Mama Said There'd Be Days Like This

A lawyer friend of mine told me today that within the last few days her mother had a heart attack, her 18-year-old dog ran away leaving a sibling howling all day at home, and a judge unfairly berated her for improper conduct. Not quite a perfect storm, but close. We all have days like this, as the song goes.

I'm reminded of the song in thinking about the travails of the Bush Administration in the last little while:

• Dick Cheney and a friend went hunting with two women not their wives, Cheney accidentally shot the friend and wouldn't talk to the cops until the next morning. The only saving grace is that "Saturday Night Live" is on hiatus because of the Winter Olympics.


• Moqtada as-Sadr, the thuggish Iraqi Shi'a leader US forces could have arrested but didn't, may have become the kingmaker in Iraq, throwing his weight behind the current rather ineffective Prime Minister.


• More pictures of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison have come to light, just as the Muslim world is already in turmoil over the Danish cartoons.


• The Abramoff scandal continues to grow, with evidence that Abramoff arranged a White House visit for Malaysia's Prime Minister throgh none other than Karl Rove.

Maybe we need a dose of the Old Philosopher about whom I posted here:

Hiya folks.
Ya say ya lost your job today?
Ya say its 4 A.M. and your kids aintt home from school yet?
Ya say your wife went out for a corned
beef sandwich last weekend - the corned beef sandwich came
back but she didnt?
Ya say your furniture is out all over the sidewalk cause ya
cant pay the rent and ya got chapped lips and paper cuts and
your feets all
swollen up and blistered from pounding the pavement looking
for work?
Is that whats troubling ya fellow?

REFRAIN

Well lift your head up high and take a walk in the sun with
dignity and stick-to-it-ness and ya show the world, ya show
the world where to get off.
Youll never give up, never give up, never give up...that
ship!

None of this stuff is necessarily irreversible or of historic dimensions, but it hasn't been a good week for the Administration.