Latest Newspaper Column:
I’m in mourning.
Seriously, I’m digging around in my sock drawer for the
black armband I wore when Sarah Palin quit the governorship of Alaska after
only half a term, because, you know, she found out that governing is really
haaaaard, and people are meeeeean to you sometimes.
This time, the female Republican who’s broken my heart is
Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Crazytown), who announced this
past week that she’s not going to run again for the seat that God himself told her to use as a springboard to the Presidency (Fickle fellow, this God of hers.
If my deity was this changeable, we might wake up some day to find that water
ran uphill and that Nickelback isn’t a terrible band).
For a guy like me whose sometime profession is mocking the
easily mockable, the loss of the Congresswoman with the Charlie Manson eyes is
a crushing blow. So I feel like I have to address her directly.
Michele, ma belle,
how could you do this to me? Don’t all the good times mean anything to you?
Like the time you noted the “interesting coincidence” that swine flu broke out
under two Democratic Presidents—Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama? And the way you got that totally wrong, since the first swine flu epidemic broke out under
Republican Gerald Ford?
Remember the time you delivered the so-called “Tea Party
Response” after the Republican response to the State of the Union address—and
did the whole thing staring blankly off camera, as if you couldn’t look us in
the eyes? Of course, it turned out, you were looking at a special live feed camera only the Teabaggers could see—which was also the camera with the
teleprompter? Only you could create that level of hilarious irony, Michele.
I remember the time when you were the Republican Party’s
latest ABR (Anyone But Romney). That was before you crashed and burned your own
Presidential campaign by claiming that the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine
created “dangerous consequences,” including mental retardation, because some unnamed woman outside a campaign rally told you it had. I remember the times when you called upon your
followers to be “armed and dangerous” to stop a cap-and trade bill and to “slit
their wrists” to stop health care reform.
I’d looked forward to a long and happy future making fun of
you. And now you’ve gone and thrown all that away. It’s gone, all gone.
Why Michele, why? Why you got to do me like that?
Is it because of the investigations into illegal use ofcampaign funds (fueled by disgruntled staffers who you apparently didn’t pay)? Is
it because your Democratic opponent has been making steady early gains in the
polls against you, in a district you won by less than 5000 votes last time? Did
the Republican leadership get to you? Did they whisper in your ear that “oh,
the evil liberals will be pouring money in to defeat Your Right Wing Awesomeness,
do this for the Good Of the Party” and tempt you with what every wingnut likes
better than almost anything—playing the martyr?
Or maybe you think there’s a big payout in being a
professional right winger on Fox News like Mike Huckabee, or as the head of
some right wing “think tank” like Jim DeMint. Because as much as the wingnuts
love to play the martyr, they like paying
the martyr almost as much. I get that. I mean, you can’t live just off the farm subsidies and Medicaid provider payments you rail against even as your family
benefits from them.
Well, whatever your motivation, we still have some time
together, before you leave the Congressional stage. So, Michele, I’m begging
you, baby, do this one thing for me. Make this your last hurrah. You’ve got
nothing to lose. Whatever inhibitions you might have had, cast them aside and go
full bat-spit right wing crazy.
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones recently claimed that the
government had “weather machines” that President Obama used to cause the
Oklahoma tornadoes. Honey, you can do better than that standing on your head.
Claim that climate change is caused by Obama’s giant sun-reflecting orbital
mirrors (funded by ACORN, of course, and administered by the IRS). Insist, on
camera, that a woman outside a 7/11 in Duluth personally assured you that the
new Playstation 4 and Xbox One have secret embedded mind-control software that
compels users to blindly march into FEMA-controlled concentration camps and
sign over all their property to gay illegal immigrants.
Of course, these are just suggestions. I know you can bring
the insanity like no one else, and give me column material on into 2014.
Do it, darlin’. Do it for me.