Bedtime for Bozo

This, from Jim Testa, of Jersey Beat zine fame:

I remember a moment in the 1996 presidential campaign. Bob Dole was sitting across from Tim Russert on Meet The Press, and Russert asked a pretty easy question: Why was Bob Dole siding with the NRA and opposing the ban on assault weapons? Dole thought about it a second, shifted in his seat, and then mumbled some mumbo-jumbo that his handlers had made him memorize. But you could tell this his heart wasn't in it; that inside, he knew damn well there was no reason to legalize automatic weapons and submachine guns, weapons of mass destruction that were going to fall into the hands of drug dealers and terrorists. Nobody goes duck hunting with an AK-47, and nobody needs something that spits out a hundred rounds of ammo in ten seconds to protect their hearth and home. But Bob Dole couldn't bring himself to say that, to say what he knew was true, and right. . And as he mouthed his Republican platitudes and kowtowed to a small handful of well-funded fanatics, I thought I saw something... an unutterable sadness in his eyes. Because at that moment, Bob Dole knew he was never going to be president. And somewhere, deep down inside, I think he also knew that he didn't deserve to be president.

You're never going to see that kind of insight in George W. Bush. When he mouths those Republican platitudes, when he kowtows to the religious right or the NRA or the rich, he's not merely mouthing soundbytes. That's what he really believes. He doesn't think gay people deserve the same rights as the rest of America. He doesn't think the poor deserve any more than what they already get. He doesn't think the rich should pay taxes. And he doesn't care what anybody in Iraq or the rest of the world thinks about his crackpot scheme to turn a nation of Islamic fundamentalists into happy God-fearing Republican consumers and voters. That's why I've never trusted born-again Christians. They go through life always thinking they're right, that they have the one true answer. History and religion don't mean much when you've got the Lord on your side. God bless America. And everybody else be damned.

I won't even look into Dick Cheney's eyes. I'm not sure I even believe that I have a soul; but if I do, he'd be the one to steal it. I don't think Cheney is even human; he's like something out of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, the human incarnation of pure evil. Greed, power, and a callous disregard for any agenda save his own. That's what you get from Dick Cheney. And he's a heartbeat away from the presidency.

I've been voting since Jimmy Carter ran for President. I've voted for Democrats, and I've voted for Republicans; for presidents and mayors, county supervisors and Congressmen, Senators and the Weehawken Board of Ed. But I don't think I've ever cast a vote as important as the one coming up this November. If you think the last four years have been a nightmare, just think about a second Bush-Cheney term. You won't hear a word about reinstituting the draft as long as the campaign is still going on. But Bush can't run for a third term and Cheney probably won't live that long, so what do they have to lose? Tax cuts for the rich? Why not push that a little further and privatize Social Security? Let's put the future of a nation of senior citizens into the hands of stock brokers and corporate CEO's. We all know how trustworthy they are. And forget about gay marriage. The Supreme Court is already just a justice or two away from overturning Roe Vs Wade. What's next on the agenda after that? Maybe Brown Vs The Board of Education? If you're going to make gays and women second-class citizens, why not go all the way and bring back segregation too?

These are scary times. And as Hunter Thompson so eloquently put it, When the going gets weird, the weird get going. So, dammit... Register. Vote. Get that bastard and his rich, sick cronies out of the White House. The life you save may be your own.

- Jim Testa, Editor, Jersey Beat