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It’s Not the Heat - It’s the STUPIDITY
By Nancy Greggs
It’s said that some people are too stupid to come in out of the rain. Well, don’t look now, but there are a lot of soggy Americans walking around – and beckoning them to come in out of the downpour will only be met by a blank, uncomprehending stare.
My personal problem with the incurably soaked is the fact that what would seem to be blatantly obvious to anyone with an IQ in the double-digits invariably dawns on them as a complete surprise. Unofficially, this phenomenon is known as WKS, or “Who Knew Syndrome”, and if you don’t think it’s spreading to the point of contagious epidemic, allow me to cite some instances.
The Republicans were, unbelievably, amazed at their loss of the House and the Senate in the recent midterms – I mean, honestly flabbergasted. WHO KNEW that constituents would turn against the representatives that had given them the Bankruptcy Bill, and had handed their tax dollars over to Big Oil and Big Pharma without so much as a by-your-leave? WHO KNEW that voters who had expressed, time and again, their desire to get out of Iraq would oust the party that supported that war, financially and politically, regardless of what the voters had to say?
WHO KNEW that people who were trying to make ends meet would turn against elected officials who made flag-burning a priority, while running up unprecedented debt that middle-class taxpayers would have to pay off? I guess you’d have to be Nostradamus to have seen THAT coming.
And WHO KNEW that those ungrateful Iraqis would take offence at having their country invaded by so-called ‘liberators’ who then went about arresting them, jailing them without just cause, and wounding and killing innocent civilians among them? WHO KNEW that they might get a bit ticked-off by watching the monies earmarked for the reconstruction of the country those same ‘liberators’ systematically destroyed being shoveled into the pockets of Halliburton instead?
Like, what gives with these ingrates? I guess they just don’t see the inherent fairness of having their oil revenues handed over to people OTHER THAN THEMSELVES. And when it comes to taking the blame for the horrors inflicted on them by others, they really get touchy when it’s suggested that it’s all their own fault. Who saw that comin’? What a shocker!
But nowhere is WKS more prevalent than in the White House itself, whose occupants are truly astounded by the citizenry’s reaction to their latest strategery in Iraq. WHO KNEW that the public would distrust the people who have been proven to be incompetent in conducting this war from day one? WHO KNEW that saying “we were never about stay-the-course” would be greeted with skepticism by people who had heard the phrase “stay the course” over, and over, and over, and over. WHO KNEW that people who had seen EVERY Bush-inspired idea end in unmitigated failure would question the wisdom of yet another scatterbrained idea? WHO KNEW?
And the mainstream news media has now jumped on the WKS bandwagon, recently expressing their concern over the fact that they’re losing their audience to the internet; to blogs and alternative news websites, to people who actually report the news. Well, who’da seen that coming, you might well ask? Imagine people turning off CNN’s non-stop coverage of runaway brides, TomKat’s wedding, or a week-long special on the sordid details of the Rosie-v-Donald feud – a battle that undoubtedly has world-wide repercussions.
WHO KNEW that people would rather have accurate reporting of what’s going on in Iraq, or in recent sessions of Congress? WHO KNEW that audiences would tend not to trust networks that obviously don’t know the difference between Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden? WHO KNEW?
Even the right-wing pundits are not immune to WKS. Take people like Bob Novak, who are now commenting on how things don’t look too good for the Republicans’ chances of a big sweep in ’08. Admittedly, before WKS struck, you had to get up pretty early in the morning to put one over on these guys (all right, you could actually roll off the mattress around four, have a scotch-and-soda for “brunch”, and still be ahead of their game).
But really, WHO KNEW that a party that had rubber-stamped Bush’s shredding of the Constitution, the rule of law, and the Geneva Conventions would have a hard time maintaining the loyalty of the masses? WHO KNEW that a party that has exercised no oversight to protect democracy in the face of a president who insists on dismantling it would wind up on the wrong side of the voters? WHO KNEW that watching people like DeLay, Libby, Noe, Ney, Cunningham and Abramoff (Republicans all) would cause citizens to question the honesty of the GOP?
This disease is a grave and gathering threat, my fellow Americans. Undoubtedly, Republicans will be holding telethons to raise money for research – and, God willing, a cure. Let’s give until it hurts, and pray that WKS can be wiped out in our lifetime.
And as the Democrats widen their majority in 2008, and land the presidency without breaking a sweat, and you hear the inevitable outcry from the GOP – “WHO KNEW?” – just remember that the Republicans have not taken leave of their senses; it’s just the disease talking. May God have mercy on their poor afflicted souls.
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