Four More Years!

I feel bad, because one of the main stated topics of this blog is politics, and I haven't yet sacked up entirely and gone political with one of the posts. Oh, sure, there's the President making an ass out of himself in that picture a few posts below this one, but finding a picture of our Commander-in-Chimp making an ass out of himself on a blog is about as difficult as finding an attractive set of twins in a beer commercial. Not very.

I hate this president. Hate him. I didn't just vote against him, I actively campaigned against him. I put a goofy photo of him on my computer as wallpaper, even! And he still won. Can you believe that?

He won because most Americans don't share my political values. And not just the value about how marijuana should be legalized (although that's a strong value you'll hear more about soon enough!)

We're using the word "values" in this country all wrong. Having strong values has nothing to do with being Christian, or hating gay people, or being anointed with oil every time you get elected (as John Ashcroft, our former Attorney General, used to do). It just means having some beliefs, some core concepts of right and wrong that you will not deviate from.

My values include: generosity, compassion and personal freedom. Therefore, I voted for John Kerry on values. I could get into all this stuff, but the election is over, and unfortunately, Americans made their horribly misinformed choice. I'm not one of these liberals who is crying foul over election fraud. I'm sure there was some election fraud, mind you, but enough to make up for 3.5 million votes? Nope, Georgie-Boy won this one outright. Not fairly, because to do it, he had to lie to everyone, but he won it by the rules and we have to now let him be president. Ugh.

I have a friend, who shall remain nameless, who is a Bush supporter and lifelong Republican. He thinks, I'd wager, like a lot of Bush supporters. They like what the president stands for, Big-Picture style. American strength, individualism, fairness and low taxes.

But that's not really what Bush & Co. are all about. That's the smoke-screen that he puts up to keep moderates in his camp. You have to look at what he keeps doing, not at what he says (or attempts to say between the stuttering and shuffling about like some autistic Man With No Name).

He believes in turning this country over to religious nut-jobs who will only be happy when you accept their religion as your own. He believes in limiting what you can say if you oppose him. And he believes, as he actually said over and over again in the Kerry debates, that the only way to keep America safe is to remain permanently on the offense.

But the election is over, this man is now in charge, and he'll begin his even dirtier 2nd term business any day now. What? He's already started!? Oh, crap.

All I can do is hope he does such a foul job, without totally ruining America, that the people Bill O'Reilly so charmingly refers to as "the folks," see the folly of their ways and vote for whomever my side puts up in '08.

And, by the way, I'm not some dumbass partisan wonk who's always going to tell you to vote "blue state." It just so happens that the Democrats have been totally the right side of the equation in every election in recent memory. They're not perfect, they're usually bland, self-serving and disconnected from the people they want to represent. But they say things that make sense, they want to pull this country together and figure out ways to move it forward, and they're not obsessed with the conquest of sovereign Arab nations.

And it's not my fault that the Republicans are putting up these assholes.