“If certain minds cannot understand the difference between patriotism, the highest civic virtue, and office seeking, the lowest civic occupation, then I pity them from the bottom of my heart."
--Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard, C.S.A.


Let’s talk Hillary. And George. I haven’t really been paying much attention to my senator, she seems to be engaged full time in a crafted move to what she probably thinks is the center of the political spectrum, which, these days, seems to have established itself a few yards to the right of William of Orange.

She has all but abandoned her once praiseworthy and courageous campaign for universal healthcare, choosing instead to focus on incremental steps, which translates to more sick and dead Americans and no real progress at all. To be frank, I once admired Hillary for her tenacity and intelligence. However, her recent votes in favor of the debacle in Iraq, as well as her silence on social issues of any consequence had of late caused me to examine other candidates for president in 2008.

But hold on, that may all have changed!

It seems Hillary has likened George W. Bush to the Mad Magazine character, Alfred E. Neuman. When I read that she had done so publicly, I all but spewed a mouthful of coffee across my computer screen. When, upon reading further, I discovered that Republicans were outraged by her analogy, I was even more delighted! A spokesman for one of her potential rivals for senate in 2006 accused her of “Insulting the president.”

Insulting the president?

As far as I am concerned, the president is insult incarnate. I can barely stand to listen to the guy speak, reaching for the remote as if a particularly annoying commercial was about to begin. I saw him in action a few days ago (my remote control out of reach), and he was in full cry, speaking to one of his hand-picked audiences, leaning on the lectern, punctuating his scripted, idiotic statements with that smarmy little grin. It was as if he was imparting some esoteric bit of Talmudic wisdom that we all should have been aware of without his having to instruct us. He then resorted to the last refuge of irritatingly small intellects; the rhetorical question, answered after a dramatic pause by the questioner himself:

“Does that make sense to you?”

(I gaped at the TV screen, my bowels roiling in disgust)

Then came the answer:

Dun’ to me.

Dun?

Of course he meant, “Doesn’t.”

I rolled of the couch and flung the cushions to the floor, frantically searching for the remote. No luck. Lurching to my feet and staggering towards the cable box, I forced my increasingly plaque encrusted synapses to recall a long lost survival technique; manually changing the station. By the time I reached the TV, the video clip was thankfully finished, and Jim Lehrer was on to another bit of horror; the silent display of the day’s dead soldiers and marines in Iraq. I stood for a moment, and watched as the proud young faces of the newly wasted waxed and waned in alphabetical order.

I thought about it for a few moments.

The hometowns listed seemed to be mostly from the Midwest and South. Small towns. These kids were probably all mainly poor and/or minorities. How convenient. High unemployment and low pay have, throughout history, been the most effective inducements to military recruitment. If your job at Walmart paid a living wage and came with decent benefits, why would you enlist to fight and possibly wind up maimed or dead in Iraq?

So we have a crew of rich, powerful politicians ramming through policy and legislation that empowers corporations and enables deals like NAFTA (and now CAFTA) to create a modern day economic climate that increasingly resembles that of the antebellum South. And the very people they’re shafting, whose kids they are killing and maiming in the name of “Freedom,” continue to return them to office again and again.

Does that make sense to you?

Dun’ to me…

Once more, thanks to my Megillah friends for your indulgence, and as always, I welcome any and all comments.