There I was like a good Los Angeles leftist, sipping
a Molotov cocktail in
the shade of a unionized banana tree, a dog-eared
copy of the Internet open
across my knees. The sun was green, the
grass was warm, and a blossom-scented
zephyr played lightly with my curls; in short,
all was well with the world. And then I
saw the poll numbers. My bleeding heart
danced a thready tattoo: Alternate Selection
Bush1s popularity has sagged into the 60s!
Despair flooded my soul, sending boatloads
of Guatemalan refugees punting for high ground.
"Aren't you delighted that the public is finally
catching on to George W. Bush?"
You might well ask, although you would get a
pretty stern look if you did. After all, as
I'm a liberal progressive, three blocks left
of the Nation magazine and two suites down
from Counterpunch (we share an elevator, although
I get sick of the back issues tied
with string cluttering the vestibule) one might
expect me to revel in the misfortunes of
the Fortunate Son. "Ha!" I would reply.
And perhaps again, for emphasis: "Ha!"
You see, children, once upon a time there was
a very wicked man, indolent,
insolent, Donner and Blitzen. He ruled
the free world with an iron head,
and nobody was allowed to disagree with him.
So absolute his power and
so mighty his personal constitution that nobody
else was allowed to have
any power- or a constitution, for that matter.
Stop fidgeting, Timmy, I1m
getting to the point already. This venal
fellow (look it up, I1m in
the middle of a story here) liked to do whatever
he wanted, and most of the
time he did. But there was one thing he
feared, and that was the wooly
poll. Wooly polls can be found on Uncle Tom,
sheep, and the American
Media, which is a dark treacly substance found
in bogs and inside
televisions. As this wicked man was all
hat and no cattle, he feared
the wooly poll hella much.
One day the polls said that his popularity was
waning, and how. Arbusto
shook them by the ears (this naughty man1s name
was Arbusto, which is Latin
for Bush1 or Shrub1) but the polls persisted.
"What will I do?" Arbusto
fretted, gnashing some pensioner1s teeth.
Did I remember to tell you this guy was,
aside from a no-goodnick, also as dumb as a sack
of hammers? But cunning.
A sack of hammers with weasels in it. He
ruminated upon what worked for him
in the past. Ruminated, and worse. After
frowning and constricting his forehead,
he remembered that his poll numbers were once
below his IQ numbers, and that
a war had perked them right up like nipples on
ice. If you1ll excuse me, children,
the story is over; it's time for us grownups
to talk. Go in the other room and
watch wrestling.
So this Bush (English for Arbusto1) needs another
war. He's as driven by
the polls as his predecessor, and mayhap worse,
quotha. At least President Clinton
(the predecessor I mentioned, and another wicked
venal man if you don't like nookie)
attempted to derive policy from the polls, using
the data, as heironymous as it might be,
to help model useful goals for the government
to pursue. Bush just sees the numbers
and lashes out,like an epileptic moose during
an electrical storm. After some bold talk
about an axis of evil, which at last blush included
North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Cuba, Libya,
Syria, New England except Maine, Al Gore, California,
and the Krispy Pretzel Co. in
Flushing, Queens, Bush finally settled on Iraq,
upon whom Bush's father, ex-president
Bush (as opposed to his son un-president Bush)
waged an unsuccessful war. There's
an old family score to settle, the guy running
Iraq has one of those dictator moustaches,
and we can't attack Saudi Arabia, so hey ho,
it1s off to war we go! But soft!
What light through yonder window breaks, or is
it a brick, take a gander yonder.
It's a brick with light on it! And a note.
What does the note say? It says "America should
never be the aggressor in any foreign war."
That1s the kind of commie talk that gets people
not killed, but let's entertain the idea.
I thought maybe a light supper at La Poubelle and
then the opera. After all, this idea is
only in town for a few days. Who says we're the
aggressor? The entire world community.
What do they know? Plenty, it seems.
If we go after Iraq it's because they have weapons
of mass destruction and there is evidence
they intend to deploy same weapons against us,
or in the case of the noxious green liquid type
of weapon to squirt them in our general direction
with a Hudson sprayer. But there is no
evidence of any f this. Teams of international
experts versed in forensic science have combed
that country time and again, looking for evidence
of weapons of mass destruction. Combed it,
brushed it, waxed it, and teased it up into a
fetching pile of tresses, all to no avail. They found
not a single avail in the entire godforsaken
place. There is no threat, not even a veiled threat.
Only Tony Blair, Prime Minister of England, which
is one of the Northern industrial states just
south of Canada and east of Martha1s Vineyard,
Ma., Agrees that there should be war on Iraq.
And this is because the CIA has compromising
photographs of Mr. Blair and the German
Chancellor for Brothels and Underthings, Frau
Eva Riding Hood1 Kruppshwinger.
But the rationale is a rationale, after all, and
it don1t mean a thing if it ain't got that swing Saddam
Hussein from a lamp post. Aggressor or
not, here we come. What is the world community going
to do, try us in their international court?
We scale a brick at their international court! Right through
yonder window. The American economy is
in a shambles and the shambles is on fire; our personal
liberties are eroding like a tooth in a vat of
sulfuric acid and corn syrup; we are angry, and everybody
knows about the angry American. When he1s
angry, the bombers start blackening the sky, headed
for the darkies (or is it the other way around?
It's so hard to tell these days.) War distracts the man
in the street. It points his anger over
there, where the towel heads live in their caves or crouched under
oil derricks, whetting their shivs. Abraham's
god had three children, and it's the colored one we're after.
What can the average citizen do? According
to the gummint, soak your head. But I recommend another
course. When the pollsters call, a-gathering
wool with which to decorate the Bushes while the fleece is
shearing, be polite. Be attentive. And
when they ask you how you think things are going, and what you
think of El Presidente, grit your teeth and lie
for your life. "The President is keen, a reet cat," You should
begin, and don't stop there: " As for the
national situation, I'm putting all my money on stocks and my
only son in the Marines so he can see the world."
Get those poll numbers up! Praise the administration,
it's the only way we can avert another war.
And if the pollsters call my house, will you please answer it?
Because I'll be out of town for a few days.
At least seven hundred, or until the next administration starts.