Hail and Farewell

Like any self-respecting gray-hair battling a case of WMD (widening midlife diameter), I joined a gym. It’s my New Year’s resolution, aptly exercised in July.

Not just any gym, mind you, but a boxing gym. My knuckles are now red and puffy (from hitting a heavy bag). But that’s the least of it.

The other day, I had some “schooling” as they like to say in the square circle. My jab was snapping. My footwork fancy. I felt pretty good. Then my more experienced “colleague” got annoyed at my antics and decided to show me his hook. I repeatedly never saw it coming as he snapped my head around, through the gear and the 16-ounce gloves.

Later, while recovering, I had a flash of, if not mortality, at least reality. So naturally my mind turned to our present politics and the Democratic convention.

Old boxing rule: you can’t lose if you knock the other guy out. All that tapping and fancy footwork won’t win fights, especially in the other guy’s hometown. For the purpose of metaphor, “hometown” means “incumbent” in this political context. And that’s what the Democrats need now to stop the Republicans, and as the rounds tick off it’s starting to look like they won’t turn it on soon enough.

The time grows short. Especially when the incumbent has already drafted plans to “delay” (read: suspend) the elections, should some “attack” by alleged “terrorists” just happen to occur right before November—and the polls show there’s a real threat to the incumbency. Franking privileges used to be as bad as it got in politics. No more.

Especially if millions of dollars have been spent to show that a man who volunteered for combat, and came back disgusted by it, is somehow more cowardly than one who dodged the draft with five deferments and another who flew obsolete jets that guaranteed he wouldn’t ever see combat (like that was just a lucky break).

But I digress. The Democrats need to understand this level of mortal political combat, and it is unclear that they do. Hope? Strength? Tap, tap, tap. Clever boxing. Trying to woo the public with fancy footwork. There are real differences between the candidates, and not just on the matter of personal bravery.

For example, the “liberal” is for fiscal moderation and a balanced budget, libertarian values of personal privacy and a return to the law of habeas corpus and relief for the middle class. The liberal is for a true global war on terrorism (with real allies), not a unilateral push to rule the world (always an ambition that fails, just ask Alexander the Great or Napoleon or Hitler…the list goes on).

The “conservative” is for free-spending, record budget-busting, big government programs (it’s growing, folks, despite the spin). He talks about “values” that include the abrogation of the Bill of Rights (forget facing your accuser, having legal representation, freedom from the imposition of someone else’s religion on you or protection from illegal search and seizure). And as for our Imperial ambitions…That shining city on the hill has turned into a bunch of fools on the hill, if you ask any experienced military strategist. (They now are of one of two opinions: Critical of our failed strategy and war planning, and formerly employed in our military, or working and silent.) Who ever thought “Don’t ask, don’t tell” would devolve to this?

But clever political boxing always favors the incumbent (just watch the spinmeisters of the right disguised as journalists interviewing what they laughably call, on Fox, the “Republican truth squad”). And then there is the Right’s dubious position that these trespasses on our personal freedoms are the only way to protect “Freedom.”

The differences are stark, confusing, even embarrassing. Conservatives spend big, support a 600,000-plus mercenary army controlled by the Vice President and his “military contractor” cronies. They support illegal search and seizure, arrest without charge, bail or legal representation, and, of course, cooked elections with new electronic voting gizmos that are unreliable and leave no audit trail, a situation far worse than those notorious “hanging chad” paper ballots.

Liberals, on the other hand, seem downright conservative by comparison. That’s what I mean by confusing.

Unfortunately, like in boxing, the only sure way to decide this November is by a knock-out. And that isn’t going to happen, is it? Perhaps the Supreme Court will even get to pick our next President, again. So mark these words on your calendar. Come November 5, 2004, Imperial America begins. Hail Caesar! Hail Halliburton! Hail and farewell to the little country where middle class citizens once ruled. That city on the hill.

Me, I am gonna learn how to throw and block the hook. Next time I get schooled in the gym, I’m gonna school right back.

Kerry would be well advised to do likewise, to toughen up and school right back…and go for the knockout.
¶ 9:11 AM