Episode 82: What They've Been Saying

For the George W. Bush commemorative articulation award

"I simply misremembered it wrong."

- Mark Kirk, Republican Senatorial candidate from Illinois, after untrue statements about his service in Iraq and Kosovo.

Runner-up: Richard Blumenthal, Democrat from Connecticut, who misremembered the truth about his non-service in Vietnam.

The eternal quest for compassion and understanding

"We need to wipe them out!"

- Rush Limbaugh, referring to Democrats on his radio show of March 22nd.

"Spay and neuter liberals."

- Sign seen at a summer Tea Party rally.

Academic clarity of thought

"International recognition endows African state actors with a domestic power of command."

-Pierre Englebert, Professor, Pomona College, on strongman African leaders

"It's just inexorable, this authenticity in the visual language of sameness."

-Sharon Zukin, Professor, Brooklyn College, speaking about gentrification

Military Justice

"You go into Afganistan, you got guys who slap around women for five years because they don't wear a veil. You know guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway, so it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them.

- James N. Mattis, Marine General, appointed commander of American forces across the Middle East. No word on when the General last fired a weapon in anger.

Tolerance

"Doesn't it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland?"

- wordsmith Sarah Palin, weighing in on the proposed Islamic cultural center in New York

Ordinarily, we can fairly assume that Backwoods Barbie would prefer see the island of Manhattan and its payload of liberal elites cut loose from its mainland moorings and shoved out into the Atlantic to play with the icebergs. Yet here, with the wisdom bestowed by her 3,000-mile geographical (not to say geopolitical) remove from the site in question, she feels qualified to voice the concerns of all of middle

America.

She is not alone, of course. Every Republican, Reagan Democrat, social conservative, Christian religionist, documented Tea Party yahoo, and right-wing loon has hitched up to the Islamophobic wagon train. Al Queda has to be delighted. This is their best recruitment tool since Shock and Awe.

Don't get me wrong. When I am appointed Supreme Leader of All the Peoples of the Universe, the practice of religion of any sort in any degree where and whatsoever will be banned, and all physical manifestations of any faith of any kind - churches, synagogues, mosques, temples - will be razed to the ground, plowed under thrice over, and spread with salt. Half the world's violence and social problems will thus be eliminated. Until humans came up with new reasons to kill other humans.

Since that post isn't open just yet, here's my backup position: Do all of you support our founding document (by which I mean, Sarah, the Constitution you profess to love)? Do you truly support the freedom of any resident of the United States to believe any damn-fool accumulation of fables, folk tales, legends, and resulting idiot dogma they wish? If so, mind your own business.

Or, must everyone filter their convictions through a screening process enforced by self-appointed guardians? Freedom for religion for everyone? Except for Muslims, and maybe Mormons? And Jews? Seventh-Day Adventists? Or possibly Jehovah's Witnesses? (God - your God - knows it's annoying to have to deal with those people on the front porch.) How about Congregationalists? After all, they're for abortion and same-sex marriage and Darwin.

So do ya, Sarah? Like the Constitution, I mean. Or do ya think it needs a little tweaking?