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The
Long Kiss Goodnight
July 14, 2001
by
William Rivers Pitt
"No more tears now; I will think upon revenge." - Mary
Stuart, Queen of Scots
You wanted it, George.
You wanted it so badly that you campaigned for months as
a moderate, a 'compassionate conservative' who wished only
to return dignity and honor to the White House while performing
the bidding of the people. Any fool with eyes and a functioning
mind can see today the depths of your campaign lies. You are
no moderate, and nothing about your agenda is compassionate.
The honor you swore to uphold does not exist within your shriveled
corporate soul. There will be a reckoning.
Oh, how badly you wanted it. Abraham Lincoln once observed
that once the "presidential grub" starts gnawing at a person,
it becomes impossible to ignore. You know all about that,
because you wanted it so badly. While campaigning, you said
you didn't much care whether you won or not. That was merely
one lie among the astounding galaxy of lies you have told.
You wanted it, George.
You wanted it so badly you allowed it to be stolen for you.
You wanted it so badly that you allowed a new breed of Brownshirt
thug to be unleashed upon our American soil, Republican operatives
who stormed vote-counting centers and intimidated people seeking
only to follow the law into abandoning a process that almost
certainly would have cost you the election. This does not
carry the whiff of Fascism, George. It fairly reeks of it.
We know the names of those Brownshirts, George. There will
be a reckoning.
You wanted it so badly that you allowed James Baker III to
lie, and lie and lie again before the American people. You
allowed him to take advantage of the sorry fact that television
journalism does not investigate news, but merely broadcasts
what it hears, like an echo chamber stretching from coast
to coast. You did not rein him in, George, you did not stop
his lies, because you wanted it so badly. There will be a
reckoning.
You wanted it so badly that you have made no public comment
about ChoicePoint and the thousands of African Americans who
were torn from the voting rolls in Florida because they were
mistakenly labeled as felons. The margin in Florida was 537
votes, George, because thousands of Black voters who went
9-1 against you nationally were denied their voice yet again.
Election reform would be a great and necessary service to
American democracy, and would repair the terrible damage done
to the Voting Rights Act of 1964 in November. You do not speak
to that, George, because it does not suit your purposes. You
need those people to be disenfranchised in order to keep your
party in power. There will be a reckoning.
You wanted it so badly, George, that you placed your hand
upon a Bible on January 20th and swore an oath to the foulest
lie ever put forth by a court in this land. You took the office,
George, knowing that the Supreme Court decision that granted
you power was a farce. Do you know that, technically, there
are no more legal counties in America anymore, nor states,
nor state officials? That is what the 'Equal Protection' decision
in Bush v. Gore means, a decision the majority on that court
was too cowardly even to sign their names upon. Not even your
friends can show their faces and defend that decision. There
will be a reckoning.
You wanted it, George. You wanted it so very badly that you
did all these things, and allowed all these things to transpire
in your name.
You wanted it, and now you have it.
How does it taste?
To be sure, the chair behind your ill-gotten desk is comfortable.
You are surrounded by history in that House you have taken.
Are you haunted by the ghosts that dwell there? Are you stalked
down the halls and in your bed by the shades of men and women
whose greatness so completely demonstrates the poverty of
your spirit?
Pick up a phone and you can have a sandwich in three minutes.
That must be nice. But you are a child of vast wealth, George,
so having footmen is nothing new for you. Air Force One must
be the best perk of all. The engines roar and you are lifted
off this tired earth into the heavens, away from the protesters
that shadow your every move. Not even Clinton was hounded
as you are. The press does not report on this phenomenon,
but we know they are there. So do you. Do you wish Nixon was
still alive, so you could ask him for advice about this?
You wanted it, George. Is it everything you expected? Are
you bothered by the fact that a vast majority of Americans
see you as a figurehead, jerked to and fro by Dick Cheney
and Karl Rove? Are you hurt by the fact that most Americans
consider you to be a sub-par intellect? Do you pray at night
for Cheney's heart? Do your hands tremble at the thought of
having to do the job all by yourself?
The job is yours now, George. You must face your dwindling
poll numbers. You must choke upon the opposition. You must
struggle to enact your ruinous policies in the face of men
like Tom Daschle, women like Diane Feinstein, and even from
House members of your own party. You must accept defeat after
defeat after defeat. You must reap the whirlwind after the
passage of your tax cut. It is your economy now, George. You
can no longer blame Clinton, the last duly elected President
of the United States. You have destroyed Social Security and
Medicare, George. There will be a reckoning.
How are your daughters, George? Are they enjoying the spotlight?
It must gall you to see them caricatured and pilloried in
the public prints, to hear of the pictures of them on the
internet that show them naked and splayed in the lewdest of
positions. Can you, for one second, imagine what it was like
to be Clinton now? His wife was called a thief and a murderer,
and his daughter was called a whore. There was even a call
by a writer from the National Review for Chelsea be killed
because her last name is Clinton. I am sure a part of you
rejoiced at these attacks. Now that the knives are turned
upon you and your family, do you have any regrets?
The country does not want your faith-based help, George,
nor does it want the discriminatory baggage it carries. The
country does not want your tax cut. The country does not want
your missile defense plan. The country does not want your
energy plan. The country does not want you, George. The country
gave the majority of the votes to the other guy, a majority
that is swelling even now as reports of ill-functioning voting
machines in poor districts come out into the open.
You are not wanted, George, but you might have been able
to squeak by. The pundits said you were going to have to display
remarkable leadership to overcome the disputed election. America
is a forgiving nation, George. Nobody hurled rocks and threw
firebombs here when you were raised on high. We like the peaceful
prosperity Clinton left us, and were not ready to tear it
all apart. America sat back and waited to see what you would
do.
You have failed. You are not a leader. The honor you purport
to espouse and represent is yet another of your lies. You
have awakened a slumbering beast, George. We rose up once
and tore down Johnson. We rose up and tore down Nixon. We
changed the face of this country with our righteous rage.
For many years we slumbered, unsettled but still. Your coming
has birthed us again.
We come for you, George. You wanted it so badly that you
took it, and now you must face us. We are legion. There shall
be a reckoning, George. Woe unto you because of it. As God
is my witness, there shall be a reckoning.
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