Well. Knock me over with a feather. My father and I have been slightly estranged for the last two years, partly due to his disgust with my voyage from Republican to Democrat. I spoke to him for more than 2 minutes for the first time in almost 2 years last week. I noticed that he was not too happy with Bush and the Republicans, but I didn't make too much of it. This is the man who introduced me to Rush Limbaugh. Who reads the NY Post every day, although, to be fair, he also reads the NY Times, because he is a smart guy and knows that he should know more than one side to a story.
Well, he told me tonight some things about Bush. I cannot tell you how relieved I am. Relieved that smart people, who had been previously brainwashed by this administration and 9/11, are waking up. They see what is going on around them, and they are disgusted. That maybe, just maybe, I won't have to move to Italy to get away from these crazies who are taking over my country. There is hope.
Some comments from my father, the WingNut, below:
One of his first comments was when we were talking about the Bonus Army - they were promised a bonus for fighting in WWI, and Hoover refused to give it to them, so they marched onto Washington in the early 30s and a number of them were killed when they were protesting. My father tonight said, "Well, what do you expect, Hoover was a greedy Republican." I thought he was kidding, but he was not. He meant it.
We then talked about the cuts in the budget. I was moaning about cutting Medicare (he doesn't need Medicare yet, thank goodness) and cuts in Veterans' benefits and the retention of the tax cuts in the budget. He was pissed. He said that it was wrong, and so typical of this bunch to take care of the wealthiest and to neglect the military. What, he asked, do you expect when they didn't even give the soldiers the armor they needed?
We moved onto the revelation about the aborted "attack" on Los Angeles. My father is a student of history, and he was telling me that it is nothing new to call your enemy terrible names, as I was telling him the rhetoric worries me. That BushCo is targeting regular Americans with their rhetoric. That he is lying about threats, and that even the newscasters are laughing at him, but that does not stop them from calling dissenters treasonous. He agreed that it is worrisome, and we talked about FDR and the internment camps and the Civil War and Lincoln's excesses. He also told me the things that Jefferson and Adams said to each other would curl your hair, but he agreed it was disturbing to hear right wingers call Democrats "traitors." He laughed when I told him that on Keith O. the terrorism expert said that Bush had the name of the building wrong, and he said, "What do you expect?"
I swear, I thought I was talking to one of my progressive friends, not my Limbaugh-addled father. We moved onto the smearing of anyone who dissents with this adminstration, and I brought up Murtha. I was telling my father about Murtha's service, that he was a Marine for like 31 years, and my father said, "The man fought in two wars!!" He was familiar with Murtha. He said that Murtha should have expected it, having spoken out, but he agreed with me when I said, "Mr. National Guard on coke is smearing a Marine!!" He laughed, snottily, and said, "Yeah, so was Mr. Five Deferments."
This is what almost knocked me over: he said to me, "Don't forget, there are good and bad Republicans and Democrats," but followed that up with the fact that he thinks Hillary might win if people think Bill will help govern. He said to me, "How much of a surplus did they have?" and also agreed with me when I said that Republicans just don't like to govern. He said that Bill might have been distracted with Monica, but that our country was in much better shape under him. This, from a man who was psyched when Bill was impeached.
So, my fellow Democrats/liberals/libertarians/independents, take heart. Do NOT believe the right wingers when they say that the Dems have no chance because they are hard left wing, and Howard Dean is ruining their chances. My father barely commented on Dean, so obviously Dean does not offend him, or is even on his radar screen.
We are going to win in November. We are going to take back the House, the Senate, or both. And we are going to begin to restore sanity, and compassion to our nation.