Aquarian Weekly 7/11/01 REALITY CHECK
SONG OF THE BLOATED HYENA
Georgetown, hero of many, enemy of more, has been silent since the GOP took November and ran with majority numbers into Washington. He has refused to answer calls to scoop the inside dirt on the tax cut fight, the gasoline hikes, the sagging economic burdens, the president’s Euro-tour, James Jeffords defection, the looming Supreme Court nominations and the plunging poll numbers for the man he once dubbed Captain Shoe-In on North Beach, San Francisco two summers ago. The silence is over.
jc: Why do I bother giving you valuable print space?
GT: Because this cheap column needs me. People love the real deal, not some satirical thousand-word literary masturbation. You should be sweeping the stalls in Grand Central Station with the kind of garbage you spew in this space. Did I hear right? Did you write that Bob Franks tried to pick your wife up in a bar in Jersey in some drunken stupor?
jc: That’s one way to interpret that.
GT: The only way.
jc: Never mind. How do you like these poll numbers on Bush after only five months? Did he get caught in some Paula Poundstone mishap? What do you figure twenty to thirty percent by Christmas and a Mussolini burning by next June?
Right now the perception around town, and I think the polls reflect this, is that Bush is all talk and no action. His ability to communicate any message to the public is for shit.
GT: What did you expect? Economy is shit and Jeffords fucked us good. Now everything is bogged down up there. You think by ramrodding that patient’s bill of rights through the senate is going to help matters?
jc: Is he going to veto it?
GT: My best guess now is no. I don’t know anything concrete from anyone who’s talking, but I can tell you this: Not one soul with any say or cash in the party has one iota of confidence in that happening. I know one thing; we drew big money to shut McCain up last summer so Junior could skid through that primary, and it wasn’t so he could fist-fuck us on this Ted Kennedy bullshit. He cried like a five year-old after South Carolina and when the bank opened up he promised a whole lot. But those same people will have a great deal to say come November 2002.
jc: What else is riding on the mid-term elections right now?
GT: This goddamn tax cut. If that doesn’t jumpstart Christmas, shit will fly.
jc: What about the Supreme Court?
GT: Don’t go there, not yet. If anything, we’re looking at senate hearings up the ass. I was playing darts with that pinhead Shumer two weekends ago, and he’s giving me loads of grief about partisan philosophy and political ideology. And I’m not even worried about him. He’s dry. What about those other drunken psychos?
jc: It’s a booze thing?
GT: Shumer’s got it on good word that Hillary alone will jam up anything approaching a Bork or Sessions or Clarence Thomas. Circus Maximus times twenty on this one.
jc: Is that some kind of cryptic reference to Hillary’s drinking problem?
GT: What the fuck are you talking about?
jc: Never mind. So what about Bush’s campaign boasts about nominating a “strict constructionist” or bust?
GT: Yes, and he’s also a reformist.
jc: Should I bring up school vouchers now?
GT: That was never going to happen. People like their kids to remain stupid. Makes them feel superior to someone.
jc: So, what do you make of these pathetic poll numbers? It can’t be all economy.
GT: Listen, the man lost the popular vote, which doesn’t mean a hill of beans in the constitution, but this has always been a country of public perception. Bush was on daddy’s payroll when he crushed Dukakis and he land-slided Texas. What does this kid know about squeaking by? So he starts in like the new fat man in town, the pimp daddy strutting around Washington with his Gingrich smirk and no one in the party is willing to tell this guy he barely has a mandate to change the color of the drapes in the oval office. It’s been like Elvis’ final years over there.
jc: First you’re telling me the man has no balls, now you’re saying they’re too big?
GT: He’s got the attitude, believe me, but I don’t think he can put it into action. Perception is everything. Right now the perception around town, and I think the polls reflect this, is that Bush is all talk and no action. His ability to communicate any message to the public is for shit.
jc: He did get some semblance of tax cut through there.
GT: Politically that will be his albatross because he sold it as a necessity for the economic slump, not the money owed from a surplus. He sold the latter to congress, but the former to the people. Zogby isn’t polling congress. The people see the imp before the progressor. Secondly, the tax cut ostensibly cost us the senate when Bush crossed Jeffords on some Vermont things. You see Vermont is close to the vest when it comes to its political promises. Jeffords owed more to his constituency than he did to the party, or for that matter, the rest of the country. I see it as similar to Giuliani snubbing your boy up there.
jc: George Pataki.
GT: Yes, Pataki. You still on the outs with him?
jc: It doesn’t matter anymore.
GT: You’re out of New York politics now?
jc: We’ve only got limited space here.
GT: Oh, there’s a story there.
jc: Why do Europeans hate the Bush’s?
GT: Fuck Europe. The only thing that matters right now is how Vladimir Putin sees Chinese nuclear weapon progress and how this administration handles the way China will come strong in the next few years. Everything else is bullshit; the Middle East and this Palestinian crap, the oil stuff etc. You were right on about China last year. I read that crazed junk you wrote about the spy ring. That was good. But that’s changing fast and the whole mess will be a key to the legacy for whoever is holding the office by 2005.
jc: We all enjoyed the semantics parade when the spy plane went down.
GT: That’s the last compliment you’re getting from me. And don’t print it. You’re going to print it, right?
jc: Who’s going to win this Jersey gubernatorial race?
GT: Not McGreevey. He couldn’t beat Whitman, and no one wanted her to win.
jc: But Schundler received no party support during the primary.
GT: Gubernatorial primaries? Is there a more meaningless endeavor?
jc: Editing and writing the transcripts of these conversations for one.
GT: Hey, do you think Gore still thinks he won?
jc: Give me a quick prediction.
GT: Gary Condit will step down before this hits the newsstands.
jc: Do you think he knows where that woman is?
GT: Let’s just end this by saying he should step down.
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