COLUMN: Let the healing begin
OK, it has been a month now and all my Democratic friends are crawling out from under their hangovers and are looking for reasons to live. Republicans are crawling out from under their hangovers and trying to figure out what to do with their winning lottery ticket. In the United States, the continuum of mourning/celebration caters to the same vices. We burn down the city when we win the World Series and we burn down the city when we are angry over race relations. We drink to celebrate. We drink to forget.
The parties are over. Let the healing begin!
I’ll start.
I commend President Bush for cleaning out the cabinet like past-date cheese in the refrigerator. Bush was a one-time baseball team owner so he obviously knows the value of firing the players when the manager isn’t winning. Either that or the old adage, “If you want to look skinny, surround yourself with fat people,” applies.
Speaking of skinny, there is one area where President Bush could really lead our country by example. There is a lot of talk about not leaving any child behind but one of the reasons they are being left behind is that they are too fat to catch up. The average youth is so porky now that school buses have to install heavy-duty shocks and be preceded by a pilot car with a sign that on top that says “Caution Wide Load.”
George Bush could do for physical fitness what Bill Clinton did for Big Macs and fidelity. President Bush may likely be the most physically fit president ever. The numbers don’t lie. He has run a marathon in three hours and 44 minutes, can bench press 200 pounds and has a resting heart rate around 45 beats per minute. So why not start and national physical fitness and obesity jihad? He’s fit, he’s tan, he has all his hair and teeth and though his English is bad, it is not as cartoonish as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s. What more could you want in a national fitness leader?
As my part of the healing process, I will stop reminding people that “Taliban” has the same number of syllables and rhyming structure as “Vietnam” and can thus be used in all the same war protest songs; especially that R-rated one from the Woodstock soundtrack. I will also stop playing “War” ( Edwin Starr), “Fortunate Son” (Credence Clearwater Revival, “Get Up Stand Up” ( Bob Marley) and “Oh Canada” ( the Sarah McLachlan version) with the volume set at 10 after every George Bush “State of the Nation” address.
I pledge also that this will be the very last time I point out the mathematical imperative that a billion dollars calculates out to about $3.75 per living person in the United States and that a $10 trillion dollar deficit calculates out to about $100,000 per household. So go ahead and send your share in now or ask Bill Gates to put it on his American Express Platinum card.
I wish President Bush and the Republican majority all the best. You now have the keys to the car; please drive safely.
Dennis Hinkamp is in reality a hopeless romantic who voted for Nader three times and always cries at the end of “Field of Dreams.”