The smirk is doing the work

I think a lot of us did the same thing when Cowboy Dubya came into office. We shrugged, probably sighed and said “at least he’ll be unproductive.” Because that’s actually a comfort. A productive moron in leadership is a lot more dangerous than someone who might just make a day out of locking himself in the Oval Office until he “beats” the “Highlights” Magazine Word Search. And that’s the somebody we thought we were getting when the hall of oddities portion of our democratic system dropped a smirky sock puppet (a tennis sock, no doubt) at our doorstep without a popular vote. We didn’t order this — send it back.

Our only blanket of comfort and semi-productive block against collective nausea was the hope that W would spend more time thinking about switching back to Velcro than the economy, education or the environment. Maybe he’ll even use the stress of pretending to be the president as an excuse to revisit the old firewater. The Smirk Prince could invite the old Yale Skull and Bones crew over to the White House (the ones that aren’t already on the payroll) and have a crazy pinata party. The drunken pictures might leak, democratically, into that damn fascist liberal press’s hands (right, Horowitz?) and Walker, Texas Ranger will have to bite the political bullet and ride out the rest of his term without fancy thoughts of reelection. Yeah — maybe it won’t be so bad after all. Cancel that proclamation of expatriation (it’s actually just a form you have to fill out at the post office).

But then, sometime after “Blue’s Clues” and before kickball with the Texas representatives, W started to think: “Hey, maybe I’ll do something today.” And just like that, it’s more difficult to get an abortion, internationally speaking.

“And hey, that was kinda fun and not really that hard.” Boom, the separation of church and state becomes like the separation between non-smoking and smoking at Denny’s. Damn, we’re sitting over here, but I can still smell the funding of religious organizations. Can’t we keep that from creeping over?

“But no one’s making too big a stink or nothing, so I’ll just do some more stuff.” And every somewhat reasonable environmental or educational stance advertised at campaign time is forgotten and made into some form of truth-bastard. Emission standards are cut, basic scientific knowledge is ignored, water is poisoned, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is sold into power prostitution and schools are abandoned — caught in the Web of “smaller government” knee-jerk rhetoric — in order to make education more like a business in a country that is increasingly wedged into the palm skin-fold of corporate interest. Yes sir, baby Bush has been a very busy little boy.

And now an international saga of sorts is unfolding before our very eyes with the whole “China, plane, I’m sorry” deal. It’s one of these crosses between a schoolyard fight and a political soap opera that leaves you saying, “Just use whatever form of sorry they want and let’s move on.”

But Commander-in-Chief Bush wanted to play stubborn Republican warrior and denied everything. How could our spy plane possibly be to blame? The United States never, and I do mean never, behaves questionably in the international arena. They were spying — we were monitoring. They were flying too close — we were merely flying. They were being obstinate about the apology — we appropriately refused. They are China — we are right.

Right? And this is Bush’s latest triumph. A bullheaded face to show the world just exactly who were are. For, after all, he is our representative. And unless you write for The Sam Adams Review or some other equally pointless opinion rag utilizing a beer logo on its front page, chances are you’re not so happy about our nation’s general smirk right now.

With Bush holding the megaphone, we as a nation are nothing more than progress-fearing, backward-minded, corporate-controlled morons. We break promises and make money. We talk about “less government control of our lives,” while increasingly imposing pro-life moral confusion on all. We take the governmental power with the potential to give health care and good schools and safety to all and give it to corporations that have the power to give some people more money in a day than others make in a lifetime. We make no sense. Even to ourselves.

Bush is not hanging out quietly, reading “Popular Mechanics for Kids” and saying “wow” over the real astronaut pictures. He’s making noise — a lot of it — every day. And every time that noise is made it is broadcast as the noise of us all. He’s wearing the red white and blue tie, while we wear the red faces. Why? Because it’s damn embarrassing.