Bubba called today to squawk about Mexicans. I have to give it to
Bubba, he is honest enough to not waste words differentiating their
legality, Mexicans are Mexicans who should all be living in Mexico.
Since Lou Dobbs went ballistic on this issue, Bubba now switches
channels from his default FOX NEWS to watch CNN in the Dobb's evenings,
which now happens to be the same time I turn off CNN for some Hank and
Homer.
I must say, old Lou has gone singularly berserk on this
immigration business. Perhaps as a child he was wrapped in a tortilla
and abandoned at a bus stop in Escarsaga. Whatever the problem it's
serious. In fact I just read that the main issues involved in all this;
that illegal immigrants pull down wages, cause unemployment, are more
criminal that average, appreciably affect taxes for services and are
going to blow up Chicago are either lies or highly exaggerated crap.
So Bubba called regarding some hippies who disrupted a Mexicans Go Home
rally in downtown Houston recently. There were almost a hundred
white-wing bigots, mostly middle aged women and whacked out Vietnam
veterans draped in flags, NRA LIFE MEMBER stickers on their sleeves and of course, with nothing better to do. This being Texas with that good Republican Base and all, about half
that many kids attended holding up signs reflecting upon that bigotry. Not much of
a demonstration either way you look at it, but it was pleasant seeing
some young people take to the streets doing the right thing rather than
whooping and hollering in front of the Death Chamber down here in
Huntsville.
So Bubba joined the Minutemen Border Patrol
and wants me to ride down to Brownsville with him to man a guard post
for a week. I might go. I need a trip, and knowing Bubba, the van will
be full of beer and lots of chicken fried steak. And grits! What the
hell, I can get drunk in a field and plonk at stuff with Bubba's guns
for a few days. If I come across any Mexicans, I'll give them a ride up
to Houston on my way home. After all, the influx of Hispanics over the
years affecting the vote is the only reason Texas hasn't reinstated
slavery. Minutemen Woman Helps Murder Hispanic Family
[I only watch cable news in the office, in the background during the day]
Bubba is always giving me a hard time about watching Communist Cable News (CNN). Bubba of course watches only FOX News Network. He is especially happy about our local affiliate Fox Channel now doing a live full hour of local news three times a day.
He was so excited he called the other morning to have me watch. Sure enough, an hour of live local news with two anchors, a black man and an Hispanic woman! Cool. Wait, there are three hosts it seems. Who is that guy in the chair on the left there? Oh, that's Congressman Ted Poe. A very very conservative Republican who has a locked seat in the House of Representatives for Northeast Houston. What's going on? Gosh, they present a story and after each clip they ask Ted Poe to comment and give his opinion. There! They did it again! Hey, they are doing this for the whole show here. They read the news, do the video and then have a right-wing lunatic interpret it for them. I guess Blacks and Hispanics are not smart enough to figure out what's going on themselves. No exaggeration, this is really happening on KRIV here in Houston this morning.
Got sidetracked there. So anyway, Bubba heard that MSNBC was the even more communist and Marxist than CNN. It was not hard for me to make the switch, even after 20 years.
Lou Dobbs has been wearing me out. It became physical because when I saw him I would pretend to put him in a head lock and then smash him in the teeth until a family member would poke me with a stick to snap me out of it. I wrote a nice email and a snail mail to CNN management to explain they lost a long time fan because of Lou Dobbs.
Thus far the switch has been fine. It seems I have exchanged Lou Dobbs for Pat Buchanan. It seems Pat is always on in the morning with Joe Scarborough, and quite often in the afternoons with Chris Mathews.
I have been a anti fan of Mr. Buchanan for most of my life, though he never really pissed me off about anything. Sure he is a bigot and a racist and an anti-semetic but so are most people, and besides, he has a sense of humor and an easy ability to laugh at himself. I wouldn't vote for him but I would do shots with him.
Maybe I tolerate him because he is a Christian Bigot, which being in Texas so long leads me to believe is better than being a Secular Bigot like Lou Dobbs. Lou Dobbs who has no sense of humor and his independence - he was a registered Republican until he switched to Independent in 2006 to gain share - is fading fast as it looks like Barack Obama is NOT going to declare war on Mexico. And China... And Canada... Fences all around! I wonder if the China fence will go along our West coast or their East coast? I will have to call Bubba on that, he will know.
Bubba called today to squawk about Mexicans. I have to give it to Bubba, he is honest enough to not waste words differentiating their legality, Mexicans are Mexicans who should all be living in Mexico. Since Lou Dobbs went ballistic on this issue, Bubba now switches channels from his default FOX NEWS to watch CNN in the Dobb's evenings, which now happens to be the same time I turn off CNN for some Hank and Homer.
I must say, old Lou has gone singularly berserk on this immigration business. Perhaps as a child he was wrapped in a tortilla and abandoned at a bus stop in Escarsaga. Whatever the problem it's serious. In fact I just read that the main issues involved in all this; that illegal immigrants pull down wages, cause unemployment, are more criminal that average, appreciably affect taxes for services and are going to blow up Chicago are either lies or highly exaggerated crap.
So Bubba called regarding some hippies who disrupted a Mexicans Go Home rally in downtown Houston the other day. There were almost a hundred white-wing bigots, mostly middle aged women and whacked out Vietnam veterans draped in flags with nothing better to do, while about half that many kids held up signs reflecting upon that bigotry. Not much of a demonstration either way you look at it, but it was pleasant seeing some young people take to the streets doing the right thing rather than whooping and hollering in front of the Death Chamber down here in Huntsville.
So Bubba joined the Minutemen Border Patrol and wants me to ride down to Brownsville with him to man a guard post for a week. I might go. I need a trip, and knowing Bubba, the van will be full of beer and lots of chicken fried steak. And grits! What the hell, I can get drunk in a field and plonk at stuff with Bubba's guns for a few days. If I come across any Mexicans, I'll give them a ride up to Houston on my way home. After all, the influx of Hispanics over the years affecting the vote is the only reason Texas hasn't reinstated slavery.
Down here in what Jite calls Dumbass, I am considered quite liberal. I don't like George Bush, his war, and believe it is time for some sort of all inclusive health care. With that said I feel obligated to speak to Jite on his misunderstanding of what we Texans really are. I hope this list will straighten this Yankee out. And no, 25 years of living in Texas does not make him a Texan.
1) Texans love carrying around guns and shooting them. It's what we do, it's what we are and shut up about it or else.
2) Texans are not racist unless they burn crosses in Black peoples' yards or drag them behind trucks.
3) Texans enjoy reading about this weeks' executions, it makes us feel good about ourselves.
4) Texans are against any new hate crime legislation, there is nothing wrong with getting drunk an roughing up a queer or two on Saturday nights.
5) Texans love carrying around guns and shooting them. It's what we do, it's what we are and shut up about it or else.
6) Texans love to put all their guns in the car, drive down to the border, sit in a chair drinking beer with burbon chasers and plunk at stuff.
7) Texans love carrying around guns and shooting them. It's what we do, it's what we are and shut up about it or else.
8 ) Texans will pray out loud in mass at high- school football games no matter what anyone has to say about it.
9) Texans love carrying around guns and shooting them. It's what we do, it's what we are and shut up about it or else.
10) Texans will not tolerate any Yankee telling us what to do. It's what the guns are for.
Here in Houston Juan Quintero got out of his handcuffs in the back of a police car, pulled a gun out of his waistband, and shot and killed Officer Rodney Johnson and Bubba is mad as Hell! No phone call this time, instead a hard knock on the door. Juan it seems, was not only an illegal immigrant, but he had been previously deported for various misdemeanors. Bubba says if we had A Great Wall of America down there - electrified with gators in a moat - Officer Johnson would be alive today. Bubba is probably right in this case, so I had to change the argument to get him thinking, which Bubba doesn’t much like doing.
"So Bubba, not long ago you came knocking on my door in a huff just like this. Remember you running that light and being ticketed by that ‘uppity black cop’. Boy, did you rail against black cops that night."
"Its not a matter of racism Jite, its all fine and well for them to be fishing off our docks, driving our buses or delivering the mail. Its when they have authority over ME that my hair gets in a knot."
"What hair Bubba? And if that isn’t racism then what is?“
"Lynching and cross burning!” Bubba smugly replied.
"Well Bubba, you are all discombobulated by seeing this as a glass half empty when it's really full. For now there is one less black cop to lord over you and an illegal immigrant going to the death house. Its a win-win for you. Don't worry, be happy!"
Bubba knew, I knew he hated Blacks more than he did Mexicans, which was causing him quite a bit of mental anguish. So as often is the case, this was somehow going to be turned in to being my fault. So I got ready to suffer the bad end of the Bubba-stick.
"Blacks and Mexicans are problems two and three," Bubba told me, "Liberals are problem one. If it weren’t for damn Yankee liberals like you, I wouldn’t have to worry about Blacks or Mexicans in my state, my town or in my face!"
Bubba is my friend; we hunt, we fish, and we drink together, after all, living where I do if I didn’t have conservative friends, I would have no friends at all. So in his defense I must say that though Bubba is often quite unpleasant, he is at least honest.
“God is dead.” That was Bubba’s eulogy when we had him over for dinner the other night. After his third wife left him, he hasn’t been eating well and Flower has been having him over often.
“You mean Freidman, Bubba?”
“Of course, the God of Economics. What a sad day, we will never be the same.”
“You mean like 911?”
“Worse.”
“Worse than 911? Wow Bubba.”
“Friedman was behind Reganomics which changed America!”
“Indeed it did Bubba, it tripled our national debt in eight years, which has caused each of us to pay 20% of our tax bill on Friedman’s bad idea. It created higher poverty among children, reduced wages and was the precursor of moving tens of millions of jobs offshore. Bill Clinton jumped the Friedman ship, eliminated the deficit, and was witling down the debt when George began the Friedman thing again and tripled the deficit and doubled the debt again! What’s good about that?”
“My taxes went down! Friedman wanted to initiate a fixed overall tax rate at 10% instead of the 50% it is now.”
It isn’t 50% Bubba, its 30%, the lowest in the world. Federal taxes are about 10% of our income.”
“That’s a lie! I work until October paying off the federal government!”
“Come on Bubba.”
“I suppose you got that bogus information from that computer of yours.”
“Indeed, in fact it was from who I would guess you consider the Son of God. “Our overall average individual federal tax rate is about 10%.” Rush Limbaugh.
“Never happened!”
"I heard him say it Bubba. And then I looked it up and printed it. Here it is.” I handed it over. I carry it, along with my THIS MAN HAS SWALLOWED HIS NOSE cartoon around with me. “But that’s neither here nor there, thing is Bubba, everyone in America in the early Spring puts their gross income on the top line of a form and their taxes owed on the bottom line. All they have to do is divide the top line by the bottom line and out comes the answer, about 10%. Year after year after year they see it right in their hand. So everyone knows this 50% tax rate you and the Right-wing media push ad nausem is crap. Everyone knows it. So just give it up.”
"The best economy in Latin America is in Chile, where Alfonso Pinochet, a student and friend of Friedman’s enacted all of his economic policies!"
"Well Bubba, I will give you that as the last word. Friedman, the father of murdering totalitarian economics!"
Bubba and Me got together down at Mullet’s Bait to watch the election returns. We tipped the cheapest beer on Redneck Bay, mingling with the cheapest people on Redneck Bay. Our first shouting match concerned which channel we would watch.
“Mullet! Put that TV on FOX would ya, and have a beer on me.”
“FOX is out of the question Bubba! Come on.”
“So we have to watch this on the liberal socialist network?”
“Which one is that Bubba, the one owned by General Electric or Westinghouse?”
“The ones with the liberal bias you ninnynat. CNN, ABC, CBS, ABC, MSNBC…”
“Which are all owned by giant conglomerates whose only bias is to sell more Twinkies to more people who don’t need them. Here’s a fair deal, you get to hold the remote but no FOX. Anything else.”
“That’s fair Bubba.” Mullet decided tossing Bubba the remote.
As soon as Bubba had it in hand, FOX! It was only 7pm with only a few returns in and already Brit Hume looked like he was about to shoot himself.
“Bubba! Look at them! Tonight this is not the Right-wing Loon Network, it’s the Depression Network. Look! That guy over by the computer there is crying.”
Bubba finally acquiesced and got into a system of mostly CNN and MSNBC. But as soon as the camera panned in Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, Bubba turned purple and almost pushed the buttons right through the bottom of the remote.
So we spent most of the evening with Wolf, the most boring human being on this Planet, and of course Lou who Bubba adores. Seems the big boys at CNN told Dobbs to take a night off from his rounding up Mexicans before we declare war on Mexico.
“So where’s Okra? I thought she was meeting us here?” Okra was Bubba’s Sister-in-Law who Bubba really didn’t like, but as an evangelical fundamentalist she supported his side in all our arguments. Bubba nodded to the right and from our stools out on the deck we could see her rolling down the pier along side the barely seaworthy shrimp boats stacked out into the channel. Dressed in flannel, with her height barely surpassing her width she looked like some kind of nut. A fuzzy walnut.
George Allen was ahead in Virginia and Bubba was ecstatic.
“My MaCaCa!” Bubba was singing to the old My Sharona song with Okra chiming in from the doorway.
“Not so fast you two. The fun has just begun.” Rack said as Santorium was traling by 20 points. This was a big hit for Okra, he was her man, and who she was already campaigning for as President in 2008. She looked so sad that my liberal compassion and forgiveness won over my common sense.
“It’s still early Okra, he may come through, after all, he has God, Jesus, Bush and Ted Haggerty on his side.”
“Rack, you are Satan always demeaning the best Christians in American. I hope you rot in Hell for it!”
As the evening waned with the writing on the wall, Bubba fell into a depressing chugging funk while Okra rose to a state of Christian malice. After all, she ran the local Rick Santorum For President Exploratory Committee. Her dreams were being dashed.
“Every vote for a Democrat is a vote for the enemies of America and Satan! I can’t believe this!”
‘By twenty points too Okra, wowzer.”
“You, shut the fuck up!”
“Ya know Okra, can't you see it? What’s the difference between you and the Taliban? Why can’t you grasp that?”
“The difference Mr. Liberal Atheist is someone called Jesus Christ!”
“The name doesn’t matter, it’s the process.”
“Process is what we do to sausage, Christianity is what we do to gain heaven.”
“Which is no different than what those twenty assholes who crashed those planes into buildings were saying. What Okra? You have no need for 72 virgins. So what to you get? 72 I HATE FAG SIGNS to carry around to impress the Almighty?”
“Your day is coming and you won’t be thinking that’s funny!”
“You are unbelievable Okra, it’s like you are some clueless character of fiction. Anyone North of the Mason Dixon wouldn’t believe you even exist.”
“I exist all right! Me and the majority of Americans!”
“Well it seems,” Rack nodded to the television behind the bar, “Not any more.”
As election night wore on, Bubba drank, Okra burned and no matter how hard he tried, Rack could stop grinning, which only made matters worse. What a turnaround from the election night two years earlier they had shared together.“Well Okra, cheer up, it’s not the end of your American Taliban Movement, this is just a referendum on the worst President in American history. I am sure it will pass and soon we will have all you women in Burkas tongue yodeling.”
“George Bush went to Yale! Has an MBA! He is smart and one of your best Presidents!” Okra screeched.
“Yeah, Blue Blood Affirmative Action! Okay then, name me a President worse than George Bush?”
Okra began to turn purple ignoring the question. She looked to the television hoping against hope that Jim Talent in Missouri would pull it out.
“You know Okra, if Talent loses this one, which seems likely, it’s completely on the shoulders of Rush Limbaugh. His shameless treatment of Michael J. Fox was the dynamic of that election.”
“Michael J. Fox is a liberal who Rush proved faked his disease!”
“Gee… In fact my dear, if the Senate goes to the Democrats, it can be truthfully stated that Limbaugh lost the Senate.”
“Warren Harding!” Okra shouted ignoring the question at hand in lieu of the question ignored earlier.
“Damn Okra, you are playing right into his hands.” Bubba scolded from the pinball machine.
“So, you have to go back 85 years to find a president worse than George, and only one at that. You may be right Okra, and if so, guess what?”
“What?”
“You just rated President Bush as the second worst President in history. And I agree.”
“Fuckyoufuckyoufuckyou!” Okra finally transformed into deep purple and rolled off into the starry night.
“So Bubba, looks like when we wake up in the morning we are going to have a House and Senate controlled by Democrats, hey?”
“So it seems Rack, but with all the corruption and gay sex, the GOP needs a time out to gather its forces and get back to its conservative ideals.”
“What in the Hell does gay sex have to do with anything Bubba?”
“The sanctity of marriage.”
“For Christ sake Bubba,” Rack looked around to make sure Okra was gone before he added, “You are divorced twice Bubba! And I covered your ass for two years while you fooled around on Mary Lou!”
“Special Rights! Queers should not have Special Rights!”
“Name one of these so called ‘special rights’ gays have or want.”
“To marry each other and be teachers!”
“Nothing ‘special’ about either of those Bubba, name me a real ‘special right’ gays want that you don’t have.”
“It’s unnatural!”
“Scooter! Your damn dog humps every male dog he can get his paws around!”
“God Says!” Bubba knew he was running out of bad arguments to justify is innate bigotry.
“I know you don’t give one hoot in Hell about the Bible Bubba. You are out of arguments. It’s a simple matter. You and yours are driven by emotional or religious intolerance, while me and mine have constitutional law on our side. The writings on the wall.”
Bubba gave up. He finished off his beer, accepted the Republican defeat, walked off the deck and sighed, “I wonder if my taxes went up yet?”
I went over to Bubba’s last night for BBQ and had to suffer through an hour of Bill O’Reilly. A full straight hour of anything on FOX NEWS is not easy for a person of mind. But I did learn that the main topic of the Bill O’Reilly Show is - no surprise - Bill O’Reilly.
“Damn Bubba, his head is bigger than Saturn! All he lacks are rings. Doesn’t that weigh on you after awhile?”
“One doesn’t have to like a person to accept their political views.”
“You mean like Rush? What a horrible excuse for a human being he is, but he and O’Reilly both are right on the money when it comes to politics?”
“Damn right Rack! You got it!”
“So we put their egomaniacal assholeness aside, ignore their abject hypocrisy, forget their disgusting private lives and just listen to them pontificate upon the issues?”
“Damn right Rack! You got it!”
“I am learning as we go here Bubba. It’s not easy. It’s not like you and I are from Venus and Mars respectively, but more like from Universe 2 and Universe 7135634. So let me see if I have this right. Both these clowns are mostly about promoting themselves, they each have sleazy private lives, they are hypocrites beyond anything previously known in either of our universes, but their politics of intolerance, bigotry, homophobia, greed, selfishness, promoting war, torture, spying on each other, and whose only answer to the have-nots (and even cripples now) is to mock and make fun of them. And that makes them good?”
“Damn right Rack! You got it!”
“Our relationship seems to be just the opposite of that, respect over politics rather than politics over respect. How do you explain that Bubba?”
“We figured that out twenty years ago Rack. The music, the fishing, the hunting and our shared sense of humor come before politics.”
“Really Bubba? AC/DC before tax cuts?”
“Well, except for tax cuts. That’s first.”
“Really Bubba? Taxes is IT? What about death?”
“Secondary.” Bubba said as he ladled more butter gravy over his pork hocks.
There are endless examples of Rush Limbaugh opening up the darkness inherent in the conservative heart for all to see. His rise to syndication was due to the notoriety he gained in Sacramento where he would read off the names of men who died of AIDS and hit the applause button. There is the giddy joy he took in the deaths of Curt Cobain, Jerry Garcia, and Christopher Reeves to name a few, and of course his coup de grace, calling 13 year old Chelsea Clinton a dog. Now it is making fun of someone with a horrible disease without apology because he doesn't like their politics. Bubba is Limbaugh's top dittohead.
“I mean really Bubba, how can you listen to that disgusting sack of shit? He represents all that is horrid in the human condition! There isn’t one good thing to say about him! "
“He says what needs to be said which no one else is saying!”
“Are you out of your mind? No one else is saying! Well, besides The President, the Vice President, the entire Bush Administration, the Well of both the Houses of Congress, most of the Supreme Court, almost the entire bandwidth of the AM Dial, the top news network Fox News, the top daily newspaper The Wall Street Journal, and from most churches for Christsake!"
“Don’t have a stroke there Rack! Burns your butt doesn’t it? And that’s the point, anything that burns a liberals' butt is a good thing!”
“The abject hypocrisy of the man’s character doesn’t bother you? A chickenhawk supporter of the war in Vietnam who refused to go himself. A morphine addict who promotes jail for morphine addicts other than himself. No children, three divorces, no church, gets caught with Viagra returning from a weekend at a Caribbean sex playground and then touts himself as Americas' spokesman for Family Values! A garden slug beats Limbaugh in the character department!"
“Calm down Rack! Look at yourself! You see why our harmless fluffball is so loved by so many? I bet he causes strokes and coronaries in a couple liberals everyday, which is a good thing. Rush is good for America!”
“So all you want in this world is to see liberals die?”
“No, what I want is my taxes to go down, and if it takes a few liberals moving six feet under, it’s a fair and necessary trade off.”
As Bubba and I finished watching the Texas Gubernatorial debate, he recanted on his recent promise to pull a straight Democratic ticket come election day.
Kinky Freidman had won him over, running as an Independent, Bubba will have to push each lever separately.
Quite a complicated process for a redneck who has been pulling straight Republican tickets for most of 40 years.
“But Bubba, Kinky didn’t do anything but suck on a wet cigar and issue forth Texas homilies. In fact he reminded me of Dick Armey for Christsake! The only thing we know for sure is about him is that he wants to fund the state by putting video poker bars in front of every trailer park in Texas. And if I understood correctly, he wants to make cats citizens?”
“So the great tolerant Jite is a cat racist now? The bottom line you liberals just don’t get is why I should pay for your kids’ educations. I don’t have kids, let’s put the bill on those who choose to gamble, that is far more fair.”
This is the territory where we always bog down, his ideology so outweighs reason that there is often little point in further discourse. But one must always try.
“Bubba! They did this same video poker thing in Mississippi, the results were that the haves got a free ride they didn’t need while the have-nots ended up with the repo-man in their driveway and banker foreclosing their homes more than any time since the Depression.”
“Not my problem! You blather on and on about choice, they have a choice not to gamble!”
Once again I tried explaining progressive taxation to Bubba’s deaf ear, that the grand swath of Americans live on a teetering economic fault line. The middle class has no savings to speak of, they are in credit card debt up to their eyeballs, tuitions and energy bills are rising, as are the ever persistent emergency what-have-yous.
The working poor are hit even harder through reduction in every phase of financial help. All to allow the wealthy another vacation home and/or stock options. Meanwhile, the economic hardship you don’t care they suffer, is what causes so many to give up and fall into drug and alcohol addiction, crime, guns and violence.
“But its not FAIR!” Bubba shouted.
“Fair? You are invoking fairness now? Gosh Bubba, every time I mention fairness you tell me I am a communist.
Fair? Okay let’s be fair, every radio station who airs three hours of Rush must now air three hours of me!
Or to be fair, Kim Il in North Korea should have 8765 nuclear weapons with ICBMs to deliver them. Parity is fairness.”
“Its not about evil empires, queers, women, Mexicans or blacks. The real unfairness in this country is my tax bill, that’s the only place fairness is required.”
“So everything, the entire ball of wax, is about your tax bill?”
“Yep. That, and keeping Yankee socialist crap out of my neighborhood, out of Texas, and out of my country.”
Well, what can one say other than the same conversation goes on twice a minute on every street in America, dead ends.
Just got a call from Bubba, he said he had something important to tell me, a nice surprise he added. It was my turn to go to his house which wasn’t far and in the same general white area I reside in. He had the garage door open and was drinking a beer knocking balls around on the pool table.
“What news?” I asked grabbing a cue and a beer.
“I’m pulling the straight Democratic lever on the Seventh, thought you would enjoy that. As a prize for me, I don’t expect to hear anything even hinting at an itoldyouso.”
“I told you so!” I gave him what he expected, “I knew after 25 years of dogging you, you would come around!”
He pulled back from the table and leaned on his stick in that Bubba Stance. “It has nothing to do with your mindless liberal drool Rack, the Republicans have too much power, it has corrupted them and I am sick of having The Okras in charge.”
Okra was Bubba’s Sister-in-law, a Born again, Evangelical, Fundamentalist, Pentecostal member of the Religious Right with a perfect voting record. We had both taken to calling all such people Okras. Bubba had a troubled relationship with Okra in that he just didn’t like her. But they voted the same ticket every November, so he was beholding to her.
He leaned forward on his cue to make me understand.
“I have not changed one lick! I don’t want the government stealing my money, people should stay with their own kind, a kick in the head is better than a handout and liberals make me sick.”
After congratulating Bubba on his fine speech which covered all four conservative values: Selfishness, racism, violence and hatred, I had to ask.
“San Francisco Pelosi as Speaker? Ways and Means going to a Black guy from Harlem? Judicial Chair to a Black guy from Detroit? Possible Impeachment proceedings? Gosh Bubba have you really thought this through properly?”
Bubba went into silent cowboy mode causing me to back off for the time being. We had too many more beers and as I got in my car I shouted toward the garage.
“You want me to contact Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition and sign you and your Bigaburban up to cart people from the 3rd Ward to the polls?”
I invited Bubba over for a beer to watch the hummingbirds on my new jungle patio. So jungle it is, that I often find myself breaking out in high pitched jungle noises to add to the ambience. After we had downed more than a few beers watching their shenanigans, we remaned them “Little Bastards” watching them zip around the feeder I had hanging over the table. I brought up the news of the day which poor Bubba just didn’t want to hear.
"So Bubba, what’s all this business about Congressman Mark Foley down in Florida? Seems to have become a major political blunder for you and your people."
Bubba was slow to answer. He was utilizing his cowboy way even though he was well aware that I knew that the reason cowboys were slow to speak was because cowboys were slow to think. He set himself upon watching the one hummingbird that hung between us about a foot from our faces.
“Not much there to eat after plucking and gutting that one.” Bubba said ignoring my question. I happened to be thinking along the very same lines having learned too much about the Little Bastards of late. I knew that though the hovering nit of a bird seemed personally interested in us as individuals, it wasn't. Out mutual insight was immediately validated when it zipped up to the feeder where an a member of the axis of evil had arrived. It tried to impale the interloper through the heart with its narrow rapier beak. Bubba told me he had actually witnessed such a murder when he was a boy.
“Foley! Mark Foley Bubba! They want the Speaker of the House to resign a month before the election! Hello in there."
Lucky for Bubba a major helicopter war broke out in our faces to moot my question. More than half a dozen of the Little Bastards were now in awe and destruction mode. The different pitches of the humming was a exciting! After a fast and furious minute which had us bobbing and weaving because we didn't want to have an eye put out, our nit of a friend won hover territory over the feeder while the rest sat in the nearby Mimosa tree contemplating their upcoming revenge, which they seemed to forget as they began fighting among themselves for perch space.
“Bubba! Talk to me! Mark Foley! Resigning Speaker! Democrats win the House!” I was doing my best not to overgloat.
“Damn Queers!” Bubba finally replied.
"Well there you have it. And you know, listening to the right-wing talking dufuses on TV wanting the heads of their very own on a platter over this, Bubba had indeed managed to get the whole conservataive ball of wax down to two words. At least Bubba is good at something.
Is Conservatism Genetic? Many years ago when this was all in a print newsletter called The Journal of Hard Response, I put my tongue in cheek and wrote a piece linked above. The other day I happened upon several articles that cited studies which gave that old article some degree of gravitas. Of the many such articles and studies I found, I leave you with these two.
Genetic Faith And secondly, the hereditary basis of religious faith.
What news! When it is said that conservative ideology is inherently selfish, callous, bigoted and intolerant of the other, it has now come to be literally true. With that said, as you follow the escapades of my friend Bubba, please do your best to give him a break, for Bubba just can’t help being Bubba. Immutable cause.
From the Oval Office through the vast red majority of our hinterlands, the driving force of American Christianity has purposefully removed the blessedness of the peacemakers, the inheritance of the meek, the compassion for the outcast, the first stone throwers, the cheek turning, the money changing, the eye of the needle and universal forgiveness in lieu of reactionary Right-wing control of our government
At the library where we vote early, serendipity had caused Bubba and I to enter the same last parking place together. I inched against him for a spell but finally gave over to the pragmatism of vehicle size. I parked down the street and walked through the sea of political signs; correction, the sea of Bush and Delay signs, to meet Bubba at the end of a very long line. The year before when I came by to vote early, I had been the only person around. I hear the same is going on in all early voting states. I would suppose it is because people are afraid for their lives come Tuesday making for more early Democratic voters.
The wait was going to be some hours so with time to kill I decided to play my constant game of building Bubba up before giving him a whack. I pointed out the only two Kerry signs over by the dumpsters, Bubba followed my finger and found them also. Bubba was enjoying himself. I brought up the recent story about the two eighteen year olds who had been caught stealing hundreds of Kerry signs, clearing out entire sub divisions. Just a couple bad apples Bubba told me. I agreed with him in that I have had three Kerry signs in my yard for two weeks and they were still there. He enjoyed his little victory until I closed by saying they were in my backyard. This generated a few guffaws twenty people down which caused me to understand I had a captive audience.
Okra drove by and seeing us gave a honk. She soon joined us with great and grand explanations to those around us why she got to take skips, though it soon became obvious that it was mostly because of her tee many martunni lunch. In seconds Okra and I were hard at it. Unlike the Bush supporters with their buttons pinned upon their flag fashions, I, like most Kerry supporters, dressed politically naked, though I did wear a small NO DELAY button. Okra unaware of the audience asked me what was wrong with Tom DeLay. There it was, my opportunity to let it fly in public.
"What is wrong with Tom DeLay?" I loudly began, "He is as-bad-as-it-gets regarding religious intolerance and bigotry. He is as-bad-as-it-gets regarding the environment. He is as-bad-as-it-gets hammering in corporate money for his votes. He is as-bad-as-it-gets when it comes to political dirty tricks. He is as-bad-as-it-gets with being voted the most unethical man in Congress for 2004. And on a personal level, he is a stupid, mean, nasty asshole."
Okra went from white, to pink, to red and by the time she had turned purple, she had lost control and pushed me in the chest hard enough to topple me. Bubba caught me before I went down as Okra glowed in her Christian Grace. Most of the audience was unaffected but seemed to take some enjoyment in the scuffle and giving Okra wide berth. After all, Most Texans are more like Bubba than Okra. They are not much concerned with religious issues, or any issues at all other than their tax money, their guns and keeping coloreds out of their immediate surroundings.
After recovering from my close call, and Okra calling me a baby murdering heretic, I brought up the previous evenings' local news report about the young man who had beat the crap out of his wife for saying she was going to vote for Kerry. The cameras before the judge saw the young man blame alcohol and his deep religious beliefs for his uncontrollable violence. Okra asked what that had to do with anything. I gave her a hard look, figuring the proper retort would just pass her by. So letting it go, I asked if she and Bubba would save my place for a few minutes which they agreed to do.
I jumped back in my car and spurted home to pick up my Kerry signs in the backyard which were doing no good. I returned quickly, parked, and approached my friends from the back of the line carrying the three ungainly signs. I said nothing and just whistled the - give a little a whistle- song. Which soon drove Okra over the edge.
What are you going to do with those? She growled.
With what? I replied.
THOSE SIGNS! she yelled.
What signs? I played.
THOSE GODDAMN KERRY SIGNS IN YOUR HAND! She screamed.
Third commandment! I cried.
This was one of those cases where its hard to tell if its the alcohol or the religion causing the craziness.
ARE YOU JUST GOING TO CARRY THEM AROUND ALL DAY? She spat.
Well, yeah, then they won't get stolen. I added.
Okra was in a huff. Bubba chimed in telling me I couldn't carry them into the building proper. He was probably right so I asked Okra if she would hold them for me while I went in to vote. Okra was in more than a huff now.
Taking Bubba's point to mind I noticed that the narrow lane of grass between the parking lot and the sidewalk we lined up on was mostly devoid of signs, so I stepped out and put them in the ground spaced about ten feet apart. Okra immediately went out into the sea of Bush signs and carried back three to place inches in front of mine so they could not be seen from our point of view. CLOSED! I yelled. I picked my three up again and placed them in an open area, loudly shouting, OPEN! She repeated the process and then went and got three more to put on the other side so they could not be seen at all. CLOSED! CLOSED! I shouted. I slipped mine out from the Bush sandwich one last time and with final conviction said OPEN! OPEN! OPEN! Okra sandwiched them in again and I let it rest; hoping that by some miracle at least one person in the line understood the issue that so permeates this election cycle.
On my way to Jesus' Ice House to meet Bubba for the first presidential debate between George Bush and John Kerry I became ensnarled in a dead stop traffic jam. Living between two lakes meant at least a half hour roundabout trip to my date which was less than a mile head. I got out and stood on the hood of the car to see what could be seen. A block ahead were lots of bustling police cars, crime tape and a swat team van blocking off the road in front of an apartment complex. A small crowd of pedestrians where being shooed back to their cars by angry officers. The word was a man had hostages and was shooting at police with his Texas sized arsenal. Being a Thursday, this was unusual as these situations happened mostly on Mondays and Fridays. So I had no choice but to go around the lake.
Listening to the debate on the radio was an ear opener. I am sure I was not the only one who thought I may have honed in to a local university station listening to some professor trying to communicate with a monkey. About halfway through when I pulled into the ice house, I realized it wasn't even live, but a vinyl recording that was skipping; mixed messages... mixed message... mixed messages, no wavering, no wavering, no wavering.
I approached Bubba and Okra who were sitting at a table far more subdued than they had been during the GOP convention. Bush was speaking so I was shushed and signaled to sit down. I watched to see if it was any different from the radio. It was more evenhanded, for one could actually see that it was two men rather than a man talking to a monkey. On the screen was a tall man standing upright behind his podium speaking clearly, on the other was the President listening. He had his back arched holding the podium wearing a rather angry looking smirk. These unfair long shots of the President listening, made him look like the monkey so many political cartoonists portray him as, something he just cannot help.
When the debate moved to the complicated matters of Korea, I noticed my friends lost interest, so I took the opportunity to comment that the President sounded like a monkey on the radio. Okra became highly agitated, calling me a bigot and a racist. I complained that was a bit unfair, suggesting that perhaps a monkiest or a Georgist was more appropriate. She gave me the shoulder and went back to nodding in agreement every time the President repeated the words MIXED MESSAGES, or HARD JOB. I realized that HARD JOB was the new conservatively correct word for dealing with bombings, beheadings, and lots and lots of dead bodies.
When the debate was over I could tell who won by the subdued responses from Bubba and Okra, there was no heart to the claim their man had won. As I had been late I asked them both to stay a while so we could discuss the actual content rather than all the monkey business, for I had been pleasantly surprised that the debate hit the nail on the head over matters of terror and war.
I first explained President's clear position. That he is not about bringing the 911 terrorists to justice, but to win a War on Terror. That to do so, it is most central we had a pre-emptive war on both Iraq and Afghanistan, and that we must hold to a long term presence. That he and God are on the offensive to change the hearts and minds of a billion people to our way of thinking. That the American concepts of freedom and democracy will have to replace what the vast majority of Islam's want; jobs, a little supper, not seeing their sisters in a mini dress and most importantly, getting our ass out of their house. That nations united, alliances, world views and global tests are for wilters and waverers. That those who disagree with the President's war are not only bad Americans, but out to destroy Exxon Mobile, Halliburton and our Security Moms.
Surprisingly, neither of my friends argued the point. They agreed, that indeed I had the issue correct and all good Americans understood that was the good and right thing to do. I then explained the Senator's clear position. That its the wrong war at the wrong time for the wrong reasons, but because of the failed leadership that got us there, we must now win this thing as quickly as possible and get the hell out of there. To do so we must win back our reputation around the world that President Bush has so haughtily destroyed. We must schedule summits, forge alliances and pass the global test of doing the right thing at the right time for the right reasons. And the best way to do that is with John Kerry and a new group of people to replace those who got us into this unmixed and unwavering mess.
Unsurprisingly, this was met by Bubba playing the big frog and Okra the little frog, in an ice house song of ribit-ribit. They soon moved it North of France to the Godless suicide prone heroin addicts of Scandinavian, and their damn foreign beer in those silly green bottles. When I retorted that the beer is not foreign to them, I was met with hehaws of how I just don't get it.
On the ride home I thought about the similarities between Iraq and Vietnam. A President's mostly personal war based on a lie. How it tore this nation apart, and how blind patriotism kept it going until we finally reached our limit at 2 million Vietnamese and 58,000 Americans dead. Sadly if history is any judge, we have 56,980 to go before we wake up.
My friend Bubba down at the ice house told me today that President Bush was on the right path because what all those countries in the Middle East needed was democracy. I am not so sure, my guess is that if any of them did arrive at a viable democracy, the first thing they would do would be to vote for a theocracy. Of course I didn't tell Bubba that, for I know being in Texas for 25 years is not enough time for a one time Yankee to safely express a liberal opinion. We Texans may be stupid, but we are not unarmed.
Tonight John Kerry said he would name an Attorney General who would uphold the Constitution of the United States. Considering what we have there now, that would be enough to get 99% of the vote in a sane nation. How well the Vietnam hero business will go over in middle America is up for grabs, but it doesn't look good. Already they are screaming that John Kerry was neither brave enough, nor wounded enough to... to compare with George W. Bush who was at the time avoiding Vietnam doing his reserve duties at dangerous chugalug contests in the nightclubs of Montgomery, Alabama. Believe it or not, about half the voters in this country see the later rather than the former as who best represents America. And you know, they just may be right.
I asked Jesus down at the ice house to put the Democratic Convention on the TV behind the bar. And wouldn't you know it, Bubba arrived just as Al Sharpton filled the screen. As I watched Bubba turn red holding in the N-word, I made a silent bet on how long he would last. When Rev. Sharpton made the joke that the only way George Bush got into law school was because of affirmative action, Bubba's shade deepened from red to purple, with only outbursts of the less offensive shouts of mfer and cser. Bubba even got past Al saying that if they didn't get that mule and 40 acres the Republican Party had promised, they would ride this donkey forever. It wasn't until Al addressed George Bush directly with his refrain that the black vote is not for sale, that Bubba lost control and out the word flew. Even here in Texas racist displays of that sort are unpopular in public. So I took the opportunity to give Bubba a good strong finger-snap to the nose, which he had do endure because he knew Jesus would be on my side in this matter. I then tried listening to the John Edwards speech, but the Bubba-din of how many ax handles across Elizabeth Edwards butt was, caused me to miss most of it, though he looked good and sounded swell.
The recent hurricane in Florida sucked all the hot humid air out of Texas. It was the first Summer day I can recall that the industrial fans on the floor of Jesus' Ice House were off, making both the traffic and Bubba seem much louder than usual. Having set records for lows over the week, even Bubba was in a good mood. He got on his most prevalent political rant, that taxation was not only the redistribution of wealth, but thievery and extortion! I mentioned an article I had just read in the back pages of the Houston Chronicle. It seems that the GOP feels that when they win this November, it will be a mandate for them, and with owning all branches of government, the time will be ripe to eliminate income taxes and replace it with a federal sales tax of about 25%. Finally the end to the most terrible bane of the wealthy, progressive taxation. Though the Bush Administration, with the coming election are not drooling over it publicly, but saying it is only an option that needs looking into. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert is not so moot, he is aglow with the idea, claiming it is both doable and necessary to eliminate all taxes on corporations to be competitive in the New World Market.
Upon hearing this Bubba began go glow in ideological rapture. I tried to penetrate the golden aura around him by suggesting that with the 8% in state sales tax, it meant that Bubba would be paying one third of the price of everything he buys in a regressive tax. That the GOP was going to redistribute the wealth upwards, and extort and steal even more money from him and the rest of the Bubba class than before. No penetration, the glow was locked in. Jesus slid the Chronicle down the bar so Bubba could read the article. After much whooping and hollering as he read, Bubba confronted me with Speaker Hastert's argument. That because Europe uses VATS and sales taxes, so must we if we want to compete with them. Bubba laughed that the argument was over and he had won. The glow deepened as he explained that if the cowardly socialist welfare state Europeans could do it why couldn't we? But Bubba, I tried, they can do that because being socialist welfare states they take care of each other; they have far less disparity of wealth than we, their overall tax rate is much higher, they have national health care for all, they have endless unemployment comp and workman's comp, subsidized housing, meaningful mass transportation, low crime, little violence, safe streets, and almost empty prisons. An alien world of reason and community rather than our world of only gold, guns and God.
That brought an unusual BUENO! BUENO! from Jesus who always tired to hold the middle ground. But even that little kick in the pants could not dissipate the gleeful glow Bubba wallowed in. Contemplating his joy in all those wealthy people getting an 80% tax cut which he and his would have to pay for. Here in Texas we may not be very smart, but we have lots of guns to keep it that way.
What I like best about Jesus' Ice House are the garage door walls that open it up to the outside world. Though its mostly traffic, its nice to see who is coming and going, and I enjoy the hum of the giant industrial fans on the floor and being able to see my car out front. I also like the scattered, somewhat contradictory signs around the place; No Guns and Trespassers Will Be Shot.
In an argument last night, Bubba got his butt burned again because I am a veteran and he isn't. Sometimes that weighs on him so heavy he leaves the bar to go out and skulk in his truck for a spell. I noticed him sitting there for a rather long time last night, so I went out to confront him with a little liberal sympathy and understanding. Lighten his load with a bit of humor perhaps. Keep in mind, this is Texas, if I am not nice to selfish bigoted armed stupid conservatives, I wouldn't have anyone to talk to.
As I approached his truck which he often retreats when on the losing end of an argument, I heard his radio blasting familiar pejoratives: Immigrants! Foreigners! Arabs! Mexicans! French! Europeans! Frogs! Africans! Liberals! Women! All this time I had thought poor Bubba was out there crying in his cups when he was really listening to Michael Savage at 120db. Though disappointed, I tapped on his window no matter. Startled, he turned off the radio faster than he rolled down the window and gave me that pained Bubba look. I stepped back and looked under the vehicle, "Hey Bubba! Lock and load! There are funny looking people who I bet also have funny sounding names under your truck stealing your hula hula mud flaps!"
"Several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command....They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country." John Kerry April 1971
The Houston heat and humidity was back, but the roaring industrial fans placed around the Ice House floor could not drown out the smirk on Bubba's face. I hadn't seen him so happy since George Bush dropped 30,000 weapons of mass destruction on downtown Baghdad because Saddam was going to attack us with weapons of mass destruction he didn't have. Bubba told me war hero Bob Dole had weighed in and asked Kerry to apologize for claiming our troops in Vietnam had committed war atrocities. Rather than rain on his parade, I complimented Bubba on at least getting to the nub of this entire Swift Boat matter. That it wasn't about purple hearts or medals for bravery, but rather about the long festering political hatred directed at someone who told the truth about Vietnam.
Bubba went on about how everyone in Vietnam did not kill babies, and for Kerry to say everyone did was a lie, a smear, and unAmerican. I tried explaining that neither was it "everyone" or what Kerry said, but what he said he heard other Veterans say. That of course got nowhere. I then asked if he doubted that American war atrocities were prevalent or that officers condoned or looked the other way when it happened. That was skirted by general accusations of Vietcong war crimes. I explained My Lai to Bubba, how 300 unarmed women, pregnant women, old men, children and babies were lined up in ditches and shot to death. It was real, documented and the truth. And much like Abu Gharib today, the military tried to play it down blaming a few "out of control" enlisted men and women. My Lai, like Agu Ghaib was no aberration, it was the one they got caught at. Though war crimes on as large a scale as My Lai were by no means everyday occurrences, that is not the case with heads and ears being lopped off, civilians murdered, villages burned, and prisoners shot or thrown out of helicopters. It is the truth, and no one should every have to apologize for telling he truth.
Not a ripple in the Bubba Smirk! He went on to say how Bob Dole called Kerry's wounds superficial and they didn't bleed! I hit all the points; that superficial wounds get purple heats in combat, that Kerry has a piece of shrapnel in his leg, and saying none of Kerry's wounds had bleed, Bob Dole tossed his credibility to the wind trying to save the sinking Ship of Bush. Nope, that had no impact either.
So I tried one last burst. I reminded Bubba that Kerry had volunteered for Vietnam, volunteered for combat, got three deserved or underserved Purple Hearts, one deserved or underserved Bronze Star, one deserved or underserved Silver Star, one serious or superficial piece of shrapnel in his leg and four months of combat duty MORE than George Bush, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, John Ashcroft, Paul Wolfowitz and his idol Rush Limbaugh put together.
Bubba laughed, all my arguments didn't mean a thing because the Swift Boat ads, true or false, worked. Kerry is losing more and more veterans as the media reruns the ads. It looked like the centerpiece of Kerry's campaign has been neutered by chickenhawks and cowards. Bubba was right, and I ate crow and gave him his day of glory.
I stayed at home to watch George's acceptance speech, I didn't want to take the chance of sitting at a table next to a standing franticly cheering conservative who could very well release a splash of bodily fluid into my beer.
I just can't seem to come up with much to say about the speech. All the other speakers were better, and all he said was that everything is swell and he will kill as many people as it takes to keep it that way, without wavering. Don't think think twice, its all right.
So rather than go over his hour of boring nonsense, I close this GOP campaign week with some math. The score is the Muslims have have killed about 4000 of us and we about 40,000 of them, putting the Muslims behind 36,000. So they have a lot of killing to do before they get even. And as we have seen from the GOP convention this week, getting even is what its all about.
On the third night of the convention Bubba, Okra and I were in the throes of discussing queers getting married. Okra sited the Bible and Bubba John Wayne, but both came to the same end, ITS DISGUSTING! I asked what was disgusting? The love they felt for each other, or wanting the same advantage of family rights as anyone else? Other than the silly conservative slippery slope argument that it would mean people will then get married to a clam AND a penguin, they concluded that it was what they did naked that was so disgusting. I asked if they judged everyone in terms of what they did naked. I even asked them both if they spent a lot of time thinking about what I did naked, adding that I sure as hell haven't spent a nanosecond thinking about what either of them did naked. That generated a bit of anger so I closed up saying that what my parents did naked sure as hell disgusts me, I just don't dwell on it.
The bit of anger at our table was soon drown out by the evenings keynote speaker. In fact I cannot recall ever seeing so much anger presented at a convention, or for that matter, by anyone outside a 1930's Nurenburg rally. As Zell Miller went from angry to mad to insane, his bloodlust not only usurped the floor of Madison Square Garden with foot stomping abandon, but also the floor around my table at Jesus' Ice House. The juices flowed as the national scream for an ever rising body count swept the land.
Okra, tuckered out in a joyous blush, had to sit down and rest leaving only Bubba standing and cheering to the end. I noticed her quick glance towards Bubba's waist and back down to her Zima. Zell was so good at what he was doing it had given Bubba a stiffy. I had always wondered what conservative did to get it up in the bedroom, but now that I knew, I became so disgusted I decided it was time to enact legislation to keep conservatives from marrying.
Later that night watching the pundits it got even worse. Chris Mathews asked Zell about his remark that Kerry wanted to use spitballs against al Qaeda. Zell replied in his very unfunny rabid manner that he wished he was in the studio with Mathews so he could answer that question properly. When Mathews replied with an incredulous blank stare to the threat, Zell went on to say he wanted to shoot Mathews in a duel. Hey, I have often wanted to give Mathews a poke in the nose myself, but not shoot him. I am just not angry enough I guess.
The second night of the convention at the ice house was a different evening for me. Bubba had brought his sister-in-law along. Okra was not a selfish bigoted secular conservative like her brother-in-law, but a selfish bigoted Christian conservative. We moved from our regular spot at the bar to a table not too close to a floor fan so we could hear the TV above us set in the rafters. I immediately found Okra's bad side by asking if she had any siblings named Grits. I knew Bubba had warned her about me when she said she had heard I was the Ice House Godless baby killer. She said it with that fake smile crap I can't stand, so I replied it was better than being a hard green vegetable that tastes like shit, and then laughed like hell. We were off to a good start.
Bubba shushed us as Arnold took the stage. The next 20 minutes seemed a page from Kafka, there were these two hardcore Republicans booing the keynote speaker at the Republican Convention, while this baby killer applauded from time to time. When it was over I told them that besides his stupid comment about a Nixon Speech which made him a Republican, it was the best speech I had ever heard from a white man. "EXACTLY!" the two of them cried in unison.
Okra called him a liberal baby killer, but Bubba was only annoyed that Arnold's speech lacked the proper conservative bile and bloodlust. And not once did he say he would eliminate Bubba's taxes.
Laying in bed that night I sorted it out. Much to my dismay, Arnold, more so than Giuliani, represents the future of the Republican Party, a big smile attached to a reasonable ideology rather than that humorless smirk of religious intolerance in control of that party now. With their choice of convention speakers, the GOP realizes the majority of us have had enough of that crap. Aronld's delivery was Reaganesque and he came off as a very pleasant, though not brightest of bulbs. A win-win for the GOP. For few Americans want anyone smarter than they are in the White House.
Though I doubt three fourths of us will decide to change the constitution to make Arnold president, he is the face of the GOP future, which may be far harder to beat than the GOP of today.
Bubba is always giving me a hard time about watching Communist Cable News (CNN). Bubba of course watches only FOX News Network. He is especially happy about our local affiliate Fox Channel now doing a live full hour of local news three times a day.
Thus far the switch has been fine. It seems I have exchanged Lou Dobbs for Pat Buchanan. It seems Pat is always on in the morning with Joe Scarborough, and quite often in the afternoons with Chris Mathews. 
“God is dead.” That was Bubba’s eulogy when we had him over for dinner the other night. After his third wife left him, he hasn’t been eating well and Flower has been having him over often. 
There are endless examples of Rush Limbaugh opening up the darkness inherent in the conservative heart for all to see. His rise to syndication was due to the notoriety he gained in Sacramento where he would read off the names of men who died of AIDS and hit the applause button. There is the giddy joy he took in the deaths of Curt Cobain, Jerry Garcia, and Christopher Reeves to name a few, and of course his coup de grace, calling 13 year old Chelsea Clinton a dog. Now it is making fun of someone with a horrible disease without apology because he doesn't like their politics. Bubba is Limbaugh's top dittohead. 
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