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JUST A WHISPER


This business about the Swifties just keeps getting fustier and fustier. And.. it reminds me that there are some very basic core values that work in most guy's heads that always lie there like quiet filters, constantly testing the craposphere to make sure that nothing dangerous or false slips by that might prove to be important later.

When I was a kid I heard my Dad say that it was always easier to just tell the truth, that way you wouldn't have to constantly remember what you said last time. That bit of advice has cost me more than one girlfriend. There are lots of times that the literal truth is not such a great notion as far as strategy is concerned. And when you are as homely as I am you tend to carefully count the terribly finite number of chances that you have with the fair sex. But damn:

"Bob, do you think that I'm pretty?"

"Oh, yes. Very much."

"Am I prettier than Melissa?"

"Uh... well...."

See? Now that kind of dilemma is harmless but it is a flag in the quiet filter in my head that sets off an alarm that says -- Look out guy. You're gonna get bit here if you're not careful. And that flag tells me that this is a lady who may very well undertake to judge every word as a test of my fidelity so I have to constantly be on guard against the smallest and most trivial thing because it may very well be held against me. What I mean is, it's better to just settle for the bald and literal truth even if the lady leaves in a huff because if she was that kind of controlling nut masher and I could take comfort in the weary knowledge that she would eventually make me dread being around her.

I may be homely, but I'm not stupid. In my dotage I have learned a painful truth... that life is simpler without that kind of girl. And the pleasent truth is that there are plenty of women who actually prefer hearing the literal truth. At least there have been enough for me to cultivate a reputation as a whore dog without leaving too many corpses behind. Certainly not the findable ones.

And here comes Mr. Kerry. Like most guys these days, he knows that being a anti-Vietnam hippie war hating... should I go ahead and use the line about French surrender monkey?... has become terrribly passe' in the last few years. Those old core values of manhood and honor and honesty and John Wayne and True Grit have been quiety lurking back there whispering that when Mr. Kerry protested the evil war in SE Asia he was actually giving in to his own fear of failure and fear of having to eat one of the big ones and he was just scared shitless and very very glad to get back home so that he could protest and try to pretend that he was part of something nobler than just being a coward and crapping his britches at the possibility of having to put down his life for his country. The thing is he was never really a Marine. Those Brown Water Navy guys were pretty hard corp but when you get right down to it he was never really part of that Discipline of Honor that they beat into you at Parris Island or 29 Palms. Real men don't fight for God and Country. The fight for the Corp. It's a matter of discipline and the pride of discipline. Nothing more.

If you fail in that true course then you spend the rest of your life trying to conceal that failure. You make up lies to tell the girls about your "service" and if you tell them often enough you might actually begin to believe them yourself.

This crap doesn't matter usually. I used to work in a biker bar back in the olden days and I would swear that all 20 million guys who were in Viet Nam came into that dump (Stormy Norman's in Casselberry... the cops finally closed the rathole down) and told me that they were Force Recon or they were in the 82nd Airborne or were Green Beret. And when I did the math after checking their IDs I would realize that they had to be InCountry when they were about 4 years old. Assholes. But they wanted to be part of that manly John Wayne myth that they would sit right there and argue about special exceptions and time warps if I tried to encourage them to get over it.

The bullshit just gets so high sometimes that you need a rocket to leap over it.

And that's where John Kerry is now. He has bullshitted his way into a mind trap and his harmless lies have turned into something else. He wants to be President of the United States, and I would much prefer a guy who says that he didn't serve at all in an ancient war than be saddled with one who is so tangled up with his own fabrications that he can't keep his fibs straight.

David Limbaugh wrote a good elaboration on just that which appeared in the trusty blogosphere today. Go read it. Then think about Mr. Kerry as POTUS. Should give you the shivers.

Bob