Even California Has Rednecks!
By Brian Wise (11/08/04)
The exact headline of the Daily Mirror's controversial front page was, "Doh! / Four More Years of Dubya / How Can 59,054,087 People Be So DUMB?" And if that didn't properly underscore the point, the very bottom of the same page reads, "U.S. Election Disaster: Pages 2, 4, 5, 6, 7 & 11." Now, I'll admit there's a warehouse full of things I don't understand (Paris Hilton lingers in its doorway), but I'm pretty sure the United States shouldn't welcome intellectual or electoral advice from any nation that takes a toothless monarchy as seriously as Great Britain does its own.
Daily Mirror readers were invited to share their thoughts on President Bush's re-election on a message board, from which I reprint a few gems. The first is from Jeff, who writes from San Francisco, and who pleads, "Europe, please invade us. We need a regime change." (Hilarious. I'd have e-mailed this guy if his address were listed: Goddammit Jeff, you live in San Francisco; your city couldn't go any further Left if it raised the Soviet flag over city hall. Butch up, stupid - Republicanism only touches you in San Francisco if you send it invitations.)
Diane from Vacaville, California writes, "Many U.S. citizens have threatened to leave for another country if Bush were re-elected. We don't have to leave; we already live in a foreign country. I simply do not understand the culture that re-elected this idiot." Best yet is Rob, from "The Heartland (where the idiots live)," who writes in part, "SOS! Writing here from 'the country formerly known as America'. [sic] Lady Liberty has been slipped a date rape drug. Democracy is on the run, free speech is all but lost. We need the world to keep the spotlight on bush's [sic] antics because the media here is too frightened to challenge the chimp." (We'll get back to The Heartland a little later.) Actually, "Lady Liberty has been slipped a date rape drug" is clever stuff, which is why I doubt he managed it himself.
Reporting for National Review Online, Denis Boyles details foreign reaction to President Bush's re-election. "In Le Monde, a corrupt newspaper in a nation choking in corruption [sic], the America of Bush II is seen by Jean-Marie Colombani as a bizarre place, where only New York and California can be understood by your standard-issue elite Frenchman. When you're in Kansas, you're not in the Ile de France anymore, Toto. It's clear, says Colombani, that Dominique de Villepin - poet, essayist, bureaucrat - was right when he said Europe would be unable to control American military might without developing military might of its own."
European military might … good thinking. Hell, if it were ever within Europe’s reach to produce true military might, it wouldn’t have needed the United States to pull its sorry ass out of the fire. Twice. Meanwhile, is this the same Dominique de Villepin who tried to negotiate an arms-for-hostage deal for a "family friend" and former student named Ingrid Betancourt (and when that failed, a millions-for-hostage deal)? Is this the same Dominique de Villepin who, upon those failures, launched illegal invasions (i.e., without United Nations approval) into Brazil and Columbia in order to win her freedom (and failed)? Is this the same Dominique de Villepin who lied about those invasions until mounting evidence forced him to tell the truth?
California and New York wisdom is apparently just as distinct as The Heartland's abject ignorance, or else a meandering twit like de Villipin wouldn't have noticed. But has he (or our friend Rob) actually seen a map of the 2004 election vote, broken down by country? Go there, and you'll see it just as Gregory Borse describes it: "One look ... at a county-by-county breakdown of the vote in both the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections reveals that there is no such thing as a ''blue'' state. [Emphasis original.] California in particular looks very, very red. It is only in the far northern and most populated northern counties (San Francisco) and in the populated southern counties (Los Angeles / Hollywood) that the state is blue. Everywhere else, it is red."
Addendum, then: San Francisco and Los Angeles know their stuff, but the rest of California is hopeless; fine. But liberals would do well to remember the days when Democrats won national elections, and why they won them. Just as well to realize that they won't win another in the near future if they continue nominating the likes of John Kerry. Or Hillary Clinton.
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