'W' is for 'Wisdom'
by Nick Albertson

A few months back, we seemed to be in a contest with the Dark Side to come up with what the "W" stood for. I guess we lost that contest when some of our best and brightest choked on their snot from laughing so hard at our opponents' perverse notion that it stood for "women." Were our adversaries not taking this game seriously? It's quite possible. Look at how seriously their leader takes his new job.

So, I was not at all prepared for the revelation I had last week during an episode of "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer." Even more frightening, it came to me as I was listening to conservative commentator Paul Gigot.

"W" stands for wisdom.

It may sound like an outrageous idea, but let me explain. I would never in a million years suggest that Bush possessed an ounce of wisdom. In fact, my sister and I are still debating whether his mental age is 9 or 14, but we both know he comes nowhere near the mental age of our father, who was born the same year. And our father, bright as he is, likes to call himself "The Kid," so it's not as if we put the poor shrub up against unfair competition.

This man, who makes even Dan Quayle look intelligent, stands for wisdom because that is what he will bring to this country. I like to think that he will be the downfall of the Republican Party, though I know that's not very realistic. After all, Nixon and Reagan weren't its downfall, either. Heck, they even won re-election!

Short of that, however, our [insert favorite derogatory title here] can teach us valuable lessons. He has already shown that a life of failure does not rule out future opportunities for achievement (if you're well-connected). We are beginning to learn that neither what you say (nothing) nor how you say it (badly) is as important as the spin your media whores put on it. Along the way, though, a few grammar lessons never hurt (we even had Gigot criticizing him for erroneous use of the nominative case!).

Curious George goes on his daily adventures, always teaching us by example what not to do. This is better than a children's book, because we all prefer watching television to reading. Citizens of all ages can tune in to their network of choice and learn every night during prime time, right after the Clinton scandal du jour (is it still called prime time if it's on PBS?)

This one-two punch of Clinton-Bush news reinforces the message and aids in learning. We may even come out of these four years more unified, more passionate, and more vocal. We'll denounce hypocrisy and corruption, instead of waiting for our own legislators to do so. We'll have scars from this doomed relationship, to be sure, but we will emerge wiser than before.

Our wisdom-inspiring puppet believes that the Bush administration "will make America what we want it to be - a literate country and a hopefuller country."

He may be right. Despite, or rather, because of, how illiterate and hopeless he is himself.

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