It's getting right crazy down here in Dixie. When we're not talking to ourselves, we're talking to everybody else -- whether they want to listen or not. Yada-yada-Muslim, yada-yada-antichrist, yada-yada-doesn't-want-America-to-win, yada-yada-he-s-a-commie-socialist! Yada-yada-God-hates-him. And more.
I'm drowning in it. Get involved covering a campaign and you'll find your name gets on email lists you never dreamed existed. You get mail, everybody's hollerin' and it's noisy as hell. I got some doozies last week from deeply offended progressives who're worried about the tenor of Team McPalin's dark "path to a narrow margin of victory". And I got more than a few from avid McCain supporters. They're mighty anxious to change my mind.
One of the uber-conservative messages in my inbox was a trip down Alien Invasion Memory Lane. The compelling reason to vote Republican in 2008? Well, honey, this oughta knock your Democrat-lovin' socks right off your feet: Way back in July 1947 a space ship crashed on a cattle ranch just outside Roswell, New Mexico with five little aliens on board. Apparently, they got loose, felt amorous and proceeded to wreak devilish havoc nationwide. That's scary. But what's scarier? The fact, the writer said, that exactly nine months later, in April, a slew of liberal elitists just happened to be born -- among them Al Gore, Bill and Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean. No wonder they're all so sympathetic to illegal aliens. It's in their DNA.
On fact-checking the story, I found that none of the above arrived in April 1948 and that, in fact, Pelosi was born in 1940, Kerry in '43, Bill Clinton in '46. Only poor old Al Gore was suspect. He was born on March 31, 1948. Since I wasn't present when Gore was conceived, I can't swear to his being fully human. He has always been a right stiff-looking feller, but I like him anyway.
The final days of campaign 2008? It sounds like Silly Season.
Maybe not. Maybe it's more than that: It may be the Mean White Christian Silly Season.
Another conservative email was a soul-saving warning: You can't be a Democrat if you're a Christian. No way in (pardon the expression) hell. All Christians are hard-wired Republicans. Democrats, after all, are the Abortion Party. No values, just free-wheeling, whoo-boy! sex for everybody and birth control by scraper and scalpel. Republicans are the True Believers. The GOP is the sole God-fearing party of life. So vote McCain/Palin. Or else. Got Life? The hallmark of John McCain's party is reverence for all that good life stuff.
Not to belabor the point, but we all know how valuable conservative columnist Kathleen Parker's life was to God's Own Party when she dared suggest Sarah Palin as Veep might not have been such a smart move on John McCain's part. One of the GOP faithful wrote: "Your mother should have aborted you and tossed the fetus in a Dumpster..."
So much for the McCain/Palin camp's simplistic absolute good v. absolute evil meme.
An email campaign originating in Tennessee hit South Carolina over the weekend. This one's slicker than a slimy swamp-frog's belly: An American flag, big and bold as brass, is the first thing you see. It's a great looking flag, too, and ought to be enough to get any voter's heart revving, get the conservative mind in gear. But it gets better: God has something to say about your vote. In large, lurid font:
"In a world that's rushing toward the end times prophecy, God will bless the true Christian leader, if we choose wisely. The Prince of Darkness' blood runs through the veins of the evildoer...Vote for McCain...Always remember one thing -- GOD WILL HAVE THE LAST WORD."
Lord have mercy. The end's a'comin' and who does this guy think the evildoer is? Oh. That One. And maybe me. The Other One who's voting for him
Another bona fide lover of the Lord, one who also has an inside track to exactly what God is thinking about Campaign 2008 (and everything else), had this warning for us:
"God is not schizophrenic, he would not tell one person to vote for Obama and another to vote for McCain...For all my friends who are voting for Obama, can you really look God in the face and say; Father, based on your works I am voting for Obama even though...abortion...liberal judges making laws that are against you...homosexual rights, even though you destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for this."
I kid you not, the South is awash in an evil aliens, hellfire and brimstone email campaign.. If election day was scheduled for the end of November, rather than the first week, we'd be looking at forty days and forty nights of this stuff. I'd be desperately seeking not Joe the Plumber, but Archie the Ark Maker. I'm a wreck. Two weeks left until election day and I've got a raging case of inbox phobia. The mail is enough to give me toxic shock syndrome and I'm averaging dozens of these, or links to others like them, a day.
I'm not the only one suffering.
Poor William Friedkin is getting mail, too. Did he take to the stump and holler "I'm for Satan!", "Traitor!", "Kill 'em Both!" or "Bomb McCain and Palin!"? Nope. All the man did was make a contribution to the Obama campaign. $2300 to Obama for America. He anted up for the anti-you-know-what. He contributed to the commie. He supports the socialist.
Friedkin got a letter from Howard Rich, chairman of the Americans for Limited Government Foundation: "...As a donor to one or more of these [radical agenda or leftist] organizations, you have been able to engage in these activities without notice...I am writing to inform you this will no longer be the case...Your name has been put in our database..."
While Friedkin was not born nine months after Roswell's aliens began impregnating unsuspecting American women (he was born in 1935), he's a suspicious dude and Right-Wing Big Brother is watching. William Friedkin's name is on the list. And, if you believe your email (like too many Southerners are prone to do) the end's coming and if Howard Rich can't do the job on Friedman, God'll do it for him.
Unless he sees the light. Then he'll vote Right. And God bless (the real) America.