Sarcasm Alley

Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.
- Luke 6:45

I don't do political handicapping or delve into the minutiae of policies or concern myself with the day-to-day happenings of the government. The future is written in our hearts - and no place else. Want to know what's in the health care bill? You'll never know by reading it! I don't care how clever or dedicated you are, anyone can be deceived by the trickery of master forgers. But if you know a man's heart, you'll know the worth of his laws before he ever writes them. It really is simple as that.

But I love conflict - especially of the mind. I have often written of the Sengoku era of Japanese history as being my favorite, a time of no national governance, every man making his own rules. The mafia is like that as well, the top dog is not voted on, it's a sheer meritocracy. I love meritocracies. And it's a pretty safe bet to say the Republicans here in Texas have ruled by gang warfare for decades - only now the warfare has turned inwards. Oh, goody!

Governor Goodhair and Cheerleader Kay are lining up their attack dogs for a no-holds-barred fight to the death - sort of a political Thunderdome. Two men enter, one man leaves. Even I can't resist a spectacle such as that! The great independent paper the Dallas Observer wrote a feature article this week on the impending catfight, calling it a tug-of-war for the soul of the GOP. Huh, who knew they had a soul?

"I'm grabbing your balls!"
"Thank you!"

So Kay Layme comes to town badmouthing Rick the Prick's failed stewardship: "Texas, she says, has the country's highest property taxes, an educational system with the worst drop-out rate in the country and cronyism in its state agencies, which she attributes to Perry being in office too long..." Which is a generous assessment considering he came into office a corrupt being. And of course, neither one ever mentions the environmental disaster that is Texas during the course of their bickering - which clearly shows our high-kicking sweetheart Kay plans on continuing said disaster.

So how does the Man With No Brain respond? By seeking the coward's eternal refuge: He calls her a traitor. "No one is quicker to holler treason than Governor Rick Perry, who though only reelected in 2006 by an embarrassing 39 percent of the vote, has managed to reinvent himself on the national stage, perhaps even as someone with presidential aspirations...As a result, Hutchison has been forced into an "I'm more conservative than you are," message war." Which is sort of like saying they are having an I-Can-Think-Less-Than-You contest. How deliciously perverse!

I have to admit, as a student of human behavior, this race to nihilism completely fascinates me. Ancient Rome comes to life before our eyes as modern day would-be Caesars vie for power in a struggle to deny their souls. The Observer describes the battle thusly: "At stake is more than just the governor's mansion. It's a pitched battle for the soul of the Republican Party not only statewide, but nationally as the GOP tries to figure out how to keep itself relevant in the age of Obama. Must it go to the hard right and maintain ideological purity by purging itself of moderates, as Perry suggests; must it cast its lot with newly elected Republican Party of Texas chair Cathie Adams, the former president of the socially conservative Texas Eagle Forum and a Perry supporter who feels there's a high moral cost to tempering ideology with moderation?"

Elect me for my hair - there's
nothing underneath to vote for!

Ewww, doesn't that get you all Soviet Uniony feeling? Party purity and purges? Yikes! And to further the point, out comes today a proposed resolution for purity that candidates will be required to give a blood oath to if they want backing. It even has the cult of Reagan included - I picture them all in hooded robes chanting, "Trees pollute!" Don't you remember how animalistic the Russians were portrayed in movies during the cold war and thinking to yourself, "Thank God, I'm not one of them!" That's what I'm thinking now too for these guys.

What's not clear is the line between being insane and merely the selling of it (which leads to insanity in the end anyway). Governor Fairy has a definite edge in the lunatic fringe department: "On April 15, 2009, at a Tax Day Tea Party outside Austin City Hall, Perry became the public face of the movement when he told reporters that Texas had the legal authority to secede from the United States because it was a country when it entered the union in 1845...Millions of online Drudge Report readers awoke the next morning to see the headline: "Rick Perry's star is rising." Interviews with Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity followed. And rather than distance themselves from the Tea Party movement and its incendiary rhetoric, others within the Republican establishment have followed Perry's lead."

Stuff like this only increases the unemployment rate when I think of all the satirists put of work with the GOP's own self-mockery. I'm actually afraid to make fun of them as I assume any outlandish idiocy I ascribe to them they would actually latch onto as the Next Great Idea. You know, I could say, "Let's burn gays at the stake like Salem witches" and they'd go, "Right on!" These people are that scary. Instead, I decided to start a "Hug a gay today" campaign and that truly terrified them (to be fair, a few of them actually got secretly aroused by it, wink wink, nudge nudge).

She's the kind of girl that makes the news of the world;
Yes, you could say she was attractively built!