Thursday, October 9, 2008

Fizz-Out At The OK Corral.

.

It should have been huge. It should have been mighty: a clash of titans with the wit, skill and intellectual fireworks to keep you breathless 'til the last syllable. Hyperbole, hype and hot lead a-flyin'. A shoot-out for the ultimate prize - King Of The World, Ma!

Instead we got to see two be-suited clowns lash feebly at each other with the limp bladder-on-a-stick of ‘on-message’ drivel; prose so pale it was practically translucent, spitballs with neither spit nor balls. The two men seeking election to the White House crossed flaccid words in a debate it so boring it barely rated thirty seconds on news-bulletins crammed with the welter of detail on just how fast the sky is falling in.

Stock markets plunged, the dollar plunged, interest rates micro-plunged around the world and economists, pecuniary pundits and filthy lucremen divined from the entrails of a global economy disembowelled by greed, self-interest and, well, you know the rest. Politics, as ever, is trumped by economics. Money beats guns every time (money, for instance, buys you more ammunition). But the two men staging their sagging little slug-fest in Nashville barely noticed. The crash of falling cumulus from outside was all subsumed under ‘the economy’ a rubric so worn-out it doesn’t even rate Clinton’s killer line ‘It’s the economy, stupid.’. Or maybe it does, only without the comma.

Things you would like to hear said by someone in a shiny suit.

Obama is starting to drive me nuts. After two years of campaigning he’s developed into a parody parroting pure pap, the unthreatening black (can I say black here?) man who won’t rape your daughters, sell drugs to your sons and force you into a drive-in mosque. The head tilts back, the million-dollar smile shines, the microphone comes up and he’s turning into a night-club crooner before my eyes.

“Thank-you. Thank-you. This next number’s about a little thing I like to call foreign policy. Play it Sam..”

“Georgia, Georgia, the whole day through, just a blah, blah, weeble, wurt, blah...”

It’s Tony Bennet in negative, or Sammy Davis Junior back from the grave with two good eyes and all the moves. Just once I’d like to hear him sound as good as he looks.

“John, you’re wrong. Senator Free-Market here is wrong, ladies and gentleman, dead-dog-stinking-up-the-driveway wrong. Mr Deregulate Everything And Trust In The Free Market here is spinning you a line of shit so wide you could pave Iraq with the stuff.

“Don’t get me wrong. He’s a hero. Yes-indeedy. Good for him. But he knows nothing from nothing about economics. Oh he’ll bang on about Corruption On Wall Street and spout piss and wind about Caring For Folks On Main Street, but that’s all. He won’t do a damn thing about it ‘cos it’s against his religion, which is Free Market, First, Last And Everything in Between.”

“And now he wants to do the same to Healthcare. He want’s to hand you a fistful of your own tax-dollars – that’s right, your own money, folks - and send you out there all on your lonesome to take on the Lawyers, Liars and Double-Dealing Bastards of the Corporate Health Insurance Industry – whose Lobbyists he never mentions by the way when he’s blowing smoke up your ass about Washington insiders – and what chance will you have then, do you think?"

“It’s another $700 billion disaster waiting for you right around the time you get old and sick and find you ain’t covered for anything incurred in the course of your ‘life’ – which is defined by the aforementioned Health Insurance Bastards as a ‘pre-existing condition’, so please clear the Hospital Foyer ‘cause you’re blocking the aisle"

“There’s something John McCain and all those nasty Free Market Republican snotbags who can’t believe he’s their candidate ain’t realised about the Free Market. And it’s this:

The Free Market Is The Me Market.

The Me First Market.

The Me First And Screw You Market.

"In fact it's the Me First, Screw You, Your Family, Your Dreams, Your Lives, Your Futures and The Horse You Rode In On Market. And they’ll charge you rent for the horse, grooming and stable fees, agistment, depreciation and relieve you of anything you have on you in small un-marked bills. Oh, and then they’ll charge you for the inconvenience of charging you. The Banks do it already (you remember them, they own your house now), and with your own money too."

“And is it just me or does the old fart get just a little too juiced when he starts talking about the military option, starts talking about bringing the boys home with ‘victory and honour’ instead of defeat. Dubya Bush already declared victory in Iraq, several times if I recall correct. But Hanoi John here, he gets a glint in the eye about it which is just a little too Dr Strangelove, a little too Henry Kiss-my-ass and call me Nixon for my liking. Personally I’d settle for bringing the boys home in anything other than a body bag."

“So, yeah I’ll talk to anyone without ‘pre-conditions’. We got enough guns pointed at everybody around the globe to make me feel like I don’t have to take any shit without having the bad guys play call my bluff. What the hell, a little bit of diplomacy might make a nice change of pace. Hell, we could even get some of our credibility back, with, you know, our allies and stuff."

“Oh and by the way, that slick little throwaway he uses about my inexperience, and that ‘we don’t have time for on-the-job training’. Well that’s grade-A bullshit. Nobody starts as Prez with all the required training. Nobody. It ain’t like you can start out on a small country and work up to the big time. And I can promise you faithfully that I will stay awake longer than Ronald Reagan, pay attention better than GW Bush and keep my dick under better control than Bill Clinton. So we’ll be well ahead of the curve there.”

“The only one who ain’t got time to learn on the job is John McCain, because he’ll be dead soon as Sarah the Pitbull learns where the launch-codes are kept and where his vitamins are inserted. Who wants to gamble the country on whether she can field-dress a dead President? C’mon, don’t be shy, lets have a show of hands here.”

.