Drumming with Rethugs - Volume One

Republicans are hopping mad at me for this blog. Amid angry emails that I "stretch" the truth about Bobo and take things out of context, I have been attacked on Drudge and Larry King. Even Joe Scarborough calls me an abject misrepresentation of the facts in the tradition of Michael Moore on methamphetamine. Bill O'Reilly has been calling to tell me to shut up, but he gets confused with my voicemail recording.

I have one of those recordings where I say "hello" like I am really there, but it's just a fake. It's a great way to screen calls without having to really speak with people or automated telemarketers.



The Rethugs want old Ronnie back. Because, compared with Bobo, they know Big John looks like a freaking moderate. They keep trying to "sex-up" the whole anti-Kerry swift boat faction and then Sean Hannity gets pollaxed by Tommie Franks over Vietnam. McCain is out front of the pack as well, having flashbacks to South Carolina. Barnicle is on Hardball saying that the O'Neill splinter group is nothing new and the Boston Globe already did the analysis way back in 1993 - namely - there is no story to report.

The Rethugs are in a corner and they know it.

Of course we can't be sure that the country wants Bobo back in the first place, and no standing President has hit the trail or spent this much cash before his own convention. Odds are 5 to 1 that Bobo spends Election Day in seclusion, asking his bedpost, "WWJE" -- Who Would Jesus Elect? According to more than few polls I have read, Big John looks like the better leader with most normal folks, so all of the right-wing hit squads are out to get him. Granted the Democratic challenger sees complexity in most things (or what's known in right wing circles as 'flip-flopping'). But the small sector of undecideds are frankly relieved that one of the choices for President this go-round actually appears to have a brain that doesn't homogenize issues into self-ingratiating slogans.

That means no Karl Rove or Fox simplification machine.

But I am in a giving kind of mood right now and I'll explain to you how you went so very wrong. And it all began with your hate and disdain for everything Clinton. Y'all really admired Bubba because he was so slick and smooth and kinda reminded you of Ronnie in that vein. Sure, he had his dents and chinks in the armor, but it was made out of teflon-covered kevlar, so no strike was mortal and nothing really stuck. So you went to destination hate, and in hating old Bubba your focus groups figured out that if Democrats could hate like Rethugs you could keep the electorate at bay, debating his virtues but never getting around to the facts. So what if the end result was gridlock - you're conservatives, for chrissakes, and no action on the hill is better than action in any direction. Your small government, tax cut language is bankrupt and you turned a large budget surplus into a deafening deficit. Your grass roots efforts to energize your base 24 years ago now ring hollow with anyone without a bible on the dashboard (which is most of us, by the way). Tell me five congressional candidates who can use Bobo as a platform to take over a Democratic incumbent and I'd agree that your party is still relevant. So you figured if you turned this election cycle into a case of "bad press being better than no press at all," you may hold onto the White House after all. Make Bobo the eye of the storm and everyone feels comfortable in the cool calm center around the President, because the outer fringe is too choppy and rather messy to endure.

Notice, I did not use the fear word once, because I think you're far more devious than that. I truly admire your savage spirit, but at the end of the day these are very different times and different candidates. Even with all your money and power, I don't think Bobo could get elected President of Haiti. And Bobo is no Bubba. Clinton had brains, energy, desire and extreme charisma. He had the ability to manufacture concern like Oprah, the capacity to absorb policy, a finely tuned perception of public opinion, an ease with the media no matter the form. Bubba could sell rubber boots to a den of snakes. Bobo couldn't sell methodone to a dope fiend.

And we independent minded folks know it's just killing you right now.

I mean, if you are still bringing up Robert Bork after all these years, you have to be grasping for straws. But you'll still try to justify the Florida fiasco with Bork because they converge at the Supreme Court, and that is just the bizarre magic I find in most Rethugs. You can justify and rationalize almost anything. Christ, the Urban League and the NAACP is the same thing because african-americans go there, right? And if the Ashcroft brownshirts make a few mistakes with some Muslims that just so happen to have civil rights, who really cares because tax-paying Muslims and fanatic Islamic extremists are a difference of opinion, and didn't we intern a bunch of Japanese during World War II, we're at war, aren't we? Ideology and religion before guilt, most Rethugs believe, but I dare say that 20 years from now they will be hiding underneath the bed when little Johnnie wonders what his uncle died in Iraq for. Dare I say: freedom from an international terrorist? It's amazing how Saddam went from Hitler, to a tyrant with WMD to an international terrorist in just six short months.

You Rethugs, especially the Neo-Cons, just want to say that Democrats want Saddam back in power, don't you? But your better angels know the truth. Just as you say that no one is passionate about Kerry, what does it say when you care more about gay marriage and pro-life and the death penalty than you do about an economy that is getting sucked dry. Are you freaking kidding me? I guess Tom Delay and Trent Lott are "preserving the sanctity of the Consitution" too. And Mary (mother of Bobo) Matalin speaks for the average woman who can't pay the bills while her husband's Guard unit got called to active duty. She has some real skin in the game. And somebody please give Karen Hughes a reality muffin before she gets up to speak again.

If I was running a campaign I would go to the heart of the matter. I would find five men in each of the swing states who are making seven dollars an hour and ask them what it feels like to compete with 18- to 21-year old kids for work. Just run that ad night after night with a scrolling list that shows how many jobs lost, how many jobs outsourced, how many more children in poverty, how much the deficit increased, how many people lost health insurance, how many kids died fighting overseas. Here's the price tag for four years of Bobo, the ad says. He stands against gay marriage and science. He couldn't find the WMD. North Korea has nukes. Your kids may not be able to pay for college. Your country is more polarized than ever.

To quote old Ronnie Reagan -- are you better off than you were four years ago?

Admit it. It's just killing you, isn't it?

Uh oh, Anne Coulter is calling now. I'll tell her the Rethugs are guilty of sedition.