May 2003

Our Failed Attempt at Civil Public Discourse

Since the U.S. Supreme Court selected George W. Bush to be the President of our fair country, we've been pretty pissed. We've been outright mad and damned distressed about the whole situation. What else can we say, it's been unbearable for those of us who are still proud call ourselves liberals (unlike most of the Democratic leadership, and especially that pussy Terry McAuliffe). Just a short list of our real-life nightmares:

The '01 Tax Cut we didn't need; finishing a children's book after being told the World Trade Center had been hit; the faltering pre and post 9/11 economy; business executives getting rich while thousands of people lost money and jobs; the Axis of Evil; the War to "liberate the Iraqi people"; baby eater Ari Fleischer; W's arrogant smirk.

Not a day goes by that we don't wish for a time machine to send us back to November of 2000 so we could tell Al Gore to make one last visit to Tennessee, to send his lawyers to Florida, or at least to get a spine. Of course, had Al Gore been elected- by the Supreme Court or by a fair count of the votes- our angry shoes would have been filled by the same feet that had been railing against Clinton for nearly eight years - the irrationally hate-filled conservatives. Oh, and they still rail against Clinton. But to be fair, we are still eagerly awaiting the opportunity to dance on Ronald Reagan's grave (but unlike people like G. Gordon Liddy, we are perfectly content of wait for the natural death of a President for jubilation- threatening the life of a President is a treasonous felony, after all).

Until George II came to power, nothing burned my onions more than the never-ending rants and sissy-boy cries of every Rush Limbaugh wannabe in hate with Bill Clinton. Don't us wrong, Bill was no angel, but who is? Bill Bennett? Ha! Before Clinton came into office in January of 1993, dozens, if not millions, of conservatives/Republicans began their eight year war against the office of the President. And, might we note, claiming in any seriousness that Charleton Heston is you president on you bumper might almost be as unpatriotic as flying the flag of another (though defeated) nation, like say the Confederate States of America, over your state capital is both unpatriotic AND treasonous. Also, Hawaii, get the Union Jack off your flag while we're at it.

But back to the issue at hand…You remember the whole mess. Bill Clinton was the second coming of Eleanor Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Jr., and President John F. Kennedy all in one to the entire gaggle of blathering hate-mongers. You couldn't throw a rock without hitting some ninny with a reason to impeach Clinton. Yes sir, the Republicans were hitting their stride.

We hated every moment. First Health Care, then White Water, then the taxes, then the FBI Files, then Monica - if it was not one thing, it was another. Of course, unlike the Reagan Presidency, no felony convictions came out of all the accusations. No convictions, just practice. And certainly no illegal arms deals or illegal CIA run wars in Central America.

Day in and day out, some retard- the kind that they still execute in Texas- called for the head of Bill Clinton, and it made us sick and tired. Well, as it happens, the installation of George II quieted their shrill voices, and the flapping of their blubbery chins, but we were there to take their place.

It makes us sick sometimes to listen to ourselves react so swiftly and without pause against the President of the United States. At our worst, we're no better than the ignorant Clinton haters because we fail to give the man the benefit of the doubt. That may be the courtesy most often tossed aside when one harbors such righteous indignation. We should be ashamed of ourselves.

But alas, before we pass judgement on ourselves, we remember one critical bit of information - WE ARE RIGHT! Our moral, ethical, and intellectual opposition to the policies of the Acting President are correct - as far as we are concerned - and we should not be ashamed of them. In fact, we are proud of ourselves for reading multiple papers every day, and searching the internet for more detailed information about issues that concern us. We send stories to each other, and our friends, in order to build our collective knowledge base. And we make it a point to verbally assault any chump who proudly adopts the pathetic attitude of popular America in proclaiming that thinking about things, especially politics, is dumb. We are proud to think about things and do whatever we can to help our nation be a better place. Anybody who feels otherwise has fallen for the ploy of mass disenfranchisement perpetrated by the Big Money Corporate Politics Machine. Dammit, Americans fight for what we hold dear, don't we? We hold our freedom and quality of life most dearly, and we'll be damned if we're going to sit quietly and watch our birthright pissed away.

But putting our passion aside, should we allow ourselves to walk the path of the unrepentant and illogical? We need to rethink our knee-jerk reactions to the mere mention of the name "George Bush". In the 90's, some people thrived on hating Bill Clinton, and made their living doing so, but we should not have to be that we simply because we are in the opposition.

No, the Republicans are the people who wasted our time with the Impeachment Trial; they called us who opposed the war in Iraq "traitors" and "un-American"; they don't care if we find WMD in Iraq; they don't care who gets hurt by the injurious tax-cut of 2003. We do care, and we should feel free to let them know how we feel. We owe it to our fellow Americans to do so, but we don't have to follow in the steps of Rush, Bob Barr, Ann Coulter, JC Watts, Newt and FOX "News". We can be civil, though we must point out that speaking the truth can lead to statements seeming as harsh as the well-vetted, perfectly spun, invective rhetoric we hear so much from the right. How is it not fair to question the highly questionable service record of a man so desperate to have himself depicted as a "Warrior President"?

Of course, we CAN be civil, but it would help if our opposition would be civil as well, but that's a different story all together, isn't it?