| Rick Perry prays for federal funding. And rain. |
Meet Chef. That's his forum name. He's a bat guano crazy right-winger who worships George W. Bush's testicles with the same passion he brings to his hatred of all things Obama. The testicle thing is more than a little hard to explain. And it's more than a little creepy.
He's one of the millions of Americans who awakened one November morning horrified to discover that a black man had somehow been elected president of the United States.
And, like the millions of Americans who keep Fox News in business, this realization apparently pushed him over the ledge. The one that separates polite society from those who should be spending their days making pot holders and ceramic ash trays under strict medical supervision.
The exchange that follows needs a bit of 'splaining. Chef took to the Internets after Gov. Rick Perry called on the good people of Texas to pray for rain and federal assistance to quench the wildfires that have destroyed more than 1.5 million acres of prime wasteland in the Lone Star State.
The same Rick Perry who advocates secession. The same Rick Perry who attacked the Obama stimulus plan while accepting billions of dollars from the Obama stimulus plan. The same Rick Perry who has barely managed to stop short of suggesting that America is just one good lynching away from curing what ails it.
Obama, Chef suggested, was a "vindictive snot" for withholding federal aid to the state. Never happened, but Chef refuses to let facts clutter his thinking. I took the bait.
If Obama is a "vindictive snot" as you say, then Perry is an idiot for crossing the guy.
I reckon I still believe it's possible to enter into a reasonable debate with people who are no longer on speaking terms with reason or reality. Chef's reply was predictable:
LA Gov. Bobby Jindal knows it too well. It's not being an idiot to stand up to a smarmy spineless blowhard POTUS who doesn't mean what he says, or says what he means. It's what most Americans would like to do to Obama, cross him to political oblivion. There is a anger tsunami forming that will crash down on the DNC in 2012. Maybe the Mayans were Dems and that's why their calendar ended in the end of 2012? The Dems are in the end of days.
And so it began. Fifteen minutes later I had crafted a response. I will never see those 15 minutes again. So I reckoned I could put those 15 minutes to a marginally (and arguably) better use here. I invoked the call and response method popularized by Socrates - and, of course, George Burns and Gracie Allen.
Chef: "It's not being an idiot to stand up to a smarmy spineless blowhard POTUS"
Only if the idiot is certain he'll never need the smarmy spineless guy to cut him a check when his state catches fire. The butt you kick today could be the butt you have to kiss tomorrow. Perry's nothing more than a playground coward. He picks a fight to score political points, but then pushes the people of Texas into the ring to take the actual punches.
Chef: "LA Gov. Bobby Jindal knows it too well."
Translation: Perry is not only a gutless idiot, he's a slow learner.
Chef: "Maybe the Mayans were Dems ..."
Translation: Quick, change the subject. If only things in the real world were this easy. In 2012 the voters aren't going to let the GOP and their tea bagger hand puppets slither off the hook by tap dancing around the tough questions with Mayan prophecy or some other dodge.
Chef: "There is a anger tsunami forming ..."
You betcha. And the GOP is the clueless fool standing in the flood zone wearing a silly grin and an empty bathing suit.
Chef: "The Dems are in the end of days."
Then let the tribulation begin. It's my guess the voters are poised to Rapture the entire birther and tea bagger bunch you call the GOP.
(I continued. I have no honest idea why.)
Your party has been handed the best opportunity capture the White House since Jimmy Carter was sent back to Plains to pursue his carpentry hobby. But Reagan ain't available to serve the eviction papers. Who do ya got? Caribou Barbie? The guy with the perpetual bad hair day? A bunch of human trivia questions? Michele Marie Amble Bachmann, aka The Viking Vixen?
You don't have a field of candidates, you have the cast of a low-budget cable reality show. Unfortunately, "The Biggest Loser" is already taken.
While Obama is chilling in the Rose Garden raising enough money to wipe out the national debt, cure cancer and put an end to world hunger, these anemic GOP midgets are going to be turning the carving knives on each other in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. By the time the eventual survivor's gurney is wheeled into Tampa all you'll have left will be dental records and DNA. The GOP convention is going to look like a bad remake of "Night of the Living Dead."
Against this circular firing squad backdrop, your Mayan prophecy and "Oblama-bama-ding-dong" word games (a reference to his repeated inability to get the president's name right) are pretty much all you got going and all you're likely to have going.
(At this point the day room attendants surged forward, unplugged the computer, gave me a cookie and guided me back to the ward. Most posts have a point if you look hard enough. This shouldn't be confused with one of them.)
