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You’ll All Pay #20

© 2004 Joe Conat

I don’t get it. No, seriously, explain it to me.

Republicans: Why do you support President Bush?

No. Seriously.

You know, I can understand party loyalty. That’s fine. You believe in smaller government and a different path to economic stability and whatnot. Great. You have looked at both sides and looked deep into your heart and you have said “I agree more with the ideals set forth by the Republican Party than those espoused by the Democratic Party or any third party.” Fine. I’m not asking you why you’re a Republican.

Why do you support George W. Bush?

And the answer “because he’s the leader of my party” no longer flies with me, okay?

First off…and this is a very simplified version of what the G.O.P. purports to stand for, I know…Bush doesn’t act much like a Republican, aside from his emphasis on big business.

Smaller government? Government that doesn’t intrude on your day-to-day? Government that respects your right to live unmonitored?

USA PATRIOT Act. I’m just sayin’.

Economic growth and stability? Biggest recession ever. Billions pissed away to evaporate in the hot sands of Iraq. Tax cuts for the rich that, it turns out, aren’t benefitting the poor (imagine my shock). Incredible loss of jobs. And, yeah, we’re slowly recovering, but don’t hand me that “x hundred of thousands of new jobs this year alone”. Those aren’t “new” jobs, those are recovered jobs. According to some studies we won’t have a “new” job until 2007. Okay?

So, right there…not so much with the Republicanism.

But moreover…he’s doing a TERRIBLE JOB leading this country! Doesn’t that reflect poorly on the G.O.P.?

Yes. Yes, it does.

Lookit…Bush is like the Emperor with his new clothes and instead of any one of you pointing out that he’s naked you are saying that Versace has a great new fall line. That makes you all look like fools. I mean…children can see it! He’s naked!

Here is the reason I keep hearing for keeping Bush in the Oval Office.

“You don’t switch horses midstream.” That’s it? That’s all you got? “He’s already there and it’d be a pain to move him?”

Let’s try a hypothetical: You are on a horse. Next to you is another horse. You are riding your horse across a swiftly running stream. Your horse, not the best to begin with and not what you’d call “bright” even for a horse and possibly even rabid, makes a radical misstep, breaks its ankle and is falling down. It will undoubtedly trap you under its crushing weight and hold you underwater and you will drown and die.

Do you jump to the other horse then? What if the other horse has a brand from a different ranch? Does that matter?

Me, I’m reaching for the other horse’s bridle RIGHT NOW!

Unless you’re super-rich, how do YOU benefit? Seriously, what have YOU, the average middle-class Republican gotten from a Bush presidency? Are there special Republican gas stations where you pay less than $2.00 a gallon? Is there a small sticker you put in your window saying “F.B.I. Agents! Exempt from secret Search and Seizure allowed under USA PATRIOT! Please search our suspiciously liberal neighbors instead!” Are there secret C.I.A. operatives in Iraq telling insurgents “No, don’t launch an RPG at that Humvee…that one’s full of Republican soldiers. Launch at the next one.” Is there a sooper-sekrit Republicans only cure for Alzheimer’s that doesn’t involve stem-cells?

What are you getting that the rest of us aren’t?

Because I seriously don’t get it. This president is so bad, so inept, so corrupt that I don’t see where partisan politics any longer plays a role. Look, the dude’s just horrible for the country and whether you’re Democrat, Republican or third party you’re still an American and a citizen of this country and don’t you want what’s best for it? Don’t you?

Well, let me tell ya, Bush ain’t it.

M.P.s in Abu Ghraib torture…no, don’t give me that “make uncomfortable” and certainly don’t hand me that “frat hazing” crap; it’s torture…and Bush unequivocally supports Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, the man who not only failed to stop the torture, but covered it up with the media as long as he could and, evidently, failed to inform the President himself, which…well, that’s his job. He didn’t do his job. And yet, Bush tells Rumsfeld “You are doing a superb job.” Whuh? In what Bizarro world is failure to inform your boss of something drastically wrong under his command “superb”?

Bush says there are WMDs in Iraq. This has become a stand-up comedian’s standard fare these days. Such a blatant lie, and it’s becoming clearer and clearer that Bush KNEW it was a lie. Bush links Iraq with 9/11. EVERYBODY knew that was a lie.

Result? We invade Iraq (to the initial tune of $87 billion with a further request for $50 billion more…money that ain’t goin’ in your pocket, or your schools or to fix your roads) and find NO WMDs and NO link to Al-Qaida and we create, rather than eliminate, a potential terrorist state full of people who hate the United States. That makes Bush…a threat to national security.

How is that good for the Republican party? How is that good for America?

Hell, how is that good for anyone?

Another question for the Republicans: Why do you continue to let the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Michael Savage speak for you?

You want examples of making the party look bad…

On May 4, 2004 the “proverbial spokesperson” for the G.O.P. in the media likened human rights violations against prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq to fraternity hazing.

CALLER: It was like a college fraternity prank that stacked up naked men –

LIMBAUGH: Exactly. Exactly my point! This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation and we’re going to ruin people’s lives over it and we’re going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I’m talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You of heard of need to blow some steam off?

Yeah, lemme tell you, there is nothing like kicking back on a Friday night, having a couple of brews and sodomizing those noisy neighbors with chemical lights, then pouring phosphor on them and setting my dog on them. Just like in college.

Is he high? Oh, wait…

Off-camera, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan called Limbaugh’s remarks “wrong, unacceptable and inexcusable”, but on-camera he simply refused to comment directly on the matter. Probably didn’t want to alienate the Rush listeners who can figure out how to vote. So, even the White House is saying “Shut up, Rush!” but real quiet-like.

And how’s about wacky, zany Ann Coulter, who decided to blame the blatant violations of the Geneva Convention on women in the military?

On Fox News, Coulter was heard to say “I think the other point that no one is making about the abuse photos is just the disproportionate number of women involved, including a girl general running the entire operation. I mean, this is a lesson, you know, one million and 47 on why women shouldn’t be in the military. In addition to not being able to carry even a medium-sized backpack, women are too vicious.”

That’s right, women out there…according to Ann Coulter you’re not only weak, but you’re inhuman bitches, too. She should know, after all. Takes one to know one.

But worst by far is Michael Savage.

“I don’t mean to be too comedic in the political arena, but these so called abuse photos frankly are mild by comparisons to what goes on in South of Market clubs in San Francisco.”

“And I think there should be no mercy shown to these sub-humans. I believe that a thousand of them should be killed tomorrow. I think a thousand of them held in the Iraqi prison should be given 24 hour — a trial and executed. I think they need to be shown that we are not going to roll over to them. It won’t happen. It won’t happen because of the CBS Communists. It won’t happen because of the CNN traitors. I won’t happen because of the MSNBC empty heads. And we the people are the ones who are going to suffer today.

Instead of putting joysticks, I would have liked to have seen dynamite put in their orifices and they should be dropped from airplanes. How’s that? You like that one? Go call somebody that you want to report me to, see if I care. They should put dynamite in their behinds and drop them from 35,000 feet, the whole pack of scum out of that jail. Thank you CBS. Thank you New Yorker. Thank you Carl Levin. Thank you Ted Kennedy. Thank you Hillary Clinton. I’m sure that Mr. Berg’s parents appreciate what you’ve done for them.”

“Nick Berg, an American, not military, over there building transmission towers, was captured by the Untermenschen the sub-humans, who wrap themselves in a religion. He is seen saying his mother’s name, his father’s name, sister’s name, his brother’s name and then the smiling Arabs cut a living human beings head off as he screams. It’s a blood-curdling scream that you’ll ever hear again. You’ll never get it out of your mind if you’re a normal person, or you’re not given to murder or you’ve never been around murder. Uh, it’s something you’ll never forget, not should you ever forget it and you can thank the Democrats, you can thank the Senate Arms Services Committee for their hysterical hearings. You can thank John Kerry, Chuck Hagel, Biden, The New York Times, the alphabet channels and The Washington Post for this atrocity because they caused it.”

Do you remember all that brou-haha when MoveOn.org ran its “Bush in 30 Seconds” contest? And out of thousands of entries two compared Bush to Hitler?

Where, do you think, did they get the idea that conservatives were fascists or Nazis? It couldn’t be from loud-mouth conservative pundits using terms like “Untermenschen…sub-humans” could it?

Why are these lunatic idiots still on the air? Why hasn’t someone from the Republican party asked them to, you know, tone it down a little? “You’re not helpin’, dude” that sort of thing.

I’m all about First Amendment rights. As far as I’m concerned these fatheads can yawp all they want about whatever they feel like. I don’t listen to ‘em…they don’t get my consumer vote. Babble away, fatuous monkeys.

They just make my job easier, really.

I’m just surprised Rove hasn’t grabbed Limbaugh or Savage, driven him out to the desert and put two in the back of his head as an example to other pundits. “Don’t make us look stupid.”

Because you do, G.O.P. I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be insulting here. But these are your most visible representatives. An unelected President who goes to war based on a lie. A Secretary of Defense who figures torture under his command isn’t something worth waking Bush from his nap. A former drug-addict loudmouth. An hysterical harpie. And a Nazi.

Is it any wonder most of the world considers Americans in general and Republicans in particular to be drooling mouth-breathers with impulse control problems?

These guys are not helping your cause. This is not making you popular. If you truly believe in the G.O.P. I don’t understand why you don’t go out and find yourself a candidate who’s smart, committed to excellence and sane.

Party loyalty is fine.

Stupidity is not.

This YAP owes a special shout-out to the Empress. Woot!

You’ll All Pay is written by Joe Conat. You can step up and let him know you’re no fool here.
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