Fun games you can play with Republicans

If you, like me, enjoy the political troubles of the Bush administration, this has been a fun time for you. Nowadays, they can't seem to do much right at all. Once the rest of the public catches on, the next few years could be very enjoyable. I can't really expect the rash of corporate scandals and general Republican malfeasance to result in a mass rollback of their popularity (my dream: someday, some cartoonist will do a send-up of this classic Bloom County only substituting "conservative" for "liberal." [punchline: 'damned tort reform'?]), but at least public mistrust takes the shine off of their pompous gravity.


Item: Dick Cheney is a lying hypocrite in regards to corporate scandals.

At the same time they were hard at work stiffing U.S. taxpayers, Cheney and Halliburton were happily feasting at the public trough -- the company received $2.3 billion in government contracts and another $1.5 billion in government financing and loan guarantees.

During the vice-presidential debate, Cheney scored points responding to a Joe Lieberman zinger about the millions Cheney had made during the Clinton-Gore years by boasting that "the government had absolutely nothing to do" with his burgeoning bank account. Only someone fully immersed in the corporate culture of our day could view $3.8 billion as "absolutely nothing."

Item: Missile defense still doesn't work. Not that a terrorist needs a missile to do damage; I had figured THAT out by September 13.

Item: The stock market. We cannot long avoid the Bush = Herbert Hoover comparison now, right?

Item: to cement that point; if the Onion can predict the future, how long until the rest of us figure out that Bush is just bad?

"We as a people must stand united, banding together to tear this nation in two," Bush said. "Much work lies ahead of us: The gap between the rich and the poor may be wide, be there's much more widening left to do. We must squander our nation's hard-won budget surplus on tax breaks for the wealthiest 15 percent. And, on the foreign front, we must find an enemy and defeat it."

Finally, in local politics, our own Paul "The Last Living Liberal" Wellstone's campaign is back with its ubiquitous exclamation mark on every yard sign (WELLSTONE! Say it with a shout. I do.). Some clever subversives have begun distributing signs for his opponent that ask "Coleman?"

We have met the enemy and it is…. cooked food

Yep, according to today's targeted group of strange people, our dietary problems began with fire.

Other, more credible sources blame corn.