry - and mean it.

Obama (looking at Hillary): I'm sorry for using a rope a dope strategy that makes you look bad for attacking me on the issues. It's very passive aggressive. And withholding. And not about issues. And I'm really sorry for misrepresenting your record. That's just too much like lying.

Hillary (looking at Obama): I'm sorry for trying to annoy you into saying something nasty that will be the 'gotcha' that disqualifies you. That's nasty. It would only make you look bad for attacking a woman. It's too close to entrapment. And I'm sorry for calling you shallow. It's not true.

Me: Now both of you say you're sorry for making childish faces while the other one talks.

Obama: I'm sorry I raise my nose above you to make you look small and witchy.

Hillary: I'm sorry I do the tsk tsk head as if to say, you boys are all just too lazy to fix the problem.

Me: Promise not to do it again. Again, mean it.

Obama: Promise - from now on I'll talk about ideas. And thanks for being my role-model.

Me: That was nice.

Hillary: Promise -from now on I'll be a leader. And thanks for risking it all by opposing the war.

Me: Fantastic.

Obama: Hey, what if we team up?

Hillary: We're going to need each other to cancel out the rednecks.

Me(turning to the audience): Unlikely scenario you say? Stranger things have happened. Reagan chose Bush Sr. to be his running mate just months after George the elder called Ron's economic platform 'voo-doo economics.'

And Andy Pettitte said he was sorry for using HGH.

Thanks/love to Peggy now and always; this one was per her request.

NO RULES BASEBALL - Welcome.

A John Williams epic styled theme begins.

Opening montage:

Layered images of American Flags and baseball fields – from modest Little League parks to Yankee Stadium filled to capacity for a World Series Game.

The voice of James Earl Jones speaks the following text as it crawls down the screen - 'Star Wars' intro-style.

Jones: Our national pastime has always been at the vanguard of important changes in the American fabric. Years before Martin Luther King, Jackie Robinson played civil rights pioneer for Brooklyn USA. Now, in the time of the great American divide, when politicians talk the talk of peace, love and understanding, but walk the walk of war, hate and 'you're the one who makes this country suck,' wouldn't it be right and good if the custodians of the game would lead us all into a more honest future by dropping all the old rules about cheating?

Scene: Press event in a hotel conference room. The commissioner of baseball, Bud Selig, with distinctive bangs, stands at the podium. Flashbulbs from the huge press corps. A line-up of famous baseball luminaries - Aaron, Bonds, Clemens etc. - stand behind Selig.

Selig: After years of trying various performance enhancement policies, Major League Baseball has decided nothing has really worked. Only lesser known players get caught using banned substances because they can't afford the latest masking agents. The owners and players are sick of blaming each other for something we always secretly endorsed. And the fans: You like power. Raw displays of power. Man pitcher power vs. Man batter power. So, for the foreseeable future, we will remove all restrictions on what the players can put into their bodies.

Initially - silence.

One reporter whispers: 'Did he just say what I think he said?'

Then the sound of one set of hands clapping.

It builds to thunderous applause.

The hypocrisy is over!

Cut to: Fans giving opinions to a man on the street interviewer.

Big Vinny: It's about time. We're talking the 21st century here!

Little Dilbert: Great! It'll be so much easier to pick a fantasy league team now. There are internet sites that tell you what drug cycles the players are on.

Cut to the locker room. Ballplayers, coaches and trainers boisterously prepare for a game; these huge men engage in normal locker room repartee while tossing vials and syringes - some are shooting each other up. The occasional fight breaks out between these red-eyed manimals. Coaches do crowd control; Manager Joe Torre is skilled with a cattle prod: "simmer down, simmer down boys, save it for the game."

Cut to an MLB ballpark: The home team stands on the top step of their dugout - then take the field. A 'let's get ready to rumble' style announcer says "Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, these are youuuuurrr St. Louis Clydesdales."

And indeed, these one time St. Louis Cardinals trot onto the field looking like the horses that pull the Budweiser delivery trucks of old – including signature hairy Clydesdale ankles.

Cut to game action: Drug top-offs are administered in the on-deck circle. Then these hitters crush majestic shots over the fences or rip screaming line drives that tear through infielders gloves, then outfielders gloves, then right through the outfield walls. The glowing orange-hot baseballs rattle around the bullpen, scattering the relief pitchers.

Now we hear the voices of a broadcast team.

Play by play guy: "This would be a great time for the bunt; the infielders are playing so far back - the shortstop's at the centerfield warning track! This isn't baseball Jim, this is Armageddon!"

Color commentator [ex-anabolic player, frothing]: "Listen you Euro-sexual. Get with the non-program program! The point of the game is to pound, pound, pound the enemy into meat, hamburger meat, horse meat, doggy-dog meat. Pound that ball until it's leather-meat stew! Make the enemy drink the horsehide slurry!"

The crowd atmosphere is totally Greco-Roman. Foodcourt plumped fans heckle the ana-pumped players who return the favor by climbing the walls and leaping into the mosh-pit of fans.

There are cattle prod give away days for the fans.

Back to:

Color commentator [ex-anabolic player, frothing]: Barry Bonds leaves the on-deck circle. Listen! You can just make out the sound of uniform seams bursting as he walks to the plate. He has that visible syringe now hanging off of his left shank. It looks sort of like a colostomy stint, something he can refill without removing his pants!

Bonds [VO as he prepares]: "I'm just so relieved that I don't have to live a lie anymore. Now I can really just be Barry being Barry."

On his first swing, he hits one over the Golden Gate right into Oakland! The scoreboard flashes '943!' He circles the bases, points to God as he steps on the plate, then rips off his uniform like a tear-away basketball warm-up suit. Barry stands in all his cut splendor, wearing only cleats and a jewel encrusted jock that looks like a boxing championship belt. Barry howls and flexes - it's a glistening Hulk pose-down for the home crowd.

Bonds [to camera]: I'm an entertainer. A businessman. And this is the entertainment business.

Cut to another Selig news conference. Same hotel. Same podium.

Selig: Because of the recent evolutions in the game, we have decided that it is only right that players and management make appropriate changes to equipment and the fields of play. It's the next logical thing to do.

Cut to: Architects point to blueprints, tell team owners how to protect the fans from the game and it's players: "You need higher walls made of ballistic strength plexi – with razor wire on the top."

Cut to: Outfielders wearing big gloves long enough to reach over the higher fences to bring back homerun balls. They appear to have much longer legs now too - really just longer baseball pants covering stilts. We see a hitter pouring a mixture of nails and wet concrete into a cored-out bat. Then a pan across the bat rack: these are serious Louisville bazookas.

One player has a rather X-treme procedure - armor plates inserted under his skin so that he can crowd the plate without fear of death from an errant inside 250 mph fastball.

Cut to: Joe Torre confabbing with Selig behind the batting cage as the armor plated warrior takes his practice cuts:

Torre: Isn't THIS cheating?

Selig: I sympathize Joe. But we have to have a consistent non-policy policy.

Joe (whining): But it's not fair. This guy couldn't see what my pitcher was throwing. So now he's just gonna lean in and get hit? The threat of death was always the equalizer.

Selig: This is America Joe. Get more resourceful. REMEMBER: ANYTHING GOES.

Cut to: Joe watching his pitcher warm up with a surface-to-air rocket-launcher for an arm. The pitched projectile rips the head off the catcher. The headless body stands - a fountain of blood. Sangre Geyser.

Joe (nodding sagely): That'll work.

Final Sequence: President George Bush, one time owner of the Texas Rangers franchise, in a television interview.

George Bush [Smirking, eyes twinkling]: I can't tell you if I can recall if I suspected that any of my players, or some of my players, or most of my players or all of my players were ever told to take steeeroids by me or any of my coaches or general management when I owned the team. I can't recall if I can recall. So, I can't tell you if I can recall or can't recall. [Really smirky- twinkly] I can tell you this though. I like this new version of the game. And I think I might recall having something to do with the new no rules-rules. Could be I never gave the orders to make the Great American pastime the Great New American pastime. But I sure think I know the guy who did give that order. And I think I gave that guy an order. And since I WAS IN CHARGE at the time, I have no doubt that I at least really liked the guy who gave the order to start changing this great game for the better.

End.