By Their Bumper Stickers Shall Ye Know Them
An interesting announcement appeared on The Daily Kos yesterday. It seems that, after many years and many bazillions of words by Kos and his Kosocrat Cohorts, a publisher has decided to publish a book of the best -- in bumper stickers. Ten to be precise.
Yes, of all the screeds, analysis, commentary and fearless insight, the “ideas” that a publisher deems worthy of preserving from The Daily Kos are ten for a total of 45 words. Now that’s a data compression algorithm that Stuffit’s Aladdin Systems might want to emulate.
While keeping in mind the old adage that “Any philosophy that fits on a bumper sticker belongs there,” there is still something to be learned from the list of “winners.” Indeed, this list taken as a whole presents us with the entire spectrum of the mindset currently pretending to be The Democratic Party. A bit of meditation on the subtext of these pith-packed texts tells us a lot about the people behind them. And since an informed electorate is the bulwark of democracy, let’s have a go.
The ten bumper stickers are:
Asses of Evil
BUSH HATE FACTOR:A
HUMOR: D+
A poor play on the masterful “Axis of Evil” phrase used at the beginning of the First Terrorist War by George Bush. It reveals the Kosocrats thinking that Republicans are a) Evil and b) asses as in ‘stupid’ which is how they came to control the Congress and the Executive. While “Asses of Evil” may well raise a couple of Stooge-Toned “Nyuck-Nyucks, ” it lacks the flair of the much more brilliant construction
“Axis of Weasels.” Indeed, the Kosocrat slogan here is no doubt a weaselesque pilfering of that phrase.
Thanks for Not Paying Attention
BUSH HATE FACTOR: C
PETULANCE: A+
This one is, well, just sad. If anything, more attention (and money) has been paid to the complaints, whines, and special needs of the Democrats than in the Clinton years. But since once the needle of victimhood goes in it never comes out, no amount of attention will be enough. This is the sticker for those Democrats who like to drive off in a 1968 Huff.
Four More Wars!
BUSH HATE FACTOR: B
FEAR FACTOR: A++
In three words, the Kosocrat Democrats manage to sum up the other major energy force they live on in this blighted year: FEAR. Hate can only take you so far in trying to impose your fantasy ideology on the citizens of a free country. To really get them going, you’ve got to make them FEAR. The promise of MORE WARS! seems to be a means of doing this -- until the polls tell you most Americans think we don’t yet have our game face on for the present one. American’s got a good dose of FEAR on 9/11. Their current FEAR is of another. The number of wars it takes to remove that FEAR is irrelevant to them. One would be nice, but if it takes 20, so be it.
More Trees, Less Bush
BUSH HATE FACTOR: B
FEAR FACTOR: B
BOGUSITY: A+
Birkenstock Kosocrats rejoice in a chortle fest when they think about this one. It really “socks it to him” on the environment, doesn’t it. Plus it insinuates a snide double entendre without being either sexist or overtly offensive to Lesbians. It's a two-fer win-win. That the environment is better off in 2004 than in 2000 is not the point. The point is that Bush hates trees -- which is why he’s always clearing the brush away from them in Crawford.
It Takes a Village Idiot
BUSH HATE FACTOR: C
UNINTENDED SLAM AT FELLOW DEM: A+++
Sigh. These people and their editors at Chronicle Books really need to put a professional such as myself on the case. I understand that their “intent” is to make us think of Bush, but when you cop the joke right from the well-known title of the Former First Publicly Humiliated First Lady’s first book, most people are going to think, “Idiot? Who? Hillary?” Ward, I don’t think we’re going to see Kos as Hillary’s choice for running mate in 2008.
One Person, One Vote (*May Not Apply in Certain States)
BUSH HATE: B+
SPORTSMANSHIP: F
Ah, the elections of 2000. Ye olde Florida Butterfly Ballot. The Gore recount gambit. The endless recounts. The Supreme Court.... and still they lost. Unable to understand that Al Gore will never be President and that the Beatles will never reunite dooms the Democrats to an alternate universe where it will always be October, 2000 and the world was still bright and new and fraught with possibility. They keep this up and the bumper strip for 2008 will have to read “Democrats: We Coulda Been A Contender.”
Putting the "Con" In Conservative
BUSH HATE: B
CHENEY HATE: B+
HALLIBURTON HATE: A+++
This little eructation tells the world that conservatives are, ab ova, by their very nature, criminal. It underscores the central belief of those that have little money that those who have more must be bad, and that those who have a lot must be really evil, unless you get it when your wealthy husband dies or you marry a woman whose wealthy husband has died. Then you are a visionary and would never, ever, try to con the electorate about your voting record, your medals, your botox abuse....
We're Gooder!
SELF-ABUSE: A
grammar: F
This goes to the very heart of the Democrats’ current self-image. They are the party of the good. Everyone else is, at the very least, among the ‘not-good.’ This brings to mind the old mindset popularized by St. Augustine about
“the city of God, that, being placed in comparison with the other, it may shine with a brighter lustre." Clearly the only way to be a decent human being is to be or become a Democrat. That is the only way you can be “gooder” than all those sinners. It smacks a bit of the Christian fundamentalism that is always driving Democrats into paroxysms of FEAR, but we’ll let that pass.
Leave No Billionaire Behind
BUSH HATE FACTOR: B
ENVY: A+
As we learn in the Sacred Book of Bob Dylan, “Everybody’s always trying to get you down in the hole that they’re in.” No Democrat wants to be seen seeming to favor billionaires, not even Billionaire Democrats whose money worries can be summed up with “Huh?” Still, we think the bar was raised to the Billionaire level in this knee-slapper only because the Heinz-Kerry’s fortune seems to be stuck at a few measly hundred million.
Bring Back Monica Lewinsky
INSIGHT INTO MIDDLE AMERICA: F
TWISTED NOSTALGIA: A+++
Yes, indeed, if anything is going to push those swing voters into the Democrats’ camp it will be the image of Monica servicing Bill Clinton in the Oval Office. The thong. The cigar. The whole catastrophe. Everyone wants those glory days back. What the authors and editors don’t seem to realize in selecting this “edgy” one is that, at the very least, it will cause most people to wince and think, to paraphrase Robin Williams in
Good Morning Vietquagmire: “Democrats -- in more dire need of a blowjob than any party in history.”
Humm, come to think of it, that’s a bumper sticker with real potential.
Posted by Vanderleun at April 28, 2004 10:56 AM
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