June 07, 2004

Unlike Clinton, Reagan never had to lie about getting his cock sucked because it was all out in the open--the press sucked him off nonstop, giving him a free pass for cutting school lunch programs, slashing the funding for the mentally ill (a basic document on this is the 1986 Nick Cave song "Jack's Shadow"), tirelessly warring against democracy in Central America, etc., etc. He made it all palatable to a TV audience in thrall to his "aw, shucks" charm and foggy-minded piety. He put on a fucking cowboy hat and the nation swooned.
      He embodied optimism and all the best America values (you're going to hear this repeated by the media over the next two weeks until you're saying it in your sleep). He had the single-minded confidence of an autistic Jesus freak in his own wholesomeness, no matter what kind of ruthlessly murderous business he was involved in. He was, in other words the political godfather of our current president. (The moment I saw W wearing a cowboy hat, sometime in 1999, I knew he couldn't possibly lose the election.) How the country loved Reagan! How we got down on our knees for his unflappable cowboy charm. Slurp, slurp, slurp.
      I got myself arrested in the Reagan era, during a protest against his support for the Contras, the "freedom fighters" who butchered the democratically elected Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Imagine swinging a baby by her ankles and smashing her skull against the ground because of the way her parents voted--that's the kind of thing our tax dollars were paying for in the 1980s. That's my mug shot, above. I am trying to look defiant, but failing miserably, looking instead like the pale, pimply, privileged punk-ass that I was. (In my defense, I had just been stuck in a paddy wagon full of hippies singing "We Shall Overcome.")
      But to get back to the point, it's not that I particularly mind the press remembering Ronnie as the man who won the Cold War or whatever--a certain warm regard for the period of my youth allows this without too much struggle--so long as they remember Clinton as the man who presided over the greatest period of peace and prosperity in our country's history. But of course they will put an asterisk next to Clinton's name, with a footnote to the effect that, well, yeah, greatest, most peaceful, most prosperous, etc., but Monica, black dress, jism jism jism! As if there were anything in this even approaching the level of criminal activity in the Iran-Contra scandal or any number of other horrible deeds authored by the Reagan administration that you could name off the top of your head.
      Now that the son of a bitch is dead, the media is, of course, back in a full fellatic frenzy. How well they remember their beloved position, on their knees, mouths too full of cock to ask any questions.
      I made a little X on my calendar on June 21, because by that date, two weeks from now, I figure that the press's ADD will win out over its sycophancy, and it will finally let Reagan's cold pale cock slide from its collective lips and turn its attention, in even a small and inadequate way, back to the failures and deceits of the current prick in office.