The perfumed prince and other political tales (Clarke/Kerry/Lieb) [View All]

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Commentary/090903Chuckman/090903chuckman.html

September 9, 2003—The Perfumed Prince declared himself a Democrat. Many Americans may not recognize the nickname bestowed upon Wesley Clarke by British colleagues as he strutted around Serbia with his set of platinum-plated general's stars carefully repositioned each day to a freshly-starched and ironed camouflage cap, wafting a thick vapor trail of cologne. His lack of judgment demonstrated in Serbia—including an order to clear out Russian forces that British general, Sir Michael Jackson, had to ignore for fear of starting World War III—should be enough to utterly disqualify him as a candidate for president. But this is America, land of opportunity.

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Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts announced that he wants the Democratic presidential nomination. He chose to ask for it using an aircraft carrier as a backdrop. I have no idea why he would repeat any part of Bush's pathetic stunt, but to my mind it is an immediate strike against his competence. Perhaps he hoped for a promotional deal on a doll in combat gear to memorialize the occasion? That is, after all, a good deal of the country's idea of war, limited-edition collector dolls with lots of cute little zippers, flaps, and pockets (all handsomely made in China or Indonesia). Never mind real war where pilots drop cluster bombs and napalm on tiny desperate figures far below, and the occupying troops slosh through the resulting human gore, a good deal of it belonging to children in Iraq.

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The Democrats held their first debate, hoping desperately to find an attractive candidate. Senator Joe Lieberman was there, but you have to wonder why anyone would vote to replace Bush with Lieberman? The pair remind me of one of those 1950's cheap horror films about a monster with two heads lurching over the countryside.

Lieberman's many pious-fraud battles over personal expression suggest that the Two Heads may actually have shared a single brain at birth. Just like his Twin Head, Lieberman avoided military service out of personal interests without hint of conscience or principle, and, just like his Twin Head, Lieberman always stands ready to see people blown up in foreign lands, just so it's "our boyz" doing the blowing up. Capital punishment warms his heart, too, and he has organizational connections with Dick Cheney's wife, America's intellectual gorgon.
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