1.21.2005
"I am a liberal - by your definition, a godless feminist heathen running an abortion clinic in my kitchen and a gay wedding chapel in my garage"
Hoping all who made Bush's victory possible will someday share in his conviction, both federal and state
By Dean Opperman
Give me a break - or a big glass of vodka. We've gone from shock and awe to shuck and jive, and Captain Quagmire ran the table anyway. Now he's got the White House, the Congress, the Supreme Court, the military and a chip on his shoulder he's calling a mandate. I don't know about you, but I'm getting a Republican haircut just to blend in.
For four years it's been one big all-you-can-eat buffet for the corporations, and now they're coming back for more. Go ahead, you marvelous bastards! Rip out all the trees, pave the beaches, build 12-lane freeways, plunder the treasury, destroy our future. Cook the books, rig elections, pack the courts, hand the regulatory agencies over to fascist maniacs. Invade more countries, declare code red, invoke martial law, and keep going until your oil-sucking exploits kick off a nuclear exchange.
By God (or Diebold), you've earned it. You've hoodwinked the evangelicals. You've threatened the journalists. You've built a propaganda machine and disguised it as a legitimate cable news network. You've used it to force-feed every right wing loon from Ashcroft to Zell down our throats until they began to sound normal. You've used phony government alerts to manipulate the trailer park patriots, and you've dismantled the separation of church and state to the point where the Stars and Stripes represents the anti-choice, fuel-guzzling, homophobic God of the blow-dried televangelists.
Yes, Mr. President, it's your great and lasting legacy. You've brought brazen deceit into the political mainstream. In fact, it wouldn't be too much to say you are the single most credible Republican since Dan Quayle sprayed that grey stuff on his sideburns. And now you say you want my support. To assume you are being sincere is in itself a faith-based initiative, but in the spirit of fleeting bipartisanship, I'll play along.
I pledge allegiance to the united corporations of America. For the next four years I will continue wearing my Nike shirt, my Adidas shoes, and my Old Navy logo pullover. While eating my corn flakes, if I find that I'm chewing on a coupon, I'll suppress the thought that the corporations aren't content to have turned me into a human billboard, they want me eating their advertising, too.
I'll do my best to suppress my inner environmentalist. When my conscience says things like, "Hey! Isn't that bioengineered food you are eating?" I will assure myself that the radioactive waste in my dental work will kill off any cooties.
I will overlook the fact that you've done more damage to feminism than 20 years of gangster rap, and I will ignore the fear that we will soon need Sherpa guides to reach the ruins of anything resembling such relics as an eight-hour work day. I will do my best to ignore the feeling that I've fallen into a Fellini movie by ignoring the eyes of the old TV news anchors who, caught up in TV's sudden shift to the right, seem to be trying to tell us something they aren't allowed to say on the air. I will suppress my suspicion that you are part of the same gang of psychopaths who brought us Enron, Vietnam and Dallas '63, and I will shelve my theory that the best way to make a dent in terrorism is to invade the state of Texas. And I promise not to move to Mexico, which seems pointless anyway since it appears to be moving to me.
Those are my concessions, Mr. President. Now I need a few from you. I've found it hard to feel proud of America since you first took office. I was among the millions who were appalled when you morphed the home of democracy into a rogue nation endorsing the kind of preemptive war that characterized the Nazis. I don't want a Cowboy-in-Chief roaming the world in search of convenient villains on which to impose gunslinger justice. There's a place for that in an episode of "Gunsmoke," but in today's world we have the United Nations to resolve international disputes. It took World War II and the deaths of 53 million people to create that institution; it seems a waste to disregard that so you can play Judge Roy Bean.
Your West-of-the-Pecos diplomacy has created a trickle-down paranoia that is ruining the neighborhood. We are becoming a dog-eat-dog, everyman-for-himself nation of fair-weather friends. That's what happens when the PATRIOT Act makes enemies of librarians and when the Pentagon begins probing our emails. There are other ways to track Al Qaeda without having to know everything about me going back to those X-ray specs I ordered from the back of Boys' Life.
I know we don't agree. After all, I am a liberal - by your definition, a godless feminist heathen running an abortion clinic in my kitchen and a gay wedding chapel in my garage. Hey, in today's economy, a guy's gotta make a buck. But rest assured that I am no atheist. I know there must be a God. With you in the White House, if there wasn't, we'd surely be dead by now.
So, on behalf of liberals everywhere, and with all the Viagra of progressive thought I can muster, I extend this salute. I offer it with my best wishes and the sincere hope that all who made your victory possible will someday share your deep convictions, both federal and state.
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