    |
by Dave "Doctor" Gonzo
Tuesday, July 13, 1999 -- CHICAGO -- "You heard me right, Doc -- there is much rejoicing."
The Doc was on the phone with "Chopper," an old friend from his college days with a penchant for motorcycles, partying to excess and brilliant business thinking. During the '80s he dropped the partying, added an MBA, and now lives outside of Chicago and spends his days as the CFO at a big manufacturing outfit in Chicago and the rest of his time with his wife and two kids.
He's also a five-figure-a-year contributor to mostly Republican candidates and the GOP -- but his political opinions have more in common with the moderate Republicans in the northeast -- the Olympia Snowes and Chris Shayses of the world -- than the Taliban wing of the party as represented by Newt Gingrich, Ton DeLay and Trent Lott.
He doesn't care for Clinton, though he does give him plenty of credit for "jump-starting the budget-balancing" and "trimming the fat from entitlements" -- but he detested his party's "boneheaded" impeachment shenanigans and cannot stand Henry Hyde, "whose S&L sins you and I are paying for. I think he's a crook."
We were talking the decision of presidential wanna-be Sen. Bob Smith (Troglodyte-NH) to leave the Republican Party to make a run as a candidate on the U.S. Taxpayers' or similar neo-Nazi party ticket.
Chopper was beside himself with glee. "Good riddance, I say. I just hope he takes [Gary] Bauer, [Pat] Puke-anan and 'Jimmy the Idiot Boy' Quayle with him."
"C'mon, Chop, don't hold back. Tell me how you really feel!"
Chopper laughed long and hard. "You've just gotta love Smith claiming that he is the most 'conservative' member of the Senate. Most conservative. And now the most irrelevant. Jim Nicholson and the RNC must've been popping the champaign corks yesterday -- I can tell you there are a lot more Republicans out there than you would imagine who have wanted to see the entire right-wing cadre shown the door -- and now they're doing it themselves!"
"Hey, Chop, don't forget -- I live in New York, ground zero for 'liberal' Republicans. They've been waiting for something like this to happen for years. Smith is not your typical Northeastern Reep -- in fact, he's a walking joke in my neck of the woods!"
"Doc, you can bet your bottom dollar Smith is a laughingstock on the Hill, too. I can't wait 'til The Cheerleader [Chopper's loving moniker for Trent Lott, who was a cheerleader in college] boots Smith out of his committee chairs! Hey -- maybe you should make him a nice NRA-style bumper sticker that says 'The only way they'll take my gavel is to pry it out of my cold, dead hands.' "
Chop had me rolling on the floor. "Naah, he'll gladly give them back to throw some 'red meat' to the true believers. He'll tell his supporters -- both of them, judging by the polls -- 'They're strippin' me -- the most conservative Senator -- of my chairs to take away your voice in the legislature!' It'll play well with the social paleo-conservatives -- and with any luck, they'll follow like lemmings."
"So you don't think this is going to hurt the GOP long term?"
"Hurt? Where've you been, Doc? If Buchanan or Bauer bolts too, that splits the hard-righters even more -- and devastates the influence they have on the GOP. I'm telling you, Doc, the big-money players are sick of these stealth theocrats -- they want to focus on fiscal and business issues, not abortion or prayer-in-school nonsense. And with the E-van-gelical 'guns-and-Ten-Commandments' army out, the 'big tent' can finally open. This is a key goal of the party at the national level."
And The Doc can tell you that Chopper is not the only GOP "player" that feels this way.
In meeting after meeting this year, the senior leadership of the Republicans National Committee has been hammered by multi-thousand-dollar contributor after contributor -- on the stupidity of the attempted impeachment of President Clinton, on neo-fascist "social conservatives" hijacking the party platform and engaging in "social engineering" that runs against the core value of small government, on a tiny so-called "Christian" minority having become an embarrassment to the GOP.
And there are more than a few Republicans who see the writing on the wall, and are saying "Good riddance" to Smith and his ilk -- with the full understanding that if they don't clean house, America will be saying "Ta-ta" to the GOP the same way they did to the Whigs a century-and-a-half ago.
And speaking of GOP follies...
DATELINE: Dallas, Texas -- Usually, The Doc would be reluctant to repeat anything published on the Drudge Report web site, but this story was "pre-vetted" by real journalists, so here goes:
Turns out that GOP presidential hopeful George W. Bush has yet another problem to contend with -- the deed to 6029 Northwood in Dallas, Texas, a house he owned between 1988 and 1995.
Turns out that the document included the following wording when Bush bought and then resold the house:
"... premises shall be used for private dwelling purposes [the Drudge Report web site had printed "swelling purposes" when we first saw the article -- and we're not gonna touch the ramifications of that mis(?)print with a ten-meter cattle prod] only and by white persons only, not excluding bona fide servants of any race..."Now, anyone with a working knowledge of American history and government will tell you that federal court rulings and state laws have rendered that sort of wording null and void, and it is still not uncommon to run across this sort of codicil on a deed or property agreement, but it does beg the question: when Bush sold the property within days of his having been sworn in as Governor, how could he allow such a politically incorrect gaffe to slip under his or his realtor's radar, even if it would have cost him time and money -- that he well could have afforded?
 George W. Bush graciously accepts American Politics Journal's Golden Lawn Jockey Award, as he instructs the "hired help" to display it inconspicuously "so constituents I'm 'reaching out to' can't see it." |
DATELINE: Reno, Nevada -- Gregory Peek, legislative director for hard-right Rep. Helen Chenoweth (R-Idaho Militia), was arrested Saturday night in The Doc's recreational stomping ground, Reno, on a charge that he stalked an 18-year-old woman.
The woman, who was not identified, made a citizen's arrest of Peek, who is 33, saying that the aide to the "Black Helicopter"-obsessed congresswoman and well-known adulterer who likes to be addressed as "Congressman," followed her a number of miles in a car, making both inappropriate comments and lewd actions -- and giving the lie to the assertion that paleo-conservatives cannot drive and at least try to pick up babes at the same time.
Chenoweth was in Paris for a conference (and probably a prime opportunity to "hit on" neo-Nazi French politician Jean le Pen), and unavailable for comment.
A congressional source told The Doc that if Peek decides to run for office at a future time, he will invoke the Hyde doctrine and write off the incident to "youthful indiscretion."
'Nuff said.
Copyright © 1999, 1998, 1997, 1996, American Politics Journal Publications.
