© gjc 10/4/06

Somebody better find Osama Bin Laden! President Bush’s approval rating has tanked, going down ever farther with Bob Woodward on the talk show circuit promoting his newest book State of Denial. Mark Foley resigned after being outed as a pedophile, not a gay man (Please tell all the right wing conservatives, Christian or not, that you know that there is a difference!).  My brother John summed up political sex scandals best. “Democrats are the party of consensual sex between adults; Republicans are the party of pedophiles.” Somebody better find Osama Bin Laden! It’s just mere weeks before Election Day and things aren’t looking that grand for the Grand Old Party. Hey, I can talk. I was a Republican for four years after voting in the 2000 Ohio Republican Primary because I thought an actual veteran like John McCain was preferable to George W. Bush, who never fought in a war but seems to have no problem sending other people to fight in one. Four years later, after the 9/11 attacks, the rallying of Americans to fight terrorism, and the Bush administration’s diversion into Iraq, I came home to the party of my youth only to have John Kerry – a war veteran who should have been a shoe-in for President of a country in the midst of combat – wimp out and make me want to be an independent. If the Democrats can’t win back the house this time around, I will become an independent. But how can they lose? Wrong question! Are the Republicans bold enough to pull a 2000 Florida election coup or a 2004 Ohio election rip-off? And, if so, which state will it be in 2006? Considering that the architect of the 2004 election fiasco in Ohio is running for governor and is still in charge of the election (that would never have happened if Ken Blackwell was a Democrat), it could happen here again. But can Republicans stand another scandal in Ohio after Noe, Taft, and Ney? Somebody better find Osama Bin Laden! And they better find him soon! Like on October 31 st at midnight. Not as a Halloween prank, but rather as a last ditch effort to win those seats they will surely lose without an October surprise. Finding Bin Laden would do the trick or the treat will be for the Democrats. So, go on, Cheney and Rumsfeld. Dig Bin Laden out of whatever hole you’ve got him stashed in (Saddam’s has been empty for a while, maybe they put him in there thinking it was the last place anyone would look for him!) Your party needs you. Halliburton is counting on you to stay in power and keeping raking over those billions.  Jeb is waiting in the wings for his bid for the White House in 2008. A lot is riding on your pulling the rabbit out of the hat. So, somebody PLEASE find Osama Bin Laden, Bigfoot, E.T., Jimmy Hoffa, Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, Dan Rather, George Bush’s military record, that ‘moral majority’ the conservatives are always talking about, Tom Cruise’s sanity, Katie Holmes’ common sense, and my bifocals while you’re at it – I’m fifty-five now and I had to take my glasses off to see to type this. Find anything and everything that will help my beleaguered former party because they’ve lied, cheated, stolen elections, and gotten a lot of U.S. servicemen and women killed since that ‘Mission Accomplished’ sign was shown on the nightly news to get where they are today. Never before in the history of our nation have we had less respect in the world, more people out to get us, and fewer Americans who seem to give a damn. The Republicans (with some help from some inept Democrats) created this culture of corruption, hubris, apathy, and lack of any real ethical and moral authority in this country. Shouldn’t they be around to reap the benefits? Or is it time for at least a partial regime change, so at least Congress isn’t beholden to Big Oil and the like? I’m voting Democrat this election, but I’m not sure I should. I would love to see Democrats win the House (and the Senate –  my fingers are crossed!), but I want some Republicans around to help clean up this mess, too. SOMEBODY BETTER FIND OSAMA BIN LADEN BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!