Unchecked, Unbalanced

CW FISHER Taking Iraq was never about terrorism. To argue the war on the basis of terrorism is to score one for the terrorists. Because while we argue, they're doing push-ups. It's so easy to forget, it bears repeating: Taking Iraq was never about terrorism, never about American security, 9/11, al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, or the disruption of future terrorist plots against America. Iraq is about real estate and spoils. Iraq is NOT about spreading "democracy," unless democracy is defined as "winking capitalism." Does anyone dispute the enormous disadvantage of our military now that Iraq devolves to civil war? Ironically, it's quite easy to pick out from the crowd a guy in camouflage. If you want to take a country, you send the military. If you want to defeat a terror cell, you infiltrate and defeat it from within. The reason America's military is so ineffective is because our president has misunderstood its proper use. Worse, nobody's told him no, which is this is the real crime. The Congress was lied to by the president, who hijacked the military. We marched into Baghdad and took it. Bush declared the war over, then talked of winning the peace, which sounded reasonable to most, but then he needed $87 billion for the first year. And Congress, for God knows what reason, thought they had to make a quick decision. It became a race. In record time, without debate of the consequences, Congress said yes. Congress made Americans complicit. This is why the "left" is screaming bloody murder now. They should have screamed when Bush was in his flight suit on the boat. But they were distracted by the silly costume and the "Mission Accomplished" sign that Karl Rove recently said he regretted -- once again -- and reminded us that it was a banner commemorating the boat's 40th mission, a claim that was disproved shortly after he said it the first time. Left, right, red, blue, that's not what this is about. It's about right and wrong. Smart and dumb. Staying the course or examining a third option. There's an awful lot of personal pride that goes into the pruning of a position. But when our stand becomes set, we stop thinking. All I see is a war on terror that is being ignored while we debate lesser issues. If George Bush were secretly working for Chalabi, his strategy would begin to make sense. But his strategy makes zero sense for America. Homeland security is just another department. How can we even begin to secure the homeland when our troops are all over in Iraq? We, as a nation, need to quickly review the true lessons of Vietnam. The same issues remain: 1) American presidents have too much power to wage war and maneuver around our system of checks and balances. 2) Our intelligence agencies will continue to fail as long as they are scattered, secretive and scared of computers. 3) Our military needs new leadership that can make the quantum leap required to reinvent modern warfare as it's being fought by our enemies.

Whose what? Bush calls it "my government"

CW FISHER At his recent press conference, President Bush referred to his administration as his "government" four times. Odd, because Bush doesn't have a government. That's Tony the Prime Minister. George has an administration. Right? Or is it me? Where did George Bush pick up this strange term? President Bush said: "The people of our country are united behind our men and women in uniform, and this government will do all that is necessary to assure the success of their historic mission." "...There was nobody in our government, at least, and I don't think the prior government that could envision flying airplanes into buildings on such a massive scale." "In other words, had they come up and said, this is where we see something happening, you can rest assured that the people of this government would have responded and responded in a forceful way." "I've asked myself a lot, is there anything we could have done to stop the attacks? Of course I've asked that question, as have many people in my government. Nobody wants this to happen to America." I wonder who started this, because the term is incorrect, although it's in keeping with the character misusing it. Could it be the deft touch of Karl Rove? Just another blunder by George? Or does it herald something more sinister to come? Btw, if you're planning to travel around November, here's a tip you can take to the bank. Take the car, because gas prices are going to tank through special arrangements between the Houses of Bush and Saudi. The Saudis are just doing their part to keep Bush Cheney & Rumsfeld around for the long haul.

Why Should Weaponry Be Lethal?

CW FISHER Human beings have more potential for good than any other people on earth. We have the free will to change our minds, and from there the course of history. People can change and do, and must, or face extinction. I have this thing about murder and killing. I think it's wrong. I'm against it. I am very gray on most issues except this. Killing is wrong, because it can't be changed. When somebody's dead, they're dead. Therefore I am against abortion, capital punishment, euthanasia, suicide and lethal warfare. It's wrong to kill. It gives the phrase moral certainty its oxymoronic quality. Not only is killing wrong, it's ineffective. Because when we kill a father, his family rises up. Thus our enemies multiply even as they are subtracted. It's wrong, it's ineffective and it's unnecessary. Human beings are so smart, it's heart stopping. We are right now exploring Mars a rock at a time, we've seen the finger of creation through Hubble's eyes. There seems to be nothing we can't achieve, no problem we can't solve, if we could just stop killing each other. When we kill each other, we kill more and more of each other in a roughly exponential way until one side or the other hollers uncle, assuming it's possible. The sound of surrender is hard to hear if you're headless. Am I glib? A gliberal? No. I'm sincere. The only reason we've never pursued nonlethal weaponry for warfare is not for wont of imagination but satisfaction. Nonlethal weaponry falls in the same category as non-alcoholic beer, low-tar cigarettes and Playboy magazine. We can bring down an elephant without killing it. We can bag a bunch of monkeys if we need to. We can't harm an animal while making movies. Why can't we exercise the same care when it comes to the forceful handling of our own species? Why can't we put a town to sleep? And when they wake up, the bad guys are gone, sent to the zoo in Toledo? We can. We're very creative. We love tactics. It would make war fun again. We wouldn't be talking about the draft. Our enemies would love us! Think of the press. Great ideas are born to be killed, and this one's a hard sell. Kills are less maintenance than captures. Prisoners are expensive, even offshore at Guantanamo, where U.S. law may or may not apply (we'll see), but where people can be held without charge. Maybe the answer is to start charging them. War is hell, but if people can change, then so should warfare. Why would we choose hell? It's time to think out of the box, because the box is a coffin. I'd like to see the defense contractors come up with a few ideas. The market would be huge. Every country would want every other country to use them on them. In the cool of the desert evening, laughing gas settles over Najaf...

Armageddon Out of Here: An Exit Strategy for Iraq

CW FISHER An elephant, under attack by fire ants, hazards only a few stings to its mouth and anus, but if, in its thrashing, it trips on a rock, the weight of its own fall will kill it. Big things don't behave like small things. This is true in physical science. And military science. America, the Behemoth, can't do like Honduras, load everybody into the station wagon and take off after Russia and Spain. America didn't go to Iraq to set up tents. It went to build. As Powell said to Bush, "You will own that country." And as Bush thought to himself, My God, the man's slow. Some, like me, believe America should simply admit it made a huge mistake and reverse course without further discussion. Let the world sort it out while America takes care of the logistics of leaving with the same vigor with which it invaded. Once the troops are home, America will finally have someone to protect them, just in case. I'm told this is unrealistic, and I agree with that assessment. America can't admit a mistake. It doesn't have that skill. To admit a mistake takes humility, and Americans will have none of it. Even John Kerry says America won't leave Iraq until the job is finished and democracy is established, thereby exactly repeating the error of his arch-enemy, Lyndon Johnson, who also inherited a "war" and made a similar vow. It was honor that killed populations of us and them, honor that lied to win hearts and minds, honor that was nothing more than a euphemism for fear. Now here we go again. When you hear the word honor, shout the word fear. I promised an exit strategy. Here it is. Miss Klupar held up an empty glass, then left the room, returning a moment later with a full glass of water, which she carried to the windows and set on the window sill. She lifted the blinds, opened the window, and we jumped out of our seats to see what she was going to do. She threw the water onto the sidewalk, then walked to the blackboard and wrote the word: EVAPORATION. By the time she finished explaining, the water was gone. Uniformed coalition forces need to be thrown like a glass of water into the desert well outside the populous areas of Iraq. This action alone will have an immediate pacification effect that will only improve as the days pass. Meanwhile, the water in the desert evaporates. Some water cells rise into the air and go home, others drift where they're needed and assume the exact size and shape necessary to do their next job. A single drop of water can put out a match, its evidence up in steam. If you don't care for the science analogy, then try the business analogy. Strategic retreat is far from a dirty word in the business world. It is an honorable word, revered by shareholders, screamed during stock plummets. The word "strategic" is candy over ipecac but the effect assures survival of the corps. The purpose of a strategic retreat to the desert is to put America in a position not to formally retreat, not to evacuate, not to shrivel in defeat, but to simply evaporate, a little like MacArthur, soldiers fading away. An exit such as this creates enough distance to make cool down possible while preserving enough nearness to stay responsive. Evaporation sidesteps the doom of false honor. And allows President Kerry the negotiating room he'll need it.

Osama Rises from Dead, Leaves Message

CW FISHER "Osama bin Laden," who hasn't been seen on video since well before the bombing at Tora Bora, today sent another audio taped message to the world at large from the world beyond -- and included a lovely 8x10 of himself smiling wanly, as proof he's alive. Speaking in Aramaic from prepared text, the voice made a generous offer to end acts of terrorism in European countries that halt military actions in Muslim nations. In other words: you leave us alone; we'll leave you alone. Yeah, that sounds like Osama. Actually, it sounds more like my mama. France, Germany, Spain and Britain immediately fired off boilerplate, saying they'll never negotiate with terrorists, completely missing the rather obvious fact that engagement of any kind -- even publicizing the contents of a dubious tape -- is a type of negotiation. Sometimes, saying "we won't negotiate with terrorists" is a bit like saying "we won't negotiate these rapids." Sometimes you either negotiate or else. When al-Qaeda blows us up we react as we must: rescue the victims, bury the dead, boil in the streets. We react; we can't help it. But public reaction is a powerful force that can depose leaders, as in the case of Spain. In a sense, Spain skipped negotiation and went straight to capitulation. In a counter-clockwise way. Al-Qaeda doesn't leave a business card. They leave it to intelligence agencies to figure out who did it. Occasionally they take credit, which means nothing. Some acts of terrorism may be sanctioned from a central authority, others may be only inspired-bys. We don't know very much about very much. As an avid listener to the hearings, I speak with authority. It's all a guessing game. Therefore, for the CIA to say a tape of Osama is probably authentic is to raise any doubter's brow. It's hard enough not doubting these days, standing as we are in the center of lies between so many competing forces, fully conscious of being manipulated into choosing which lie is best for Us. Most governments prefer to think of al-Qaeda as a defeatable army, but this is not the case by a long shot. The only thing we're defeating is our prospect for peace in our lifetimes. Rage is rather infectious, especially to a poor and downtrodden people, but their methods of war have enraged us in return, and our rage has blinded us to central issues, such as how we're going to solve the root problems, or how we're even to agree on what the root problems are. Call me a commie, but al-Qaeda and its imitators have several powerful advantages. First, they're invisible. Second, they're alarmingly willing to die -- even enthusiastic about it. Third, they are lithe: able to react instantly by simply stepping in and out of the shadows. States are proud ships that take a long time to turn around. For the terrorist, it's bim-bam-boom. We fight big and expensive; they go small and cheap. We've already run out of troops, their militia grows. What we call "suicide bombers" they call "holy martyrs." What we call soldiers, they call targets. We're like the British, marching into battle: our tights are white, our seams are straight, our hats are cocked just so, while in the bushes wait a hundred unwashed "patriots" armed with their daddy's shotguns. No fair was shouted, but the underdogs won. Our mindset has it that we can "win" not only a war on terrorism but a war between the pan-Arab world and the "civilized world," as George W. Bush called it twice at his recent press conference. The civilized world. Mr. Bush threw a rock from a cliff above a river and told us it would make a big splash but the ripples would stop abruptly at ten feet. We can kill more people than they can, but the Arab world is old-fashioned. They don't seem to care. Word on the street is they don't consider life to be precious. That's the one thing our enemies always have in common. Therefore they couldn't possibly be outraged that the Americans, for example, casually killed 700 predominantly women and children of Fallujah, in response to the actions of a mob. To pacify, in Bushspeak, is to kill. Babies cry, women weep, kill 'em all. Strategy. Nobody complains or notices. John McCain sends a tape to NPR saying "we must stay the course." Meanwhile, the Coalition doesn't know who, what or why they're fighting anymore. Today the Russians are pulling out. But for God's sake let us not lose backbone now or the world will never respect us again. That's not what George W. Bush is saying. That's John F. Kerry's message. Our leaders and their delusional ideas of "honor" will prevail if we let them. "Honor" is something politicians know little about, yet it's even more dangerous to allow the military to define the term. "Honor," in the transcendent world, is about honesty in the search for truth. What we need is not backbone but brains. The one thing that provokes Iraqis, for example, is seeing Coalition forces. Otherwise they're fine. We need to first drop trou. Lose the uniforms. Go invisible. Our soldiers need to become spies and get comfortable in robes. We have to get inside. We have to simplify our mini-missions and accept that we're learning as we go. Simultaneously, we have to look for somebody alive who's in charge, because right now there is no authority who could halt anything anyway. And yes, if negotiate means discuss, then we negotiate. We throw out our old thinking, because that's what got us here. Strategic retreat isn't cowardice but cunning. We need to suck them in. We need brilliance. We need CTU from 24. We need Jack Bauer. Osama bin Laden's death is only an opinion deduced from evidence and logic. If it's true, it changes the game, which is the value of speculation. It wouldn't be surprising if the tape was created by our side. Misinformation is an old trick. It's all over the television. Was it Osama? Was it not? Who cares? It doesn't matter. He doesn't act like a living man. No doubt Osama did exist, but he lives today in hearts and minds, crossing borders with the ease of a ghost, the first pan-Arab unifier since Mohammed, whose methods of war will be studied for centuries to come. The idea that Osama can ever be "caught," let alone "smoked out," simply demonstrates our inability to accept the terms we've been handed.

What A Wonderful World It Would Be

CW FISHER By the power of unwritten law, all American boys and girls were once declared Pilgrims or Indians, forced to meet center stage to exchange turkey and maize, later smallpox and scalps, compelled to sing a song or two, then made to exit both sides of the stage and march single file through the rest of their lives as either one thing or the other. These valuable lessons form the fundamentals of American policy today. I studied American History from grades K-12, each year starting off with a review of the explorers, landing on Plymouth Rock right around Thanksgiving. Of course we went deeper into detail every year. The pace allowed us to reach the Teapot Dome just around summer. In my senior year, we started with the 20th century and just got to World War II, but had to skim the remainder because the first semester was spent on American Government, as required by law. Maybe this explains how we wandered into World War III. In America, the study of World History is sometimes offered, though rarely encouraged. The study of ancient failed states is not only misleading but irrelevant, and there's just not enough time. Simply put, we like our history simply put, and we demand redundancy. If it's worth learning once, it's worth thirteen times more the thirteenth time. In this way Americans became ingrained, as distinguished from its odious opposite, brainwashed. Where the ingrained believe whatever their government tells them, the brainwashed believe whatever somebody else's government tells them. It occurs to neither that all governments lie by nature and should never be trusted under any circumstances. Most Americans, having an ingrained sense of US history, have a genetic distrust of government and a deep desire to overcome their distrust, due to the hectic lifestyles they lead. They have mouths to feed, tanks to fill. They want a government that does the right things because it's the best damn government in the world, that's why. In America, Land of Choice, you're either a Patriot or Redcoat, Cowboy or Indian, Owner or Slave, Carpetbagger or Confederate, Republican or Democrat, Christian or Some Other God Forsaken Religion We Tolerate, Upwardly Mobile or Dragging the Rest of Us Down. You're either With Us or Against Us, part of the Coalition or a Make-No-Mistake-Terrorist. If you're in-between, you're on a work visa. If someone doesn't understand something written here, words may be thrown at them, and failing words, bombs. In any case, America must prevail. We must stay the course, whether our direction is right or wrong, for we are not wrong ever, as history will show. In my junior year of high school, Mr. Hyde told a story about the chair on which the Speaker of the House sat. On the headrest was an ornate carving of a radiant sun on the horizon. Jefferson, or one of those guys, speculated as to whether the sun was rising or setting. After much discussion and placing of bets, they decided as a body that the sun was rising, or had better be for the good of the young nation. It was the stupidest story I ever heard and I said so. Because any nation that was designed by people who don't know which way the sun goes is doomed by its own stagnant notion of the workings of the universe to be burned alive slowly over time. I was told it was good I lived in America where my opinions could be aired freely, and not in Russia, where a comment like that would put me in jail. I was grateful then. I'm grateful now. Don't know much about history...

The Naked President

CW FISHER I was sitting around the kitchen table with one of my college roommates. He was explaining that there was a light, that he was in this light, and that the light was of him. The next day he introduced me to the invisible Keith Richard. A few days after that, while performing on stage at Chicago's Auditorium Theatre before thousands of invisible fans, he was arrested for breaking and entering and sent to Elgin Mental Hospital. Tonight I watched George Bush conduct his most forthright and upstanding press conference ever. He was commanding and in charge, his answers clear and heartfelt. When he speaks of Iraq, he lights up. His eyes see grateful people. He sees a few terrorists who will be dealt with. Sadr will be arrested. We will turn power over to the Iraqis June 30, and we'll remain there as long as necessary to assure the security of this new democracy. We will stay the course and wipe out terrorism at its source. And make no mistake, he added, the war in Iraq is the war on terror. My roommate was the nicest guy. Quiet, sincere. But after his psychotic break, he was difficult to talk to. It was like I wasn't there. Yet he was full of conviction as he described for me his world, the true world, which should be the world for all the people, and didn't I see? I couldn't. George Bush, unlike his father, has a vision, and I greatly prefer the father's. Because George Bush Jr. is one strange cat with a very twisted view of our world and how it works. Some people have said George Bush is dumb, but he's not dumb. Skating through life is easier if you're smart about it. He's done pretty well for himself. He's writing history so fast we can hardly keep up. He's taken us places we never expected to be and he'll keep us there for years to come, now that he so willingly stepped across the line into revenge killing, a process that never ends. Fallujah kills four, Bush kills 700 -- the majority of whom were women and children. And now, make no mistake, they're terrorists. Iraq isn't Vietnam, it's Israel. Bush flunked history, and continues to, but he knows how to keep a crisis boiling: park an army outside of town and let 'em know you'll blow 'em all to kingdom come if they set foot in the street. The reason we're doing this is because we're so concerned about the safety of the Iraqi people, especially the women and the children. The reason he needs the war to boil over a bit and kill a few thousand or so is because the darn election is coming up and he's got to deflect attention away from the findings of the 9/11 commission and the thousand ways his administration blundered in ways so outrageously arrogant and misguided that there's no other word but "ruthless," a word so often applied to these people it's getting flaccid. Bush has accomplished a great deal in his term, fulfilling almost half of his campaign promises. His domestic agenda was accomplished with one hand tied behind his back. It's easier to undo things than to do them. Hence the steep decline of the environment, sharp rise in corporate crime, price fixing, secret lobbying relationships, untaxed off-shore banking. This is truly unAmerican stuff, deeply sinister. The fact that some of the people are Bush's friends makes the Whitewater scandal look like some backwoods real estate deal. Somehow, like pulling a shoelace, Bush undid the local public school system in towns like yours and mine all across the America, managing to hurt hardest the kids who need the most help. At least he didn't bomb them. He bought a Republican Congress with a tax cut, a congress that gleefully signed into law his "windfall profits" tax cut for the rich which does little for the middle class and working poor except raise their state and local taxes. The next time you swerve to avoid a pothole, think about George shifting the down. Things kind of come down to... you now, don't they? His ideas of less government tend to create the exact opposite effect of whatever he names the program. Hence the Clean Air Act. The only honest word, of the three, is "Act." Yet Bush knows exactly what he's doing, rather undoing. And he needs our vote because he could undo so much more with four more years. Therefore, Iraq. The ever-expanding already-accomplished mission. Let's talk mission. We went to find the bombs. First we softened 'em up, killed maybe 50,000 people. Small price. True, it would have been better if we'd had better facts before we killed so many people, but it made Rumsfeld happy and it was getting late. And also, the lives of Iraqis don't matter. Sorry to be cold, but that's how it is in war. We have to remember: they're terrorists. Before we could look for weapons of mass destruction, American troops had to wait patiently while Iraqis looted the country. If there were any weapons, it's a good guess the looters walked away with them. Anyway, we weren't there to provide them with security or law and order. We were there for the bombs. No bombs. Mission accomplished, said Bush on the boat. And now... ...now we need to make sure these people get a nice American-style democracy. We people with guns order you to create a government in our image while we stand here with guns on you. And yes, yes, we're going on June 30th. We are out of here! The Iraqi people, and many American people, understand this is bullshit, and now everybody knows, now that Bush has made it clear. We will turn over the power, and we will increase our presence and remain indefinitely. This is not a lie. It is a bold-faced oxymoron. But not a lie. They have the power, we have the guns. The logic is so circular it has centrifugal force. I believe George Bush believes what he's doing is right. He has frightening resolve. He would make an excellent president of Iraq. He has a great interest in this country, much greater than his interest in ours. I saw something in George Bush tonight I hadn't noticed before. He radiates. He's a handsome man with great hair, his clothes are good, he's confident. He's an excellent speech reader with an underplayed style that's truly unique and extremely effective at scaring the crap out of people. But what got me tonight was when he was off the notes, connecting with "Dave," and "Ed," and "Mark." He was unimpeachably sincere. And in his eyes I saw conviction. A look I've seen before somewhere.

Gunsmoke: White House releases PDB

CW FISHER It was almost exactly as Condoleezza Rice said. The presidential daily briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside the United States" did indeed summarize old news. As she insisted repeatedly, the PDB contained "historical information based on old reporting" about al-Qaeda. "It did not," she said, "... warn of any coming attacks inside the United States." But what about the part where it says the FBI had detected "patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York." That sounds like a warning of a coming attack on the United States. And that was very new information. Rather specific too. This is what is called a bald-faced lie. Historical information -- would that include intelligence that was three months old, or is that considered history too? Because the memo did include information 3-month old information about al-Qaeda plans to enter the United States for an attack with explosives. It says here that the FBI was conducting "approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the U.S. that it considers Bin Laden-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our Embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group or Bin Laden supporters was in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives." Let's hear it for the commission. Let's hear it for truth. Let's pick these people off one by one, if that's how they want it.

Unwinnable Iraq

CW FISHER The concept of "winning peace" through force is an ancient paradox worth reexamination by somebody who knows what they're talking about. The only person qualified to broker this peace is Jesus, who speaks Arabic fluently, I saw the movie tonight. He's definitely the one and only. If he can't do it, nobody can. Because nobody can. Win the peace, that is. Certainly not America. The peace is not America's to win, since America brought war. We can only continue to steal the country at this point, because that's what George Bush has had us doing. We can keep acting like we're "still" doing the right thing, but to do that now is to aid and abet, since we now know America is in Iraq under false pretenses. We illegally invaded a peaceful sovereign nation, bombed its cities, deposed its leaders, destroyed its infrastructure, its phones, electricity, water, schools, hospitals -- schools and hospitals -- we killed tens of thousands of unarmed civilians, and then we found out, shucks. No weapons. No army, no police, no cooperation, no patience, and now, no mercy. Here's an interesting fact we knew before we invaded. Saddam had just put the finishing touches on his second novel, which was about to become a full-length motion picture, then a theatrical spectacular the likes of which Baghdad had never seen. Writing was Saddam's passion; there was no other mistress but the muse. Producing took a bit of time too! Let us pause to reflect. Men over 50 often write books in response to their sudden, but natural, cataclysmic drop in testosterone. This is a time of life when men begin to lose body hair and interest in normal things like impressing people. Absent this hormone they pad about the kitchen and look back over a lifetime of aggression and find themselves feeling feelings they can't quite place. They hide, they write, they apologize on paper, trial-size; they reproportion events, change names, dress it up, have a ball with it, or not have a ball, doesn't matter: most first-novelists will be last-novelists. But second novels are a different thing entirely. Second novels are written by writers and lunatics. This was Saddam. To write requires all. To write in the style of Saddam is to scratch dryly from a shriveled scrotum, but dude it's all he's got man. And that's why Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction and no plans of harming the US or any other country. Anybody who knows anybody who's done anything similar to what Saddam Hussein was engaged in knows absolutely that he was not pursuing world domination! He wanted roses. Look what we've done. Look at it. America has done this thing and it's too late to undo it and, kids, it's time to go home, and send money and regrets. Be nice if we could take the initiative to do it before Easter so Japan can save face and three innocent people spared from being burned alive. It would be nice. It would be Christian. It could even save the world. Peace.

Rice Should Go

CW FISHER The pivotal question came from Richard Ben-Veniste, former Watergate prosecutor and current commissioner of the 9/11 hearings, who asked, "Isn't it a fact, Dr. Rice, that the August 6th (presidential daily briefing) warned against possible attacks in this country? (And do you) recall the title of that PDB?" Dr. Rice replied: "I believe the title was 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.' " "...the title was 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.' " "...attack inside the..." Smoky in here! August 6th, 2001 might be destined to become another one of those dates that sticks in the national datebook like June 17 (Watergate break-in) and December 7 (Pearl Harbor). If that sounds too radical, listen to this: on August 6, 2001 George Bush read that Bin Laden was determined to attack inside the United States. In order to ignore a headline like that, one would have to be extremely thick -- and to some degree we've come to expect our presidents to be thickish. But the help? That's their job! Honor insists on resignation. Hubris fights tooth and nail. I've studied the transcripts, I don't care what she said; it's the fact she's still saying it. Like so many others in the Bush cabinet, Rice has this strange inability to see or hear. I was baffled by Paul O'Neill's deaf/blind metaphor, but I'm getting it now. These people, like sentinels, stand beside whatever they said before, and defend it. What are they defending? And why? Who asked? All this is is an inquiry into an act of mass murder we witnessed. We were all there. Every last goddam one of us were there, whether we lived through it or not. You'd better believe we were all there. Yet Dr. Rice in words and demeanor seems to be saying we weren't there, not like she was. We didn't see or hear what she saw and heard. We didn't have the context she had, or the intelligence she had, or the focus. A very good friend of mine was a block away when the first plane hit. Listening to him puts me closer to ground zero than anything I've ever heard out of Dr. Rice's mouth, and now that I've heard her testimony, I'm absolutely certain that we as a nation saw nothing like what Condoleezza Rice saw that horrible day in New York City. For me, it's already over. I'm not wasting my time on it anymore. Rice's behavior is the kind that turns inquiries into investigations that become indictments and impeachments -- and this is not the kind of thing we need to be wasting our time on at the moment since there are more people every day who are more resolved than ever in their desire to kill us in the most horrible ways possible. We have blown the so-called "war on terror" from every conceivable direction. Caught now in the center of what has become a civil war, our enemy is no longer simply the "terrorist," because the term just can't stretch across a population. Today, as a direct result of the actions of our nation, our enemies are many, our allies are fewer; our coalition is in some ways just a ragtag collection of client states and contractors. And on Easter Sunday, because of the failure of the National Security Advisor to take seriously the threat of terrorism on our soil, a mistake she continues to make, three human beings will be burned alive.

Tax Revolt

CW FISHER Mailed your taxes yet? Eh, why bother -- you know where your money's going: down the rat hole, already spent, just interest on interest now. Hey, it's only money. The reason you're pissed is because it's your money. You think you're different because you work so hard for your money. News flash, jerk, we all do. Who doesn't pay taxes? You want to complain, go live in Uzbekistan. I'm sorry. I don't mean to be harsh. I pay taxes too. I do it because otherwise no refund. I'm not stupid. I'm just as dumb as you are. When I learned that 60% -- that number again -- SIXTY percent -- of American corporations paid NO TAXES whatsoever last year, it made me wonder: what's wrong with the other forty percent? What were they thinking? Now that it's okay to not pay taxes, ordinary Americans can't be far behind. I'm already on board. Just tell me where to not write a check and I'll do it immediately. The real April Fool's joke is on the 15th. Every year I get suckered. Yet isn't taxation a form of referendum? Our heritage indicates it: this country's independence began as a tax revolt. It was always about the money. The "certain unalienable rights" Jefferson mentioned in his letter to King George (among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness) were euphemisms for money. It's all about property. Property is wealth. America itself is property that is owned by the American people, parcel by parcel, vote by vote, gun cabinet by gun cabinet. If an elected government lies to the people who placed it in power, it should be displaced by those people, as Jefferson proscribed. And it will be, of course, one way or another, or both. We like to pretend America was founded on religious freedom, but if that were true this country would be run by religious fundamentalists instead of faith-based word-replacers. We should call them dementalists because they've taken all the fun out. They are strange people with an extremely narrow agenda that represents not the pie but the knife that cuts the pie. To say this country was founded on religious freedom is like saying Australians descended from criminals. We're very fortunate that our pilgrims had a tendency to drown saucy women or there'd be more folks like David Koresh and Pat Robertson and al Sadr making our minds up. The anger, frustration and violence in Fallujah is a bit beyond Boston. It proves that people still don't like to have their country destroyed, invaded and occupied. It just makes them mad. Crazy. Now add the outrage of religious fundamentalists -- and you've got volatility on the scale described in the Book of Revelations, that apocalyptic document so fondly quoted by our own fundamentalists. The best way to fulfill a prophecy is to fulfill it. By now it should be obvious to everyone that this entire war is a product of extremely misguided thinking. This war was never about WMDs or terrorism or national security. This war has always been about property. Iraq's. "Our" intentions in Iraq are not good, but evil. Good can't come out of it, just as light can't be squeezed from darkness. The only way to finish what we've started is to stop what we started and start over. Perhaps when the last dime of the unpaid corporate taxes are paid, Americans could resume paying their personal taxes. That would be a way to insure the return of American troops.

Holy Shi-ite

CW FISHER As America's future unfolds on the streets of Fallujah and now of Najab, I think it's time we STOP, children, what's that sound, everybody look what's goin down. These street gatherings are not quite yielding up the long-promised rose petals, but neither do they represent a "quagmire," which requires jungles and mud. What's happening now in Iraq is much closer to what we used to call civil war. The Shi-ites, who were considered not friends but friendlier than the Sunnis, now hate us as much as the Sunnis, whom they also hate. Worse, the Shi-ites have split in two, and all three groups have taken to the streets, heavily armed, ready to kill each other just as soon as the coalition forces leave. Until then, the coalition forces are the targets, and not just Americans. Ukrainian forces, who lost one yesterday, are going home early. The next time someone tells you that things are almost back to where they were when Saddam was in power, take off your flip-flops and slap them on both cheeks. Things are not better. Things are worse and worsening. Democracy ain't happening in Iraq. Democracies don't close down newspapers -- which is what Paul Bremer did. Closing the paper was the flashpoint that brought the mutilations in Fallujah, followed by an insurgency in Najab that today overtook a police station and robbed the newly trained cops of their sophisticated weaponry, even their flak jackets and uniforms, paid for by your tax dollars. At the front of the frenzy is the charismatic young Mullah al Sadr, a man who was slated to share a great inheritance of power after June 1st. Sadr has now decided he wants nothing to do with America's power anymore. He says it's time to go. Now. This is only thing that all Iraqis agree on. They want us out. Curiously, nobody thinks this is a good idea except them and -- me -- apparently. I think it's a fabulous idea. We'd be heroes. Now they'd throw rose petals at us. If we leave now, they'll throw our old money at us too. Bush has no plans to leave, of course, not before June 1st and not after. Kerry thinks the deadline is a mistake and that we should stay and see it through. All the Americans I've spoken with are quick to own up to America's responsibility for seeing through what it started. Looks like sunny Iraq is ours to enjoy for years to come. The problem is that civil wars are complicated affairs, furiously fought, and cannot be "won" by outside forces -- ever -- because hearts and minds are homegrown, not imported. In "setting Iraq free," which was not why we went there, we have touched off civil war, and we dasn't act surprised for it is writ from antiquity that it be so. It is time to go. Yes, first we have to talk about some things, like how. Let us devote not five years to this thorny issue but rather let's give it the five minutes it requires. The best way to go is exactly the way we came, only going the opposite direction, toward home, where we have a great deal more to discuss, such as how we plan to rebuild our own democracy.

Flip-Flops a Flop

CW FISHER I despise everything about the word flip-flop and its buddy flip-flopper -- they're juvenile, crude, witless, simplistic, double-eff epitaphs that stain like beet juice when facts are involved. Hasn't Bush been bashed enough? Yet, there's Senator Kerry calling President Bush a flip-flopper of the first order. Bush, he says, was against nation building, but it turned out he was for nation building. All right, that's a little bit of a... flippy-flop there... ...something of a... motherflipping motherflopper when you think about it. Sadly, Senator Kerry's table-turning on the whole flip-flopping thing was not to be, for his dazzling Spring collection of bites was blown to bits by the clapping of flip-flops from hundreds of barefoot young Republicans. Clog whackin, as we called it back in our sister-bothering days, is just as irritating today, only grownups don't have to worry about their moms making them stop. Free speech is both priceless and worth every penny. But with free speech you don't necessarily get what you don't pay for. Poor John didn't figure on such brilliance, but finally the soccer moms and golfing dads have found a way to express their political convictions without having to be up on current events. Guerrilla politics Presbyterian-style. And so is born a new political tradition: flip-flopping, the event. Imagine the sound they'll make at the conventions. Drowning out speakers. Making some kind of point. Of course, flip-flop demonstrations almost seem irrelevant compared to the demonstrations now taking place on the streets of Fallujah and Najab. Within a few days their mischief has gone from simple street mutilations to the seizing of police stations and the looting of police weaponry. This stuff is a far cry from flip-flopping. And perhaps just a tad more relevant to the political discussion.

Pearl Is

CW FISHER I found a blog that goes well with hot chocolate, feety pajamas and a liberal arts degree. Pearl Pirie, creator of Humanyms, is now part of my bedtime regimen. This is what pulled me in: midnight bathroom trip Intruder noise! Popcorn? My own footbones! Ah! Poetry! I remember poetry! I'm accustomed to blogs full of politics, blogs that are messy, like a boy's room, with items and links strewn about like unput toys. Pearl slides open like a well-ordered sock drawer. Plus, she "goes naked," and posts her first drafts. How about this then, my first draft, of M-hmm Hm. M-hm nh-uhn, M-hmm Mmmm I live inside your sounds Press into the waves That don't make it past The cave's mouth May I be your constant forever inarticulate black angel on the ceiling of your mouth? May I hang by my soles, dig my toes in your alveolar ridge, Arch with your arch, quake, Cling to your every non-word? See, now, that I get. That I like. I can understand that, which, for me, is profound. People have been writing impossible-to-understand poetry for so long that I just finally gave up and assumed it was me. Reading Pearl makes me think: Maybe it's them. My own love of poetry began with Dr. Seuss (which ended recently with the help of Mike Meyers and Burger King -- thanks, fellas!). From Seuss it was Ogden Nash, the world's first unabashed good bad poet. I met my dark side in Poe, searched for years to find a better word than tintinnabulation, or just a way to use it in conversation. After a little bit of pot I discovered Bob Dylan, Dylan Thomas and Donovan Leach but was too stoned to realize that only one was a poet and the other two idols. I ran aground on a ginsberg / met his merry band of furlengettis minor poets major addicts absent people typing typing goonatiks. Baudelaire got me drunk, Rimbaud made me suicidal, Sylvia Plath was like sinking into a deep tub of warm water while holding a live wire over my head. Quoting Pope never got me laid, but John Donne never fails. Not to say that Pearl's Donne. I'd say she's just beginning. Plus she's not above recycling old email humor. > > > > > >-- The man who fell into an upholstery machine has fully recovered. > > > > > >-- A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion. > > > > > >-- Once you've seen one shopping center, you've seen a mall. So Pearl wears the price tag, but what a hat. And I do appreciate the little goodies she leaves in the sock drawer.

Blossip globs

CW FISHER Former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix recently described his bizarre first-and-only visit to the White House. Blix was struck by a strange breach of protocol in which he and his entourage were first brought to meet Vice President Dick Cheney, who "exceeded his reputation" as a most uninteresting man. Then they met with President Bush, whom Blix described as squirming and inarticulate. Note taking was forbidden. Blix, who has a good sense of humor and a great name, was once the only guy in the world who knew there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and said so, but apparently Bush wasn't taking notes. Speaking of Cheney and Bush, rumors persist there's an AA connection between them, specifically, that Dick Cheney is George Bush's AA sponsor. Both men have DUIs in their driving records. If it's true, it would explain a great deal about their strange relationship. Cheney, who once told us he was building a "shadow government" in the event of an attack, is today a teetotaler and a weirdo of the first order. "Teetotaler," by the way, is short for "capital T totaler," a phrase that once described a non-drinker but is now a euphemism for recovering alcoholic. Ironically, it is not capitalized. Journalist Bill Kurtis is something of a renaissance man: as he gradually retires from his khaki exploits in darkest Africa and other war-torn parts of the world, he returns now to his native Kansas to raise beef for McDonald's. On his ranch. He rides the horse. This is true. I first met Bill in 1978 when he was our local news guy on CBS. We both stepped out of different stalls at the same time in a men's room in Sears Tower back when it was Sears's tower. Naturally, having made eye contact, we washed our hands, then went across the hall to the booth where he narrated a film on which I was "intern," something about Kenmore innovation in action. You wouldn't have known it by watching the film but it was actually about how they were able to get one more refrigerator on the truck by making the door handles removable. I thought of those jerks every time I tightened my refrigerator. Kansas, by the way, is considered to be the best place in America to hear our true, best American accent. Apparently in Kansas they all talk like Bill Kurtis. Imagine dinner conversation. Today, in Topeka, down hot treeless streets dotted by sleeping dogs and stolen manhole covers, we hunted the elusive parking spot, eyes creased against the sun. I had the privilege of writing for Bill Kurtis many times through various charity events, especially Ronald McDonald House Charities, an event he emceed many times at no charge. I used the word indefatigable once in an introduction (as in "the indefatigable Ed Rensi" (who was fat). It was funny. But Bill was worried. Why? He didn't know. Was I positive it was a word? Absolutely. It means cannot be tired out, will not be fatigued. Maybe he thought it had overtones; he didn't believe me, something in my face; he went to a pay phone (the hotel blocked cell phones), he called his staff. But when he turned, of course, he was beaming. "Indefatigable it is!" I have told this story many times and I've gotten tired of it, which makes me defatigable, or fatigable? Fatigated?

The Tragedy of Comedy Writing

CW FISHER For years I had a nice little comedy business going, which is both harder and easier than it sounds. The easy part, usually, is coming up with the funny part. The hard part is convincing the client it's funny, and humor never works in this endeavor. This is why I rarely told my clients I was a humor writer. I liked to see if they noticed first, and if they did, I'd play it up. What is a comedy client, you wonder, and how can I get one? Mine were corporate. I found that corporations had a huge appetite for comedy and the budgets to back it up, and when I discovered that bosses like to be funny, their wallets fell open at my feet. All I had to do was make them funny, whether they were or not, without making them look stupid. I went through a period of hiring people -- what hubris -- but I did it. I had this enormous office in the basement of an apartment building, no great shakes, it flooded, but it was private and big enough for writing sessions with some truly funny people who had no problem taking cash for a few hours kicking jokes around. No doubt I got a better product. Listen to this, to what I did. I took a door mirror, a full length mirror for a door like you can get at Wal-Mart, and I turned it sideways, angled down, so everybody could face the screen and look into each other's eyes in the mirror! It was perfect. Then they'd all go home and I'd hang back, and of course the mirror still hung too. The mirror actually became a very important tool for me. I used it all the time, trying out jokes or lines for films or speeches or shows. License to look in the mirror all day. I would never do that now. You couldn't make me. No one even takes pictures of me; it is not allowed, not for reasons of vanity but interest. I often wonder if I actually exist. I have an embarrassingly small audience and no way to tell if they're loyal, but after a few months of blogging I seem to have topped out. In this time I've received the highest praise from strangers and the lowest condemnations from friends, family, enemies new and old. My blog has received hateful hate mail, inspired prose designed to flatten me, which it did, like a cartoon: not quite real pain, but close enough. I received a letter of such violence I felt like a stabbing victim at the end. I have been told in terms both uncertain and non that I'm a no good lazy bum who should die and have died as far as they're concerned. That someone would take the time or energy to focus on my destruction should be frightening, but this is where it comes in handy to call myself a comedy writer. I can always figure out a way to laugh it off. It's as easy to get flattened by criticism as it is by flattery. Control can be a very good thing. Haloscan, my comment service, allows me to edit or delete offensive comments, or even block someone entirely. Which I had the pleasure to do last week. I felt better immediately. But my detractors could be right, that I'll never make money from writing again, that I'm wasting their time and mine, that I'm ruining the world and wasting space. I've always known it. I think the web changed the world. Business should be brisk for a freelance writer, but writing is free now. Everybody does it. Or maybe I'm just no good. Maybe I just don't know how to get known. Comedy writers are like ball players maybe. At a certain point the old funny bone goes. Maybe I'm out of whack, maybe I was never in-whack in the first place. I've been told all my life I'm a whack-off, in between times of being successful, during which times people said the nicest gosh darn things you could imagine. Maybe I'm the only one. Funny, to me, is American Idol. Everything about it. Just the fact of these earnest young people competing to become "idols" based on material that was painfully middle-of-the-road when it was first written 2o years ago -- is funny. Since when has the world sought a new Jon Davidson? Who, besides no one, listens to this music? Why is it not named American Karaoke? Nothing funny about that. What's funny about that? See? Nothing. Isn't it funny when it all goes. Mr. Rogers, whom I met, promised me once: I'd never go down, never go down, I'd never go down the drain. Bastard! You know... the last time I read any of those old scripts from my "comedy writer" days I was sitting in a dumpster, picking up files, laughing and tossing, laughing and tossing. I was moving and determined I wouldn't be needing them anymore. Some of it was still funny, but all of it laughable. My career in a dumpster. Well. Maybe someday in the future there'll be pizza.

Because The Night

CW FISHER Have you ever seen a skyful of stars swept through by a milky way so thick it could have been painted on, stars so numerous they could be grains of sand, all moving in relatives of 186,000 miles per second from light years away in patterns as vivid and crazy as van Gogh? I haven't. You haven't either. Not the way van Gogh saw it. Few people alive today have experienced a true night sky, not since the proliferation of the electric light began erasing the stars layer by layer until all that's left is the occasional airplane. Not the same. I live in a small town 60 miles out of Chicago. We have no night sky. The country is two minutes away. There is no sky there either. I have driven up and down the long, wide state of Illinois and found nothing but the pale yellow glow of civilization that has slowly replaced our only clear evidence of God. What have we done? I want my stars back, dammit, and I need your help. I want a federal end to light pollution. I want illegal light spill to be a fineable offense that carries a penalty. I want open lights illegal; every existing light retrofit with a cowl that conceals the light source, thereby reducing glare to zero for those on the ground and preventing a significant portion of the light from spilling into the sky. This action would quickly restore a huge portion of our night sky, particularly in outlying areas. Tonight, this isn't happening. No one thinks there's anything wrong with an uncowled light. They're wrong. We're all responsible, but the fix isn't terribly complicated; it should be about as difficult as changing a bulb. It would create a new industry. Companies like Best Buy and Wal-Mart could take the lead or simply have it taken from them. Light can and does invade privacy and property. The sky belongs to all of us. We'd have it back if we just put a lid on it. Online petitions are the next new thing, but I don't know how to word a petition. Do you?

How to Shave

CW FISHER When Miss Vasey gave her 8th grade English class an assignment to give a "How To" speech on any topic in which they knew a great deal, several guys immediately made covert hand gestures to indicate their chosen topic, and while we snickered Miss Vasey continued, talking to the windows at the back of the room, face flushing purple. A few weeks went by and the parade of speeches began. Oh, the things we learned! How to change your plugs. How to change a diaper. How to care for an infected pierced ear. How to squeeze a zit and erase it with makeup. How to make pancakes. Mine was how to draw a face. I was the resident artist at Bryan Jr. High School, famous for caricatures and sign-making. But mostly I was famous for Miss O'Laney. Miss O'Laney was a pin-up character I created using an ordinary Sears catalog and tracing paper. Basically, I omitted the clothes of an underwear model, gave her a Mad Magazine type of name, and watched my friends go crazy over it while I stood back amused. She was rather fetching. They all wanted copies, and so Miss O'Laney improved, draft by draft, and I became the go-to guy for what lies beyond green doors. Sex was different back then. Many people weren't allowed to even know about it until they were too old to have it. That might sound impossible, but this was before the internet. The first time I ejaculated -- excuse me, I wouldn't normally mention this, but I'm trying to make a point -- I thought I was dying. Pus was shooting out of me, and it hurt like hell, or something, whatever it was there sure was a lot of it, so I tried to make it happen again and again, and it did, until I was so swollen I had to tell somebody, but who'd understand? So I told my older brother because I didn't know, it could have been apenisitis. My brother had a very loud, very high-pitched giggle, and he found this to be the funniest thing he'd ever heard, so he called up his pal Ricky and they depantsed me, threw my underwear out the window and onto the roof, forced me to go out and get them, then locked me out and laughed like chimpanzees. My point is, this never would have happened if somebody'd told me the facts of life. Today any grade school child with the ability to steer a mouse -- and enough curiosity -- can quickly develop more carnal knowledge than is contained in all the Kama Sutra. Not our children, of course. We wonder. But we know. So there is no more innocence, says yet another generation. But there is, of course, all about. I think innocence is like water; there's only so much of it in the world, and sometimes it's scarce. Guilt, then, would be like fire. This is not my most profound thought and it has nothing to do with how to shave. I was talking about sex. Our drive to have sex and our need to be loved are on parallel but separate tracks. The trains can run in either direction at various times of the day. And, like relationships, metaphors and bloggers, they can get off track. Human beings are generously smeared with sex and think about it day and night. Long ago, in an effort to eradicate public copulation, it was agreed that half the people would run away from all potential sex partners, and the other half would chase after them. Before the men had even unzipped, the women had scrammed. For centuries things went on this way, forcing the creation of art and music, architecture, poetry, philosophy, athletics -- these were all things that were done to impress chicks. Now come to today. Unlock your pop-ups for grins. Type sex in the web bar, see what happens. Sex at your fingertips, good thing or bad? Sometimes it comes down to how much tissue you've got. Love it or hate it, sex isn't going away. It's just like shaving. Once you start, you can never stop. I learned to shave from an 8th grader who's name escapes me, but whose advice I never forgot. Shave with the grain, he said. With the grain? I wondered. What's a grain? Eventually I found out, but it was too late. I shaved in the manner of my father, against the grain. But every time I shaved, every time, I've thought about this kid. Shave with the grain. A few weeks ago I shaved with the grain for the first time. It was not a close shave, but it also didn't remove the first two layers of my skin. I'd been shaving like a transvestite. What good are baby cheeks? What I am saying is that I've been doing something basic the wrong way all my life, and now that I realize it, I've stopped. Thanks for reading, and if you know how to spell "depantsed," please advise.

The Laws of Twoness

CW FISHER There are two types of people in this world: those who believe there are two types of people in this world, and those who don't. If, like me, you belong to one side or the other, you've probably noticed that people split rather easily down the center. There are two symmetrical halves to the body, to the face, to a leaf, a story, an issue, a person, a people. Two sides. It's a law. On the one hand, there's always the other hand. The assumption that there are two types of people is eminently supportable. The law of twoness says you can't have one without the other: Adam & Eve, Good & Evil, Rich & Poor, Either & Or, Darkness & Light, Republican & Democratic. These things need each other in order to be defined. It is said that deep awareness of the duality of Being brings oneness, and this is certainly reflected by the divorce rate, just one of the many ways America splits neatly in half. Oneness rarely lasts either, because the moment you reach it you want to run out and tell everybody. The idea that people will always divide neatly by two is jarring until one understands it is a function of math rather than magic. For those who suspect this is too simplistic, consider the famous twins, "0" and "1," which are the only numbers your computer needs to know in order to do everything it does. If one keeps playing with these opposites -- off/on, yes/no, 0/1 -- one can arrive at marvelously nuanced pictures of the world. The problem comes when we stop dividing things by two and accept as unified Truth a rudimentary black & white equation. To say, "There are two types of people: Republicans and Democrats," is factually correct but functionally conflictive because it forces us to take the sum of all that we are and jam it into one cartoon or the other. Are you with the Reds? Or the Blues? What are the real differences between Republicans and Democrats? Opinions vary, of course, but not by much. Roughly, it's Rich/Poor, White Collar/Blue Collar, Upwardly Mobile/Downwardly Mobile. From there things quickly degrade to Big Fat Loudmouth/Skinny Shrill Whiner. If you're a Democrat, you're either unemployed or worried you're about to be or know somebody who is, or you're a fabulously wealthy Hollywood star using politics to get on Entertainment Tonight. If you have a career job that involves riding a train to work, you're a Republican. This is because your boss is a Republican, and your boss's boss, and so on. It is career suicide to align yourself with Democrats within a business setting. Shortly after my father retired as a top executive with Sears, he, with my mother at his side, made an announcement. "We're Democrats," he said. "Yikes," said we. There are other differences. Republican women have thick necks, Democratic women have thick ankles. There are exceptions and even the inverse can be true: Condi Rice has a pencil neck and you won't find a skinnier pair of legs than the ones under Ginsberg's robe. The neck/ankle equation will serve you well until it hits you it's completely false. Clichés are cheap vessels but they can hold a lot of truth. The rich really do get richer and the poor get even poorer. The rich move up, the poor move down. This has always been true. John Kerry divides rich from poor at $200,000. Broadly put, if you're under the mark you would be gradually settling into a declining state; whereas if you're above the line, you're presumed to be in a state of ascension. At the very bottom of the jar is the sludge from which I write and spit, write and spit. The GOP, which stands for Grand Old Party, is actually still quite grand and still getting older all the time, but it's not much of a party these days -- ever since Richard Clarke began popping reputations like Macy's balloons, the GOP has beheld the incredible shrinking candidate, now the size of a prize, and no gumball. Instead of looking for differences, perhaps we should be looking at similarities. Republicans and Democrats share one thing in common: a hometown. We all live in one. We might not come from the same neighborhoods, but we're all neighbors, all Americans, all easy to recognize in foreign countries because we're either triple-sized or anorexic and stuck through with needles. Now in this town there roils a great seething unease, for its leaders have been winged and are scrambled, lo, see them duck and cover (quack!). In these confusing times, as we townspeople watch an administration burst into one spectacular lie after another, then flip the channel and see American bodies dragged by angry Iraqi mobs, it might do us well to realize our true twoness, because the reality is we have one leg in the Middle East. To me, this election is about what's hanging over the ocean. This election may require some to quietly switch parties in the privacy of a booth, a difficult act, but it can be done (I speak from experience). Even though most Democrats would rather commit adultery than switch parties, and vice versa, it can still be done. The truth, once you've unscrambled all the reds and blues, is always purple.