11-07-05, 8:21 am
On a cloudless November morning, I stroll lazily along the sidewalk listening to an old Joni Mitchell tune, Big Yellow Taxi. And while Joni sings the refrain, it occurs to me that her words provide an apt epitaph for the end of Grim King George’s reign: “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve gone till it's gone. They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”
“The end of Grim King George’s reign?” you say. “Isn’t G. Dubbya still living at the White House,” you ask, “and aren’t his mullah-like minions still ruling the land and running amok abroad?”
Well, yes, he is. And, yes, they are. But look, with poll numbers spiralling ever downward to ugly Nixonion levels, Grim King George has lost his popular mandate. Those who were once fooled are fooled no more. So my point is this: the emperor has no clothes. His goose is cooked. His load is shot. And every right-thinking person can see it.
The King’s chest thumping bravado and swaggering Texas machismo are gone, replaced by Washington suit-and-tie management mumblings about “staying the course” in Iraq and anemic speeches likening fighting terrorism to fighting the Cold War. (Even I was embarrassed for ol’ King George on that one.)
And while the Self-Righteous-Right wonders where the King’s mojo may have gone, the sane centre of America – the vast majority of folks now – all know the truth: the administration’s endless, blundering incompetence intertwining seamlessly with the administration’s contagious, contemptible corruption has sealed the King’s doom.
Yup, the reign of Grim King George has deflated with a sad whisper and not a thunderous bang, just the hissing of a torn whoopee cushion. (Or is that the slithering sound of right-wing snakes returning to the soft mud beneath the rocks?)
Sure, I realize that there are three more years left in Grim King George’s reign. And sure, I realize that, with no one to stop his madness, Grim King George will ensure three thousand or so more American soldiers will die in desert sands, so many shredded to confetti by roadside bombs and rocket-launched missiles.
And back at home, the new Supreme Court – with its Grim King George appointed justices – will jerk sharply away from Justice and Liberty and Domestic Tranquility. They will sternly strip abortion rights from all women while give corporations the rights to steal everything – from the air we breathe, to the water we drink – being sure to send us the hefty bill.
You can bet that for three more years, Grim King George will continue his relentless gutting of environmental protection laws while ignoring or dismissing the rising temperatures of global warming, and the rising numbers of cataclysmic storms, and the rising ocean levels from melting polar ice caps. And without a hint of irony, in the name of national security, Grim King George will drill for oil in Alaska and off Florida and anywhere else he damn well pleases.
And lastly, of course, with three more years still to go, the poor will get decidedly poorer and the rich outrageously richer.
But hey, the dark dream of the Self-Righteous Right is over. It’s a cloudless November morning in America, and all that remains is dime-store political thuggery – and the slow ticking of three years’ time.
Strolling lazily along the sidewalk, I listen again to Joni’s refrain, “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve gone till it's gone. They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”
And I think: America had a beautiful country, once.
I know, because it’s gone.
--Steven Laffoley is the author of . You may write him at
