Your Idiot Sons

As I stand looking out over your countless young and adoring faces, here in the Senator Lieutenant John F. Kerry Vietnam Veteran Hero Memorial Pasadena Community College Auditorium, I am reminded that I am the savior of patriotism and the sole hero of Vietnam, where I won my Bronze Star, one of several heroic metals that I won for my heroism. How did I get so brave? Studying is how. Yes, studying. Studying, I say. Indeed. So you should study. Yes. Ahem. Well, I seem to have exhausted all topics of interest. How awkward. Oh! Heh. My pedicurist told me a joke. I have been advised that it is funny. So here it is. I am about to tell a joke now. Ahem. Uh. How many dead American soldiers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

*****

I deeply apologize for any misunderstandings that might have somehow been misconstrued and arisen from my innocently repeating a joke that Karl Rove told me. It was not my intention, and indeed it is inexplicable to me that the stupid stuffed hack Repugnantans manufactured out of thin air this illegal war because they want to change the subject from the fiasco in Vietnam I mean Iraq where I was a hero. Let me make this crystal meth: I apologize to no one. Furthermore, I did apologize to everyone, before I did not apologize to anyone. And I get this confused -- was I the one they stole the election from? Mark Foley.

*****

I was across the street and a couple of blocks down, when Lt. Kerry made his joke. Didn't even know he was in town. But I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as of one hundred forty-five thousand souls crying out in dismay.

As I've just become fond of noticing, parsing Lt. Kerry’s “joke” is a task for the Macro Logothete of the Byzantine Grammarians -- the office to which I believe he would be appointed if the Dems take the Senate ... it’d be a conflict of interest, but there you go. Was it a joke? I think it was. Very subtle though, and nuanced. Funny? There was perhaps an equal mix of laughter and gasps from the audience. A redstate-bluestate split, then. Perhaps the matter is best settled by the Supreme Court ... does Justice Kennedy have a sense of humor? But regardless of its wittiness, and regardless of whether it was botched, and regardless of whether it was a slam at how stupid Bush is or how stupid our soldiers are, the really instructive thing is how Lt. Kerry has conducted himself in the aftermath.

This is a man who could easily have become president -- all they needed was a slightly more effective October surprise ... I frankly don't recall what the actual one was ... Dick Cheney has a gay daughter? Lt. Kerry, sadly, has really disgraced himself. But this sort of scorekeeping isn't interesting to me. Likewise, his secret or expressed opinions about the stupidity of our volunteer army is of no interest. There is no profit in being scandalized by opinions that we disagree with. The harm is in actions, and Lt. Kerry has a Senate voting record that will be far more instructive than botched jokes of ambiguous intent. Voting records. Voting ... voting. Yes. It is voting that matters.

Something really is funny, though. Lt. Kerry says he's not going to be "swiftboated" here. Hmm. Swi'ft·boat: v.t. -- to expose as a pompous and self-seeking liar. Surely that cannot be his intended meaning. He must mean that he's not going to be borked here. Perhaps he means he's not going to be fahrenheit-nine-elevened here. Because being swiftboated here means the same thing that, say, being lewinskied here means. Well, being lewinskied has another meaning too ... I'm not sure if it's a transitive verb or not ... but the meaning I'm using is to have the secrets that you've been lying about exposed. My, that was an awkward sentence. How might it be made to conform more closely with our standards of elegance and symmetry? Shall we consult the Macrogrammarian? Yoohoo, Lt. Kerry, could we trouble you for a moment?

Does the Statue of Liberty face the ocean? Seems like I should know that. Seems like it should. It should stand looking to the east, to the Old World, showing her stern and beautiful face to that troubled hemisphere. She has her back to us. This is no insult. It is because we can be trusted, with Liberty. We've got her back. We will fight for her. So she stands with a raised arm, showing the way it should be done. That’s why our young men and women are stuck in Iraq. That’s why Mr. Bush has us stuck there.

That's what America is. And that's what our sons and daughters are doing in the land that Lt. Kerry so glibly dismisses. Is it unsalvageable? Is it the dumping ground of our incorrigible, ignorant and ignoble youth? Is it the useful slaughterhouse of our excess population? Lt. Kerry, whatever his intended meaning, would reprise his youth and make it so.

God. Slimy politicians. What a bunch of macacas.



J