Jack & Jill Politics

As the old Negro Spiritual used to be sung: “Everybody’s talking ’bout Heaven, ain’t goin’ there…”

So it goes with the concept of Accountability.  Everybody’s talking about holding someone accountable – be it your bank; your children’s teachers, your boss, elected officials.

Someone always cries out for someone to be held accountable for their actions.

Many of you know I’m one of the chief archictects for the Congressional Black Caucus Report Card, which was an idea borne from the growing dismay of African-Americans of the Congressional Black Caucus swing towards corporate interests, as opposed to standing for their mission:

The Caucus describes its goals as “positively influencing the course of events pertinent to African-Americans and others of similar experience and situation,” and “achieving greater equity for persons of African descent in the design and content of domestic and international programs and services.”

And the reason why the Congressional Black Caucus was founded back  in the 1970s:

The CBC encapsulates these goals in the following priorities: Closing the achievement and opportunity gaps in education, assuring quality health care for every American, focusing on employment and economic security, ensuring justice for all, retirement security for all Americans, increasing welfare funds and increasing equity in foreign policy.^[2]

But, I digress.  This is not a post about holding the Congressional Black Caucus members accountable – CBCMonitor’s Report Card did that by exposing how certain Blue Dog members were voting contrary to the interests of the constituency they purported to represent.

No, I’m writing about how I’ve been hearing the “Accountability” song being sung loudly since Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th POTUS.  And he should be held accountable, but not for the reason the Professional left would have you believe.

Right now, I’m remembering how much shyt Bill Clinton and George Bush got away with, and not once was the word, ACCOUNTABILITY even mentioned in passing, except in Clinton’s case because Kenneth Starr and the Republican Party spent $70 million dollars of taxpayer money to hold Clinton accountable for getting his johnson polished in the Oval Office while he was on the clock.

Bush lied this country into two, count ’em, TWO wars that we didn’t even need to fight.  But Osama bin Laden, the dude who orchestrated and telegraphed his intentions to mount a terrorist attack on American soil (who can forget that Condoleezza Rice held the President’s Daily Memo that clearly cited “Bin Laden determined to strike U. S.” but Bush couldn’t be bothered to stop clearing brush at the hellhole he called a ranch in Crawford, Texas.

Then Bush allowed an entire city to drown – Hurricane Katrina.  Wasn’t held accountable for that royal FUBAR – and no, Anderson Cooper standing in a boat floating downtown New Orleans, screaming at the camera, “Where’s the Federal Government?” doesn’t count.

And let’s not forget Dead-Eye Dick Cheney – shooting a man in the face during a hunting trip.  Do I have to ask if Cheney was a ______, what would have happened?

But, he wasn’t held accountable because it was said, you don’t indict a sitting Vice-President like a common criminal, even though he committed a felony by assaulting a human being with a deadly weapon.  Where I live, you caught a 3-to-20 year stretch in the joint – life without parole or the death penality if the individual died.

Yet, we’re supposed to pity Bush when he said the lowest moment of his Presidency was when Kanye West said on national TV “George Bush Hates Black People.”  People, Kanye’s outburst was the closest we were going to see anyone being held accountable for that screw-up that has effects lasting to this day.

No one’s held the Supreme Court in their failure to be an objective judicial body which has the responsibility of deeming the law constitional or not.  Ever since Bush v. Gore,  which allowed the Bush Crime Family to steal the Presidency, and more recently, the Citzens United ruling, there has not been one call in Congress for impeachment hearings to be held against the RATS (Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Scalia) for dereliction of duty as a United States Supreme Court Justice.

So, everybody and their momma wants to hold President Obama accountable when his predecessors weren’t subjected to the same standard of accountability.  However, when the standard is applied to Mr. Obama – if every “I” isn’t dotted and every “T” crossed EXACTLY like the Professional Left wants it – there is a major shytstorm brewing before the so-called “progressive blogs” started screaming for Obama’s head.

“Primary his ass” they cried when he did the deal on the tax cuts.  But they sure drank cans of STHU when they couldn’t come up with anyone feasible to primary him and risk losing the African-American vote.

Now, no one’s screaming that when they see what he’s up against.  Democratic leadership willing to cross the aisle in “bipartisanship” and stab dude in the back (cough, Joe Lieberman, cough).  So what the hell is he supposed to do?

My colleague, Rikyrah, wrote a salient post asking the Latinos and other supporters of the DREAM act why the hell they’re going after holding the POTUS accountable, when their own elected officials that they duly voted for, has passed legislation telling them to get the hell out of this country, Legal or not; that you have to show your papers, even if your an American-born citizen – and if your child is born in this country, he won’t be granted American-citizenship – “Anchor Baby” is what it’s called, though they conveniently ignore the fact that the junior Senator from Florida who will be sworn in next week with the other freshmen ReThugs – is actually an Anchor Baby himself.

Senator Country Last, with his bitter behind, said he voted against legislation he championed for years, because the Latinos voted for Obama instead of his grumpy, bitter ass.  Um, Grampy McCain, could it have been that you flung the Latinos under the bus one too many times, and that the prospect of the Grifter from Wasilla being second in line with her finger on the chicken-switch, was a little too much to take?

Always, People of Color are asked to do the heavy lifting when liberals want stuff done.  But we never get any credit for it – and they whine about holding us accountable if we protest.

But you don’t call out your own, even when they screw you over – tell you they’re screwing you over to the point they might as well come over to your house and piss on your feet.  You don’t ask for this incoming Congress to be held accountable for the plans they have to:

Dismantle any and all social programs because they think they’re “entitlements”

Diss the unemployed and diss the poor and downtroden, because their heroine, Ayn Rand, echoes Gordon Gekko by saying “Greed is Good and if you don’t have shyt, you aren’t shyt.”

BTW, you should give the side eye to anyone who says her hero is a serial killer, but the ReThugs love them some Ayn Rand, without calling her out for the fact she worshiped a guy who kidnapped a little girl, chopped her up and returned her to her father, dismembered to the four winds.  Now there’s an opportunity for being held accountable because Rand is who the ReThugs pattern their policies and ideology after – yet no one is saying a damned thing.

You can hear mice pissing on cotton – their silence is THAT LOUD.

No one is holding Harry Reid accountable for being a piss-poor leader in the Senate – if they were, someone would be challenging his ass for Majority Leader in the incoming Senate.

Real progressives like Alan Grayson were willing to be held accountable and risked re-election to stay true to their priciples and willingness to be held accountable and what happened?

Grayson went home this winter – but they’re calling it “holding him accountable.”

Has Kos been held accountable for advocating the election of perceived progressives like Jim Webb and Jon Tester, only to get kicked in the teeth with their conservative votes against the DREAM Act?

Has anyone held Jane Hamsher accountable for her partnership with Grover “Wants to Drown the Government in a Bathtub” Norquist, one of the chief architects of the ReThug strategy, along with KKKarl Rove and Frankie “The Hair” Luntz.

And don’t get me started on Ms. Tavis Smiley – the queen of trying to hold someone accountable while allowing the Clintons to turn in their “Black” Cards, diss us during his Negro Super Bowl, sponsored by Wells Fargo, Countrywide, Wal-Mart and other corporate entities that have served to economically destroy the Black people he claimed to love, through foreclosures and high cost of low-prices because manufacturing jobs are sent out of this country through NAFTA.  Where the hell does he get off attempting to hold President Obama accountable, but he allowed both Bush and Clinton free passes?

GTHOH with that shyt.

Accountability – everybody’s talking ’bout it – but who is willing to actually step up to the plate and get their hands dirty?  My colleagues and I, both on this blog and at Black Agenda Report, and CBCMonitor; we’ve demonstrated our willingness to hold people to what they say.  The POTUS, too, when it’s called for.

But the question I have for those screaming for Mr. Obama to be held accountable is this:  WHO have YOU held ACCOUNTABLE?  When you can answer that question, then you can talk about holding the POTUS accountable, but until then, this is nothing but another double standard that I have to call out.