From early '03, more deep background. Enjoy.
Unclean
- Got something interesting in the US Mail today. Seems the little ones have been getting out of hand here lately. Yup, you guessed it, they've been summoned to the Hague to appear before the War Crimes Tribunal and answer charges of Crimes Against Humanity. It serves me right for reading the Small Wars Manual to them before bed. Then there were those certificates of completion from the School of the Americas, and I should have asked more questions when "Idi", "Slobo", and "Mohamar" kept calling for Joel or Sarah at all hours about their "class project". I sat them both down earlier and just chewed their asses for this. I remember specifically addressing cannibalism, corruption of the clergy, and the gunning down of politicians when they took over Surinam last month. Joel keeps denying all knowledge of what actually happened, saying that he was at the UN when it all went down, and Sarah keeps throwing Machiavelli's The Prince in my face. "But Dad," she says, with huge brown puppy dog eyes, "it's better to be feared than loved. Machiavelli proved it. Here, read this paragraph..."
I haven't seen or heard from Daniel this week. Without Joel in New York City, keeping IMF cash money rolling in, Daniel's pretty hamstrung with regards to domestic issues. His weekly radio address didn't help him any, as his continued references to the Quantum Force Power Ranger and the Wild Force Megazord apparently went right over his constituents' heads. He told Laura last Thursday that he was planning on dealing with the insurgents decisively, but with Sarah grounded to her room, I don't hold out much hope for any meaningful successes. Daniel's more of a coalition builder, Sarah's the real muscle on that team. She's even got a poster up in her room of Lavrenti Pavlovich Beria, for the love of Christ. When she was six, she used to "interrogate" her Ken doll with a bare bulb lamp, a twelve inch length of 1/4" tubing, and a margarine tub of salt water. Used to say that "it's not the broken fingers that do the trick, it's what you do to the joints..." We thought it was cute.
I think they'll beat the rap, though. Joel's paid the right people off, Sarah's too careful to leave anything behind, and Daniel will take the witness stand and have the room eating out of the palm of his hand as soon as he flashes those dimples and mispronounces any word beginning with the letter "r" as a "w".
It's insult to your injury, salt to your wounds, it's...
BILE
Volume XVI
All Billy Jeff. All the time.
1) "Hey Ted, let me drive. It's raining out..." Denis Leary did a piece a few years back that talked about how only the good musicians died young. Hendrix, Joplin, Stevie Ray Vaughn, etc. He said that "you could put Motley Crue on a plane filled with two tons of crack" and they'd land safely and on time. "Shit. They're Still Alive.." I contend that there is a similar relationship with the survivability of shitty politicians. Explain Strom Thurmond. Please, I dare you...
I mean, you could put Billy Jeff Clinton and Teddy K in a car with a whole squad of tainted whores, a box of expired condoms, and fifteen bottles of 100 proof vodka on I-10 South between Baton Rouge and New Orleans (about 35 miles worth of bridges on that road) and they would arrive safely in the French Quarter two hours later without a dent, a drop of liquor, or an unused condom in the car, while being completely free of any STD. These guys are like cockroaches...
The solution? I say we take a page from the ooooooold school. We start lynching. Yep, a man who is clearly afeared of stretching is awful fucking careful of who he pisses off. We're in an age where the governors are waaaaayy too comfortable with the displeasure of the governees. It'd just take a couple of these Incentive Streching Exercises to encourage the others who are in office to act in a manner befitting someone who may get hung if they act like dumbasses.
2) "I don't know, I never remember reaching an actual decision regarding foreign policy in the 90's. I just did what Stephanopolous told me to..." There was an interview on the CNN page with Billy Jeff talking about what the Bush administration should do about Iraq. This fucking hayseed says that we should completely trust whatever Blix says to do. That we should allow him to lead us...
We interrupt this argument for an ad homonym attack.
Can you believe, looking back on the last decade, that the enlightened public elected this guy? Not once, but fucking twice?! Amazing. Added to that amazement are my experiences driving through the state that this guy was governor of for like twelve years. Arkansas has less than a hundred buildings which actually have foundations, and fifty of them were built by army engineers. The roads are fucking goat paths, and the tooth per capita rate is like 4 1/2. The whole state makes the denizens of my beloved Bossier seem fucking cosmopolitan by comparison. If Arkansas is any indication of the management qualities of our former Prez, it's a wonder that the entire lower forty-eight hasn't turned into one huge fucking trailer park. Furthermore, the fact that we didn't hear from hardly anybody in Arkansas decrying how ineffective Billy Jeff has been, stands in mute testimony to just how fucking backward that place truly is. [Note: To place the above in perspective, the author wishes to remind you that he hails from Lubbock, TX, and his family is from Coryell County, TX, the world's capital of Hayseedism.]
Now back to the main argument, already in progress...
...wait a fucking minute. Hansmotherfucking Blix isn't even an actual US citizen. He's not a statesman, not a diplomat, not a soldier. The guy's a weapons inspector, and a shitty one at that. We should trust him to do exactly what? Not find any weapons? Trust him to report that "he hasn't found sheeeit". (Reference to SpaceBalls: "Comb the Desert!") Let's talk about this in baseball terms. (After all, Pitchers and Catchers reported for spring training last week...hope springs eternal.) You've got a pitcher who hasn't won a game all year (Blix). He can't throw strikes, and probably couldn't hit water if he jumped out of a fucking boat. It's the World Series, game seven, you're up a run. Who do you trust to go into the ninth inning and get the three outs that will win you the Champeenship of the World? The guy who could manage to fuck up a free beer, or the guy who's put away more men than the black death (the Honorable Mister Bush )?
Look Billy, we have a leader now. Not that he speaks English so good, but at least he goes on record taking a stand on this issue or that, and takes responsibility if he screws something up. There is a humility here that was noticeably lacking in the years between the hedges. Think of all the men that you've worked for. Think of all the men that you've wanted to emulate. Think of all the historical figures who are truly admirable. Three factors leap out at me in analyzing their nature: Dignity, Humility, Fidelity. All three are part of what we call "honor", but spelling it out in this manner is even better. Saying that Billy Jeff is without honor is like saying that night lacks visible definition. For a president to be effective, he must first earn your trust (fidelity), then he must attempt a common identity (humility), then he must comport himself in a manner worthy of admiration (dignity). (Yeah, I know, there's eighteen billion schools of leadership theory out there, and there's JJDIDTIEBUCKLE, and Billy Jeff's lacking in about every fundamental department, butI'monarollhere, soshutthefuckup) Now, think about the guys who piss you off. The Deion Sanders. The Billy Jeffs. The Alec Baldwins. The Leonard deCaprios ("Leonardo" is bullshit. You just know he went by Leonard in High School and lay unconscious in a puddle of urine every day after Gym class...) What do these assholes lack? I tell ya' what, they're all arrogant motherfuckers, that's what. No humility, none. How can you respect a man who acts as if he has never made a mistake, and never will?
Fundamental difference between the Honorable Mister Bush and Billy Jeff #2220: the Honorable Mister Bush admits he's as fucked up as the rest of us. (Shit, he traded Sammy Sosa for the love of God.) But despite that, he continually attempts to do the best that any mortal can, given his responsibilities and the scrutiny under which he is being held. Meanwhile, Billy Jeff continually reminds us of our shortcomings, while building himself up in the eyes of the media. Also, Billy continually lets us know that he is seeking ways to publicly help us attain his degree of beneficence, despite our inability to understand what he has been trying to accomplish all this time.
In case you were wondering, the fundamental difference between the Honorable Mister Bush and Billy Jeff Numero Fucking Uno: BJ is from fucking Arkansas and my President is from the Republic of Texas. 'Nuff Said. Viva Res publica!
3) "I tell ya what Hillary, by the time we leave, I'll have them dressed in tu-tus and singing acapela at the Kennedy Center Banquet..." Major V, (he of Bridgeport fame) sent me something the other day which I'd seen before but kind of dismissed because I couldn't verify the accuracy of the numbers. I'm sure many of you have seen it passed around. It's an editorial that asks you to identify a country that has so many hundreds of thousands of active duty troops, so many more thousands of reservists, so many air wings and so many thousands of ICBMs and concludes by pointing out that all these divisions, all these air wings, and all these rocket batteries were downsized in the Regnum pro Billy Jeff. In a distinctly militaristic sense, it was straight propaganda against the idiot from Hope.
But it triggered something in the libertarian that dwells deep within the left side of my brain. It all came together, as most conspiracies do. DACOWITS. Tailhook. The downsizing of the military to a ricockulous extent. Hillary. Draft Dodging. War protesting. Chinese spies given full access to General Krulak's footlocker without his knowledge.
Let's say that you're an idealistic twenty year old who fears for his life and rails against a system that could start and prosecute a war against a sovereign nation in Southeast Asia. Let's say that you dodge the draft completely, and then skip out on your obligation and go to London to attend college there. Let's say you visit the Soviet Union, and come to understand their intent with regards to evening the distribution of the wealth of a nation endowed with great resources. Let's say that you make a goal at the point that your plane touches down, following this mind-expanding world tour of modern socialism, that you will change the whole system from the inside, that you will succeed where all the other more militant protestors have failed. Let's say you climb the pole. All the way. To the White House.
What then? You've got everything you ever wanted. You've got more power than any single man in the history of the fucking world. (Accepting possibly Dan Geltmacher, who is a sexual Tyrannosaurus Rex...) You can do...anything you want. Your imagination and the manipulation of a willing press are the only limiting factors in what you can accomplish. What then?
Well, let's look at this. Most of us writing and reading this are in our thirties. Some are exceedingly close to our forties, and at least one of us is damn near older than fucking baseball. (That tooth bit was for you, brother...) How many of you have really changed since you realized that you had a brain? You know, that time about 20-23 years old where you realize that you are the wisest, most intelligent, most virile creature to ever grace the surface of Terra Firma. Oh sure, we've figured out the finer points since then. We've calmed down a bit. We don't drink as much. We stay away from easy women, But how many of us have given up that true ideology that we discovered when we were young, and it all. fell. into place? At the bottom, I firmly believe that we retain that idealism. That we refine ourselves, and become more realistic, but that the germ of idealism never truly dies.
Let's avoid making this more complex than Disco Stu. Billy Jeff sabotaged the military culture, subconsciously or not, because he could. Look at the results and please argue otherwise. What he did to the warrior culture, borne out for eight years, shows a definite purpose, if not conscious intent. Somebody tell me, what was Clinton's first fight when he got into office? Hmmmm? Anybody? Gays in the military. Followed by feminization of the force. Followed by appointment of lapdogs into the higher echelon. Followed by drastic reduction in available deployable forces. Followed by radical increases in missions abroad. Take it in. Take it all in, and tell me I'm wrong. Please.
This guy had it in for us since the Johnson Administration. He got the chance. He systematically plotted our downfall in a direct fashion. The Somalia embarrassment. Haiti. Bosnia. Kosovo. Everywhere we went, and everything we did looked ineffectual. Was this the result of the chicken or the egg? Did he dismantle us so we could fail? Or did we fail because he dismantled us? Interesting question, and one that I expect some feedback about.
I look forward to hearing your response(s).
4) "That Dirty Larry's a baaaaaad mother..."
"Shut your mouth!"
"Hey, I'm just talking about the Unclean"
...You dammnn right. - I passed yet another sign today, here in this underevolved clutch of simians, that advertised "Mardi Gras Patry Headquarters". Morons. I'm surrounded by morons. Tell ya' what. I'm enforcing intellectual adequacy from here on out. The next one of these mistakes that I see will be followed by me entering the establishment responsible, asking to see the manager, and then hauling that individual into the parking lot by the hair, followed by me beating that individual to death with a tire iron. You've been warned. Consult your fucking dictionaries...
- I saw on the cover of one of those infernal tabloids that Rosie's beefing up to try out for starting right Tackle for the Redskins. The picture, which I know could've been doctored, had her looking at least two-and-a-half bills. I also hear that the editorial staff of her magazine is suing her, or vice versa. I love it. Only bad thing is that I'm not sure who to cheer for. I mean, who is more moronic? Rosie, or the idiots who actually applied for a job at a magazine bearing her name?
5) Epilogue. Over the past four evenings, following my beloved wife buying an additional TV specifically for the playing of video games, I have stayed up past four in the morning playing "Siphon Filter 2". It's worst than masturbation, and three times as addictive. I can't stop. The fact that my kids all gather in my office to watch me play, and therefore badger me until I get a game on, doesn't help. I haven't slept in almost a week, and I looked up just now and realized that I've gotta get up at 0600 in the AM and lead motherfuckers. Shoot me.
Six pack of domestic brew goes to the first person who can name the Disco Stu reference. (Jerry, you are excepted in this.)
The Exodus is Here,
Unclean
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