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The I Hate George W. Bush Reader |
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The I Hate George W. Bush Reader: Why Dubya is Wrong About Absolutely Everything, edited by Clint Willis, Thunder's Mouth Press, 2004, paperback , $13.95 
In case somebody has failed to notice, this week's issue of GayToday is not very Bush-friendly. In fact GayToday, as its "Big Brother is Watching You" series has long demonstrated, never cottons up to Bush. But do we hate George W. Bush? Hardly. It would require far too much precious personal energy. It seems reasonable however, to despise him. Is there a difference? You decide. (Ouch! That sounds FOXy, eh?).
In any case, a title such as The I Hate George W. Bush Reader has proven just catchy enough to lure those many buyers who see no difference between the two words. Though I simply despise this "man" whom I refuse to call "President", I won't complain if you, dear reader, are tempted to purchase this fine tome. Simply put, it's a riot whose time has come. In 2003, editor Clint Willis gave us The I Hate Republicans Reader. Its title became particularly poignant to me when, during this year's New York's Heritage of Pride parade, the Log Cabin Republicans en route found themselves the objects of a derision previously unmatched. Poor things, I thought, they should have stayed home. Among the members of my own family, I'm happy to say, there are few I'm tempted to despise. My reaction to those mesmerized by the GOP finds me cutting them slack, realizing as I do that they need counseling. Outside of these few, it's a different story, however. While I don't make a habit of despising anyone, there's no need to cozy up to them, that's for sure. Two years ago a second cousin, approximately 80, was visiting an in-law and I was invited to supper. My ears picked up as we sat at the table after dinner and I heard my cousin moaning a complaint: "And in the Oval Office too!" Though Bush was then sitting in the Oval Office, my cousin was still painfully hung up on Bill Clinton's oral tryst. In a tone that could hardly be called confrontational, I simply observed, "Don't you think that worse things have happened in the Oval Office?" I thought my cousin would have a stroke. He stood up, raising his hands toward the ceiling and bellowed, "I can't believe you are so stupid!" Without any sign of discomfort, I quietly observed that it was probable that John F. Kennedy, in an age when the media had kept presidential sex a secret, had had his jollies now and then. This was more than my poor old cousin could handle. He stumbled into the living room and slumped somewhat sideways across a chair, his wife running to his side to comfort him. But I was not to be muzzled. "And what would you have thought if you'd known that Eleanor Roosevelt was having a lesbian affair when good old Franklin was the White House occupant?" That was the straw. My cousin, beseeching, screamed out: "WHY are you telling me these things?" His wife helped him rise from his chair to escape me to the outside balcony, where she comforted him some more. When I think of Republicans, I remember my octogenarian cousin. Strangely, when I think of George W. Bush, I focus less on his vicious lies which only now are rising to the surface, but on the vile intellectual vacuum he so plainly exhibits whenever he opens his mouth. The I Hate George W. Bush Reader, I'm happy to report, dives directly into this empty vortex, allowing readers a glimpse of what it means to have the dumbest dolt imaginable in charge of the most powerful nation on earth, his finger only a few worrisome inches from the nuclear button. This worries me far more, I must say, than Bill Clinton's hurried Oval Office assignations. The I Hate George W. Bush Reader advertises itself as a book in which no quarter is given to dumb dumb Dubya: "No equal time granted here! Clint Willis…zeroes in on the Chump-in-Chief himself: that know-nothing former frat boy, that pseudo-cowboy, that sad excuse for a statesman George W. Bush. Garble the facts and trash the truth? (Bush) Can do! Send young Americans to war on false premises? Why not? Suck up to the rich and steal from the poor? You bet! Starve our schools and trash our environment? But of course! Lose two million American jobs? No sweat! Steal our civil liberties? Bring 'em on!" This new Reader offers a host of witty essays, Bushy profiles and cartoons along with "head-spinning quotes straight from the horse's, uh, mouth." We see Bush the bully, Bush the liar and "Bush the stumpy-legged show off in all his full-frontal hypocrisy." "So," says the Thunder's Mouth Press: "Grab your copy of The I Hate George W. Bush Reader-and get ready to pulverize the next moron who tries to defend the swaggering, beady-eyed fraud who calls himself our 43rd president." |
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