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Run, Hillary, Run There are five stages of death, and that applies to political death too. Thanks to the brilliance of the 4th Infantry Division, I’m on stage five—acceptance. I consider myself ahead of my time. I’m already looking forward to Al Sharpton’s 2008 concession speech to Jeb. But in politics, there is life after death. With George W. Bush’s contract more guaranteed than Alex Rodriguez’s, what I need is my own five-year plan, kind of like the ones the Soviets used to put together. I’m tired of being on the outside looking in. I want to be on the inside looking out for number one. I’m straight, so I’ve got that covered. But from there it gets trickier. It’s going to be hard to sell myself as a born-again Christian when I wasn’t born the first time around. The only hunting I do is for parking spaces. I know another two or three tax cuts for the rich are coming down the pike, so obviously I need to work on becoming rich. But that’s easier said than done. And my name is Rich. I’d like to get into the oil business, but first I have to learn the difference between 87 and 89. Don’t tell me two. Lately I’ve been trying to break up the ice in my backyard. This is probably the closest I’ll ever come to drilling in the Alaskan wildlife refuge. Polluters are doing better these days, and naturally I’m feeling like I missed the Valdez. The best I can do is run my Saturn in the driveway. Maybe the way to get rich is to buy shorefront property in central Jersey. With continued global warming, there will be surfing at Morristown Beach any decade now. Until recently, I thought with all this nation-building going on, as a civil engineer I’d wind up with a little slice of pork. But the only thing I’m rebuilding nowadays is my 401K. I’ve considered getting into the weapons business, but DOD has yet to put out a bid package for stink bombs or water balloons. I’ve even considered a faith-based initiative. All I’m lacking is faith and initiative. However, as a Yankee fan who got his head handed to him in successive years by the Diamondbacks, Angels, and Marlins, I’ve learned one thing—taking your hat off to the executioner makes beheading a little cleaner. We need to stop talking about George W. Bush as a dim bulb and start talking about him as a political genius. Real geniuses don’t fight. They get others to do their fighting for them. I’m not talking about Colin Powell. I’m talking about the most effective Republican spokesman of our time--Joe Lieberman. You couldn’t see the leash when Lieberman sicced Howard Dean last week, but you could see Karl Rove laughing all the way to the electoral college. Real geniuses don’t bend the rules—they make them. Supporting a war for which the reasons still aren’t clear has become a litmus test for patriotism, and I’m sick of failing. A country that hates to change horses midstream is now in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay, and there’s water to the horizon. “We support the troops,” the ultimate smart bomb, is also the least definitive, least committal, most hackneyed catch phrase since “Have a nice day.” There are probably all of three dozen Americans who don’t support the troops, and they’re busy recruiting new members for Al Qaeda. If they pay federal excise taxes on their Hummers, they wind up supporting the troops anyway. I mean, John Walker Lindh supports the troops. But to what degree can we genuinely support the troops while vacationing in Barbados, Antigua, and the Canary Islands? Put another way, almost everyone knows the winner and runner up from American Idol. Now try naming two American soldiers who have died in Iraq. Okay, you got me, GW. You win. Matter of fact, I’m for staying in Iraq. No joke. You conceived the baby out of wedlock, now we all have to raise it. Dr. Dean will deliver it. Senator Lieberman will support it. General Clark will teach it to shoot straight. We’re all in this together. Unfortunately, it takes a village. Which reminds me of perhaps the most unpalatable crow I find myself eating lately. Yes, I admit to checking Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s stone cold, deadpan, expressionless face from time to time on CNN for even the slightest sign that she wants her old job back. Unlike the war in Iraq, this is a last resort. I’ll even take that silly, fiscally irresponsible, utterly unworkable national health care plan with it. Click here to rant back. |