Sue coming through, and not you (Updated)

In response to my Bush = Baby Jesus post, Suz had this to say:

The idea that people in this millennium--and not a few people--maintain that our ruler was ordained by the mandate of a supreme deity is too depressing to even respond to.

Ramses W. Bush anyone?
I need to just stop giving a shit.

Her closing line was the kicker--that's just how I've felt these last few days.

Encouraged, I guess, by the proliferation of pro-Bush forwards on the family network, my aunt forwarded another email in the same vein. This email’s anecdote is set at some meeting of the press, where they are characterized as rude and self-serving. Here’s a snippet:

Bush is my cowboy, and aren't we glad we still have men like him to lead this country? The cowboy is revered by those who understand the true definition of this kind of man; a man slow to anger, never one to pick a fight, always ready to defend the defenseless, a man who has stones and backbone and heart and is willing to go out and face down the bad guys, even if it means his own destruction.

For the last year, almost the entire press has slung the arrows at George, has mocked, has ridiculed, has trashed him mercilessly and has done it on an hourly basis while they pretty much ignored the real hypocrites [I’m assuming she means Dems, but it never specifies], to attack the Christian president. They called him stupid, they called him "shrub," they challenged every decision as though they really cared, as though they really understood the full import of the situation, and last night George showed them all he has been paying attention and has not forgotten that their actions have caused people to suffer and die more than was absolutely necessary.

So why is this all so discouraging? Well, I read something at work that some kind progressive had printed out and left in the break room. It was a speech by that guy, oh, what’s his name, he graduated from UT, worked in the LBJ administration. Anyways, it was basically a defense of McGovernite liberalism—nothing wrong with that, except it was swimming with typos and, well, I’ve also seen it all before.

The rhetoric from both sides always falls into the same predictable patterns, usually just old thoughts somehow repackaged . Harper's has basically been publishing the same essay as its feature for the last four or dive months. They all have the same underlying message. And the Right, of course, has talk radio, which has been saying the same thing in different forms for years.

To hear the Right tell it, George Bush loves Jesus, America, and, I dunno, our patriotic soldiers. All Dems want to do is tax those Americans who work the hardest and give it away to those who don’t deserve it; the logic being, I guess, that this buys them votes. And the media are a bunch of sniveling, liberal, atheistic hyenas.

From the Left, there’s mild griping about a complacent media, but mostly it boils down to the argument that Republicans are richies working for the glorification of big business and the aggrandizement of other richies’ bankrolls. They supposedly accomplish this mainly through pro-business legislation at home and a strong-arm foreign policy that secures business interests in the global economy. Dems, as they describe themselves, are saintly progressives working solely to improve the overall quality of life in this country, because change is always better. I say all this, and you guys know this is the side for which I noramlly root.

In the end, I'd like to stop caring because I feel like nothing I say at this point can change anyone’s political opinion. That’s just how things are and how they’ve always been, which is why so many families can’t talk about politics. My family especially. You can’t engage most conservatives in a logical debate because they base so much of their rationale on blind patriotism, Biblical morals, and a zealot’s fury against taxes. And many liberals are so venomous toward anything leaning to the right that you’re almost not allowed to agree with a word a conservative says.

So why bother? Why spend all this time thinking, researching, writing, debating? Seems like are so many better things to which I could devote my limited time and energy. For instance, if I put half as much effort into, say, fashion, maybe my romantic track record wouldn’t be so full of smudges.

Then again, every so often the Supreme Court symbolically validates the lifestyle of millions of Americans and you feel like another pillar of intolerance and cruelty in society has at least cracked, if not crumbled. Every so often, you wonder if the concerted effort and opinions of so many just might be able to improve a few people’s lives. Just maybe.

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Damn, I need to post a picture. I’ve always loved this portrait of my cousin. Before all the routine jokes come in, fellas, know that she’s now married and preggy.