Thursday, October 21, 2004

The hug offensive

The most expensive ad buy of this obscenely expensive Presidential campaign is all about Bush hugging a girl who lost her mother in the World Trade Center attacks.

Yes, I of course agree that we should be electing a President based on whether (or perhaps how vociferously) he hugged a girl whose mother died at the WTC, based on a snapshot taken by the girl's father, a Republican marketing executive.

And yes, of course a hug from the Leader of the Free World has done more for this girl's grief than anything her family could have done. And of course, this proves he will keep Ashley and all the other little girls across this great land safe in their pink canopy beds tonight and every night.

This is Republican repudiation of reality taken to its absurdist extreme. Illegal, immoral wars don't matter. Deficits don't matter. Job losses don't matter. The most secretive administration in the modern era doesn't matter. Lying to the American public doesn't matter.

Hugs matter.

I feel in my bones that this election, however it goes, won't be close. On November 2 the American public is going to wake up, and they are going to choose. They will choose the path of this country. Reality or fantasy. Democracy or authority. Peace or war. Life or death. Truth or hugs.

We'll see. We'll see.

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