by J.D. Tuccille
November 2, 2004

No Peace for the President

Despite my historic ability to mouth off at length about matters great and small, I've been almost completely inactive as a writer during this seat-of-the-pants(TM), the-fate-of-the-universe-hangs-in-the-balance(TM) election season.

How can I do that? How can I sit on the sidelines through the course of this apocalyptic (TM) presidential election?

Easy. I really don't give a shit which one of these preening geeks wins.

Oh, that's not entirely true. I expect that John Kerry would be (will be?) marginally less bad than George W. Bush has been. Maybe it's more precise to say that Bush has been a horror show on civil liberties, an unjustified war in Iraq and domestic spending issues, and Kerry would at least need a few months to get up to speed before he does comparable damage -- especially if the Republicans hold at least one house of Congress. But I don't think the difference between the two major party candidates justifies a vote for Kerry, especially in light of his platform of doing pretty much everything that Bush has done, but doing it "better".

As I write, having cast my principled vote for Libertarian Michael Badnarik (as well as for the rest of the Libertarian Party's fairly impressive slate in Arizona), I sit back satisfied that, having voted for a presidential candidate who isn't an embarrassment to the country, I'm a member of a distinct minority of American voters. The world being what it is, my chosen candidate obviously won't win -- so what will happen?

I never could read tea leaves, and my crystal ball is out for a conversion from natural gas to propane, so I'll have to voice my wishes rather than my predictions. Failing a third-party upset, my wish is this:

I want everybody's "worst-case" scenario to come true, resulting in recriminations and chaos.

I may get my wish. As of election day, Zogby is predicting a decisive Electoral College victory for John Kerry, with George W. Bush squeaking out a bare plurality of the popular vote -- a reverse of the result in 2000. If Zogby is on the money (I'm not about to put my money on it), court challenges and tense confrontations are guaranteed, with fun to be had by all disinterested observers.

Frankly, I'm sick of TV ads, talking heads and e-mail messages from (increasingly marginal) friends casting John Kerry as the Antichrist and/or a Manchurian Candidate in the pay of France, and George W. Bush as an in-bred cretin and/or a Manchurian Candidate in the pay of Israel. Do people really believe that either one of these guys is so much less bad than the other that the election can be cast as a battle between good and evil?

Never mind. Obviously they do. I've heard people I know and once (no more) respected discuss this election in exactly those terms.

For once, let's get it straight: Bush and Kerry are both frat-brother elitists with bottomless appetites for political power and unshakable faith that you and I are too stupid to run our own lives without them and their buddies.

Nothing would make me happier than to wake up one fine post-election morning to discover the landscape littered with the cooling corpses of rabid Bushies and wide-eyed Kerryites locked in death-embraces, fingers entwined around each others' throats and scalps lacerated from beatings with the opposing camp's campaign signs.

Those of us left uninfected by this year's political mania could gather up the remains of the elephant-and-ass tribal lunatics and dispose of them properly at solid-waste disposal sites. The mass graves would be used as object lessons for the children we raise in the better, freer, world created by the mass departure of partisan Bush and Kerry supporters.

Oh, I can dream.

My wish is unlikely to be fulfilled, however. So before the race is decided, while I can still claim to be making a non-partisan vow, let me promise eternal loathing and opposition to the victor, no matter whether Bush or Kerry claims the oval office.

I remain persuadable. If the new or returning president surprises me and proves himself to be a non-busybody who wants to protect my liberties, lower my taxes, avoid unnecessary wars and otherwise make himself irrelevant to my life, I'll happily drop my small effort to torment the reformed politico.

But that's unlikely. I expect to spend the next four years abusing the tenant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

And I hope you'll join me.

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Ah well, and so much for the power of argument. So back you go to Full Automatic or to my home page.