Important If True

– wherein the diarist cobbles together on a semi-regular basis a collection of seemingly random thoughts, no single one of which, taken by itself, may be worthy of your attention, dear reader(s?), but which, when presented en masse in a veritable mélange, a pastiche, as it were, of cerebral offal, might thus put to rest any niggling doubts that you may have had about whether the effort would be worth it. Or, to paraphrase someone, you should waste no time in reading this . . .

PAGING CAPT. OBVIOUS: I wonder why President Bush was in such a big hurry to get to the San Diego County photo op? I mean, it took him four days to land in New Orleans and screw up rescue efforts, right? Well, folks, the answer should be easy – it’s as simple as black and white – erm, I mean, blue and red (just zoom in on this map of the 2004 presidential vote by county; San Diego, Orange and Riverside counties are all the way down in the lower left-hand corner) . . .

BUT WAIT – THERE’S MORE: Hey! – Heads up, all you late-night TV viewers: Keep your eyes peeled for the limited edition DVD of the Southern Calfiornia brush fires!!!, brought to you by the same White House Bunker staff that gave you the Presidential Advance Manual (excerpt: “Work with the Secret Service and have them ask the local police department to designate a protest area where demonstrators can be placed, preferably not in view of the event site or motorcade route”) . . . I’m sure the Preznit already saw the DVD, and rushed right out to buy copies for everyone on his Christmas list. (Except Condi, of course: she gets the Jimmy Choo gift card and a little sumpn sumpn from Trashy Lingerie . . . )

IT’S NOT A HANDOUT IF YOU’RE A REPUBLIC DEPT.: Somehow, I have a very warm and fuzzy feeling that all of the staunch Bush supporters who suffered losses in the terrible Southern California fires are not in their wildest dreams even thinking about applying for federal assistance – or accepting assistance of any kind (since that would be, y’know, a handout from the government) – in fact, I’m quite sure that those True Believers must have been spotted throughout the fire area, waving off the air tankers and hotshot teams who arrived to offer their taxpayer-supported help . . . I suspect, in fact, the Preznit is at this very moment considering a tax cut for the very wealthiest among the fire victims to help deficit-fund that assistance that those good Republics aren’t taking and never did take . . .

BILL O’VIATING: Bill O’Reilly has no patience for those who fail to move out of the way of a natural disaster in spite of the known risks: “They weren’t going to leave no matter what you did.” Why? Simple: “They were drug-addicted. They weren’t going to get turned off from their source. They were thugs, whatever . . . Now, our government has a duty to provide a safety net so these people aren’t living under bridges. But some of them are anyway, because all the entitlement money they get they spend on heroin or crack or alcohol . . . And therefore, they’re going to be out on the street with their hand out.” Oh – wait a minute – he was talking about people who are, you know – < black > . . .

AT LEAST HE GOT TO KEEP THE STAPLER: This may not be nearly an original thought, but it just occurred to me like a ton of bricks: if the administration, within weeks of being put in power in January 2001, approached the telephone companies and told them that they were going to need to turn over indiscriminate information about every American – and this was long before September 11 – what possible reason could there have been for such urgent necessity? I’m guessing BushCheney knew before even taking office who the real threats to their administration were, and took action accordingly . . . (And I can just picture Dick Cheney, with his coffee mug and suspenders, oozing up to the cubicle of Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg and saying, “Yyyeahhhhh – ahhh, I’mmm gonna need you to hand over those phone records this weekend . . . Yyeeah, ahh, we’re gonna nneed those . . . “

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