Two Minute Drill

When the hard glare of history looks back on Dubya's four years of debauchery and hegemony, it will show that he had the same effect on conservative politics as David Koresh had on Branch Davidians and the Seventh Day Adventists, and the ultimate devastation, on many fronts, will prove out to be just about equal.

But never mind that ugliness--the horror! the horror!--the atrocities are just beginning for the religious right, who are now caught in the vice of a profound psychogenic vanity.

The smart money is on the challenger - a solid two point favorite heading into this week's action. Being a rabid NFL and political junkie, it is hard work separating the two factions with so much at stake. Patriots and the Steelers, Green Bay heading into Washington, Kerry standing at the twenty with one timeout and two minutes left to go. Of course injuries and weather factor into the spread, but in the moment of truth it's about execution, confidence and momentum.

September the 11th changed me. I remember the day I was in the -- at Ground Zero, on September the 4th, 2001. It's a day I will never forget.
-- The day ... maybe not, but the date is an entirely different matter to everyone but Dubya, Lititz, Pennsylvania, Oct. 27, 2004

Americans will go to the polls in a time of war and ongoing threats any unlike we have seen before.
-- As usual, you know what Dubya was supposed to say, right? Lakeland, Florida, Oct. 23, 2004

I think the job of a problem is to confront problems, not to pass them on to future Presidents and future generations.
-- There goes Dubya, calling himself a problem and speaking more truth in this little statement than he ever imagined, Cuba City, Wisconsin, Oct. 26, 2004

Thank you all. Thanks for coming out to say hello. I got to tell me, you have lifted my spirits, for which I am grateful.
-- I hope he's not talking to himself too often... Saginaw, Michigan, Oct. 28, 2004

Now, footbal fans, it's hard to see the end zone from ground level when you're digging in the trenches, and the retired jocks in the press box are stammering about statistics and percentage of come-from-behind wins. Even Dan Marino, Joe Montana and John Elway failed a few times. Ask them about it now and they would show you the scar tissue from those battles. The NFL playing field, like the historical context of presidential politics, is strewn with examples of boy wonders, ill-timed turnovers and shredded ACLs.

The real election season has just started, on the ground in places like Franklin County Ohio, Miami-Dade county, Metro Philadelphia and the Quad-Cities region, and the trophy is waiting for the guy with the audacity to steal the game with bold strikes and shrewd playcalling. Quarterbacks, like national candidates, don't reach the endzone without the grunts buying him some time in the trenches.

You, me, Jesus, Mary and Joseph are sitting in the stands with a game program in some monolithic stadium named Election Central, tuning out the play by play and just watching this last drive. This is where Al Giordano chimes in:

First, let me tell you about your team captain, the quarterback John Kerry, and why he will lead us to victory…

I've known that guy forever… since I was 22… Since before a lot of you were born… I've been with Kerry in his home, and in the trenches… And sometimes - I admit - that John Kerry and I fuss and fight… He's not always right… He's stubborn… He can be a real prick sometimes… He's so persistent, when he wants something, as to be annoying… That damn John Kerry can be a real pain in the ass…

Fortunately, he's being just such a pain in the rump to those who pulled off a coup d'etat in the United States four years ago…

(I don't think anyone else could have pulled this off, and gotten us within striking distance at the two-minute warning!)

And George W. Bush is right about one thing about John: he'll do anything to win…

And, George, does it not take one to know one?

But more often my experience is that John Kerry and I have fought on the same side of the barricades against common enemies… And they were always more powerful than us… And almost always we've come from behind… And, when we've been on the same team, we have never lost a game…

He's on our team right now. He wants to get rid of that asshole Bush. But he can't do it alone, so this is how he is going to lead the team to victory…

I know how John closes in the final days of an election campaign… Seen it… done it… lived it… And how to tell, by the look on his face, whether he's confident and he's got the mojo to come from behind and pull it off…

When he has that mojo, he's magic… He can't lose…

Have no fear, kind athletes of authentic democracy: If you work hard, if you don't give up, if you hit them as hard as they want to hit you, and harder, George W. Bush - and his "war" that is not an authentic war, but, rather, a media stunt - are going down to a very messy end on Tuesday…

Now, if you look at Kerry's face in those photos, with those 80,000 Wisconsinites (plus, according to police estimates, another 20,000 on the side streets trying to get an eyeball on him… in a city of only 200,000 people)… that is the very same face of the winner I have seen before.

It's Big John with 284 Electoral chips come election night and a two percent over/under on the popular vote. That sound you are hearing today, more like a cry in the form of a whisper is Dubya - now on his knees praying to the White House paintings all Nixon-like, hoping that he doesn't see a special prosecutor before the reins of power are exchanged.

The horror! The horror! The horror!