A NEW DOOLITTLE RAID

It’s a bit unfortunate, I suppose, that the evil skunk-pig who ostensibly “represents” California’s 4th Congressional district carries the name Doolittle; every time I hear that name mouthed, or see it in print, visions of audacious bastards flying B-25’s off the pitching deck of the USS Hornet sluggishly spring to mind. That’s too bad, really, since -- obviously -- the only thing that Abramoffist and Tom DeLay protege John has in common with the hugely brass-balled Colonel (later, General) Jimmy is a last name. It makes not a lick of sense to conflate and/or confuse the two, but, whatever.

The 4th district is one of those weird, anomalous contradictions that make the state of California such a strange place. Encompassing the entire northeast chunk of the state, stretching from Modoc to El Dorado counties, the 4th is populated largely by a cross-section of people that clearly don’t fit the California stereotype: my jaundiced eyeball sees them mainly as rabid gun-loving right-wing freakbags, transplanted racist hillbillies, long-distance SUV commuters who clog the roads and the air in the Valley like ambulatory pollution machines, and barricaded-compound religionists who spew non-stop homilies to Jesus while their trigger fingers itch to send as many less-than-lilywhite folks “onward” as possible. Unfair characterizations? Perhaps. Or perhaps not, especially when you compare them to what these inbred jugheads have to say about the moderately Democratic lowlanders here in Sacramento -- and don’t even get them started on Los Angeles or (horror of horrors) San Francisco.

In any case, I know these people all too well, since a number of the witless bastards I work for actually live in the quasi-Aryan Nation/Doolittle-Land of the Sierra foothills.

It’s hardly surprising that such a widely dispersed clatter of toothless hoseheads would continually send an unabashed, thieving piece of human waste like John Doolittle back to Washington as their Congressional representative, as if he was some sort of clean-cut guardian angel protecting all the god-fearing crackers from the slavering weirdos storming out of Sacramento and the Bay Area, intent on utterly devouring them and spitting up their remains like so many chicken bones. The pinheads are only doing what their abridged intelligence and bleak world-view allow -- happily having their chains yanked by right-wing charlatans and demagogues like Doolittle. What is a bit surprising is that the FBI would actually go after this piece of political toejam, this lower-tier closeted Nazi whose ultimate goal in life is apparently to be Karl Rove’s commode scrubber. It’s gratifying to see trouble -- any kind of trouble -- heaped on this foul person, even if it has been somewhat overshadowed by the ongoing Torquemada Gonzales show this week, as well as a random massacre or two and the carnage in Iraq. But it’s something, I suppose. Although waiting several months after Doolittle was safely re-elected to launch an investigation is a little questionable, to say the least. But we have to take our good news wherever we can find it.

Truth be told, though, pathetic bogtrotters like Doolittle (and now the chucklehead in Arizona) are really just tiny guppies wallowing in a huge befouled sea of corruption; the truly monstrous predators in this ocean of bile and puke, grown bloated and arrogant beyond belief on the empty calories of their overpowering ambitions -- Rove, Cheney, et. al. -- are still free to pursue their destructive mischief. Schadenfreude at the apparent teetering of bit-player Doolittle is all fine and good, but it’s useful to remember that he’s nothing but an empty, threadbare suit within the wider political scheme of things.

And, of course, he’s even more of a less-than-nothing non-person slime-smear when compared to the authentically gutsy Colonel Jimmy. It’s absurd to even mention the two in the same sentence -- I apologize.