posted on September 26, 2003 09:10:18 AM
Conan the Wimp
By Harold Meyerson
At summer's end, after Conan the Conqueror had confounded all his foes and slain them on
Leno, he came back to his fortress and was told he would have to debate.
"I crush my tormentors," snarled Conan the Victorious. "I psych them, I smash their bones.
When my own people are jaded and bored, I journey to distant lands and new markets and sell
my product to all who wish to feel my power."
But the people, he was told, were not bored. They wanted to know what Conan would do to
restore their dream of a golden state.
"Do they not know that I will dash the bad king to the ground?" asked Conan the Taken
Aback. "That I will rule with cunning and strength? That Pete Wilson has given me his staff, and I
shall use it wisely? Even those who raised his treasure, though I have treasure aplenty, yet I shall
use them, for who hath treasure enough? Is this not enough for the people to know?"
But it was not. Thrice had the people invited him to meet his rivals on the field of battle and
answer their questions and those of the scribes.
"I have heard their questions on 'Entertainment Tonight' and 'What's-His-Name Hannity,' " said
Conan the Softball-Accustomed, "and answered them so well that they anointed my brow. I
spake of carousing in Oui Magazine, yet all the right forgave me," Conan continued, waving a
copy of the Weekly Double Standard.
But yet the people persisted, and wanted to know what Conan would cut and what Conan
would tax.
"I have 23 wise men who counsel me on balancing the budget," humphed Conan the Delegater.
"Eight for eliminating waste, eight for fraud, eight -- uh, seven? -- for abuse. They will shield me
from details that none but scribes care about."
But still the people wanted to know what Conan himself thought.
"That Gray Davis destroys jobs," said Conan the Sound-Bite. "That we are overtaxed from the
moment we awaken and ring for our orange juice."
But why was Davis a job-killer, the people wondered, and yet not a word did Conan utter on
George W. Bush? Had Bush not slain more jobs than Gray? And did his deficit not dwarf Davis's
by more than tenfold?
"That is a multiplication question," snapped Conan the Gotcha-Fearful. "Or division. I have 23
wise men who can do fractions."
But the people and the scribes had more questions they wished to pose. Did the staff that Pete
Wilson had vouchsafed Conan still include that dunderhead Wizard who had lifted the rules on all
the energy in the realm?
And how was it that the very same rich men who had given treasure to Pete Wilson and, yea,
even to Gray Davis, but who were now giving treasure to Conan were no longer special interests
but disinterested do-gooders?
"These are trick questions!" squealed Conan the Abruptly Apprehensive. "I have my man for
trick questions, David Dreier, a public man with smooth speech and uncommonly good hair. We
can send him to the debates, no?"
No, Conan was told, the hosts had demanded the Conqueror himself.
"But I have 31 fundraisers scheduled before the day the people choose," said Conan the
Collection Plate. "It takes much treasure to defeat the special interests, so that I can rule
beholden to no man. Yet I have been asked to set aside these labors to meet my opponents in
the public square. And if I partake in these debates, I shall be interrupted and questioned. And
should someone pop a question between my Hasta and my vista, I do not know but what I will
do."
"I will be swiveling so, my head will be dizzy," said Conan the Strategically Vague. "I must be
for gun controls and gun-owners' rights, for gays and against gay marriages, for cutting waste in
general and nothing in particular. McClintock the Caveman will hit me from the right, and
Arianna, who has the smoothest tongue of all the babes in Brentwood, will hit me from the left.
This is why I have my David Dreier. Can he not answer these meddlesome pests?"
So Conan's counselors sent Dreier out to the political talk shows, but told Conan that if he did
not appear for at least one debate in September, the people might question his fitness to govern
the realm in October.
"But I am fated to rule," peeped Conan the Titmouse, and scurried down his hole.
The writer is editor at large of the American Prospect and political editor of the L.A. Weekly.
___________________________________
"Practically speaking, a life that is vowed to simplicity, appropriate boldness, good humour, gratitude, unstinting work and play, and lots of walking, brings us close to the actually existing world and its wholeness." --Gary Snyder
posted on September 26, 2003 09:21:34 AM
ROFL!! At this point in time, I will not be at all surprised if the recall fails.
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
But by hectoring Schwarzenegger so relentlessly, Arianna unleashed Arnold the lumbering bear. She forced Arnold to banter, to bare his boorish charm, to recite his arthritic comebacks — raising the specter of a Schwarzenegger governorship with dialogue as brutally lame as that in his pictures. And when he’s not speaking in one-liners that don’t zing, Arnold speaks in triplets. “We tax, tax, tax,” he said, “and the jobs are gone, gone, gone.” It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that Arnold learned economics by reading the Child’s Guide to Milton Friedman.
Actually, Arnold’s economics are entirely at odds with what is otherwise his impulse toward social decency. Indeed, it’s Arnold, not the more cynical George W. Bush, who seems the genuine compassionate conservative, and last night’s debate made clear how completely that conservatism cancels that compassion.
Asked, for instance, how he stood on providing health care to children of illegal immigrants, Arnold called for an expansion of the Healthy Families program. Later, he deplored the tuition hikes at the state’s public universities and colleges. But if Healthy Families has not been expanded more, and tuitions everywhere raised, it is because the Republicans in the Legislature chose to inflict those costs on California’s young people rather than raise taxes on the wealthiest Californians — which is Schwarzenegger’s position, too. Similarly, Schwarzenegger’s opposition to Senate Bill 2, the mandate on large and midsize employers to provide health insurance for their workers, means he opposes an extension of health coverage to roughly 500,000 children of working-poor families in the state. Of the five candidates on the stage, it’s Arnold who has the program that is almost entirely self-negating.
