loosie: words: Clanton's Rant

Clanton's Rant

Delay and Frist do politics the American way.

by Clanton McNeese | 2005.10.05

Unless you’re slated for a guest spot on “Washington Week,” you’re authorized to ignore the DeLay and Frist follies. Do something worthwhile instead: analyze the pattern on your kitchen linoleum, hone your coin-flipping skills, take a nap.

Perhaps DeLay’s crooked career will come to an ignominious end, and perhaps Frist will stand naked to the world as one more white-collar culprit. It makes no difference. Should DeLay/Frist be forced from office, Texas and Tennessee are certain to provide replacements straight out of the standard Southern Republican mold. These new boys will champion corporate interests so ardently and lick the boots of the powerful so assiduously that their shamed predecessors will soon fade from memory.

Years down the road: “Who was that snarly guy from Texas, or maybe Oklahoma? Guy they used to call ‘Ballpeen’?”

“Dunno.”

Or: “Remember that skinny uptight guy from Tennessee? The one that killed cats and dumped his fiancee right before the wedding? What was his name?”

“You got me.”

DeLay followed a stereotypical Texas path to political success: he scarcely strayed outside the state except when his father worked in the Venezuelan oil business, got his education at Texas universities, pronounced himself “born again,” and turned from extermination to legislation. He was elevated from the ranks by Dick Cheney, who no doubt recognized his own political style in DeLay’s mad dog demeanor. Perhaps Cheney, who had “other interests” during the Vietnam War, also appreciated DeLay’s explanation for his own lack of a military experience: so many dark-skinned guys had joined up for the financial benefits offered to enlistees that DeLay himself was crowded out of the picture.

According to DeLay, his recent indictment is “one of the weakest, most baseless…in American history.” It is stunning that a white man from the South could make such a weak, mindless statement. Evidence accumulates of the sleazy financial dealings that are his hallmark, DeLay responds with a lack of historical perspective matched only by his lack of integrity. Termites died so DeLay could prosper; Texans have elected DeLay to the House eleven times. These two facts alone should be sufficient to destroy the arguments of the intelligent design cabal.

Creatures also died for Bill Frist’s career, but Frist had it made long before his cat-killing days in medical school. He grew up with the pedigree, wealth, and Yankee education that Tennesseans seem to prefer, or at least tolerate, in their senators. (See “Gore, Albert”). Betrothed to one woman, Frist changed his mind, apparently inspired by some night moves new to him. He met a girl from West Texas, engaged in a spot of premarital sex, and dumped his Nashville fiancee two days before their scheduled wedding. Interestingly, Frist backers like David Brooks of the New York Times regard this switcheroo as an indication of heroic character. Clearly Brooks et al. have forged their attitudes about loyalty and morality in the fiery intellectual cauldrons of Julia Roberts comedies.

Now Frist denies that he engaged in insider trading. He also denies that he even knew what stocks he owned, despite the frequent reports he received, or that he had any special information about a company started by his family. These professions of ignorance seem ill suited to the man who diagnosed Terry Schiavo’s condition from television glimpses. Could Frist be lapsing into lies?

Again, it doesn’t much matter. Frist has publicly stated that he will term limit himself in 2006, and DeLay’s approval ratings have declined even among his constituents, surely the most easily bamboozled in the nation. As long as Republicans retain their hold on Congress and the White House, Washington will attract smarmy silver spoon types like Frist and small-time hustlers like DeLay. It’s the American way.

One wonderful day the Democrats will regain Congressional control. They won’t be a bit like those Southern hawks, pushing for war as if Robert E. Lee himself were marching on Baghdad. As you no doubt understand, when these Democrats vote for war, they really want peace. That’s what they say when the war goes badly. When the war goes well, well, the Democrats don’t mind it at all. So protect yourself. Pay no attention to them either. Cultivate new hobbies. Marry somebody. Raise several children. Show them stars and bugs and kittens. Don’t tell them about politics.