Examination

I stumbled across the real barometer reading for the Bush Presidency. The thing that reveals the true feelings of the American Beast, the public at large. This is it. Forget about the polls, the snippy comics, lambasting politicians, faint inducing articles, shocking tell all insiders, and all of the various leakers. (Leakers?)

At the local chain super mega drugstore by the checkout, I found the latest "National Examiner" and you would not believe what I read on the headline of that true standard of the weekly periodic American flight of fantasy.

The headline read: "BUSH MARRIAGE OVER!"

I know.... I get it too. I know.... I felt the same way. On the left side of the diptych front page photo there is Laura, angry, snarling wrinkle over the lips, venomous look in her twinkling eye, ready to pounce, on the right side George, loopy daze, biting lower lip, foggy eyed, dulled, and innocently receptive. The sub title, you guessed it, "Laura erupts after drinking binge."

Drinking and alcoholism are the trade of the new Republicanism. Think Foley checking himself into rehab to account for his pederast flinging inclination. Also think Ney, soon to be, if not already, checked into Betty Ford Land, contrite and seeking forgiveness for crimes against the people of the fair land.

But its deeper and more subtle, this headline, this photo business. This is a symbolic artifact if there ever was one. It is ripe with meaning. Translating this image is similar to interpreting the salient dream. Its ready to be plucked and plucked good.

I propose this is a message from the Heartland of America. These folks don't bother with facts, polls, speeches, New York Times, internet blah blah blah. All that stuff is phoniness. All aspects of it are dripping with slime. These people speak from below the gut, from the scent. This headline is a distillate of a half decades worth of policy, if it can truly be called policy.

All the wars, taxes, corruptness, fear, hurricanes, economy, religions, abortions, homosexual marriage, all that stuff has had 6 years of boiling over the hot blunt boulder rolling eye of Examiner world. The marriage is over baby, we want a divorce. Do you get it, divorce, split, you got the huge steal tipped working class size 6 through 12 boot, fierce and there's no return. You don't reconcile this. There's no marriage counseling. Its time to play find the identity.

This is a wife leaving the man, leaves him dangling alone, hung out to dry out, and perched on a marble crapper. This is the voice of America, its saying get out you drunken bum. Enough is enough.

Painting by Karel Appel