Republicans - especially Beltway Bloviators - delight in feigning utter bafflement at the volcanic rage President Bush seems to inspire in non-believers. They're mystified. Where does this come from? Are Democrats in the grip of some kind of mutant rage virus from another planet?
That's why I invited TV talk-show fixture Bertram "Bow-Tie" Blatherman to interview me as a mainstream, middle-class, tax-paying American who loathes, despises, abominates, execrates, and reviles Mr. Bush. In this way, we can FINALLY clear up this whole "anger" issue.
BLATHERMAN: Well, let's get right to it - how can liberals and other marginal semi-Americans generate such, well, HATRED for our beloved President?
RP: It's because he's killing American kids.
BLATHERMAN: Whoa, wait a minute! Killing American kids? That's way outside the parameters of acceptable political debate...
RP: Yeah, because wingnuts like you define those so-called "parameters." The fact is, it's true. Here, I'll say it slower.
Bush...is...killing...American...kids.
BLATHERMAN: How is Mr. Bush responsible for this alleged "killing"?
RP: He's the one who stampeded us into a preemptive war, using his 'bully pulpit' to scare Americans into invading Iraq. He told us Saddam had biological, chemical and nuclear weapons, and he was prepared to use them against America. He said Saddam was in cahoots with Osama bin Laden. He said that anyone who opposed him was at best a wimp and at worst an America-hating traitor for opposing him. And it was all a bunch of sickening, self-serving lies, every damn bit of it. And more than 440 American soldiers have died a horrible, lonely, hideous death 7,000 miles from their loved ones because of these lies. That's the main reason we hate Bush. Dead kids. Lots of them. Who didn't have to die.
BLATHERMAN: Just because he was deceived by the CIA...
RP: BULLSHIT! He "stovepiped" his own intelligence - sometimes INVENTING it - to rush us into this quagmire. And he doesn't have the common decency to admit ANY of this. HE'S STILL OUT THERE GIVING FUND-RAISING SPEECHES CLAIMING HE DISARMED SADDAM. How the hell do you disarm someone who didn't have weapons? Doesn't that make YOU angry?
BLATHERMAN: Certainly not! That's just politics...
RP: Is it "just politics" when the leader of our country - who loves to get dressed in military garb and prance in front of the cameras, even though he chose NOT to serve in Vietnam - is too busy to attend even ONE goddamn funeral for the kids HE sent to Iraq? Because he's too busy holding the ankles of his corporate pals and shaking loose 200 million dollars for the next political campaign?
BLATHERMAN: He, uh, doesn't go to funerals because he...ahh... wants to respect the privacy of the families.
RP: You don't think those families - families who have lost their precious, beautiful children in a war WE DIDN'T HAVE TO FIGHT because WE WEREN'T ATTACKED by a man WHO HAD NO WEAPONS - those families wouldn't welcome the presence of the President of the United States at their loved ones' funeral? Would you listen to yourself?
BLATHERMAN: Okay, I can see why you might be a tad upset...
RP: A tad. Right. Over our young people getting slaughtered for no reason in a war that's virtually certain to turn them into cynical, embittered, disillusioned vets, like those of World War I, and Vietnam.
BLATHERMAN: Yes, But don't forget, we are bringing Democracy to Iraq...
RP: Democracy. Right. You and I both know the Bushies will be very happy to approve any election that installs an American-friendly, Halliburton-friendly, American-Oil-Company-friendly candidate to run the place. You and I ALSO know the chances to this happening are SLIM and NONE, and SLIM is on life-support. So what's going to happen? Look under "Vietnam, 1972-74." Bush is going to install a figurehead, declare victory, put up some barbed wire around the oil fields, say ADIOS, and pray the whole thing doesn't blow up before Election Day.
BLATHERMAN: So it's all Iraq. Your just angry because the President mis-judged...
RP: Lied. He lied. Big, fat, bold, stinking, rotten lies.
BLATHERMAN: He, uh, may have mis-spoken about our reasons for the liberation...
RP: INVASION...
BLATHERMAN: ...of Iraq. Can that be the only reason you're angry with our President?
RP: That's just the beginning. Me personally, I think what makes me angriest is that Bush and his followers believe that he was (choke, gag) "anointed by God" (unlike the rest of us heathen, "secular humanist" pagan scum.)
BLATHERMAN: Whoa! Where did you ever hear something like THAT?
RP: Let's see...how 'bout fundamentalist Christian Lt Gen William "Jerry" Boykin, our Deputy Undersecretary of State of Defense for Intelligence? He said, , "Why is this man (Bush) in the White House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him. He's in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this."
I'm a Christian. I believe in God and the Ten Commandments. Mr. Bush, Avatar of Christian Compassion personally signed the death warrants for 152 inmates in five years (a record unmatched since the reign of the Incas.) Isn't one of the Commandments "Thou Shalt Not Kill"? Have we ever had a President who thought so little of killing people, from evil-doers to innocent Iraqis to our own soldiers?
BLATHERMAN: While I appreciate your extreme, elitist point of view...
RP: You want my point of view? Here's my point of view - HE AND HIS PALS ARE WRECKING THE PLACE, AND IT'S NOT HIS PLACE! I hate it that Bush and his Mayberry Machiavellis act like the 52% of voters who rejected him DON'T EXIST! He acts like he got a 90% mandate, when he didn't even get a simple majority! He blithely eviscerates 30 years of environmental regulations, crams extremist wacko wingnut judges down our throats, lets greedbag corporations go wild, and runs up trillions of dollars in deficits designed to crash the social safety net! Is this arrogant fraud under the impression that a majority of Americans want this garbage?
BLATHERMAN: I understand all these matters may be frustrating, but why does it make you so angry?
RP: I'm angry because ignorant, hate-filled right-wing screech monkeys have taken over the airwaves -- MY AIRWAVES, THE FCC SAYS I'M AN OWNER -- and large parts of cable TV. I'm angry that "mainstream" journalists use the word "traitor" for anyone who is sickened by the senseless slaughter of our soldiers in Iraq. I'm angry because a bunch of wealthy conservative predators are going to make me and my fellow Democrats fight every single battle of the last 50 years - the battle for worker rights, the battle for a social safety net, the battle for the environment - all over again (and again, and again). And I'm angry because right-wing extremists have made a reasonable political dialogue virtually impossible. How do you find consensus with someone who begins the conversation with the line, "Why do you hate America so much?"
I'm angry - and I'm energized. I'm getting involved. I'm going to Meet Ups. I'm donating time and money. I'm meeting other Democrats who are sick and tired of getting stomped. I'll do whatever it takes to get rid of Mr. Bush and his greedy, incompetent minions. And for getting me back in the political process, I actually thank Mr. Bush.
RICH PROCTER is a writer living in Los Angeles.
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