Why has this come up? As the blush of democracy sweeps over the Mediterranean the question arises: Do you think that could ever happen here? We look at the polarized nature of our politics. We look at the Tea Party members all flush with Pabst and vinegar and say maybe the time is ripe for a sea change. The gang is angry. The gang is armed to their chaw-stained teeth. The gang has even mastered the technology of the transport cooler so necessary to a sustained suburban campaign. Give a band of hearty rednecks a few bags of blocked ice, a steady stream of Lone Star and some Toby Keith, and they will hold that cul de sac till the cows come home–which actually won’t be long, because cows don’t wander far.

But seriously, however varied and spirited our national pastimes might be, we should not list spontaneous violent overthrow among them. If you turn on the news and find Tunis in flames, you know that the sweet smell of freedom is in the air. If you turn on the news and find Detroit in flames, you know that the Red Wings have won the cup.

Why are Americans so prone to spontaneous compunction? There are several reasons, the first of which is that deep down we all know that the blather being spread about how the populist right wing constitute the re-emergence of the spirit 1776 is a load of vexation without representation. First off, the leaders of the modern Republican party being American patriots? Please.  Boehner would have been filibustering the call to boycott the East Indian Tea Company “because everybody knows that His Majesty’s gracious consent to grant selective charter to them creates jobs.”  Gingrich would have been hawking Franklin’s sloppy seconds, and Michelle Bachmann would have called for tar and feathering without due process for any citizen who even thought about dressing like an Indian and causing mischief.  Cheney would have been explaining to General Howe that he would love to serve but couldn’t and Sarah Palin would be massaging his  . . . uh . . . musket balls.

The biggest lie that we know we know is that our brave countrymen took their guns down from the mantle and went to war.  As Garry Wills has definitively shown, very few colonists who lived in the cities even owned guns.  Our early war was fought in large part with guns scavenged from English dead. That’s not The Patriot. That’s not even Day of the Living Dead.  That’s using guns when you absolutely have to then putting them away.

If the right wing is paralyzed by its liquid grasp of history, the left is even more a victim of its flight response.  The only significant rebellious act generating from the American left in the latter half of the twentieth century was grounded in its categorical desire not to fight. They were going to overthrown the corrupt machine . . . you know . . with love man. Most of the hardcore revolutionaries in the Sixties left were spoiled rich kids–which seemed all right early on but quickly became too French for us. Neil Young was so blown away by the shootings at Kent State that it took him days to shake off the anger and get Ohio into national release.

Modern Democrats, in Wisconsin and Indiana, facing the fight of their political lives in defense of the sacred idea of collective bargaining, respond the way Democrats always respond in times of dire need–road trip! Let’s hop across the state line and hole up at the Chili’s across the street from the Fairfield Inn until things blow over. “Happy Hour, baby! I regret that I have only one Kicked-up Queso to snarf for my country!”

Our biggest impediment though, when you get right down to it, is common to all of our political appetites. We are just not wired for that kind of drama. Our outrage is diluted by the fact that we at once consider ourselves the bravest, most hard working and righteous peoples to ever tread the earth and the most pitifully picked upon. We are two parts Daniel Boone and one part Screech.  We think we should get to decide who can be trusted with nuclear weapons and who is “ready for democracy” but wonder why they won’t leave us alone?  We are committed to rinds of our ideals not the pulp.  We hate both the teachers in our failing grade schools because our kids don’t learn and the professors in our finest universities because they do. We express our undying commitment to fight to the death for our Lord Jesus but lack the faith to let him handle the idolaters himself.  Tens of thousand of Egyptians gathered in the center of town and asked as one “Tell us what to do!” Ten of thousands of Americans gathered at the end of the National Mall and asked Glen Beck and John Stewart “Tell us when to laugh.”

Onward Christian Soldiers! Marching off to war.

Hold up just a second, I have to check the score.

Christ the royal master leads against the foe!

I’m not getting wi-fi here, I think I’ll just not go.

Like I said, I’m sort of glad that whatever else Americans might be in this year of our lord 2011, we are the hucksters of history, the pussies of providence. We are the retched refuse of your preening bore. We can’t be bothered to engage in holy war; we are too busy bowing toward mocha. Nothing says “I have arrived!” like spending $4.50 on a two dollar cup of coffee so that I can be that person who thumbs his nose at the loser mokes who just aren’t refined and unique like me and the 4 million people a day just like me.  My country tis of thee! My sweet 1080p! Of thee I sing!

I say embrace it. Sit back and wait for all of those people tossing off the yoke of oppression to take on the yoke of possession.  Because the one thing we are right about is that the rest of the world does want what we have. Not democracy. Not self-determination. Not freedom of speech. Not even wrestling. They want the CW–ten hours a week of eighteen year old girls swearing like fifty year old sailors and dressing like thirty year old whores.

Ain’t that America! Hell yeah!

We can’t use experts, because those uncooperative assholes will always do just what you asked them to do–find actual ways to solve the problem and in so doing force people to make sacrifices that are actually sacrificial.  If Congress can agree on anything, it’s that nobody wants to go there!

The only solution left is to think outside the box. Since they haven’t even let me inside the box in over a decade, that makes me your guy.

The trick is to get each side to answer the question: If I had to cut my stuff, what stuff would I cut? Inner city midnight basketball? Corn subsidies? That nifty new bomber the Air Force doesn’t want? National Poet Laureate? You have every single member of the Senate write one idea on a piece of paper and attach it to his or her lapel with that handy flag pin. An independent commission overseen by Jimmy Carter and Henry Kissinger (who will discuss the project on the most boring episode of Charlie Rose in history) will certify that each senator’s choice actually reflects his or her interests. Sorry Inouye, keep your mitts off the subways!

Now the fun begins. Take them out to the national mall and line them up in face-to-face rows of fifty each.

It’s Red Rover, Bitch!

For those of you unfamiliar with the reference, Red Rover is a brutal playground game from back in the day when we were able to throw two-foot long “Jarts” with sharpened tips at each other for fun. In Red Rover, each person in line grabs the hand of the person next to him or her as tightly as possible, then the line is stretched out. The object is for someone on the other side to run across the field at full speed and break one of those links. If the runner succeeds, one of the players whose link was broken is out. If the runner fails, the runner is out.

I’m lookin’ at YOU Kucinich!

Anyway, we’ve got the Republicans lined up against the Democrats across the lawn. The Republican all look a little uncomfortable holding each others hands, except Larry Craig whose mood could almost be described as serene. The Democrats don’t really know how to act. One one hand, they are glad they don’t have to work around the awkward issues that would have arisen with Murtha. On the other, they could sure use Hillary right now.

For those of you who haven’t figured it out yet (Somebody get Palin a note pad), here is how it works.  After the coin flip and the subsequent recovery of the coin from Biden who is being surly because he really wants to play, the winning team goes first. Let’s say the Republicans–I have a sneaking suspicion that if they don’t get to go first, the House will vote to repeal the game. A big beefy Republican, say Kyl, charges across the field and breaks the link between Diane Feinstein and Al Franken (Their advisors told him to hit, Mikulski, but he remembers how hard she clotheslined him when he tried to cheat at Good Friday Limbo Bash). Since he succeeded, Kyl can tear the piece of paper away from the flag pin of either Feinstein or Franken. The program or entitlement on that piece of paper is irrevocably cut. He picks Franken thinking he can finally say goodbye to Public Radio, but Franken fools him. Knowing that his early days as a comedy writer had given him congenitally weak wrists, Franken went with Cap-and-Trade. “Hell,” he thought.  We live in Minnesota. If anyone can last out an Ice Age it’s us.”

Then Patty Murray heads right for John Thune, reasoning that as an evangelical Christian he might fear strange girl cooties. Sometimes strategy trumps strength. Suck it, B-1 Bomber! Your days are numbered.

And so it goes, until finally the last pair on one side of the field is broken. Other than the minor controversies created when Lieberman kept changing sides, and McCain wouldn’t take his turn, because he was afraid of what would happen of his constituents thought he might support sneaking under something, it went off without a hitch.  As a reward, the winning side gets to pick five of its lost programs out of a hat and put them back in the budget. Otherwise, the case is closed. Billions are saved, everyone suffers equally, and three years from now China owes us money.

Yes. It is brilliant. I know. Don’t thank me. I am motivated like we all are by my love of country. If this works, I would like to discuss the possibility of replacing both the draft and the volunteer army with an annual nationwide game of 7-up!

Those most affected by this shocking news did what some always feel the need to do when their social illusions are shattered. They congregate. After his shooting, John Lennon’s fans held a peace-in in Central Park. When Michael Jackson passed away, throngs gathered outside the Southwestern Rhinoplasty Institute and solemnly recreated the zombie dance from Thriller. After the tragic shootings in Tucson, a bunch of people decided to go ahead and attend a gun show. As soon as I heard of the passing of Countdown, I knew such a gathering would take outside the New York City studios of MSNBC–the block most Manhattanites now call “ground hero.”

Today, just five days after the news that rocked the world of prime-time basic cable 24 hour news, I came to see how people were coping. What I found was several different strategies for dealing with perhaps the most significant disruption of the middle class left’s daily social reinforcement since Martha Stewart traded her Bourgeat 11″ copper frypan for a tin plate in the big house, maybe going all the way back to the passing of Donahue.

Here are a few representative snapshots.

Especially touching was the story of Wanda Paretski, who traveled all the way to Manhattan from Mystic, Connecticut to place her cherished Edward R. Murrow bobble-head doll on the display of symbolic nick-nacks that formed a tear-stained diorama of grief–or as Hunter College Assistant Professor of Cultural Studies Weylou Stiles called it “a spontaneous public ironic deconstruction of the very Comcast/NBC  commentary-as-theater hegemony that cost Keith his livelihood.” It began to grow as early as 9:15 on the night of the fateful announcement.  ”As soon as I heard the news, I told Donald and my kids, Cheyenne and Melon, that they would have to fend for themselves, because this was something mommy had to do.” She then related the story of her trip. “It’s only about 135 miles, but I took the Volt–we’re not even supposed to have one yet, but Donald got a dealer’s model from Pasadena. The Volt only goes about forty miles on a charge, and it’s almost impossible to find a place along the highway where you can sit for ten hours and draw power. It took me five days to get here. I guess I could have taken the Prius, but this was for Keith. It just didn’t seem right to involve any fossil fuels.”

As the day went on, the sea of dazed and disillusioned mourners did not let up. I was at first amused by what appeared to be a hand-lettered sign that said: “Keith! You’ll always be the  ’Worst Person!’ in My World!” under a heart-shaped smiley face. But by the time I’d seen the fourth one of those, I realized that the viral marketers had made their presence felt. In retrospect, I guess it was no worse than the Velcro-kneed plushies that thousands of well-wishers reportedly sent Zsa Zsa. I just didn’t think this crowd would so quickly abandon the aura of authenticity that was so much a part of Olbermann’s tragic legacy.

For some people grief was beginning to turn to anger. “Most of these people are damn poseurs!” said Kwame Barotunda. “Where they all of other times Keith was booted from a job under a cloud of controversy? You can’t even hold a meaningful vigil anymore. I blame the 24 hour news cycle.”

Over on the corner, a guy wearing a Che sweatshirt and was also named Che–”but I spell it with an -ay”–had brushed off the remains of Manhattan’s latest monster snow, pulled out his guitar, and was singing a song he wrote when he heard the news. “I felt like Neil Young, man, when he heard about Kent State. You know? It just poured out of me:

Anybody here seen my old friend Cronkite?

Like to hear his truth once more.

I thought I saw him walk in’ up over that hill

With Woodward and Bernstein and Moore.

When I asked him why he included Michael Moore who is still an active filmmaker, Chay said “Are you kidding me, man? Watch Bowling for Columbine then watch Capitalism, a Love Story. Tell me they didn’t  get to him!

As we approached 8 PM, the hour at which Olbermann’s program would normally have come on, a strange thing happened. Almost perfectly in unison but with no apparent orchestration the crowd began to chant “Palin Puts Her Foot in It! Think all Wall Street Millionaires Oppose Regulation? Think Again!, Pastor Hagee is a Little Hazy About His Old Testament Facts. And Rob Reiner is here to talk about his new book If Paul Samuelson Had Tweeted.” These stories and more . . . .

Then just as spontaneously as they began, the crowd returned to its respectful funereal silence. “What are you going to do tomorrow night at eight?” I asked. The people in the group turned at looked at one another stupefied as though none of them had thought that far ahead. Then a small woman in a light green Patagonia pullover said “ABC has Wipeout at eight. You know? Where the people jump on those big balls and fall in the water?” I sensed that more than a few hangers-on received some small comfort from that–that like it has so many other times of late America would survive.

Then:  Aries                  Now: Air Guitar

Your zest for life is matched only by your utter inability to properly employ even the most basic social graces. You spend hours honing skills that have no useful purpose and have long since disappeared from the radar of anyone who, say years ago when they were kids, might have found them mildly amusing.

Then: Taurus           Now: Fiesta

While attempting to stay true to your roots, you recognize that failure to attain most of your financial goals makes it necessary for you to scale back your expectations.

Then:  Gemini            Now:  Mercury

Where previously you experienced your love life as part of a dynamic team, now you pretty much just shoot straight up and splash for no other reason than to prove you can.

Then:  Cancer                  Now:  Cancer

This sign hasn’t changed. Only now your crab is from the Gulf Coast.

Then: Leo                        Now: Brad

Where once you were a vibrant self-starter, you have lately fallen into a pattern of following along, doing what you’re told and only really expressing yourself through your evolving experiments in reconfigured facial hair.

Then: Virgo                        Now: Vertigo

You are still just as lonely and unsatisfied as you ever were, but now just thinking about your sterile, miserable life makes you dizzy.

Then: Libra                        Now: Lucha Libre

Your behavior is unnecessarily showy and loud, and your act got old in the 1970s. Far more people claim to be fans of you than actually are.

Then:  Scorpio            Now: Scrappy Doo

You mean well. You try to do the right thing. You exhibit boundless enthusiasm. Still almost everyone who knows you wishes you would just go away.

Then: Sagittarius            Now: Stradivarius

You are tightly wound, and while people recognize your inherent value, you bore them silly after just a few minutes.

Then: Capricorn            Now: Cap’n Crunch

You suffer from delusions of grandeur and grossly overestimate how healthy your influence is on the people around you.

Then:  Aquarius            Now:  Bi-curious

Water is still your sign, but only bottled water, only from France, and poured only over Glace.

Then: Pisces                        Now: Pilates

You follow every trend, especially those promoted by people you consider glamorous. Your progress however is frustrated by the fact that you still spend more on food than you spend on exercise equipment—and you spend a LOT on exercise equipment.

There it is. And Don’t worry! Change can be rough to manage, but rest assured that this new astral configuration is every bit as much founded in solid science as it ever was. You should not be afraid for one moment to make profound decisions about your life based on what you have read here today assuming that you have been doing so with the old system previously.

Outline for Pitch

Title:            The Dear Hunter

Authors (information privileged pending contract)

Plot:

This is the story of Sarah Palin, a young Alaskan girl from a small town who enlists in the culture wars and ships off to foreign lands.  When she comes home, she is forced to come to terms with how much she, her friends and her country have changed (if at all) and finds out that the war at home can be as painful as the one she left. She is eventually tragically destroyed by petty enemies of freedom.

Synopsis:

Scene One:            The Wedding.

Sarah is turning eighteen in a few months and trying to decide what to do with her life. She thought of joining the army but didn’t for two reasons–first because it was the middle of the 1980s and Ronald Reagan had made war go away, and second because Reagan himself had both gotten out of the army by flunking an eye test and been able to win elections based on his war record!  Sarah who was very religious by nature considered this a miracle and also a sign. So instead, she decided to follow the more traditional path that so many teenagers who truly value domestic life follow—one of ferreting out government waste wherever she could find it by going to college and training to become an investigative journalist.

Tonight she is at the wedding of her older sister, Malkin [note: Malkin is not Sarah’s actual sister; she is a composite character designed to represent what happens to young women who give in to lust and have unprotected sex.].  Malkin is getting married in a hurry, because she is pregnant and first, must consummate her marriage early enough to declare that her child was born premature, and second early enough to realize her dream of dancing on television by appearing on Soul Train.

While at the wedding, she and her other college-bound friends see Senator Ted Stevens sitting at the bar. [This fictionalized meeting is intended to advance the plot. While it never happened and would probably be considered a baseless, unethical attack in any other medium, it is necessary to the flow of the script and hence justified.] Sarah and her friends offer a toast to the man who in their eyes represents everything they love and respect about America, but he refuses to accept the gesture and instead asks the girls if any of them would like to control his pork. Angered and disappointed, they leave him and go back to partying with their friends.

Scene Two:            The Jungle.

The heat, the primitive customs of locals an especially the distance from home terrified Sarah, but she had decided on her own to come to Hawaii, and she resigned herself to make it work.  While she never shied away from adventure, she felt as though people back home had misinformed her. She was told Hawaii was part of America, but everywhere she looked all she saw were Polynesians, Samoans and Blacks—hardly any Americans at all. It was a brutal life, and it would change her outlook on the world forever.

Scene Three:            Wasilla Roulette.

[This scene is also composite. The game itself doesn’t actually exist; it is a plot device to symbolize visually a developing pattern of interior thought.] One night, she meets one of the white-ish cheerleaders and a couple of tourists from the mainland for a drinking party on the beach. After they get drunk they play a new game Sarah has invented: Wasilla Roulette. She brings out the pistol she always carried in her purse in case of a Hawaiian moose attack. It is Truth or Dare, but instead of choosing the player shoots the pistol into the air. If the chamber is empty, you tell the most horrible secret about yourself you can think of. If it goes off you have to “do it” with one of the other players. Since the gun is never loaded, it ends up being a boring game but a great way for Sarah to get dirt about her companions. Sarah becomes obsessed. In her mind she has never lost a single game, because she has never ever revealed a “truth” about herself that is even remotely true. In life, Sarah had always had to worry about whatever she did or said, because she might be held accountable for it later. In Wasilla Roulette, she can just flat out lie and get away with it. It is amazing even to her. It’s like when people think you are revealing a moment of your innermost soul they never even bother to check if that moment is consistent with any of the other moments you have ever revealed before.  If your revelation were gritty or poignant enough, they would just hang on it, embrace it, and then abandon it in hope of another.  Playing Wasilla Roulette was as close as she got to God.

Scene Four:            One-Shot.

Sarah had always been known in hunting circles as One-Shot, because she loved having her picture taken with dead animals. She hated chasing them or carrying them, but she loved having her picture taken with a dead one. That and her natural good looks made always made it easy for the photographer to get a good picture of Sarah and her corpse in “one shot.”   When Sarah’s tour in the jungles of the Pacific were over, she returned stateside, bummed around at a few other schools in a few more traditionally American states, then returned home. But she didn’t return home as the little girl who left.  In this scene, we go back to Wasilla, where Sarah seems to be living a normal life as a mother and housewife. What we see, but that the other townspeople don’t know is Sarah sneaking out almost every night and playing Wasilla Roulette with local gossip mavens and business people. Soon she has enough dirt on people to become the skilled insurgent she was never able to become in the jungle. She gets the hunter’s lust for power. She is no longer able to fulfill her fantasies with phony pictures of dead animals. She wants human pelts, and she wants to drop them herself!  She stalks and corners a God-fearing mayoral incumbent named John Stein.  Even though he has been a steady church-goer for two decades, a local radio station champions her as Wasilla’s first “Christian Mayor.” She takes Ol’ John Stein down in One Shot!

Scene Five:            Mama Grizzly.

As the film closes, we develop the theme of the basic human tragedy that people who are more honest, harder working, just better than other people just like them are eventually attacked and destroyed by the inferior, less deserving people who envy them.  In the climactic scene, Sarah is playing Wasilla Roulette with Mika Brzezinski and Whoopie Goldberg, and the game is not going well. Whoopie isn’t actually lying; it’s just that she has told so many contradictory stories about her past she honestly can’t recall which ones are true. Meanwhile, Brzesinski, who can count, recognizes that the six-shooter has been fired eight times without going off.  Sarah is so confused by trying to keep track of Whoopie’s ramblings that when Mika begins to confront her with her own inconsistencies, she retreats into a fugue state where she imagines herself as a Jewish woman in a concentration camp whose children are being stolen away and sold by Christians. She is dazedly screaming about “Blood Libel” and crosshairs that look like crosshairs but aren’t, and other bewildering things as her house of cards come crashing down around her.

The End.

Goodbye Reputation . . . Hello Personal Brand.

There was a time when one burnished one’s reputation to avoid being talked about. Of course let’s face it. When was the last time someone good flip his good name for enough money to spend the rest of his days playing World of Warcraft through a laptop perched on the perfectly rounded ass of an 18 year old supermodel?

Goodbye Privacy . . . Hello Privation.

The more we as individuals feed the Econometrisaurus, the less able we become to express ourselves as individuals. On the other hand, isn’t the prospect of every big business on the planet having access to your entire personal, financial and social life pretty insignificant in exchange for the occasional tasty virtual cupcake?

Goodbye Knowledge . . . Hello Righteous Indignation.

What we see here is the law of supply and demand.  The broadest and most comprehensive access to information since Eve abused the conditions of her library card, has apparently rendered that information valueless. It’s now more important to live in the world that we feel—the world where the Pilgrims rose as one, through Tea in the Harbor to protest Lame Duck sessions and abstracted the Constitution word-for-word from the Book of Leviticus. What else do we need to know?

Speaking of Knowledge . . .

Goodbye Lecture Hall . . . Hello Internet Café.

“Why does this idiot keep droning on and on while I am trying to distract myself from all of the money I am paying for this useless degree? Yeah, I know the lectures are online, but they are long and boring and no one smashes his nuts falling off a bike. And while we’re on the subject, how did I get a D on my paper? I should have earned an Adult Content or at least a Mature.”

Goodbye Jobs . . . Hello Unpaid Internships

Don’t get me wrong. I am a big fan of unpaid internships. We get dozens for our students every semester. They give you valuable real-life experience, and you meet professional contacts who will be instrumental in helping you not get the jobs that would have been available at graduation had they not been filled by this semester’s unpaid interns!

Goodbye Seasons . . . Hello Seasons.

A season of scripted television used to be 30 shows. Then it went down to 24, then 22. Now in many cases its down to around 10. From the programers’ perspective, this makes perfect sense. Why try to charge someone $50 for one season of 24 shows, when charge $30 each for two seasons of ten? Heck that’s a savings of $20 for every season you buy!  Buy three short seasons and you would have saved more than enough money to buy a whole season–of there were any for sale!

Goodbye Programs . . . Hello Apps!

Let’s face it, computers had started really just getting in the way. They are production machines in a consumer culture. Why go to all of the trouble to dumb computing technology down to the level of chimps then insist that that install their own banana trees? The marketplace now knows more about what we want than we do (see privacy and privation above), so it only makes sense to streamline the process of delivery. Got a problem with that? Feel that tension building up? Just sling a few angry birds at the pig fortress. Works for me.

You get the drift. There are many more, and there is a comment button below. What will you miss and what has taken it’s place?

I know you are frustrated. Who wouldn’t be?  Republican Presidents aren’t expected to keep their promises. Republican Presidents get to be dim witted oafs who hire religiously correct incompetents, kill thousands of innocent citizens in ginned up wars, and spend thirty percent of their year on the set–sorry, at the ranch.  But your prickly supporters hold you to a different, much more unrealistic standard. They expect you to mean what you say! Yeah, I know! What the hell?!  When you said you were going to change the culture in Washington, we shouldn’t have expected you to do it overnight, or over say over 365 nights, or even 707 nights. I look at it this way. At the rate you are going, you will be a failed one term President, and the loonies on the extreme right will be so emboldened and the left so deflated that there won’t be another Democratic President in a generation. That will definitely change the culture in Washington.

Promise kept!

So yes, I sympathize with you–wouldn’t trade jobs for all the e-coli that is still in my fruits and vegetables. That said, there are a few things I would like to suggest:

1. Get your head in the game. I don’t know where it is right now. I know it’s not up your ass, because if it was Boehner or McConnell would have found while they were poking around in there.  You came up as an organizer, not a suit, but now you are sitting around like the Vice President of Human Resources.  You seem to think that campaign-mode is unbecoming the Commander-in-Chief. But it’s not. Be a little more like Clinton. Getting head from an intern in the Oval Office is unbecoming the Commander-in-Chief (and just generally creepy) so don’t do that, but sustaining the zeal of your transformative campaign would be heroic. Your ascension to the Presidency was a watershed, and you are treating it like a water park. Which brings me to my second point.

2. Get Over Your Daddy Issues. I know it’s going to hurt, but I have to say this as boldly as I can. These guys are NEVER going to respect you.  Never. Never ever ever ever infinity. The more you try to be like them, to treat them as equals, to show them you are grown-up and that you have “put away childish things” the more their contempt will grow. The current generation of Republicans firmly and wholly believe the the Presidency of the United States of America is their property. No Democrat, especially not a liberal Democrat, deserves to squat there. It is theirs, and they even have a Supreme Court to help them back that up. They have so little respect for your party that they deliberately refuse to pronounce its name correctly. You aren’t the Democratic Party, you are the “Democrat Party.” Do you call them the Repulicos? Or the Repos (which these days would be more accurate)?  They do not see you and yours as their opponents; they see you as their inferiors. Which brings me to my third and, I promise, final point.

3. You have to make them understand that they work FOR you before they will ever be willing to work with you.  You are the President of the United States. You are the first among equals, yet you insist on bringing a putty knife and a box of donut holes to a nuclear war.  You have to negotiate from a position of superiority–from strength. You claimed that they were holding the unemployed hostage.  That makes them kidnappers or terrorists.  Do we negotiate with kidnappers and terrorists? NO! We do what Reagan did–stand tough, get our people back, then sneak them weapons and money later when no one is looking. You got “the best deal you could.”  So you gave the kidnappers the money and head start but not the plane? Do you think the people who will still get benefits for another few months will really be grateful to you? Do you think they are glad you are President, because McCain would never have given them the extra money? You are wrong. No Republican President would cut benefits in this economy. They only threatened to, because they knew you would blink. You blink so wildly and so often, people think you are having a seizure.  Deference is only a successful strategy when you have made it perfectly clear that deference is yours to use or choose as you please. Once it becomes your habit, you are doomed.

Okay, I am going to wrap it up. You are a busy man, and it can’t be easy to read this tiny print in the darkness under your desk. Besides, Immigration Reform is coming up. These guys are going to run you ragged.

Yours,

Just another Barry from the hood.

Santa went off with his gift-laden sled.

With toys for the tots and great gifts for the rest,

He was certain they’d all feel joyous and blessed.

He hit Canada first in his usual way.

Then he headed due south toward the great USA.

Such a beautiful place, full of rivers and trees

And a people accustomed to relative ease.

Oh sure they had problems, sure things had turned sour

But all told they were still a great cultural power.

Their standard of living so enviable,

They might not even notice their stockings are full.

Yes, the great USA with its can-do élan

Would have one special Christmas when they met the dawn.

He swept down through Maine, took the New Hampshire fork

And delivered his way into Upstate New York.

As he fell to a rooftop all covered in snow,

He heard loud, angry voices contesting below.

A bonfire blazed near the old village green,

Where two nincompoop neighbors were causing a scene.

“You are not welcome here, so it isn’t your call!

We will say ‘Merry Christmas’ or nothing at all!”

“You black-hearted bigot! You ignorant Hun!

‘Happy Holidays’ values us each every one!”

“You commie fanatic!”

“You fascist buffoon!”

“You can go straight to Hell!”

“Yeah. We’ll see you there soon!”

So laying his finger aside of his nose

He pulled back on the reins and his sleigh slowly rose.

He drove down to the green in his bright red attire

And settled his reindeer right next to the fire.

Jolly St. Nick on his Christmas Eve nights

Had not one ounce of patience for screaming or fights.

“Ho Ho Ho!” said St. Nick. “What’s the trouble, you guys?

You will wake up the kids. You will spoil their surprise.

Oh, Come All Ye Faithful? Fa La? Midnight Clear?

All this yapping is damaging my Christmas cheer.

So what do you say? Just head off to your beds

And let visions of Krispy Kremes dance in your heads.”

And with that old St. Nick wheeled back toward his sleigh,

But he took not one step, ere he heard someone say. . .

“Hey, Fatso!” they said.

“Hey, you corpulent toad!”

“Who asked you?”

“Hit the bricks!”

“Take a hike!”

“Hit the road!

“We have freedom of speech!”

“We have god-given rights!”

“And we have every right to keep fighting our fights!”

“We don’t care how you moan.”

“We don’t mind if you pout!”

“Just deliver our booty and get the Hell out!”

“Deliver your booty?” and with that he turned.

His cheeks freshly sooty, his eyes how they burned.

“It’s just–” “Ssh!” said St. Nick.

“You can’t–”"Shh!”

“Sure. Okay.”

“I’ve let you two talk, and now I’ll have my say.”

Then he took off his spectacles, cleaning each glass.

He would quiet things down, or he’d kick him some ass.

He strode up to the jerks who’d been haughty and loud

Then squeezed in between them and spoke to the crowd.

“I’m not trying to preach. Please don’t think ill of me.

Mrs. Claus watches Maury; I love TMZ!

But by some stroke of luck I can soar through the air

And a guy can see things much more clearly up there.

“For decades I’ve heard guys like this prattle on.

And others take up their crusade when the’ve gone.

They have always been here–all their spittle and phlegm.

The difference is lately you’re listening to them.

Is it jobless statistics? The wars? Rising tides?

Where you used to just laugh, now you’re choosing up sides.

Once you’d lose some and win some and come back for more?

Now you lose one and panic and deadbolt the door.

On fascist, on commie, on Arab, on gay.

On ACORN, on NAFTA and on NRA!

Be they top of the heap or the least little guys.

There is something in each you have learned to despise.

You might not respect the commander-in-chief,

But he isn’t a monster or traitor or thief.

He’s just trying to do the best job he can do.

And the guy there before him? He tried like that too.

Not all rich folks are crooks, nor all poor on the take.

They’re just people like you all, for criminy’s sake.

There’s a fat load of profit in ginning up fears

And it’s stock has been rising for these past few years.

Folks I’m here to tell you just kiss them goodbye.

Whatever they sell you you don’t have to buy.

Seek your neighbor’s advice; don’t cascade him with blame.

For each way he is different he’s eight ways the same.”

Then St. Nick gently bowed, gave his forehead a wipe

And took a slight draw on his old meerschaum pipe.

“Hey, the one thing I’ve learned over hundreds of years?

There’s less truth in our tongues than there is in our ears.

If your God’s in his heaven, your motives are pure,

You’ve no cause to worry, your world will endure.

That neighbor you’ve lately been dousing with shame

Will come through when you need him–and you’ll do the same.”

And with that he retired to his team and his cache

And flew up to the sky to deliver his stash.

And I heard him exclaim as he rose out of sight…

“Peace on earth’s at your core, not your left or your right.”