This is preaching to the choir, I suspect, but I think we need to hammer home that the Republican Party is, fundamentally, the Radical Irresponsibility Party. It is not the "Dad" party but the party of the 19 year-old dude crushing an empty can of Milwaukee's Beast on his forehead while the campus burns down, and yelling at you in your face for killing his buzz after his "bitchin' fireworks session" with the M80's left over from when he was a kid. Like a wild fraternity....
We use the phrase "G.O.P." to describe our partisan opponents. But that is nothing but a Republican talking point. Their party is not grand and it is the younger of the main two parties in this country. We should stop talking about the GOP with its stately elephant mascot and starting talking about the "RIP" - the Radical Irresponsibility Party - and its mascot, "Booger," who is 19 years old and crushes beer cans on his head while his college burns down to the ashes from his depravedly reckless fireworks play.
It's not hard.
Bush - is Booger, really the Pope or Dalai Lama of every Booger who ever lived. The Patriarch and Emperor of all Boogers. Boogerensis Rex XVII. When you see the elephant for the Rho Iota Pi Fraternity, see Booger Bush crushing that can on his head, preferably when wearing a RIP baseball cap, backwards.
Cheney - is Booger's fraternity sponsor "Wideload" shooting his friend and donor in the face at the school's riflery team and getting the friend to apologize for putting his face in the way of Cheney's shot. No way will Booger's hero get thrown off the riflery team because of some moron failing to duck.
Rice - is, sadly, Booger's girlfriend. Though with a greater sense of taste and refinement, whether you toss the M80 into the university archives and watch it burn or help cover for the guy who does, you are Booger in substance. Booger's other girlfriend is back home in Tinyville, and BOY does she hate that university girl who hangs around Booger!
Rumsfeld - is Booger trying to live the Booger dream as a sex symbol.
Powell - is Booger's buddy Roger whom Booger ditches after the seventh shot of Jaegermeister when Roger says "we better not get drunk, let's shoot pool." Roger is the one that Booger will drag into the university probation hearing and, ultimately, to court to show that Booger was actually editing his term paper notes at Roger's mother's house 240 miles away when Booger burned down the school. Roger will lie to the university for Booger but, when push comes to shove, not to the Court.
Hannity - is Booger's pal from the fraternity who helps him stay popular. Hannity's lab partner is some geeky dude who makes fun of Booger's for being stupid, but Hannity doesn't invite the lab partner to the par-tay.
Coulter - is Booger's fierce beer pong rival "Skeeter." Skeeter once out-Boogered Booger before Booger burned down the university by urinating unto the university president's wife's lawn "What a great lay!" Somehow, though, the university did not send out either the handwriting analysts or the DNA analysts to solve this crime. Instead, the university actually cracked down instead on some feminist junior's use of the word "ass" to describe a professor who had been fired for sexual harassment of female doctoral candidates. Booger wants to be Skeeter, possessing the necessary liver but lacking the brains. Rumors floated about a gay-bashing incident involving Skeeter, but Skeeter swears he was banging two drunk football cheerleaders five miles away at the time.
Pat Robertson - is the university's chaplain "Pastor Steve" and controller of a massive amount of alumni money. Pastor Steve and Booger are in the same denomination, the only one that matters. Pastor Steve attended the school with Booger's dad and they made a lot of money together. Pastor Steve will step up for Booger when the university gives him his probation hearing. He will get 20,000 alumni to write nasty letters saying that the university is better off burned down than with Booger expelled.
Arlen Spector - is Booger's frat brother Josh. Josh doesn't really like beer, but he needs the fraternity for job connections when he gets his MBA. But his heart isn't in it, and he hangs out too much at other frats. Josh tells Booger he's a dumbass twice a week, but sticks up for Booger when Booger faces expulsion and brags to the sorority sisters how he and Booger are tight.
Libby - is Booger's alibi, but not a good one. Libby was a freshmen who needed the fraternity to help him get chicks. But when Booger and Wideload try to get Libby to lay down the alibi, he gets caught up on himself, remembering the story backwards after a bad night of tequila. An Honor Committee straight arrow hardass Brendan Fitzsimmons busts his balls in the Honor Committee proceedings, and gets him expelled.
Duke Cunningham, Jack Abramoff, Bob Ney - are Booger's dorm mates who got caught selling term papers for $2,000 a piece and downloading Swedish pr0n onto the university's IntraNet for resale to lonely, voyeuristic freshmen from conservative households.
Domenici and Wilson - they are Booger's fraternity brother "Wacko" and his younger sister "Lisa", who muscled hard against the Honor Committee to deep six some embarrassing R.I.P. business. They got caught, and now the Honor Committee is after them. They deny everything, maybe.
You get the idea.
These people are not acting like mature, decent adults. They are predators hanging to power any which way they can, like 19 year-olds who get drunk and toss an M80 into the University archives, burning down most of the campus.
Oh yeah - who are the Democrats?
The Democrats are Yvonne, a hard-working student who scrubs pots in the dishroom and drives the campus shuttle afterhours to make her rent payment. She is angry about how the university coddles legacies like Booger, given the heavy financial aid she is on and the fanatic way she studies. She is not a perfect student, sometimes drinks more than she should, but she actually tries not to burn down the school.
When her professor's office burned down, she wept.
Hell, even Booger's dad is embarrassed at the boy's antics. Dad belonged to G.O.P., who sold the fraternity house to R.I.P. for reasons nobody really examined. G.O.P. was not always well liked in its day but those who didn't like them then bitterly miss them now. How R.I.P. even got admitted on campus is a mystery, though the Greek Life committee had been stacked for the crucial vote by some old-time G.O.P. brothers.
We are all Yvonne, or should aim to be her. She and we should not have our country's standing, our people's lives and fortunes, the hard work of generations, destroyed by the drunken irresponsibility of the frat brothers of R.I.P.
The first step is realizing that the fraternity brothers of R.I.P. don't rule the school that they burned. It's our school, not theirs, no matter how many lampposts they break, no matter how loudly they scream at 3 AM. The next step is getting them kicked the hell off campus and, in some cases, jailed.
Just remember - it's not the GOP and the elephant - it's the Radical Irresponsibility Party fraternity and Booger with the beer can and the exploding M80. If you think this way, you will be better able to predict what irresponsibly shameless conduct you will see from the Republican Party for the next two years, I promise you.