When I wrote the first Special Comment more than two years ago, I had no idea if there'd be a second one, let alone an irregular series. Flatly, I didn't know if I'd still have a job the next day - or even a country.
But as the premise evolved (and my bosses asked, shyly), I was adamant that they would never become a regularly scheduled feature.
And tonight, with Bill Hurt's line in Body Heat fresh in my mind("Sometimes (it) comes down so heavy I feel like I should wear a hat"), I may have to break that self-imposed limitation.
If they're going to pile it on for the next two weeks, I'm going to have to throw it back.
Barring the pleasantly unforseen outbreak of common sense and restraint, the Special Comment will briefly become a nightly feature.
First it was Sarah Palin and her "Pro-America" pockets.
Then it was Michele Bachmann and "Anti-America" Congressmen and Senators.
Even after that, Nancy Pfotenhauer and her redrawing of the map to include Virginia and "Real" Virginia.
And today it's Rush Limbaugh trashing Colin Powell as a reverse racist.
It's hatred is re-packaged as "The Real America," and I've had enough of it.
Governor, your prejudice is overwhelming.
It is not just "pockets" of this country that are "pro-America" Governor.
America is "pro-America!"
And the "Real America" of yours, Governor, is where people at your rallies shout threats of violence, against other Americans, and you say nothing about them or to them.
What you are seeing is not patriotism, Governor.
What has surrounded you since your nomination, has been the echoing shout of mob rule.
As I suggested, this is about the straight line you can draw from Palin to the Limbaugh smear of Colin Powell.
The largest point along the way is the Congresswoman from Hell, Ms. Bachmann.
...the America you perceive, Congresswoman - with its goblins and ghosts and vast unseen hordes of traitors and fellow travelers and Senators who won't ban "Aladdin" - exists only in your head, and in the heads of the others who must rationalize the failures in their own lives and of their own policies as somebody else's fault -- as a conspiracy to deny them an America of exclusionism and religious orthodoxy and prejudice, about which they must accuse, and murmur, and shout threats, and cleave the nation into pro-America and anti-America.
And obviously all this lays the groundwork not only for the divisive Republican tactic of "us and them," and of Governor Palin's use of the word "socialism," but also the more disturbing dismissal of Powell, as abandoning the real for the un-real.