The UnTexan

GOV. OOPS COMES HOME

Rick Perry, that wiley old coyote shooter, Bible thumper and latter-day seccessionist, came home to Texas from South Carolina (where seccession is a religion and Rick's faith obviously was found lacking) this week after his presidential aspirations turned into a well-financed Texas-sized flop. Apparently South Carolinia Republicans (and Iowa Republicans and New Hampshire Republicans) prefer Latter-Day Saint Romney or nefarious Newt or stealthy Santorum to the stumbling, bumbling son of Texas. I guess there's one thing Texans can say about him: "Well he's no George W. Bush now is he?" Nope. He's not George W. Bush. W. came home a winner - no smarter than when he went away, that was too much to hope for, but a winner nonetheless. Rick Perry -- The Not George Bush. Who wants to be Not George W. Bush? It's a role Gov. Oops should get used to. As a friend of mine said, "Now Rick can come back to Texas and stare at his racist rock."

THE TEA PARTY, THE N-WORD AND TIPTOEING THROUGH THE U.S. CONSTITUTION

They read the Constitution on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday the same way Ann Coulter colors her hair -- making sure the dark roots don't show.

They left out the part about how one slave = three-fifths of a man (it was called the "three-fifths compromise," an article of the Constitution, not and amendment), which gave slave-holding southerners congressional clout by allowing them to count people they didn't really consider to be people, three-fifths or otherwise, as people for the purposes of setting up congressional districts. Slaves were property, which white southerners argued well into the 20th century was the reason they couldn't treat black people as their equals (or even as human beings) long after the 13th amendment set them free. The other amendment House members chose not to read ordered that slaves, even those who escaped to free states, had to be returned to their rightful owners. Both were crucial to the ratification of the Constitution. Leave out slavery? As we begin to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, no time seems more approapriate for including it.

The tea partiers (and their brethren the "birther" blowhards) -- who were meant to be appeased by the reading -- apparently like their United States uncomplicated by the messy realities of history (and the messiness of the Constitution). And my guess is that African Americans are a reality lots of tea partiers wish would retreat quietly back across the tracks to what southerners routinely called (offensive word warning) "niggertown" when I was growing up. It is a word I always hated, a place I always wanted to go as a child, but I was raised around white people who remained terrified of those freed three-fifths people living over there 100 years after the Civil War. Happily my southern family has become more integrated and colorful in recent years, becoming more and more a family I could be proud to belong to (I fled the south and the family a long time ago. I had my reasons but interestingly not one relative has asked me why. Ever.)

Which brings us to the N-word. And the upcoming publication of versions of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer without it. The books are being bowdlerized in pretty much the same way the Constitution was bowdlerized yesterday in Washington. I suppose everything becomes easier to understand with the dark parts left out. The N-word will be replaced in many instances in the books with the word "slave" (which ignores the message of "Oh, Freedom," the old spiritual that says: "Before I'd be a slave I'd be buried in my grave").

I don't use the N-word. Never use it in convsersation. Never have used it in conversation. Never was allowed to use it (my grandmother used it with impunity). Cringe when I hear people say it. But there is using it and then there is using it. When Mark Twain used it he had his reasons and they were good ones. I am not Mark Twain, but I am a writer and, as a writer, I would use it (and have used it) in my writing if the situation calls for it. I will use any word the situation calls for. That is what writers do, use the word that's called for, even the uncomfortable words. And they should not be removed, not even for children, especially not from Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.

Huckleberry Finn is not a book for children and it should not be taught to children or anyone else not prepared to deal with its darkness and complexities -- and its language, all of it. It is an adult book, an important book. Every word of it. How important? Ernest Hemingway said, “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn." Why mess with a good thing?

MANNISH, BOYISH, OBAMA-ISH: THE VOTE IN MASSACHUSETTS

Ted Kennedy was a senator for so long that the Democrats forgot how to spell Massachusetts, much less how to win there. And there is no doubt that yesterday's election was about the president much more than it was about filling a Senate seat. This morning the Republicans are crowing, the Democrats are dithering, and the Obama camp is disappointed or insulted or both.

I am neither disappointed nor insulted. I voted for Obama, but I expected things to go this way. I have felt all along that he was not grown up enough to be president and should have waited a few years to run. Electing Obama was a good thing that happened at a bad time. He is not unfit to be president; he was unready to be president

But he is president.

Perhaps political correctness has kept the words "boy" and "Obama" too far apart within earshot of the President. But Barack Obama needs to hear it. He is the boy who became president but he cannot go on being a boyish president. It's time to close the gap and put away childish things. One of the messages to Obama from Massachusetts is, "Oh, grow up." It is a message he needs to hear. And to prove he has heard it, he needs to do something -- well -- something presidential.

Recommended additions to the presidential iPod as he contemplates the future: Massachusetts by the Bee Gees and Mannish Boy by Muddy Waters. But he should stay away from Hoochie-Coochie Man. Not the best way for any boy to prove he's a man. Besides, Bill Clinton pretty much wore that one out.

RICK PERRY, THE PRIDE OF TEXAS, SAYS: KILL HIM! KILL HIM! KILL HIM!

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is killing for votes again. What else will he do to be re-elected? Did some guy laugh at Rick's penis and humiliate him in some dank, damp schoolboy locker room? If not that, what? He must be compensating for something. And then there's this: "The case bore similarities to the only case in which Perry commuted a death sentence. In August 2007 he spared the life of Kenneth Foster, who had been convicted of capital murder in a law of parties case stemming from a deadly San Antonio robbery. As with Thompson, Foster, who had been the getaway driver in a series of robberies, did not fire the lethal bullet." He's inconsistent! He's arbitrary! He'll do anything for votes. He's the kind of guy who makes lots of Texans proud. They are likely to re-elect him. Why? Why not?

OBAMA AND THE HEART OF DARKNESS IN THE HEART OF THE HEART OF THE COUNTRY

I just spent a few days on a ranch near Del Norte in southern Colorado. It is a beautiful place. There was snow on the mountains and there were fish in the river and the locals don't seem to like Barack Obama very much. But there is a real affinity for Sarah Palin. You get the idea that these are the people - just plain old middlin', hardworking white folks with guns - for whom Obama will never be the president (therefore they have every right to denigrate both the man and the office; in fact, they seem for all the world like folks who would deniggerate the presidency if they got the chance, just like lots of those people who show up at Fox/Bill O'Reilly/Glenn Beck-induced rallies and tea parties, people who prefer their African Americans in the woodpile not the White House and always will). But for them Palin always will be the chance America missed. I found this sign in the middle of town. The drawing is better than the spelling.

Meanwhile, read In the Heart of the Heart of the Country by William H. Gass and Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and keep reading the good stuff. Understanding the boogeyman helps keep him at bay.

JIMMY CARTER GETS IT RIGHT

Former President Jimmy Carter said that when South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson yelled "You lie!" at President Barack Obama, the comment was "based in racism." I agree. And it's about time somebody was willing to say it loud and proud. Carter also said, "There is an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president." Right again. The people who didn't want their children to hear Obama's speech at school for fear of his "socialistic agenda" (as one Texas mama put it on national TV) are cut from the same stars-and-bars cloth as the ones who have tried so hard to link the words "nigger" and "nazi" (and they know "nigger-nazi" has a certain ugly appeal to it) over the past few weeks. Carter says correctly that this is not about health care or socialism or anything else, but is rooted in something far deeper, plain old dumbass racism, and comes straight from America's white trash heart. Carter is saying what needs to be said.

As for telling it like it is: Kanye West IS a jackass.

SARAH PALIN RESIGNING BECAUSE SHE'S A GUY?

From Alaska, the relative of a friend emails that the rumor among some folks on Sarah Palin's frozen  home turf is that Gov. Hockey Mom is resigning because she is having an affair with Texas Gov. Rick Perry. All well and good (and in line with recent Republican tradition). But in Texas there is a persistent rumor that Rick Perry is a "man's man," but not in the way Texans usually understand it. Not saying any of this is true, but, if we add one rumor plus one rumor, we come up with the answer to why Sarah Palin is resigning:

She is a guy.

In love with Rick Perry.

Face it. This as good an explanation as any Palin has come up with so far. More fun too. Besides, these are strange days, indeed, for Republican governors (the party of family values). As James Brown said, "This is a man's world."

PRAISE THE LORD AND F**K THE ARGENTINIAN!

The further adventures of Gov. Mark and Jilted Jenny (along with a woman named Maria, a spiritual adviser, the people of South Carolina and a bunch of snakebit Republicans who wish the God they claim to believe in could raise Strom Thurmond from the dead even if he was a babydaddy for all those years -- because he was decent enough to keep it mostly a secret until he was dead).

What kind of guy asks his wife for permission to go see his mistress (and I bet he had tears in his eyes and said please)? That would be Gov. Mark.

What kind of wife says "No mistress," then claims she believed it when told her he was going hiking in the mountains and was surprised when he WENT TO SEE THE MISTRESS anyway? That would be Jilted Jenny, who is allegedly smarter than that. Repeat after me: A guy who has been following his penis around for several years and calling it love is not interested going on a hike.

Of course, one time she did say yes when Gov. Mark pleaded with her to let him end his affair face to face. She sent him away to New York with a "trusted spiritual adviser" as a chaperone (praise Jesus). The Gov., his Argentinian love and the chaperone went to dinner, went to church and went their separate ways (at least that is how the story goes). But it wasn't really over.

Now news stories claim South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and his wife Jilted Jenny are trying to work things out, but I figure it's pretty hard to go slouching home to Mama with your pants around your ankles and an Argentinian woman dangling from your penis like the last bright and lonely ornament on last year's drooping Christmas tree.

Meanwhile, Gov. Mark says in another interview he believes he can fall back in love with Jilted Jenny, but I wouldn't count on it. This is what the apparently grammatically challenged (watch those verb tenses, big guy) governor said of what he realized as he set out for Argentina: "I will be able to die knowing that I had met my soul mate."

Let's settle back and see what happens next now.

(Don't you just love it when Republican Christian loudmouths get caught with their pants down?)

Here is a primer from The Daily Beast on sin in high places in South Carolina.

HOW DO THEY SPELL 'APPALACHIAN' IN SOUTH CAROLINA? 'A-R-G-E-N-T-I-N-A'

It was bad enough when North Carolina politician John Edwards messed around on the famously cancer-stricken Mrs. Edwards. Now South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford decides to leave the wife and kids at home and chase his piece of Argentinian ass all the way to Buenos Aires ON FATHER'S DAY. Sanford is one of those scripture-quoting Republican true believers, a self-described "person of faith" who said he believes in "moral absolutes" (and I'll bet he believes in all of the "Thou shalts" and "Thou shalt nots" in the convenient way most of those wealthy and overbred Low Country South Carolina types do). He set out saying he was taking a hike on the Appalachian Trail, but ended up in Argentina because he said he wanted to "do something exotic." A psychologist I know said lots of muddling middle-aged guys confuse sex with something exotic and never make it to the bottom of figuring out what their real problem is (probably something to do with age, work, their boss, their unresolved and -- suddenly, frighteningly rejuvenated on some deep dark level -- relationship with their mothers. It's not that these guys want to fuck their mothers, but they feel like they want to do something to somebody and it feels like wanting to fuck somebody in the worst sort of way). Who do you fuck when you can't fuck your mother? Somebody strange (as in "get some strange"). Somebody "exotic."  So Sanford's exotic Argentinian was another version of Edwards' exotic video artiste. In both cases the poor bastards confused sex with something exotic and look where it got them. (Bill Clinton doesn't figure into this discussion because he had his own somewhat-puzzling-but-mostly-unexotic-Dixie-fratboy-if-it-moves-fuck-it-Lewinsky-esque interpretation of what it means to "get some strange"). I bet Gov. Sanford could have bought a lot of therapy for what this is going to cost him and he would have ended up in a better place than Buenos Aires. Instead, he did go to Buenos Aires and could only say when he returned, "I spent the last five days of my life crying in Argentina" and a bunch of other crap. (Do these dumbasses ever think about what they are saying?) Well, cry me a river, but don't expect any tears from anyone else. Then go shove Evita into your dvd player, drop your drawers, do what you apparently do best and shut up about it.

Oh, yeah. Farrah Fawcett finally died.

Can you believe The New York Times actually put this crap on page 1?

CARTER-IZED

Barack Obama was elected to the presidency and handed the congressional power by an unhappy nation. He hasn't used either very well so far. Given the problems he has had with his picks for Secretary of Commerce and other posts, the man has surrounded himself with idiots who need to get out their dictionaries and find the meaning of "vetting" and start vetting. He needs to fix that. Then he wasted lots of time trying to be a conciliatory team player with his stimulus package. Winners don't have to be so conciliatory. He wants to be the Un-Bush, but that will never be enough. He has to become the Obama. He needs to take as his mantra "fucka buncha Republicans" and get on with the business at hand. Otherwise he is going to find himself - as my wife said - as neutralized and ineffective as Jimmy Carter (a nice man who should not have been president). I don't want Obama to become another nice man who should not have been president. I don't want my president Carter-ized. I want him to measure up.

It doesn't take much to be the Un-Bush. Condi knows just how much it took to measure up in W's White House and sends her love.