Grooming a New Generation of Leaders (or, Sadists, and Racists, and Pedophiles, Oh My)

So many jokes, so little time. Where to begin? I guess you know it's been a bad week for the GOP when their shining moment--the one they hope you remember--is the legalization of torture and the shredding of habeas corpus. Thank God they're the party of "strict constructionism." I'd hate to see what those moral relativists, the "Democrats," would be doing to the Constitution right now. If they existed, that is. I suspect they're a myth, like Emmanuel Goldstein.

Don't be confused. I come not to bury Caesar but to praise him. In the interest of fairness and balance, I think it is time to give the GOP their due. Although it may be the case that most sadists, and racists, and pedophiles are Republicans, the converse is surely NOT true. I know several Republicans who are none of these things. I even suspect that some of their leaders, although flawed--like all mankind--are NOT all three of these things at once. For example, as I've often said, George Bush is not a racist. Also, I have seen no evidence that George "Macaca" Allen is a pedophile. So step off, bitch.

Really, if you think about it, there are plausible explanations for all of this week's bombshell revelations. George Allen used the "N-word" repeatedly, for years, in private and in public? I'm sure that he was just instructing others on the damaging power of words. He's a lawyer, isn't he? Or maybe he was offering a sly critique of racist meta-narratives by subverting the paradigm from within, reappropriating the language of their oppression by reimagining himself as a poor black ham-sandwich eating farmer and then confronting his white interlocutors with the terms of their callous indifference. It's post-modern. Duh!

Jack Abramoff had 485 contacts with the White House? Well, he's Jewish, right? A lobbyist for Native American tribes? He was just "genocide-counselling." The White House was invading a sovereign foreign nation, promoting democracy, and liberating its oil reserves. . . I mean, its freedom-loving hordes of huddled brown masses. Just the time for a little sensitivity training. Would "permanent bases" upset the native populations? Would naked dogpiles offend their religious sensibilities? Who better to articulate popular reservations and offer settlements?

And Mark Foley, Deputy GOP Whip, Ways & Means comm. member, Chair of the Caucus on Missing and Endangered Children? Pedophile, you say? Why, he was just engaging in a little "youth outreach." Grooming a new generation for the GOP, as it were. You liberal media types are always complaining about how the Republican Party is filled with rich, old, white guys. Well, how else do you expect them to recruit the old white guys of tommorow? Fogeys don't grow on trees you know. The children are our future. So what if he's not a parent? It takes a village, or something like that. That's also why the House leadership helped Foley out by keeping things quiet. This was a "pilot program," a "double-blind" study on teen susceptibility to peer pressure. Any early publicity could have undermined the objectivity of the research. Large scale public trials were coming later. You're not anti-science are you?

Finally, you chortle, Bob Woodward wrote a book. Condi Rice found out in June 2001 about 9/11 and blew it off. Rumsfeld went around shredding copies of a report calling for an end to torture. Bush was lazy, passive, indifferent, and confused. Yawn. Old news. There's nothing NEW here! We're only interested in NEW ideas. And NEW facts. Like, "Iraq is doing great," "Bush is a genius," and "Americans looove to be waterboarded for their liberal political beliefs." Remember, the GOP are "conservatives." Novelty is their middle name. You can't judge history in the moment. Only generations yet unborn can say whether we've won or lost in Iraq. So we better start seducing them now.