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News For the Hopelessly Confused
Messing with your mind so you
don’t have to...
You might have to prove your
citizenship in order to vote, you might be turned away without
voting if, like many people, you don’t drive or pay utilities or
own property, you might have to display as much proof of
identity as though you were buying 12 cases of Pseudoephedrine,
but nothing culls out the addle-brained. And I submit they are
as much a threat to the voting process as all the nonexistent
voting aliens whose phantom menace triggered the Draconian
voting laws in the first place.
I’m talking about the seventeen
percent of Arizona drivers who admit text-messaging while
driving. I’m also talking about the news reporters who tout that
as “good news,” because other states have rates as high as forty
percent (South Carolina, where the sign at the state line says,
“Welcome to Sou-“) I’m sure this will be a powerful draw. Come
to sunny Arizona where only one driver in six is about to run
the red light ahead of you. Perhaps it’s a good thing that we’ll
all be driving slower, punier cars the size of shopping carts.
I’m okay with that, as long as the wheels don’t wobble.
I’m also talking about the folks
who play Grand Theft Auto while driving, on a Gameboy strapped
onto the steering wheel. And the ones who talk on the phone
while walking and watching a video as music pounds out of tiny
ear buds attached to an iPod that doubles as a navel ring. And
I’m talking about the folks who think Jon Stewart is the new
Walter Cronkite and that John McCain is a “moderate.”
This news is for them.
As the week began, the
aforementioned McCain defended his opposition to a bill that
would expand veterans’ benefits by pointing out that Barack
Obama never served in the military. McCain didn’t actually vote
against the bill. He was courageously absent. However, he spoke
out forcefully when a priest at Obama’s church decided to use
the pulpit for a standup routine that insulted Hillary Clinton.
“I was appalled and offended,” McCain stated, “and I didn’t like
him on Seinfeld either!”
The priest’s appearance might
have gone over as a late-night routine on open mike night in a
comedy club. And that’s where Father Blabagan should have been.
But he was a guest speaker at Obama’s church and knew he would
get a LOT of attention and he grabbed at his “fifteen minutes”
like a Wallenda reaching for a trapeze. That’s all that was
going on, no matter what the talk in the cablehood. I see John
Hagee, McCain’s former non-Pastor, in a limited vein as well.
When Hagee got bug-eyed and ranted about how an upcoming gay
pride parade in New Orleans somehow triggered Katrina because it
would include an unprecedented display of open gay sex, I
didn’t see a preacher spreading the Gospel; I saw an old queen
caught up in his fantasies. Sometimes a foible is just a foible.
But Obama realized that his
connection to the church was turning the pulpit into a nut
magnet and resigned his membership in the congregation. When
asked to comment on the letter of resignation, a spokesman for
the church said, “Obama, he’s the skinny black guy, right? The
one who’s always sneaking smokes in the bathroom?”
Speaking of bathrooms,
soon-to-be-former and just barely a Senator, Larry Craig,
announced that he is writing a memoir that will include his
arrest in a men’s room in the Minneapolis airport. The working
title is “Wide Stances: How My Political Career Was Stalled.”
Upon hearing this, McCain said, “I was appalled and offended. I
vow never to use a men’s room while in Minnesota.” At that
point, Senator Joe Lieberman whispered in McCain’s ear. “I
misspoke,” said McCain. “What I meant to say was that Larry
Craig never served in the military.”
Finally, the Democrats met at the
end of the week to determine how to weasel out of party rules
and not upset anybody. That always turns out well. The eventual
compromise was that each elected delegate from Florida and
Michigan would be considered three-fifths of a person and that
the second choice on the Michigan ballot – “anybody but Hillary”
– would be offered the vice presidency.
Hillary Clinton stormed off to
campaign in Puerto Rico, where she said, “Campaigning in Puerto
Rico is like one big Puerto Rican Day parade.” McCain, saying
he was “appalled and offended,” promised to resign his
membership in Puerto Rico. Then Lieberman whispered in his ear.
“I misspoke,” said McCain. “What
I meant to say was that Senator Obama has never marched in a
Puerto Rican Day parade.”
© June 1, 2008 by Mike
Tully |
