Craig pointed me to Kung Fu Monkey a few days ago, and I’ve been perusing the site on and off. The author is a former stand-up comic and current TV/film writer, and while I don’t find his industry-related posts particularly interesting, his political rants are great.
Take for instance, point #3 in this post responding to reader criticism of a previous article about why John Kerry lost the 2004 election. The reader objection in question is that Bush is a liar, why can’t people see that he’s lying, etc. etc. etc. The response (and you’ll pardon me for quoting at length here, on account of it’s worth it):
He’s not lying.
Man, a lot of you are going to hate this. But here goes.
He actually THINKS he’s a good ol’ boy. He hung out with southern fellas, banged stewardesses, drank too much Jack, and wears cowboy boots. When he found Jesus, I genuinely believe he found Jesus. He has no intellectual grasp of the contradiction between Christ’s method and his policies, but that doesn’t mitigate the fact he believes, and it comes through…
…George Bush believes he’s a good guy. Dad lived at Kennebunkport and went South when he had to. George, for all his faults, thinks he’s a Texan. He’s PROUD of his identity as a Texan, because it saved him the effort of actually constructing a personality of his own. If any of his businesses, oil or sports, had panned out, I’d take even money he never would’ve gone into politics. Karl Rove’s genius in finding Bush was finding a guy who actually believed in his own bullshit image.
In the parlance of my business, he’s the hack comic who kills every show, and has no idea he’s a hack.
The reason I’ve included such a long excerpt in this post is that I think Kung Fu Monkey is exactly right here. In fact, I’ve said as much myself in the past, but not nearly as eloquently or amusingly.
While living in the happy liberal land of the Hudson Valley is nice, I’m consistently amazed by the number of people I know who have no understanding of how anyone could possibly like, support, or vote for George W. Bush. I have to confess to occasionally wondering such things myself.