Superrich Stand to Profit From Kerry
Posted April 15, 2004
By John Berlau

Soros and other wealthy businessmen stand to gain financially if John Kerry gets elected.

President George W. Bush constantly is criticized and attacked by Democratic partisans and their media surrogates for pursuing policies that benefit "the wealthy." Yet surveying the political landscape an observer can't help but ask why it is that so many of what would be considered America's superrich are his political opponents? In addition to the Hollywood mega-elite, which since the death of Sam Goldwyn have opposed the GOP mainly for cultural reasons, billionaire businessmen have stepped forward calling for the defeat of Bush or his policies.

That's right. You heard it here first: Increasing taxes on the rich helps them gain financially. You never thought it was possible, did you? Especially if you're socialistically bent. But it's true. Trust us.*

Still, how can we punish the rich for being successful, you may ask, if all our tax-raising on them is for naught, and they just wind up getting even more money? A very good question. Just follow us down this shady lane of nuanced bends and curves and soon it'll all become very clear:

Most prominent has been speculator George Soros, who has pledged to raise $75 million to defeat Bush, given millions to Democratic Bush-bashing groups such as MoveOn.org, and told the Washington Post that ousting Bush is "the central focus of my life" and "a matter of life and death." But investor Warren Buffett also has opposed many of Bush's tax policies, such as estate-tax repeal and dividend tax cuts, calling them "class welfare for my class."

See, the sun's already starting to shine through the thick canopy. Just 527 more steps to go before we move out of the woods and into the light. Also, once you get used to the path's rich ammonia aroma, those steps will become as light as Mr. Buffet's equally yellowish-tinged stuffing. Keep moving onward now, because our shoes tend to get slippery if we tarry too long in one place, and you might fall and cut yourself on those sharp lenses lining our road. Then you'd get blood all over that wicked looking pair of shoes of yours.

Oh, and if you scope an abandoned farmhouse or two between the trees, just take comfort in the fact that the person who once lived there couldn't afford to leave it to his wife and children after the poor devil was accidentally divided in half by one of those lenses. We were only concerned about their welfare when we asked them to move on.

So hurry. We're bound to meet some interesting creatures who'll school us in the ways of getting richer through higher tax payments. None like the bashing and ousting ones we've met thus far.

The mass media never cease to talk about how "the rich" will benefit from policies such as estate-tax repeal, while overlooking what many economists have seen as the positive effects that will benefit the economy as a whole such as job growth, increased savings and preservation of family businesses. Yet when a celebrated would-be plutocrat such as Buffett, Soros or William Gates Sr., father of the Microsoft billionaire and a wealthy lawyer in his own right, comes out against the estate tax or in favor of any other left-wing policy, their motives never are questioned. These economic royalists regularly are described as acting against their interests, even though Insight has found that Buffett, for instance, has businesses that actually profit from the existence of the estate tax.

(Those would be his brokerage houses that deal in baloney futures, under the umbrella of Phone E-group's wireless investment services.)

Give that nice man over there some oil now. That's right, rub it in. Good. See, his limbs are starting to move on around some— No, wait. Stop! His chip-plated suit isn't making that squeaking noise. He is! Bad chip man. Bad.

But, what's this? His jaw's starting to move a lot more. Maybe now he's going to spout out for us a millennium's worth of wood-dwelling knowledge about the efficacy of making billions vis-à-vis higher tax payments. —Oh! How rude. You'd think he'd have the decency to cover his mouth when he does that.

Well, then, put your ear up against his chest and maybe you can listen to the depth of his feelings about it. Nothing? Are you sure? Oh that's right, I forgot. He's a lawyer. Doesn't have a heart. Sorry about that.

All right, let's move on. Maybe the all gorgeous, all estate-tax paying Mumbling Moonbat of 'Oros will deign to offer us some of that royal wisdom and insight of his. Then we can at long last celebrate both the rising of Pluto and the disclosure of that ancient but interesting secret to tax-derived profits. I heard there's going to be a buffet, too. Yum.

Tim Graham, director of media analysis at the Media Research Center, notes that Soros regularly is described as a philanthropist, whereas no such term ever is affixed to Richard Mellon Scaife, who gives to conservative causes and is portrayed by the liberal media as an agitator. This was so even though the sums he gave to conservative and anti-Clinton groups were a fraction of his giving. Scaife gave mostly to ballet companies and other cultural institutions in his hometown of Pittsburgh, carefully keeping his economic interests separated from his philanthropy.

(Whereas pledging your entire wealth to matters "of life and death" like "ousting Bush" is the province of billionaire moonbats.)

Oh! No! Flying anthropologists! Filling the sky! Must. Duck. Down. Inform whatliberalmedia? media.

Too late! They've scooped up the cowardly kitten and are taking him off with them. Stop! He didn't get to say his lines yet.

We have to rescue him somehow. He might have the answers we're seeking. Could save us having to make a trip through the Illogic-Embroiled Forrest on our way to Castle 'Oros.

And analysts say economic interests always should be looked at when examining political players on both the right and left. Although both Soros and Buffett may be advocating policies that fit their worldview, it develops that both also stand to gain financially from the policy ideas they're pitching. "These aren't just philanthropists, and these aren't just political ideologues; these are people who stand to profit" says Tim Carney, a Phillips Foundation journalism fellow and author of the forthcoming book Regulatory Robber Barons.

See, higher tax payments do benefit the rich. The answer was right there within you all along. You now have only to click your heels three time— Wait, we aren't there yet. Some of the pages of this script must have stuck together, Chip Man.

"They're making investments and expecting a return on it," Carney notes. Soros, for instance, is a currency trader, with reported vast holdings in unstable financial markets. He has taken a beating in the last few years on his positions in the Russian ruble. Coincidentally or not, Soros advocates global taxes to strengthen institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank to bail out unstable governments facing currency crises.

See that in the distance? That's the tallest spire of Castle 'Oros breaking through the fog. Let's run! Hurry now... run... Fast-er.... Zzzzzz.

No, wake up! This field of rubles will make us unstable if we don't get a move on now and pass them quickly. Good thing someone sprinkled around that imfy dust and made it rain down all our backs. (Now why are its drops the same color as the road?) Ah, never mind. We're almost there.

(Ed. Note: Thanks to Chip Man, we couldn't unstick the pages of the script which show us how we rescue the cowardly kitten. So he's still in the clutches of those evil anthropologists whose flight choreographer is apparently someone named Phil.)

In his book George Soros on Globalization, the international speculator criticized an IMF/World Bank reform commission headed by noted conservative economist Allan Meltzer that called for sharply limiting bailouts. Soros wrote that this was too strong a medicine and the proposal for a restructured agency was too restricted: "Contrary to the Meltzer Commission's recommendations, it would be premature to terminate the existing lending operations of the World Bank. So-called middle-income countries like Brazil, and even Chile, have very uneven income distributions and great social needs. ... The World Bank has an important niche to fill."

So, although limiting such bailouts will reduce "class welfare for our class," 'Oros the Irate actually doesn't want that reduced. I think we didn't get enough of that imfy dust back there with the rubles, we're still feeling a little bit unstable.

How Hanoi John F'in' al-Qerry's proposed policies fit into all this is anyone's guess. Hence we must move on until we're closer to the Gates of Castle 'Oros.

But critics of these institutions note that their taxpayer-subsidized lending and bailout practices tend to benefit allegedly piratical speculators such as Soros more than the people of the Third World by giving the big boys the opportunity for a huge return with taxpayers holding the risk. "Bailouts are a great way for rich people to make lots of money," Carney says. "They'll put money where no one else wants it, because it's a bad investment, and then get big government to help them out." Carney adds that "bailouts are as likely, if not more so, under Democratic administrations."

Oh, I see— Huh?

This "matter of life and death" business is actually about, well, business. Right? And Dunceocrats like bailouts that help the rich, more than any Republican does. Because— because they believe investments are bad; so when any are made, they believe government should step in and stop all that investing and instead give more money to the rich because no one else wants it— Money no one but the rich want— which the government— Because the government will give it to them. That's how!—?

Hey, you, peeking out of the gate. Yes, you, guardian—or whatever they call you. Let us in because we've got to see the Moonbat. We need answers to how this wiz of a policy works. Answers which we heard that only he can give us—because of the mumbling things he mumbs. So open up. Now!

Much more likely, says former hedge-fund manger Andy Kessler. He points to the Clinton administration's bailout of Mexico during the peso crisis in the mid-1990s, for which Wall Street banks lobbied, and contrasts that to the Bush administration's refusal to bail out an Enron teetering on bankruptcy in 2001. Robert Rubin, the former Clinton administration Treasury secretary who engineered the Mexico bailout, actually called the Bush Treasury Department to ask it to help Enron.

A Clinton cabinet officer was in favor of bailing out Enr[obber-bar]on™, but President Bush adamantly refused to do so. Doesn't "KKKlintonCo" fit better here than "BushCo"?

"What's that you're saying? You'll have to speak up if you want me to hear you from way up here!"

We have to see the Moonbat!

"You what?! No one sees the all gorgeous, all estate-tax paying Mumbling Moonbat of 'Oros without an appointment. Come back November 3rd and I'll try to schedule you in!"

Wait! We can't come back then. We've already traveled a long way through a very sqerry forest filled with flying anthropologists and sharp focusing lenses, and were almost left unstable by a large field of rubles. So you must let us in to see the Moonbat. We have some very important questions that only he can answer.

"I can only take you as far as his mansion. But that's no guarantee you'll get to see him."

"The Bush people are more free market, and [John] Kerry is more likely to appoint a more interventionist Treasury secretary like Rubin," Kessler says. He thinks this is not unimportant to Soros because, Kessler speculates, Soros is "probably long and wrong in [his investments in] the entire Eastern bloc."

"Usually the Moonbat only sees his subjects one at a time. But he's in a hurry to MoveOn with 'matters of life and death,' so he'll see you all at once. Just go in. He's ready to see you now."

Once inside, the Mumbling Moonbat of 'Oros's sqerry visage starts mumbling. Incoherently at first, then louder and even more incoherently as he proceeds with his belching speech.

It's difficult to tell how exactly Soros would benefit, because there is little transparency in his holdings.

Oh, so you're the one responsible for making sure all of us can't even mention a candidate's name 60 days before an election.

"What's this 'all' business!—buuurp—I'm a liberal. Mere laws don't apply to me or my kind!"

Soros' funds are held privately and do not have to be reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission. In fact Insight got an unusually hostile response from Soros' spokesman for even questioning whether Soros would benefit financially from his huge expenditures on political activity.

"I have no faith in the ability or desire of Insight magazine to portray George Soros' activities in an unbiased manner," said Michael Vachon, the spokesman for Soros Fund Management in New York City.

"Quiet! I'm not through demanding things yet!"

Pressed, he finally said, "There's no relationship between the policy prescriptions George Soros recommends and his own financial holdings. He doesn't make policy recommendations to increase his own personal wealth. That's not what motivates him."

"That's right, my recommendations are: One, higher taxes so everyone will get richer, not just me. Two, oust Bush so we can get those higher taxes so everyone will get richer, not just me. And three, go forth and bring me back—a shrubbery! so I can use it to oust Bush so we can get those higher taxes so everyone will get richer, not just me.

"But make sure it's not too tall, and is in a nice plant holder, preferably one that has a nice design which matches those curtains over there."

Whoa, now. Back up some. Tell us if we've got this strait: So if you're rich and pay higher taxes, you'll wind up making even more money. And if you give lots and lots and lots of money to something that's "the central focus" of you're life, that has no relationship whatsoever to your financial holdings.

"Correct! And when you return with that shrubbery, I'll give you my last recommendation, which involves a herring."

Huh—! You know what, Moonbat? We've got a name back home for people who bark utter nonsense like that, Moonbat. But since it's what everyone around here calls you anyway, there's no point in us calling you that again. Or even in listening anymore to your bat droppings.

You'll notice we had to leave Toto back at the farm because, frankly, he has much better things to do with his time than spending it tromping through some Fibberal Forest looking for a nonexistent proof to your and your cohorts' cockamamie tax theory.

Fortunately, his last-minute replacement was more than happy to quietly tag along, always ready to apply his vast experience tracking down and ripping new ones for über-Idiotarians like yourself if ever we needed to call upon him for it. So we're asking him to remain here as the new Guardian of the Gate, but not for the purpose of keeping anyone out. Quite the opposite. He'll be more than able to make sure all this rabid battiness stays in here, where it belongs, and has no chance spreading anyplace else.

Critics of Soros wonder if his spokesman doth protest too much but concede that liberal or statist billionaires probably aren't motivated by money alone. After all, there's power.

Bingo!

"No, don't pay any attention to that moolah behind the MorOn."

But the critics say it's foolish to think that citizens who have amassed great fortunes suddenly put aside their financial interests and the heady perks of being an insider when it comes to politics and policy influence. "They put up a great moral front, but they're great money managers. That's their legacy, and I suspect there's always some economic underpinning to their policies," says a close observer of this crowd.

(Roll credits, as sounds of intense growling precede the ruckus of things being loudly ripped to shreds in the background.)

Take Buffett. He,

(. . . . O'Strawbrains)

...Soros,

...Gates Sr.

...and some of the Rockefellers

...got great press for joining with a group called "Responsible Wealth" that seeks preservation of the estate tax. Buffett was given laudatory press for remarks such as the one to the New York Times about "choosing the 2020 Olympic team by picking the eldest sons of the gold-medal winners in the 2000 Olympics."

Putting aside his mangled analogy for a second, what well-set Howie's dad really likes about this tax is that the lower tier of wealth—small but successful businessmen and women—will be sending a much higher marginal share of their money to the government after they die, leaving Howie little or no competition from any of their sons and daughters who might threaten his more concentrated wealth. To bring the Olympics back into this again: How about we pick that 2020 team from the offspring of the biggest cheats and steroid users in 2000 who only won their gold medals because they went around bribing all the judges? Same difference.

But one thing the laudatory articles didn't say is that Buffet owns insurance companies that profit mightily from the threat posed by the estate tax.

Moreover, why does Soros give a flip-flop about preserving the estate tax? His investment holdings are mostly preserved in the Netherlands Antilles, where he pays no tax at all on them but gets a lot of his druglord friends' laundry done (when he's not working on expanding their markets or destablizing helpless others'). Yeah, some philanthropist.

Regardless where these so-called Responsible Wealth members stand on so puny an issue (economically speaking), all the profitableness they might eke out in the world for their respective investments in estate-planning companies will be offset in spades by what would amount to the largest tax hike in human history second only to the one Hanoi John voted for back in 1993.

Hilarious as our getting hiked on like that was, funnier still is how al-Qlinton also promised a working-class tax cut (just as Qerry has), but later said, "Afta tryin' as hard as a 'coon dog on crack, I'z be real sorries but I jiz cain'ts gives y'alls one rights now [meaning "never"]. Yhuck-yhuck-yhuck." The thought of this being undoubtedly repeated with a snooty Boston accent is by no means going to make the same promise sound any more palatable—or believable.

Dena Battle, tax-policy analyst for the National Federation for Independent Business (NFIB), says many of that group's members have businesses worth $1 million or more, but have take-home pay around $50,000. Because the estate tax currently hits 55 percent of income over a certain threshold, the only way many small-business owners can pass on their businesses to their children is by buying a life-insurance policy to prepay the tax. The policy, of course, also includes hefty fees for the insurer.

Rich folks would benefit under Qerry but all small-business owners would get it square on the chin? Sounds like a good enough reason to ditch both him and the estate tax forever, wouldn't you think?

And one of those companies is SAFECO Life and Investments, a Redmond, Wash.-based company which advertises on its Website that it provides "effective estate-tax planning" and "business-succession planning." Who owns SAFECO? It was acquired recently by "an investor group led by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway," according to Reuters.

Zee strawman striketh, again.

"This shows his fortune benefits directly from the estate tax on the backs of small businesses," says William Beach, an economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation who points out that Buffett has other such life-insurance holdings as well. Berkshire Hathaway did not return Insight's phone calls seeking comment.

Because the only comment they could think of was "Oops!" But then they decided that wouldn't be the kind of quote they'd like to see attributed to them in this or any other article, so they declined.

The NFIB's Battle points out that a typical small-business owner pays $27,000 a year for an estate-tax life-insurance policy. "That's [the cost of a new] employee," she says, explaining that there would be no need for this type of policy if there were no death tax and that money could be used to help the economy by hiring more workers. She points out that the superrich such as Buffett, Soros and Gates Sr. can afford to have experts set up trusts and other devices to deal with the estate tax; it's the new entrepreneur who has trouble plowing through the red tape. Minority businessmen such as Black Entertainment Television's Bob Johnson have echoed Battle's view.

So while Mr. Joe Smith doesn't have the wherewithal to move his family-owned hardware store to the Cayman Notaxlands, "philanthropists" like Soros and Buffett do when it comes to their corporate interests. Again, what do the latter care if folks like Mr. Smith—who are creating real jobs in this country—have to pay those higher taxes that Qerry's proposing?

Even that tax shelter of straw, which the latter's saying he wants to build for these Messrs. Smith, won't do any of them much good once the IRS and Congress get wind of it and start huffing and puffing and blowing it all down with new regulations and codes. By the time Mr. Smith, Jr. is ready to inherit anything from this hayloft, he'll find out that all its "insured" protections had expired long ago.

Kessler says that even with the superrich, when it comes to money, "there's always a degree of uncertainty and sleepless nights," and goodly outlays to politicians give them access to protection. In Soros' case, his theory of the "bubble of American supremacy" is something he has been preaching for nearly 20 years, as well as practicing in his investment philosophy, sometimes with disastrous results. During the 1980s, he wrote in The Alchemy of Finance that he lacked confidence in Reaganomics and that Japan would replace the United States as the economic dominator. He sold his stock at the very bottom in 1987. He lost money betting on the strength of the euro in the late 1990s. Also in the late 1990s, his Quantum Fund lost a tremendous amount, shorting U.S. technology stocks. His fund finally got into the tech market just as the Clinton downturn was hitting in 2000 and lost even more.

Alchemy, potions, and smoke and mirrors to pull off his tricks on unsuspecting nations. No wonder people throw water balloons at him in places like the Ukraine. (Perhaps they believed that would melt him—although they should've realized that he's the character that just mumbles, not the one that screams "Fly, monkeys, fly!") With a record like that, it's not difficult to figure out why he's supporting the likes of al-Qerry. He wants to buy a president who'll prove such a miserable failure at making economic plans that Soros will look like a financial wizard in comparison. Too bad there isn't a potion that can make him disappear from our nation as Mama suggests.

Not content with merely badmouthing Presidents Reagan and Bush, King Soros has decided to join the ranks of those America-hating foreign leaders who've endorsed Hanoi John: Jacques ChIraq, Rim Bong Ill, Jose Full-Retreat Zapatero, Mahathir Final-Solution Mohamad, Ramsey Clark, Howie Screamin' Dean, GorOn, Hilldabeast (psyche!), Freddies-Flameloader al-Sharpton, power tool of the terrorists Ye Olde Forked Tongues (All the spews that's spit and spent.), Fritz! WeWillWin! Mondale, and—hold your breath now—Ted Kennedy, as well as a few cave dwelling ones.

Speculation has been rampant that Soros might try to flip the market in the weeks before the 2004 election in an effort to defeat Bush, and there has been much talk about how he could try this.

Can't you just smell the desperation from this oustBush crowd?

Economist Donald Luskin, who heads the firm Trend Macrolytics, says that part of this strategy may just be funding groups that talk down the economy. If Soros has bet against American resurgence, this economy-bashing could benefit his holdings as well, Luskin says, "I think his most effective way is to talk it down by diminishing confidence, by enhancing a sense of risk, by playing up all this outsourcing sh-t, and saying 'Don't be fooled that you have a job now, it's going away in two years, and John Kerry will prevent that.' That's very effective stuff." Of Soros' successes Luskin says, "He makes money when there's a dummy on the other side."

The dummies, of course, being thee and me if we fall for his hocus-pocus. The only ones truly experiencing desperate times in this country are elites in the Demoshatic Party and liberal media. Their desperate measures would no doubt include assisting their parlor magician by distracting and confusing the audience with unrepresentative anecdotes and loud, repetitive bass-drum beats of "more bad economic news" while he prepositions coins that he's going to say, with great exaggeration, are being snatched from your ears.

Not only hoping for bad news but pulling every lever they can behind that curtain of theirs in order to create some. What a wonderfully progressive, positive-thinking, love-your-country bunch of traitors these folks are.

Fortunately for all of us, the news has been good and keeps getting better on both the economic front and the global war on terror. Not even the WhatLiberalMedia are able to successfully ignore or qualify all this good news. The only people who aren't welcoming it are Distorterats and terrorists, because they view such news as a major setback for them.

On the other hand, Kerry supporters Buffett and Soros have about $50 billion worth of liquidity with which to play, and October can be a very volatile month in the markets.

John Berlau is a writer for Insight magazine.

For more on this story, read "Hollywood and Wall Street Backing of Kerry."

Speaking of pulling levers, Osama bin Laden's version of an "October surprise" undoubtedly would be even more satisfyingly volatile to them since they really aren't interested in how many folks would get hurt by a Madrid-like bombing in Washington or New York, either. The more harmed or even killed the better they believe that hurts President Bush and helps their side.

"Bring it on!" they and their haughty French boy keep chanting. Now we know what the Desperatecrats and liberals really mean by that.

Shallow Throat to Dems: "Time to Go for the Jugular!"
April 22, 2004
By Bernard Weiner, The Crisis Papers

When I got the coded call from Shallow Throat, I was worried. The last few times we'd talked*, the highly-placed GOP mole in the Bush Administration was extremely frightened, fearing imminent discovery, so I thought something bad might have gone down.

* For three of these earlier "conversations" with Shallow Throat, see here ["Shallow Throat to Dems: 'One Chance, Don't Blow It,'" February 10, 2004], here ["'Shallow Throat' Tells How Bush Can be Defeated in 2004 -- and Who Can Do it," September 30, 2003] and here ["'Shallow Throat' Advises Democrats to Bring It On Big-Time," July 18, 2003].

Whether they be real Democrats or imagined ones, they're way too shady.

Please bear in mind this isn't some Democratic Undergrounder yahoo churning out such bleak and dark prose. The author holds a Ph.D. and is a 19-year veteran "writer-editor with the San Francisco Chronicle." Count him among "the best and the brightest" of this party's shady characters. Or, just another overeducated idiotard. (It's supposed to be "Democratic mole," Professor Svengali, since you're saying he's one of your own plants.)

We met in a half-deserted, dimly-lit tavern outside the Beltway. The wig and shades were different, but the anger was the same and it was directed at the usual target: timid liberals.

"Weak after weak after weak, we just lie around, lie around, lie around." Ted "Driving Miss Mary Jo" Kennedy said it so it must be true. Yeah, the desperate anger brewing throughout this machination of yours is all too apparent as well.

"I can't believe you guys!" he practically shouted. "Bush is screwing up big time in so many areas - the 9/11 coverup, the Iraq War, Israel and the Palestinians, the Plame case, the environment, health care, education, the economy, tax rates, and on an on - and your Dem friends simply watch in horror, with their mouths wide open, and don't react with any real passion.

Sounds a lot like those immorbid words of John Flipfloppin' Flop al-Qerry: "Did I expect George Bush to f--- it up as badly as he did?" So Bush is to blame for everything, huh? No wonder the reaction time of you knee-jerk reactionary Neanderthal jerks is down. It's all too much for your petrified "brains" to process.

"Bush&Co. are dazed, confused and floored, not knowing what the hell to do, and you let him get up! At times, you even seem to be helping him to his feet! Damn it, this isn't tiddlywinks. Bush&Co. are playing full-contact, crush-your-opponent politics, and too often you seem to be playing to win the good-sportsmanship prize.

In psychological terms, what you just read would be described symptomatically as a classic case of projection: "A defense mechanism in which the individual attributes to other people impulses and traits that he himself has but cannot accept. It is especially likely to occur when the person lacks insight into his own impulses and traits."

Dazed, confused, floored, and not knowing what the hell to do are Dhimmicrats. Starting in 1994, when voters employed Republicans to liberate our House of Representatives from 40 years of its being run by a Dictocratic regime, the American people have pushed your untrustworthy party farther and farther down its well-deserved slide into political obscurity and permanent oblivion. Their liberation of the Senate has been triumphant too, despite any brief, obstructionist insurgency of SadTom loyalists and disruption by foreign Jeffords.

Of course let's not forget The Chappaqua Hillbillaries pardoning all their favorite drug dealers, rich fugitives from justice, and other assorted crooks—including those in or with close ties to their own family— during the final days of their co-presidency. Or that the Congressional and state elections of 2002 were a watershed for Republican gains and Duncocrudic tears: Not since FDR have voters given a president's party more seats in both houses of Congress during his first term, one of the results being the demotion of SadTom to minority leader. Nor since Reconstruction have Georgia voters elected a Republican governor, on top of their electing a Republican senator. Along with the California recall (which Dippyrats desperately tried to obstruct), voters also gave that state, Massachusetts, and Maryland each a Republican governorship. These are just harbingers of even worse Driedupcrat losses to come.

Oh, yeah. The garish, even ghoulish display Demonrats put on at the "memorial service"/political pep rally for the late Senator Wellstone. That gave voters just one more reason to write another chapter for your party's Dying History.

No, Republicans are the ones playing to win that good-sportsmanship prize, while yours is playing "full-contact, crush-your-opponent," kick-'em-while-he's-down politics in wartime—to the tremendous glee of America's terrorist enemies. Something our enemies are no doubt latching onto to Keep Hope Alive™.

Something that voters are no doubt analyzing as well.

"You want to get rid of Bush and his kind from the White House? Remember where the political jugular is located and go for it!"

Slice Slice Slice! Bleed Bleed Bleed! Die Die Die! Here's the severed head! That's our positive message. So vote for us!

Shallow Throat was red-faced and breathing hard after this tirade, and quickly chugged some beer.

Nice to still have a head with which to breathe and chug beer, isn't it?

"I couldn't agree more," I said. "But what brought this on? What happened that made you call me?"

Doc agrees with all that jugular slicing. How nice.

ST gave me a look of disbelief. "You ask me that after what's happened since we last talked? Dick Clarke and Bob Woodward spill the whole can of beans all over the Bush Administration, Condi Rice lies and bobs and weaves her way through her testimony, nobody even tries to lay a glove on Ashcroft, the FBI and CIA are fingered to take the fall, Iraq is falling apart, Bush pitiably embarrasses himself and our country at his press conference - and your candidate and the rest of the Democrats issue polite criticism.

Good ol' bandstanding Clarke, the one who personally gave Osama bin Laden's family the green light to flee the U.S. right after the attacks on September 11, 2001. The criticism, if any, he's received in the libstream media for that failure would be considered polite, not the vicious attacks our president has received for merely existing. As for Woodward, he can't even see beans spilling over a "bubbling vat." Given too how Dr. Rice made mincemeat of the ranting and raving members of the 9+1 Against Bush Commission, and how Iraq's leaders themselves have already selected a fully functional interim government, from Prime Minister to President and every other minister right down to Minister of Sports, saying that your memes aren't worth a hill of beans would be putting it politely.

"Even parts of the conglomerate-owned media machine are starting to mention and question Bush's scandals and disastrous policies. Why are you Democrats so timid? You should be wiping the floor with these guys, not pretending that all this is politics as usual.

I must have missed those recent stories about deep- shallow-throating interns right in the Oval Office, or selling highly classified satellite technology to Chinese generals who stayed in the Lincoln Bedroom. Haven't we moved on from them all by now? Also, if three consecutive quarters of strong economic growth and terrorists getting pounded into submission are considered disastrous, it's hard to even imagine the kind of superperfect heaven-on-earth utopia that would have to exist before the DTs of your liberalworld start admitting there's anything positive at all going on. Nonetheless, politics as usual doesn't include purposefully trying to undermine the country's war efforts with fifth-column seditions or helping out dictators whose regimes we're about to topple. Not even that COMM of yours can stick enough smiley faces on those treasonous traitor's treasons to distract voters.

"Bush&Co. don't play politics as usual - you've had nearly four years to notice that! They play for keeps, and if you think you've witnessed unprecedented corruption, mendacity, greed and arrogance up until now, you ain't seen nothin' yet. If they get four more years, it's a forced march to a police-state at home, more looting of the treasury for the fat cats, and more 'benevolent hegemony' wars abroad. And the economy will be in the toilet, flushed away so that social-service programs for the middle-class and poor can be decimated even more, while the wealthy and the corporations make out like bandits."

You're projecting again.

Let's put aside for the moment how your shadow party's financiers King Soros of MorOn.org, Prince Lewis of Pot-hashish Corp, and other liberalty are trying to make out like bandits. There's no evidence whatsoever backing up your Dire Warnings™ about police states, looted treasuries, or tinfoil-plated toilets. What you're actually describing is the socialist dictatorship that your pal and Kim Jong Il's hopes to set up in the unlikely event American voters experience mass amnesia and forget about those sneak attacks on them from terrorists and your party.

THE COURSE OF ACTION

"OK," I replied. "Supposing it's all as drastic as you say, what to do?"

Slice! Slice! Slic— Oh, that was just the outline. Here are the details:

"Your Dem friends may choose to ignore what I say - because if there were a decent, traditional Republican running, I probably would be voting for him - but I hope they will be more open-minded, remembering that I've been risking my job, and maybe my life, revealing the inside workings of this nest of vipers.

A "decent, traditional Republican" in your view would be a Dhimmicrat. In any case, it appears DT is a "GOP mole" after all, being that the only real nest of vipers anyone has ever found in Washington, D.C. is at and directly across the street from 888 16th St.

"Your friends have to realize that I'm voting and secretly working for Kerry because the forces behind Cheney's sock-puppet have hijacked my party and ripped it to the far extreme right-wing, wrecking everything we traditional Republicans, who are suspicious of unbridled federal authority, hold dear: support for small government, budgetary restraint, no wars (and certainly no "preventive" wars) unless our vital national interests are imminently at stake, a firm wall between church and state, and so on.

Interesting you bring up that standard for going to war, just like Qlinton did when he unilaterally bombed Kosovo after declaring "our vital national interests are imminently at stake."

"So, as an outraged, desperate, angry Republican,

Demonrat, actually.

...here's my answer to your question, a prescription for action. Take what you find useful:

"First, get your heaviest liberal hitters to bring John Kerry into a closed room and read him the riot act. If he wants to win, if he wants to get Dems and Independents and Libertarians and moderate Republicans like me to vote and work for him and supply him with campaign dollars, he's got to sharpen his attack, got to go for that jugular. Don't fudge around, use the appropriate goddamn words: "lies," "deceit," "manipulation," "quagmire," "permanent war," "imperial foreign policy," "sticking it to the middle class," "ruining the economy." Don't pull punches, just tell the truth.

Telling lies means telling the truth. 'Kay. You can count on GorOn's MorOns to help.

"To be able to fight like that requires him to shed the albatross that was hung around his neck by Kerry himself, and which is being used by the GOP to brand him. Kerry voted for the blank-check that allowed Bush to go to war in Iraq, he voted for the Patriot Act, he supports Sharon's bestial policies in Palestine. Kerry has got to admit he made some mistakes - something Bush is incapable of doing, but Kerry can - about those positions.

Even before this screed, al-Qerry denounced all those things he voted for. What's really hanging are those things on that albatross's feet. They're called flip-flops.

"He has to go to the American people and say he is wiser now than he was then; his votes were based on faulty information; he, we all, got snookered by a lying Bush Administration to convince and manipulate us into a war of choice, not one of necessity. And he was caught up, as were we all, by the immediate fear and desire to get the terrorists after 9/11, and voted in haste for the Patriot Act.

"I'm easily duped. I blame others for my failures. I don't think, but react solely out of fear." The typical definition of liberal. Also, just the kind of leader the American people are looking for in grave times of national peril, right?

"Kerry can at least sketch a way out of Iraq, before we sink up to our eyeballs in that quagmire; if it involves handing over control to the U.N., or kicking Chalabi and Halliburton out of the way, or swallowing hard when Islamic nationalists take control in a democratic election - well, that's part of the road out of this morass. Kerry can promise that he will take a good look at the Patriot Act and remove the worst aspects. Just speaking up like that on those two issues alone would make the distinction between himself and Bush all the more clear, and would indicate a humility and willingness to grow as a candidate.

After all, sketches are usually drawn in shades of gray.

In a warped, alternate universe, where U.S. voters actually elect presidents who promise to rely on such UNreliable control, the whole region would be open to an inescapable escalation of so much chaos that it'd come to be known throughout the world as Qerry's Quagmire. Being that it's specialty is throwing Little Brown People™ to the wolves of this world, terrorists would have no trouble then turning all of Iraq into a base camp—smack dab in the middle of the Middle East—from which to plot and plan their strikes in relative safety; and after the seventh or eighth attack on our shopping malls, bridges, nuclear reactors, and downtown districts, Hanoi John would have to ask France if we could send some troops back in, while spending the rest of his failed administration apologizing to the American people for removing the very measures that had any real hope of keeping the terrorists from entering our country in the first place and committing those mass-murderous deeds. The only thing that can grow out of this sort of humiliation would be our surrender, something we'd definitely find hard to swallow.

"Bush has placed all his chips on Sharon's extremist policies in Palestine (and even is imitating them in Iraq); Kerry can vow to be more even-handed in the Middle East, realizing that only more slaughter will take place - maybe even against the U.S. - unless a candidate is elected that can be the honest broker between the Israelis and Palestinians. Bush no longer can be that broker, but a President Kerry, if he's capable of altering his position, can. And Kerry can sell all this to the Americans and Israels because it's in America's, and Israel's, longterm national interests that the Middle East move toward a just and lasting peace.

JFQ alters his positions at the drop of a hat—there's no "can he" involved. Altering positions, however, is what sends the mixed signals that keep pushing such a just and lasting peace further and further away. Unfortunately, liberals don't think targeting babies on buses and blowing them to bits is an "extremist policy." But when Israel responds anywhere close to how we would if the same thing started happening in downtown Chicago or Los Angeles, they consider that to be extreme. Even-handed, in their view, means appeasing terrorists after they kill babies; and honest brokering means telling Israel to quietly turn around while we securely tie its hands.

KERRY NEEDS MORE SAX APPEAL

"You're not pulling any punches here," I said. "What next?"

Not firing any neurons in that braindead head of yours either.

"Second, he should ask Bill Clinton for some tutoring on campaigning and public-speaking.

Qiss-of-Death Qlinton, sqooling Qerry in prevariqation. Just whose side is this DT on?

Loosen up. Get better writers.

Spend lots of time in televised, small town-hall meetings, interacting in an intimate setting (rather than in large rallies) one-on-one with ordinary citizens; I think Kerry could excel in that arena. And, since Bush won't really debate, take some of that money that's coming in and buy 15 minutes or a half-hour on network TV to take on Bush directly on a number of key issues.

"Kerry can be a give-'em-hell-Harry kind of candidate, a straight shooter who tells it like it is. Even though currently he gets off a good shot now and then, he doesn't seem relaxed, doesn't smile as much as he should, seems somewhat awkward and dull in delivery too often, as if he's trying to remember what he's supposed to be saying rather than letting it flow from his heart and gut.

Typical of Dems. No trouble criticizing anything. But when it comes to offering solutions and alternatives they're just vague or simplistic. "Gah-aholly, Teresa. I'll just be a 'straight shooter' from now on." "You can't, dear. You'll lose the non-straight vote." "F--k!" "Watch your mouth, dear." "Yes, ma'am."

"Third, he should hold a major press conference, make some major announcements and then, for an hour, demonstrate how at ease he is with answering pointed questions from the reporters, how much knowledge he has at his fingertips, how 'presidential' he looks when measured against Dubya Doofus, how relaxed and self-deprecatingly funny he can be.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I admit. I do inject Botox into my forehead." Major announcement: check. "For the next hour or so I'm going to demonstrate how to properly insert this deadly biotoxin under one's skin, as well as how to safely handle it beforehand." Looking presidential: che—well, at least his forehead will look relaxed.

"Fourth, he needs to address the computer-voting issue head-on. It won't matter if more citizens choose him on November 2nd unless their votes are accurately recorded and tabulated. His victory could be stolen unless the scandal of touch-screen voting problems is dealt with. As Stalin said, what matters is not who votes, but who counts the votes.

Don't forget to give him one of those smaller tin-foil hats so it won't be so conspicuous when he does.

"Right now, the software inside those computer-voting machines - which are owned and controlled by Republican companies - can be manipulated easily, leaving no trace that they've been tampered with. Most of the computer-voting machines have no back-up system that allows for verified recounts. There are alternative machines on the market that print out a paper copy of the votes, require the voter to look at it and okay it, then save it inside a locked box for any recounting that may be necessary.

"You Clinton-haters and your conspiracy theories. Geesh!" How many times were we subjected to that whenever we brought up Mena, Arkansas, or Waco, or his Brady Bill backdoor gun-registration scheme?

No. Trying to steal elections is your side's forte. Just ask the people of Florida how much they appreciate being the gorebutt of election jokes these past four years.

"Kerry needs to acknowledge the vital importance of this issue, start talking it up, become the national advocate for honest tabulation. Especially after the disputed 2000 vote, we don't need another stolen-election controversy. That way lies political civil war."

"If elected, I'll be the Honest Tabulation president." Crowds will get goose bumps just thinking about it. "I'll push for honest tables and tabled honesty. (How's that for nuance, Mary Beth? Oh, by the way, go out and get a tan so at least one of us up here looks darker.)"

MADRID-TYPE BOMBING HERE?

"Stop, stop!" I said. "I can't take notes fast enough. Take a breath, have another beer....What I'm hearing from you is that you think the liberal-centrist Kerry

Centrist? Then that must make Ted Kennedy a paleo-conservative. [Insert side-splitting laughter here.]

...is a strong candidate who can take Bush in a fair election. Assuming the computer-voting scandal can be addressed, can we even have a fair election, with Karl Rove in charge?"

No. Mmwhahaha haha hahaha....

"You've put your finger on the right man," said Shallow Throat. "The Rovemeister has a file full of dirty tricks he's starting to activate, and Kerry and the Dems better be prepared for those - and for various other surprises as we get closer to the election, when undecided voters are more apt to be paying attention to the campaign."

Karl Rove. CEO of Evil, Inc. Yeah, he gets a lot of ribbing for it.

But if you Dhimmwits were expecting or knew about what those sooper seekrit files will be activating, then it wouldn't be much of a surprise, now would it? Don't worry, however. At the last VRWC meeting I attended, he announced from the shadows that "higher-ups" were assigning him to another senator, because the one the Dodocrats are currently running isn't worth the expenditure of even a minimal amount of his dark powers. But since he said not to tell anyone else, I can't confirm or deny that this happened.

"Aside from Rove, what about an outside interference - say, a terrorist attack in the U.S. before the vote," I asked, "similar to the Madrid train bombings?"

"Look, Bin Laden's intentions couldn't be clearer," said Shallow Throat. "He's willing to ease off Europe in order to focus on America. A big one is coming, for sure. And he's almost more eager to demonstrate that he can still pull one off here because a Bush Administration official recently almost dared him to do so, saying Al Qaida is so badly decimated and in our preventive sights that the terrorists can't do much major damage inside the U.S.

When liberals use "for sure" in this context, it means "we hope." As in, we hope bin Laden can "pull one off" because we believe that will help us "take back" the White House. Yeah, Desperacrats are surely on "our side."

"The question is not whether but when, how big it will be, and how the American citizenry will react when it happens. Will they blame Bush for not protecting them, and will they remember how he did nothing prior to 9/11 even when he knew the 'spectacular' Big One was about to happen?

"Bush knew!" Just keep saying that big lie over and over again and just maybe some gullible 3-year-old child might one day start believing it.

Or will Americans, in their fright, rally around the Administration in a time of great travail and anxiety? And, most importantly, if the Al Qaida attack is horrific - say, a suitcase dirty bomb going off at a major port city, killing and radiating tens of thousands - will they stand up and resist the calls for martial law and the 'postponement' of the election?

Yes to both questions. A strong and brave people like ours would never deny themselves the chance to express their immeasurable contempt for and displeasure at terrorist-abetting idiots who care nothing about emboldening our enemy with their irresponsible efforts to spread "dissent" and weaken our Nation's resolve in time of war. The terrorists know that the only defeat they'll ever have any hope of leading us to is a self-inflicted one.

DO DEMOCRATS HAVE THE CAJONES?

"If the Democrats have any sense, they will start talking now about the terrorism that is likely to happen this Summer or Fall, reminding voters of how incompetent the Bush Administration was before and has been since 9/11, and how their reckless policies in Iraq and the Middle East have made us more vulnerable to terrorism, not less. But I'm not sure your Democrats are smart enough to think along those lines, or have the guts to take on Bush directly on these issues.

Here "is likely to" means "we hope will." Liberals can't wait, in fact, for the chance to scream "He failed! Blame Bush! It's all his fault!" even as rivers of blood are still coursing through America's streets. Not a word about the terrorists being the ones actually responsible for those rivers. But that's not what liberals are concerned about, not when there's any prospect at all of getting away with cynically exploiting the dead for their own selfish purposes. To them it's all about "take back" power, nothing else. Victory of, for, and by themselves. No one else.

"In short, I'm not sure they really know how to win, or maybe even want to win enough to go out and really claw and fight their way to victory. But they simply have to if we're going to have any opportunity to avoid the militarist, neo-fascist society Bush&Co. have in mind for America after November 2, and the permanent war the neo-cons want to continue abroad.

In short, "Bushitler!" Perhaps if your formerly-national party came up with something even marginally more original than that every now and then, a lesser number of Americans would be tuning you all out before turning you all out in droves at the polls.

"This is our moment. There is no other chance to take these guys down. If we don't do it in November, it may be a generation or more before we get another reasonable shot. Kerry and the Dems may understand that on an intellectual level, but they need to translate that into unrelenting, tough, street-smart, go-for-the-jugular campaign-activism from now until Election Day."

"Take these guys down." Put that reaffirming, reassuring, positive message on your party's bumper sticker, right next to the notice "Paid for by ABB, Inc. (formerly known as DNC)."

"I hear you," I said. "I'll pass on what you have to say to those who can hear it - Democrats (who, by the way, are a lot more united and dedicated than you give them credit for), Independents, Libertarians, moderates, disaffected Republicans, veterans and families of soldiers abroad, loved ones of 9/11 victims, and so on. I think a wide swath of the American polity is open now to a lot of your suggestions. The Democrats will be ready."

Ready? No they won't. But we'll be ready to hear all those "stolen election!"s and "not our fault!"s when the American polity closes the book—after completing its final chapter—on what now is hard to even imagine was once a venerable national party.

"They better be," said Shallow Throat, heading for the door. "There is no going back and no-second chance. It's now or never."

Bernard Weiner, Ph.D., has taught government at various universities, was a writer-editor with the San Francisco Chronicle for 19 years, and currently co-edits the progressive website The Crisis Papers.

Doctor Weiner, political proctologist. Cavorting with his imaginary trench-coat wearing molerat. How special.