Rick Horowitz

Murder by Metaphor

            [Warning: This column contains language that many people will find deeply offensive. Many, but not enough.]

 

            Just so we’re clear: The word is “Nigger.”

            That’s the word that was launched last weekend at fellow human beings -- and, incidentally, members of the United States Congress -- as the voting neared on reforming the nation’s health-care system.

            The same word that’s been shouted, whispered, hissed and hurled for generations -- a word that dehumanizes and intimidates. A word that’s intended to dehumanize and intimidate. A word as vile, as hate-filled, as any the English language has excreted over the many centuries.

            And still, somehow, alive and well in ours.

Shouting, Never Doubting: Your GOP

            In a post-game cloakroom…

             “We did it!”

            “We showed ‘em!”

            “Nobody pushes us around!!”

            “Kill the Bill! Kill the Bill! Kill -- “

            “Hey, guys, I just -- “

            “ -- the Bill!! Kill the Bill!!”

            “Hey, listen up, guys! I just want to tell you how -- “

            “Stop It Now!! Stop It Now!! Stop It -- “

She's Daddy's Little Girl

        "The Cheneys: Undermining American Values Since -- "

        It’s hard to put a start date on it, isn’t it? The former vice president and his mud-slinger of a daughter have been plying their dark arts for so long, it can feel like there’s never been a time when they weren’t altogether too much with us. When we didn’t find ourselves turning away from the TV with a sudden need for a barf bag and a disinfectant. 

        Not true, though. Not true at all.  

          Actually, it’s not even a decade since Liz Cheney started running guns to the Taliban, only a year or two earlier that she attended her first al-Qaeda training camp. You’d think she --

          Sorry. I just made up those last bits. About Liz Cheney and the Taliban, I mean. About Liz Cheney and al-Qaeda. Those things never happened.        

         As far as we know.

It's a Swamp Thing

            The thing about promising to drain the swamp is that people tend to remember. Then they expect you to do it.

            What a pain in the gavel!

            Actually, that’s only partially true. (The expect-you-to-do-it part, I mean -- not the pain-in-the-gavel part, which is totally true.) They don’t all expect you to do it. You’re a politician, after all, and some of them know -- or think they do, which is just as dangerous -- what a politician’s promise is worth. So they were happy to dismiss that swamp-draining promise of yours the moment it came out of your ever-smiling mouth:

            Campaign talk. Nothing but campaign talk.

They Want a Do-Over

    As Christopher Columbus, after days and days at sea,

    First spied the mighty continent ahead,

    Up stepped young Mitch McConnell from his hiding place below,

    Looked Columbus in the eye and then he said:

 

            “Start over!

            Start over!

            The only thing to do is start from scratch!

            This is guaranteed to fail,

            So we might as well just bail -- “

            Then he tried to throw Columbus down the hatch.