corrente

Remember when you couldn't open a newspaper or turn on a television set without being subjected to a blast-harangue of sneering self-righteous right wing tongue-waggles, culture war scoldpottles, pantysniffing pundits and amplified Jesus shouting mesmerists all shrieking in unison "it's about character stupid!" Remember that pious patent leather dirigible Bill Bennett and all his braying and bleating about "the death of outrage"? Remember all that cage rattling whoop and wail? Don't answer that, I know you remember.

Stuff like this:

[1] No, It's not about sex. It's about character. It's about lying. It's about arrogance. It's about abuse of power.

Gee, isn't that handy. It continues.....

[2] It's about dodging the draft and lying about It. When caught in a lie by letters you wrote, you concocted a story that nobody believed.

But we excused It and looked away.

[3] It's about smoking dope, and lying about It. "I didn't Inhale," you said. Sure, and when I was 16 and my buddies and I swiped a beer from an unwatched refrigerator, we drank from It, but we didn't swallow. "I broke no laws of the United States," you said. That's right, you smoked dope in England or Norway or Moscow, where you were demonstrating against the U.S.A.

You lied, but we excused It and looked away.

[4] It's about you selling overnight stays in the White House to any foreigner or other contributor with untraceable cash.

[5] You've established such a pattern of lying that we can't believe you anymore. Neither can your cabinet, the Congress or any of the leaders of the nations of the world.

[6] It said, "It's the economy, stupid!" Place the sign over your desk "It's about character stupid!"

[7] It's about character, but we have to live with your filth, lies and arrogance for a while longer. Your lies, amorality and lack of character have been as pervasive as they have been despicable, so we have no reason to believe that you will quietly resign and go away.

[8] You'll count on half truths and spin doctors to see you through, the country be damned. It has always worked before.

[9] Go away, Mr. President. Leave us alone. And when you leave, know that your legacy to the United States of America will be a stain on the Office of the President...

Well well, that was THEN. Written by a guy named Eric Jowers from Ozark, Alabama, a "retired Army officer," who "served as a public affairs officer at Fort Rucker from 1989 to 1991." Those are his charges leveled at you know who - that Bill Clinton feller. Jowers cached

So what you can do is copy down those nine points, amend each original point above appropriately with your own current talking points or smart allecky remarks, for maximum impact of course, and throw em right back where they belong. Send em to the media idiots or wherever. Ask them what became of the good old deafening cry to battle royal of - "it's about character, stupid!"

That was THEN. This is NOW:

THEN: [1]- No, It's not about sex. It's about character. It's about lying. It's about arrogance. It's about abuse of power.

NOW: [1]- It's not about sex. Its about sexy sexy! Hot Dubya! HIS hunka-hunka strutting manly messianic love. Check the package on that flight suit all you girly men, oooo, mission accomplished! It's not about character stupid, it's all about personality!. The Symbol has landed. Lying - arrogance - abuse of power: Ha! Out of the lineup. Lying is now being pitched as: what you don't know won't hurt you. Arrogance is now plain spoken resolve. Abuse of power has miraculously "reformed" itself as strong leadership in times of change - and a matter of national security. Fabulous! Ain't miracles sumpin'.

and so on...... you get the idea.

NOW: [2]- Dodgeball anyone! If George W. Bush is so proud of his military service record, as he told vets in Las Vegas yesterday, then why won't he answer specific questions concerning his whereabouts during that period. He knows where he was and what he was doing. Putting it plain spoken-like, why doesn't Bush knock off the grab-ass and tell us all where he was and what the fuck he was really into. Why not put this issue to rest once and for all. Mission accomplished! Yeah, sure. Never happen. And, sadly enough, too many in the SCLM, on their backs with their legs in the air, will never pressure Bush to come clean on the details of his TxANG service. Instead they will resort to barking at decoys and groping at shifting shadows or jumping up and down in muddy puddles if for no other purpose than to further their own lucrative careers as noisy splish-splash puddle muddlers. Info-tainment for info-tainment sake. For too many in the SCLM, especially the servile myrmidons in the cable television "news" racket, scampering about polishing the Oligarch's knob is what they prefer to honest skeptical inquiry and serious investigative journalism.

NOW: [3]- It's about smoking dope? Wrong. It's about being a dope. And a hypocrite and a profligate self-interest serving sanctimonious fraud.

"I can't be expected to remember what every drug-addled yuppie hanger-on-er who wanted to get close to me during a football game twenty-five years ago digested. There were so many dope fiends milling about, I don't remember what some Yalie named Bush, whose father was a factotum in the Nixon Administration, was doing. But he strikes me as the sort of person I would have thrown out of the room. A rich, beer-drunk yahoo with a big allowance who passes out in your bathtub." ~ Hunter S. Thompson.

NOW: [4]- Sleep-overs with GWB43? Would Kenny Boy like an Argentine gas-pipeline contract with his nightcap? How about a couple of FERC appointments on his fluffy pillow before beddy-bye time. Would cousin Bandhar like a cover tuck and a good night kiss on the forehead from Uncle Dick? Coming right up.

NOW: [5]- Pattern lying. Hard to know where to begin with this one. WMD's, mushroom clouds, drone planes, privatization scams wrapped in semantic happy talk...on and on and on.... Bush has managed to surround himself with an experienced assortment of liars, felons, mercenaries, bully pulpit theocrats, cheap-shot public relations shills, con artists - including an on bended knee Republican Congress - and a circus of media whelp-dogs willing to fetch the master's squeak toys at the first hint of a whistle. Pattern lying? George W. Bush & Co. are to pattern lying what the June Taylor Dancers were to kaleidoscopic choreography.

NOW: [6]- Place this sign in the window of your business: Closed. Just ask any of the millions of people who have lost their jobs to outsourcing. Just ask any of the small business owners who have been smoked from their holes on Main Street by predatory - race to the bottom of the wage barrel - corporations such as WalMart. Or the small independent family farmers who have been drained of life by the vampiristic practices of corporate agribiz. It's about the giant sucking sound of cheap labor conservatism. It's not about real "economy" or real "character" anymore. It's all about getting the money and getting away with it. It's all about defending the shiny bejeweled palace on the hill and guarding the precious pearls and birthstones hidden within. It's about gambling, and high risk speculation supermodels dressed up pretty-in the-pink, and renamed "opportunity". Place this sign on your desk instead: "It's about stupid 'creative destruction'" and the "opportunity" such pillage offers the privileged few at the expense of the many. It's about drowning representative democracy in a bathtub and the resuscitation of the Franco Way.

NOW: [7]- Filth, arrogance, pervasive lies? Don't let anyone ever tell you that the Republican Right never spreads it's assets around. Attributing their own mean spirited attributions and dishonest suppositions to others is one of their favorite causes. They'll write it all off as a tax deductible charitable contribution.

NOW: [8]- Half truths and spin doctors for 'W'? We now have entire media operations devoted solely to such black arts. From the fear and sneer personality cultists at FOXNews to the Creel Committee News-roomies at CNN. A fairy circle for the "lazy, stupid, and bitchy," as Bill Maher recently called them. With some notable exceptions the Fourth Estate is turning into little more than a feed bag for fast talking road agents, embedded Pentagon psy-ops, free marketeer illusionists, and cheesy consumer culture crank vendors.

THEN: [9]- Go away, Mr. President. Leave us alone. And when you leave, know that your legacy to the United States of America will be a stain on the Office of the President...

NOW [9]- Ditto. Ditto. Ditto.

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