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Friday, October 20, 2006
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 ON SEXY, SEXY POLITICS
At some point in the last month, the off-year congressional campaign has seemingly been defined by who the queerest Republican of them all might be.
This was of course precipitated by the continuing Mark Foley scandal. Republicans immediately reacted to the Foley story by denouncing him heartily, and Foley reacted by revealing that he was molested by a priest as a teenager. Yet, the Republicans continue to denounce poor Mark. And that confuses me. You see, the Republican Party as a whole supports the Bush administration's position on "faith-based initatives." I think you can make a strong case that Foley's experience is little more than a pioneering example of faith-based sex education. On the other hand, it's thinking like that that prevents me from making a living in Big Time Politics.
Since the Foley story broke, a leftie-shithead blog run by a gay-rights activist has decided to "out" Idaho Senator Larry Craig. Revealing that someone is gay, whether it's true or not, is as effective as it is nasty. You have to be very careful in how you deny it, lest you be seen as anti-gay, and - unless you're Tom Cruise - that perception precludes you from suing for slander. Tom Cruise avoids that perception only because it is widely known that Tom Cruise is batshit fucking crazy.
Since Republicans are already widely seen as being anti-gay, they get particularly pissed when they are outed. As a general rule, Democrats are enouraged to fly their freak flag high. But if a Republican so much as jerks off with his left hand, he does so knowing that the Christian Coalition will have him annhiliated in the next primary. Being a Dumper Diva and longing for another man to lovingly nickname you "sugar tits" is lethal in Republican politics, particularly in horrible places like Boise.
People seem to be shocked whenever an American political campaign degenerates into silliness. This just proves that people are incredibly stupid. American political campaigns have been exclusively focused on idiotic issues since 1972. Think through the list of Big Issues that presidential campaigns since then have been about. These include things like the death penalty, abortion, the pledge of alligence, prison furloughs, Sister Souljah, and what a given candidate was doing in years between 1968 and 1972.
If you break out your copy of the Constitution, you'll very quickly notice that most of the issues have nothing at all to do with the executive office of the president, as they are state matters. Do you know how many people have received the federal death penalty since 1961? One is how many. So, unless you happen to be Timothy McVeigh, what the president thinks about capital punishment is meaningless. Federal laws about abortion are tangental, at best. And the rest of those issues are things that no right thinking person should give a shit about.
If you have any doubts about this, look no further than the 2004 campaign. In President Bush's first term, no fewer than two major wars were launched in the name of freedom. Anyone who knows anything about the histories of the Middle East and Central Asia could see that both were destined to encounter major problems in the very near future. The president also adopted a doctrine of pre-emptive war, which could have highly interesting results if adopted by, say, India or Pakistan.
This is frankly the most dangerous period in American history since the Second World War. You could actually argue that it is more dangerous, since there was very little real danger of an Axis attack on the American mainland after Pearl Harbor. And President Bush and Senator Kerry addressed these issues in only the most superficially stupid ways.
Both candidates argued that he could kill more terrorists than the other. This despite the fact that most foreign policy thinkers, and even Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon have stated that the United States is creating at least as many terrorists as it is killing. At the beginning of the occupation of Iraq, the "insurgency" was estimated to consist of no more than 10,000 fighters. Most people now concede that it is at least 200,000 strong. And getting more brutish by the day.
But the candidates only addressed this by uttering empty-headed platitudes about "freedom" and "democracy." The underlying causes of the problem were addressed not at all, let alone an even remotely plausible solution. If democracy were the answer, the elections that Iraq has had every fifteen seconds should have turned it into Norway by now. You'll notice that this hasn't happened, and isn't likely to anytime soon. Even the staunchest Republican admits that now.
Voters didn't call the political class on this nonsense because voters are easily bored and not especially smart. In fact, when the campaigns focused on Iraq (because they didn't address Afghanistan at all,) the public became less and less engaged.
 Then the legislative branch gave the political class the greatest gift of all. This came in the form of the Massachusetts Supreme Court's legalization of gay marriage. American voters may not give a rat's ass about the underlying reasons their boys and girls are coming home in pieces, but they are obsessed with fags getting hitched. Incindiary Explosive Devices are pretty bad, but they are easy to understand. Also, they are kind of neat to see on television. The picture of two men dressed like Cher kissing and celebrating matrimonial bliss is even easier to understand. And it makes for really creepy television.
So, eleven states did the American thing, and put same-sex marrige bans on the ballot. Among these states was the all-important state of Ohio. President Bush won Ohio by a razor-thin margin of about 118,000 votes. Is it possible that nearly 60,000 people voted against gay marriage and for John Kerry? I suppose that it is, but you'd have to be drinking pretty heavily to suggest that it's likely that they did.
Political pundits will tell you that President Bush won re-election on national security. Horseshit. Given the respective non-positions of the candidates, the 2004 election would have been a 1972-style asshole blowout if that was true. After all, "Peace With Honor" did very well for Richard Nixon.
I would suggest that the overwhelming majority of American voters didn't have a fucking clue what to think about Iraq, especially in the Midwest and rural South, where most of the casualties come from. But they do know what they believe about homo sexery.
Amazingly enough, gay marriage was on the ballot in ... the Midwest and Southern states. There's no other reason to believe that Michigan was as close as it was (3 points,) other than the gay marriage ban being on the ballot. Ann Arbor, and Washtenaw Country which surrounds it, is one of the most reliably liberal areas of the United States. Yet, John Kerry only beat George Bush there by 5 points. And there is absolutely no reason to believe that the faculty of the University of Michigan suddenly put their war faces on.
You are free to believe that President Bush won re-election on the basis of his courageous stand on the War on Terror, and I am free to believe that you are an idiot. You'll note for example that the president didn't break his 46% ceiling in the polls until same-sex marriage became a major issue. Even with Kerry saying that he supported stuff before he didn't, Bush was incapable of pulling a majority of the vote. Homosexuals were made the more tastefully dressed Willie Horton of 2004. It was a beautifully skillful tactic.
The problem is that it coming back to bite the GOP right on the ass. You can't portray yourselves the "International House of Values Voters" while provably concealing the extra-curricular activities of someone like Foley. Well, I suppose you can, but eventually someone is going to call bullshit. Even a party as demonstrably fucking hopeless as the Democrats should be equal to that task. The Republican Party has successfully gone to the homo well over and over again. Let's see how well they do when someone brings that well to them.
Unless Denny Hastert holds a press conference with Jenna Jameson's head in his lap tomorrow, every hope that the GOP had of holding the House is now a distant memory. "Values voting" does have a nasty habit of cutting both ways, and spending five years covering up for a homosexual pederast is a difficult thing to pitch as being consistent with middle class values. Unless of course that middle class hails from from ancient Rome.
Karl Rove was determined to make this election a reprise of '04 - that is, to dress Nancy Pelosi up as bin Laden, and remind everyone that she represents the fag fortress of San Francisco. That was the strategy, and until three weeks ago, I thought it would be an effective one. I was privately predicting that the Republicans would lose eight or nine seats in the House, maybe 2 in the Senate, and that would be it.
 Foley changed the playing field, and now the San Francisco strategy actually works against the GOP. Two and a half weeks is not a long time, and I can't see how even as smart and gifted a strategist as Rove can turn this into a "titties and beer" campaign during the final lap. Christ, at this point, the Democrats could put Monica Lewinsky in their ads and it would probably be a net plus. Make no mistake about it, somewhere out there Bill Clinton is giggling his ass off. If nothing else, the former president can now stand before History and claim that he didn't do anything weird.
Yes, I know that l'affaire Lewinsky was about perjury, witness-tampering, and obstruction of justice. I supported Clinton's impeachment then, and I continue to think his removal would have been a proper and constitutional congressional prerogative. But it is far from linear thinking to suggest that Clinton should have been impeached, but the Republicans should get a pass when their leadership actually admits to sitting on the Passion of Mark Foley for as long as they did. Remember, Dennis Hastert didn't disclose the Foley story, ABC News did.
Furthermore, most Americans didn't see Clinton/Lewinsky as anything other than sex. And voter perception is everything in politics. If it quacks like a duck, it is a duck - even it happens to be a wolverine. The truth doesn't mean a fucking thing in politics, and anyone who suggests that it does is either charmingly niave, or dangerously stupid.
Perhaps I should take this oppotunity to yet again explain my political philosophy. Unlike most people who call themselves conservatives these days, I actually believe in some of the fundamental tenants of conservativism. These would include not spending all of the fucking money, and not bombing countries - at least until you can figure out why you're doing it and what happens afterward.
Oh, and I really like the idea of the government leaving me the fuck alone. That used to be key to the conservative movement. But that was a long time ago, before conservatism became more about Jesus than it was about limited government. You might not like those views, but you have to admit that I'm pretty consistent with them. I'm not running running around with a placard that says "Get the government out of our lives - unless you're Terri Schiavo or some Boston fag."
Not only have modern conservatives, generally - and Republicans in particular - warped what conservatism was about, they misunderstand the New Testament entirely. I've actually read the Bible, and I know that Jesus never once spoke of irresponsible tax cuts, same-sex marriage, or Mark Foley's use of the Internet. It just isn't there, folks. I checked.
No, those are decidedly Old Testament views. Which is fine, I suppose, so long as you remember that the Old Testament also endorsed slavery, murdering your wife, and getting swallowed by a whale. These are decidedly retro views, and ones most modern politicians steer well clear of. Does the GOP really want to be known as the party of Jefferson Davis, O.J and Jonah? I should think not, but I've been wrong about these things before.
The Old Testament, if enacted into modern law, would make a lovely evening at Red Lobster punishable by death. So make your dinner plans very, very carefully.
 I'm of the view that the government that has trouble delivering the mail - which, by the way, has your address on it, and everything - is singularly unqualified to direct my love life. People who famously paid four grand for a toliet seat have no business whatsover telling me what to do with my cock. Ted Stevens should spend more time building bridges to nowhere, and less time clearing all of the pussy out of the Internet "tubes." The senior senator from Alaska might be surprised to learn this, but poontang is self-lubricating, and not known for clogging up much of anything that isn't my wallet. Furthermore, there probably wouldn't even be Internet tubes were it not for people like me, and our undying passion for pussy. And don't get me started on the wonderful things said tubes have given my homo hombres.
A few hundred years of democracy has served to delude politicians into thinking that they're experts on everything. Look, just because you know how to kiss a baby and properly libel someone in 30 seconds does not qualify you to cock-block me, or fiddle about with the reproductive processes of my fuck-buddies. And you'll need your precious Jesus if you ever try to inhibit my enthusiasm for butt-sex ever again.
Conservatives would do very well if they stuck to what their philosophy was supposed to be about, namely getting the government out of my life. As it is, they seem to understand human nature even less than they understand their own political philosophy. Do they really think that people love their tax refunds more than they love their own genitals?
As distateful as I find their approach to politics, I really don't question the motives of the God Squad. I don't think they are neccessarily evil people. I think they honestly believe that Jesus is the path to salvation, and that government can pave that path better than anyone else. Even though that overlooks Jesus' own rather regrettable experience with government is beside the point.
But if I have any religious conservative readers left, I encourage them to read the Internet exchanges between Mark Foley and his teenage paramour. And remember that the senior House Republican leadership knew about his hobbies - and still convinced him to run again when he wanted to retire. How does one possibly spin this as "good government?"
You have just over two weeks to think that over. And ask yourselves, "are these the people I want representing my beliefs?" But know that if you do, you are endorsing a party that knowingly gave a pederast - active or otherwise - its seal of approval. There's a lot of tar on that brush, and by checking the box with the upper case R after the candidate's name in your local House race, you are volunteering to be painted with it.
The Republicans pretty much dug their own grave by starting with this socially retarded "morality politics." And now that grave is being filled with a heaping dose of Foley fertilizer.
The Democrats, and everything they pretend to stand for, literally make my skin crawl. But I honestly can't think of five ways that they'd be any worse than the Republicans. And maybe, just maybe, a good trip to the woodshed will convince conservatives to grow the fuck up and start acting like conservatives again. They seem to have forgotten that the government large enough to save Terri Schiavo from nature is also large enough to do any number of unsavoury things.
Somewhere along the way, conservatives forgot that. And I think this is as good a time as any to give them a history lesson. It might finally be time for the "culture warriors" to learn what total war actually looks like. They're weak, demoralized, and abandoned by virtually everybody at this point. If they can't be destroyed now, they never will be.
Easy Listening Recommendation of the Day: It's All Over Now, Baby Blue By: Bob Dylan From: Bringing It All Back Home
PermalinkLabels: Fun With Politics
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