Mullings An American Cyber Column By Rich Galen

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If Nominated I Will Not Run . . .

Rich Galen

Wednesday May 18, 2011

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I am not a candidate for President of the United States.

There. I hope that ends the widespread speculation about my intentions.

Once in a while you will hear a reference to a "Shermanesque Statement" or "Sherman Statement." While, many regular Mullsters may think this refers to something Dr. Peabody's boy, Sherman, might have said, it does not.

It refers to a statement by Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman when he was being touted as a possible candidate for President in the election of 1884. He was not in favor of this endeavor and is quoted as having said:

"I will not accept if nominated and will not serve if elected."

Over the ensuing 127 years that has morphed into

"If nominated, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve"

Which has a sort of John F. Kennedy/Ted Sorenson rhythm to it.

My major reason for not getting into this race is that I appear to be running behind not just Ron Paul, but also Rand Paul, Les Paul, Ru Paul, Paul Stookey and Paul Bunyan.

Another problem is, I was born in Brooklyn which, for most people in the United States, means I not qualify to be President under Article II, Section 2 and I don't want to go through that whole "birther" thing.

It would doubtless have come out in the extreme scrutiny of my candidacy that I listen to NPR - to programs other than "Car Talk" and "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me."

Finally, I found out that huge numbers of people may not be breathlessly waiting for my every opinion on every subject. This came to me when I found out that Lady Gaga has 10,096,468 Twitter followers; I have 1,210.

She is following 143,366 people. I'm following 2 - The Lad, and my brother-in-law.

I may need to rethink my Twitter strategy.

So, no private planes. No tricked out buses. No hordes of media following my every step and hanging on my every word in the wilds of Iowa and New Hampshire.

It's back to writing MULLINGS three days a week for me.

New topic:

Can we talk about this French guy for a minute, this Dominique Strauss-Kahn character?

First of all, how is it that the International Monetary Fund is headed by a Frenchman who is a self-proclaimed Socialist? I didn't know the head of the IMF was a Socialist until Strauss-Kahn was hauled off the Air France flight at JFK airport.

Maybe that's acceptable to the Europeans, about whom we've never been too sure, but it certainly isn't OK to most Americans.

Why? As usual, the United States pays more than anyone else to keep this IMF outfit going. According to the Wall Street Journal

Each member has a "quota"-that is, a financial stake in the IMF, expressed as a percentage-and contributes accordingly. The U.S. quota is 17.09%, followed by Japan at 6.12%, Germany at 5.98% and France and Britain at 4.94% each.

That 17 percent, according to the IMF website, comes to $42.1 billion. A mere drop in the Socialist bucket.

As I tweeted just after the story broke, the first crime that Strauss-Kahn may have committed was a sexual assault on a hotel housekeeper - pretty classy even for a French guy.

The second crime, it seems to me, was that as a Socialist and the head of the International Monetary Fund he was staying in a $3,000 per night suite in a Midtown Manhattan hotel.

Here's the good news: He was denied bail as a flight risk - he was, after all, hauled off a plane which was headed to Paris. Strauss-Kahn is not charged with a federal crime but a state crime. Therefore he is sitting in a cell at the famous Rikers Island prison in New York City.

It costs just under $300 per day to house a prisoner there. With any luck at all Dominique Strauss-Kahn will cost the citizens of the people of New York about what he would have paid for a week in his suite - about two months in Rikers.

I wonder how Sherman came to have a middle name like "Tecumseh?"

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: A TON of links to a Sherman statement, Paul Stookey, Article II Section 2, the IMF, and Rikers Island. Whew!

Also an excellent Mullfoto from beautiful downtown Alexandria, Virginia and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

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