I read an article today on MSNBC stating that hitchhiking had lost its elan and that anyone who hitchhiked nowadays was either stupid, financially challenged or a probable felon. Unless, of course, that person lived in Chile or some remote part of Scandinavia where there was only one car per town and hitchhiking was the only way one could get to the mall in a reasonable amount of time.
Well, that's too bad. I remember hitchhiking across the cool (western) half of the great U.S. way back when and I also recall learning a lot from the experience.
To wit: 1. There were people from George McGovern's home town (Mitchell SD) who still did not like him. 2. The empty field across from the Denny's in Coeur d Alene, Idaho is the home to innumerable teeny brown spiders--making it impossible to get a good night's sleep, and 3. The reason for the 1000-mile trek in the first place---a lovely lady from Tacoma, WA, was well worth the trip.
But that was then.
Last weekend, while shopping around for a dvd to keep my razor-sharp ten-year-old daughter amused, I happened upon "The Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy," so I bought it. Twenty minutes into the film, this long-haired guy appears to BS the leading lady away from the clutches of the protagonist. Turns out he's the President of the Galaxy and he's also the biggest jerk in the universe. He looked familiar; I couldn't place him until my daughter blurted it out: "That's George Bush."
Well, of course, it WAS George Bush. If our president happened to have a second head and rock-star length hair, the match would have been perfect. In the film, the President of the Galaxy is responsible for destroying the Earth, but because he's, well inherently irresponsible we somehow don't really hold it against him. The film certainly doesn't, anyway---he ends up getting one of the girls who earlier tried to do him in.
I suggest this is a clue why we as a nation cut George W. Bush so much slack: we KNOW people who are exactly like him. Mostly, these people are harmless---not a mean bone in their body---but you would never trust them with your girl, your record collection, your car--or anything of value, because as sure as the sun rises in the morning, they would, in the final analysis break something.
And now, as horrible and stupid as some of the things GWB is doing---Harriet Miers? Wha???--deep in the seventie's psyche of both Repubs and Dems, there's this little voice that repeats over and over---"hey, he doesn't really mean any harm--besides, deep down he's a decent sort. Cut him some slack."
And so we do. But the truth is, we're not doing it because of anything George W. Bush has said or done---we're doing it because he reminds us of ourselves, in a simpler time: the stupid seventies, when many of us did things that both defied common sense, and caused us significant financial problems in the two decades hence.
In in that respect, by replacing the standards of today with those of the seventies, George W. Bush gets by---committing us to stupid wars, screwing our finances AND those of our children's children, hiring future felons to run our affairs, and making fools of those who choose--foolishly-- to support him.
Likeable as he undoubtably is to some in the seventies crowd, one fact is inescapable---by our allowing this guy to run the government,we have, in effect, given a simple JERK control of our record collection, our girl and our car. And, of course, allowed him to make fools of us all.