And God said: Bush in; Dean out

lewleadbeater.com

notes from the edge

Home

Email Me

Other Essays

And God said: Bush in; Dean out

You know the New Year is getting off to a fine start when news comes that our growling environmental watchdog, the EPA, is going to fund studies to see whether we can safely use sewage sludge as fertilizer. This, of course, is quite consonant with the Bush administration’s views on the environment, to say nothing of Mad Cow disease.

What could be better for the ground, and hence our food chain, than fecal matter, urine, rotten radishes and bacon fat? If that doesn’t improve the diets of our cattle and sheep, I don’t know what will. And think what it could do for your tomato crop, or those hard-to-produce broccolini and eggplants. It certainly worked well for Mexican-grown green onions, so why not try it out here? Marvelous idea and kudos to the EPA for all that.

Another premonition that the New Year will be just what the Republicans ordered has to do with Virginia’s own emissary to God, Pat Robertson. Robertson, you recall, prayed a hurricane away from Virginia several years ago. Never mind that it missed Virginia and slammed into the coast farther north. Northerners are obviously God’s liberal whipping boys and deserve all the hellfire, brimstone, wind and rain they get.

Robertson also promised to pray away Isabel, but he must have had your typically bad Verizon connection with the divine relative to all that, since Isabel did a job on Virginia that we all won’t soon forget. Evidently some religious wonk up in New York City had a better connection at that point and outclassed poor Robertson when it came to the divine ear.

At any rate, Robertson had an excellent connection with the angels on New Year’s eve, and the revelations were flowing faster than Isabel’s 80 mph winds. Though he didn’t receive another Ten Commandments, Robertson came damned close, since he learned directly from the Supreme Commander that George Bush would be re-elected in a landslide come November. Furthermore, says Robertson, it doesn’t matter how dumb Bush is or what mistakes he makes, since he’s a God-fearing Christian, and that just about wipes the slate clean of anything that smacks of stupidity, deceit or the Fourth Reich.

As a result, we might just as well cancel all this hullabaloo that attends the Democratic primaries, since Democrats are dead in the water anyway. Put quite simply, God will not let them win, since the Robertsonian mantle of divinity has been slung over the shoulders of George Bush.

All of which means, of course, that Howard Dean (skip the Dr., please) can shoot off his mouth all he wants with complete impunity, since he, along with the Democratic Republicans running against him, is going nowhere.

Dean, to be sure, has made a practice of shooting from the hip and thus upsetting his handlers and wooses like Lieberman who are trying to shut him up. Better, I suppose, that he engage in the linguistic niceties that have so characterized the Democratic Party since Bush and his gang took over the government. Better that he acquiesce in a needless, bloody war and hold his fire when it comes to revealing what a sham this administration has become. Yes, let him run a campaign for the prim and proper, like Lieberman and Kerry. After all, according to Garrison Keillor, we’re all Republicans now.

How dare Dean say that we’re no safer now than we were before the capture of Saddam Hussein! Never mind that, since Saddam’s emergence from his hidey-hole, the terrorist color scheme has zoomed up to orange, overseas flights are being canceled, New Year’s Eve celebrations were tainted with terrorist fears and Homeland Security is scaring the bejeezus out of our citizens again. But let’s not come right out and say that we’re no safer. How totally unpatriotic!

And certainly let’s not drag white Southerners and the Confederate flag into all this. Never mind that the Democrats don’t have a chance in Hades of winning in the fall if they don’t garner the votes of white Southern males and thus win some Southern states. Why should we be courting them? Why should we worry that five Southern Democratic senators are retiring this year, which will probably result in a bonanza for the Republicans in the Senate if the Democrats don’t develop at least a wisp of a Southern strategy?

One could say, I suppose, that the Democratic Republicans are courting principle over practicality. And that bucket might hold water if it weren’t for the fact that contenders like Lieberman have no idea on earth what the principles of the Democratic Party were or are now. In that regard, Lieberman is like Zell Miller, the Republican wannabe from Georgia, who never saw a Bush plan or proposal he didn’t like. If only the Democrats were more like the Republicans, posits Miller, we’d be in fine shape. We’re all Republicans now.

What hogwash.

Even more recently, the Democratic contenders were left with their mouths agape when Dean accused the Right Reverend Jerry Falwell of bigotry and racism. Can’t say that, they proclaimed. Not nice. Poor judgment. Dean’s out of control.

More hogwash.

It’s about time that someone other than Larry Flynt came out and told the world what a homophobic, misogynistic fat cat Falwell really is. Gays have been battling with this monster for years, and no Democrats I know of have been willing to join the fray. Let us have out with these religious shamans and reveal for all to see the hypocrisy that fills their bulging bellies.

If Robertson is right about the New Year, and the Bushites are divine shoo-ins, let us at least allow one man - be he Dean or Kucinich – to take up the cause against divine proclamations and, devoid of politically correct mumbo jumbo, tell the American people straight out that another four years of George Bush and his henchmen is another four years of nothing less than fecal-laden sewer sludge.

January 4, 2004