Hoyermania Beats Murthapalooza:
You know, the Rude Pundit's aware of the political and legislative implications of who is Majority Leader, for things like the running of the House, the passage of bills, and more. But, speaking as an American who just went through the trauma of the bandage yank of this past election, who the fuck cares that Steny Hoyer won over Nancy Pelosi's choice of Jack Murtha?

Beyond the masturbatory glee with which Right Blogsylvania scribbled about it and the breathless attention on cable news, who fuckin' thanked God for a way to spin against the Democrats again, could we just all shut the fuck up and get to work?

Abscam? What the fuck?

Donald Rumsfeld Gives Advice to Young People:
Getting advice from Donald Rumsfeld is like a 12 year-old girl asking her elderly uncle who just finished fondling her what he wants for dinner. At some point, does it matter that Uncle Chester wants to order out for Thai? Really, and, c'mon, Chester can eat pizza or Chinese. Or just eat shit and die.

Still, here's the advice Rumsfeld gave last week to students at Kansas State University the day after he was finally shitcanned by the White House. The outgoing Secretary of Defense was asked what advice he would give to young people, and he actually answered, "Study history."

Rummy continued, betraying not a hint of irony, "We need context. We've staked everything in this country -- if you think about the gamble, we stake everything on the people, that they can -- given sufficient information, will make the right decisions. They need context. We need context. History provides that context. And if there's one piece of advice I could give, it would be to focus on that and think about it and understand it. It will improve the ability of all of us to function as citizens in this great republic."

Let's leave aside for a moment the fact that the image of Donald Rumsfeld in a room with young people is reminiscent of Death entering Prince Prospero's party in Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death." And let's leave aside the idea that Donald Rumsfeld has any minor league grasp of history. The cap-toothed motherfucker cherry-picked history the same way he did WMD intelligence: World War II? Fine, yeah, great. But let's put Vietnam as a footnote that doesn't get released to the general public. And the British experience in Iraq nearly a century ago? Not even on the radar.

Instead, let's say this: real advice from Rumsfeld would go something along these lines: "Learning from mistakes is for pussies. There is no past. There is the very immediate present, as in, oh, shit, am I going to get killed as I fly into Baghdad? Beyond that, there is only a future, a predetermined future tht we're gonna shove the present and past into no matter how badly the fit. Just like Cinderella's stepsisters cut off parts of their toes and heels to try to get into that glass slipper. 'Course the shoe was filled with blood, but you get the idea. It's all about pressing forward, no matter how much blood might be involved."

In Brief: Why Bill O'Reilly Ought To Be Sodomized With a Rasmussen Poll:
Bill O'Reilly, a man who can twist a fact like a high-priced hooker with a cherry stem in her mouth, in his Talking Points section of his Fox "News" show claimed that a new Rasmussen poll on whether or not America is "fair and decent" is evidence that "secular progressives" or "S.P.'s" are not taking prisoners in the culture war. Pointing out that the poll says that 61% of Americans believe the nation is fair while 30% believe it's discriminatory, O'Reilly leaps like a one-eyed weasel in heat on the numbers that show that 44% of Democrats go with fair while the same percentage say not so fair.

O'Reilly, though, changes "fair" and "unfair" to "good" and "bad," which, of course, was not what the poll was asking. Barfs O'Reilly, "[These] people are hell-bent on changing the USA into a secular nation along the lines of France and Holland. They believe in income redistribution, run by a huge federal colossus in Washington and one-world approach to problem solving." For most of us, such running jumps of logic would be called "crazy." It's not unlike saying that if your producer laughs at one of your dirty jokes, you have free reign to call her up in the middle of the night and talk about how you wanna fuck her in the shower.

The great falafeled one says that he "has seen the secular progressive movement gain a lot of ground in America and this new poll proves it. Dismiss the S.P.s at your peril." Oh, another time, another time the Rude Pundit will get into the whole nutzoid "S.P." demonization - which is really about O'Reilly selling his fucking crappy books (really - try reading Culture Warrior - it's not unlike scraping the inside of your skull with a cheese grater), but for now let's just say that O'Reilly leaves out something that Rasumussen itself says about the poll: "Those numbers are little changed from a survey conducted immediately following Election 2004."

Yep, the "gain" of the "S.P's" is little more than an illusion, margin of error hoodoo. See, back in 2004, Rasmussen did the same poll. That one showed that 62% of Americans thought the nation was "fair." As did 46% of Democrats. With a margin of error of plus or minus 3 points. Oh, yeah. The biggest drop in the number of Americans who think America is fair? Back in 2004, 80% of Republicans rode the fair train. Now, in the poll O'Reilly cites to prove how nasty "S.P.'s" are running rampant in America because of a couple of percentage point differences, 77% say the nation is fair and decent.

But you gotta guess that more than a few Republicans don't think things are very fair right now for them.

Late Post Today:
Another goddamn charity luncheon is keeping the Rude Pundit away from the Batcave. If Alfred fucks up this post, Robin gets to rape his ass.

Back later with holy rudeness.

Joe Lieberman Wants His Pound of Flesh:
What a difference an election day makes. Here's Joe Lieberman, talking to Pajamas "Media" founder Roger Simon on September 29, spouting a line he would use dozens, if not hundreds, of times during the election: "I remain a Democratic [sic] but I’m running as an Independent Democrat, which in some ways makes official what I’ve been for a long time. I’ve been an independent Democratic...The critical thing is to caucus with the Democrats because if you don’t caucus with a party, you don’t have the opportunity to hold your seniority in the committee assignments that you’ve got... I remain a Democrat."

Reads almost like a goddamn poem, huh? And it sounds pretty fucking definitive.

Now, here's Lieberman this past Sunday on Meet the Press, after Tim Russert asked him if it was possible for him to hypothetically, in the future, caucus with Republicans, thus splitting the Senate and giving control to the Republicans: "I’m not ruling it out, but I hope I don’t get to that point." What would get Lieberman to that point? If the Democrats want party "discipline" - that is, for them to act like Democrats, which, as Lieberman has said above, he considers himself one. But Joe wants to be a free spirit, man, floatin' on that indie breeze. As he says he told the people of Connecticut, "I am going to Washington beholding to no political group except the people of Connecticut and of course my conscience."

Yep, that's Lieberman. If he had gotten the Democratic nomination in the primary, the Republicans would have poured money in behind Alan Schlessinger there instead of funding Lieberman. If he had said that he was even hypothetically seeing a situation where he might caucus Republican, he'd've been handed his nutsack by the third of Democrats that voted for him. And now, he got his committee chairmanship. From the Democratic Caucus. But he's beholden to no one.

(And, yes, the Rude Pundit's aware of the anti-Semitic implications of the title. Fuck that schlemiel, Lieberman. He could have been a mensch; instead, he's just another power hungry putz. Motherfucker can kiss the Rude Pundit's Jewish ass.)

Pictures That Make the Rude Pundit Want To Down a Triple Dose of Ambien With a Fifth of Vodka, Part 2:


Bow down before your faux Confederate overlord, for he rules the deserts of America.

Clark Kent duty calls. Later: "Joe Lieberman Wants His Pound of Flesh."

Christ Weary of Election Prayers:
Goddamn, we have been some prayin' motherfuckers, those of us on the Family Research Council's Super-Duper Prayer Team. The Rude Pundit belongs to the FRCSDPT under a nom de rude and receives his weekly prayin' orders from the dear leader his own self, FRC President Tony "No, It's the Other Guy Who's Gay...Really" Perkins. In the weeks leading up to last week's midterms, Perkins had us pinchin' a big ol' loaf of prayer, squintin' and squeezin' out prayers that Republicans hold onto the Senate and House (although that one was in code because otherwise bye-bye tax exempt status), and "May the people of Missouri soundly reject Amendment 2!" and "May South Dakota uphold Life AND Marriage!" Shovin' that load of prayer out of our prayer tubes, all exclamation pointy loud, yellin', "May God pour out his Spirit upon America's Pastors! May their powerful Election Sermons stir voters to elect God-fearing leaders who will restore righteousness in government and public policy!" And the results? All that prayerification was just flushed down the electoral toilet by an unwiped populace.

So what's a Super-Duper Prayer Team to do? Seriously, how much more fuckin' prayin' can we do? You'd think the simple answers might range from "God doesn't really give a happy monkey fuck" to "God actively hates evangelicals" to "Umm, maybe there is no God." But not if you're crazy as a shithouse rat like Tony Perkins and the rest of the Dobsonites out there. Nope, see, we gotta be prayin' more, maybe a little less excitedly, maybe approaching our angry Jeeeeezus a little more hat-in-hand humble.

We got our new prayers, and apparently it's not God's fault that he fucked us over. No, no: "Please pray that discouragement and lethargy will not set in among Christians but that they will be energized to pray and work to make a difference in the days and months ahead. Pray that pastors will be stirred to speak out as never before," admonishes Perkins. Get it? No matter how much we screamed and sweated and scourged ourselves, it wasn't enough. So get that prayin' mojo going. But, really, and, c'mon, how many times are you gonna put coins into a candy machine if that fucker doesn't give you your Milky Way?

And bipartisanship? That boat only goes one way - it's bipartisan if Congressional Democrats roll over and do whatever President Bush wants 'em to do. It's capitulation to liberals if Bush even thinks about compromising with a co-equal branch of government. Perkins wants us to pray for obstruction and political warfare: "Pray that new liberal leaders and President Bush will be moved to do right; that the President will stick unbendingly to principle and that righteousness will advance during the tumultuous time ahead. May Conservative Members of the House and Senate be bold to use their power to stop the liberal social agenda from enactment."

Oh, about that "liberal social agenda." Perkins' mind was blown like Ted Haggard's dick on a four-day meth binge because of the results of ballot initiatives around the country: "South Dakotans voted to overturn their new abortion ban (life of the mother exception). And Californians and Oregonians voted to allow minor girls to obtain abortions without notifying their parents. Missourians affirmed a constitutional amendment that will make embryonic stem cell research and human cloning permanently legal. For activist courts to foist an anti-life, pro-homosexual, or anti-family ruling upon the people is one thing. For the people, through the democratic process, to approve such a measure is altogether a different thing." Yep, it's a different thing because it makes it seem like the "people" and the "democratic process" are actually for things like liberty, science, and rights. Fuckers. This is not to mention that Elliot Spitzer and Mike Bloomberg in New York "have all vowed to use their influence to advance "marriage equality" a euphemism for "same-sex" marriage."

We need to pray, then, that God maybe takes a second look at things around here and that "Just as other constitutional amendments have been undone, may the people rally to restore these values to their state constitutions. May He stop Spitzer, et al, and similarly-minded officeholders from achieving their same-sex marriage ambitions." Yep, God must stop Elliot Spitzer from giving gay couples health benefits access.

Fuck, God doesn't even wanna stop a fuckin' war or mass starvation. Elliot fuckin' Spitzer? What kind of punk-ass micromanaging God are we members of the Super-Duper Prayer Team being asked to pray to? No wonder none of the prayers worked: we've been ordered to reduce God, big fuckin' hurricane-makin' sky wizard that he might be, to the size of a pissant out-of-work political operative offerin' to blow lobbyists for quarters on a K Street corner.

The Escape of Karl Rove's Leather Slave:
It happened some time in the early dawn hours of this past Wednesday. It had truly been an epically joyful night for Karl Rove's leather slave. Karl Rove's leather slave had been kept, until then, chained to a radiator in the basement of the White House, just to the left of Grover Cleveland's striker-shooting rifle and under George H.W. Bush's signed photo of Osama bin Laden, with the inscription, "Thanks for the training in guerilla warfare. Yours always," now turned to face the wall.

On Tuesday night, as the returns dribbled in, Rove made a crazed promise to his leather slave: for every seat that the Democrats gained, the leather slave could beat Rove with his favorite Florida stockwhip. But for every seat that Republicans gained, Rove would shove increasingly larger implements into the leather slave's asshole: from a golf club to a soup can to a Bible, both testaments. The leather slave wondered what would happen if Republicans maintained a seat. "Well," Rove said, "then I'll just fuck you." The leather slave prepared himself for a long evening. When Rove wanted to wreck some ass, it always happened. He pulled the panel off the back of his chaps, bent over the lowered pommel horse, and awaited Rove's punishing grunts. Rove had already stripped down to his suede thong and, as it neared 7 p.m., he popped some Viagra and fondled his cock to get it nice and hard for the evening ahead.

When the first race was called for a Democrat, the leather slave had already been fucked a couple of times in the ass and face, but then Rove handed the leather slave the whip and said, "Well, bitch, a deal's a deal." It's something the leather slave had always loved about his master: Rove's innate sense of ethics. But having the whip in his hand was a new feeling, and, as Rove turned around and said, "Give it to me, spunk mug," the leather slave stood up straight, planted his feet, and lashed at Rove with everything he could manage from his aching ass. "Holy shit," Rove exclaimed. "What the fuck?" Rove touched his back and felt the blood beading on the welt. "Gimme that goddamn whip. I'm gonna peel your ass raw."

Then, before Rove grabbed the whip, they both heard from the small television: another Democratic pick-up. Their eyes met. Rove saw something in the leather slave's eyes, and, at first fearful, but then accepting, Rove put his hands up and sighed, resigned, oh, so, knowing, saying, "Have fun. Avoid the face." The rest of the evening, the leather slave beat Karl Rove with that whip. When the Senate started to turn, while Rove was a sweaty, weeping, bleeding hulk nearly unconscious on the floor, the leather slave grabbed Rove and turned him on his stomach, ripping the thong off the political genius, and then Karl Rove's leather slave fucked Rove, hard, slamming his long-denied cock into him with all the force of a full-speed semi running over a mini-Cooper. Sobbing, Rove weakly turned around and said, grabbing his own half-erect dick, "Can't I even get a reacharound?"

They were both passed out when Josh Bolten came down the stairs. The White House Chief of Staff shook his head at the scene, of a nude, red-striped Karl Rove dripping jizz from his ass, of the leather slave turning blearily to Bolten and giving him a thumbs-up. "Karl," Bolten said, "put on some fucking pants. We're having a press conference." Rove jumped up, grabbing his clothes quickly, looking at the leather slave and, half-smiling, half-wincing, shook his finger in warning at the exhausted leather slave. Rove headed up the stairs, and the leather slave saw it: right where Rove's pants had been. The keys. To the chain. When a man falls, the leather slave thought, he falls all the way down.

Now Karl Rove's leather slave, who is no longer Karl Rove's leather slave, runs free through America. It was surprisingly easy to get out of the White House, actual security never being as tough as the talk about it there, and he breathed clear air. Everywhere he's gone, he's stripped away different pieces of his leather slave's outfit. He headed to Pennsylvania and ripped off his nipple clips, tossing them into the streets of Pittsburgh. In Ohio, he stood by the Cuyahoga River and unzipped his mask, throwing it into the waters. Over in Indiana, he ran through a just-harvested corn field and left behind his spiked collar and wrist bands. He's out there, just free and wild, a leather slave no more, belonging to Karl Rove no more, heading to Montana where he'll drop his chaps and scream, dancing in naked exuberance, shaking his ass at the American sunset, before he heads back to Virginia, before he begins the work of rebuilding the life that Karl Rove had long denied him.

Back in the White House basement, a tear in his eye, Karl Rove sniffs the pommel horse, holds the unlocked chain, and fondly remembers all the delicious fucking, all the ejaculated seed, all the wondrous pain he caused. And, just for a moment, Rove wonders if it is, indeed, really over.

Karl Rove's Leather Slave Escapes:
Karl Rove's leather slave has escaped from the basement of the White House. He was last seen ripping his mask off somewhere in Ohio.

More this afternoon on how such a loyal bondage butt buddy could loose his chains and run away.

Time To Arrest Donald Rumsfeld:
Ernst Von Weizsacker was a Nazi with a conscience, or, you know, a conscience as far as a Nazi could have one. He was, in so many ways, Hitler's Colin Powell, serving as the Third Reich's state secretary of the Foreign Office from 1941-1943. He thought Germany was overreaching, he believed that rounding up Jews in other countries was wrong (mainly because of possible reprisals against Germans - he had no problem with offing German Jews), and in 1943, as ambassador to the Vatican, he even warned Jews in Rome that the Nazis wanted them deported, saving thousands of lives. Hell, Weizsacker didn't even like Hitler; he felt his duty was to Germany, and he never walked away from the job.

So he was sentenced at Nuremberg to seven years in prison for crimes against humanity because he signed off on documents that said his office didn't oppose deportations of Jews. He served eighteen months before he was released.

The bar for crimes against humanity is very low, if we use the trials of Nazis after World War II as a measure. Otto Dietrich? Vile as he was, he never actually killed anyone - he was just a propagandist for Hitler, a Tony Snow, if you will. He got seven years. Johannes Stark? Just a poin scientist who wanted to rid his field of "Jewish physics" in favor of that which served the state. He got four years of hard labor. Karl Doenitz? Commander in Chief of the German Navy, convicted of "planning, initiating, and waging wars of aggression," or, more commonly, crimes against peace. He was sentenced to ten years at Spandau Prison.

None of these men created a policy of torture, although surely their actions aided and abetted torture. None of them allowed crime to run rampant in areas Germany conquered, although surely others did. There are many names we could pull out of the Nuremberg files who were far more active in the Final Solution and for direct crimes than any of the men mentioned above. They weren't small fry, either. Dietrich was Hitler's confidante, Doenitz the Fuhrer's hand-picked successor. And we wouldn't have prevented the arrest, trial, and conviction of a single one of them.

The point of this comparison is not that Donald Rumsfeld is worse than the Nazis, although, to be sure, his acts are worse than those of some Nazis. The point here is that our collective humanity, our national conscience, our individual sense of ourselves as citizens, demands that we declare criminals to be criminals, and that they be punished accordingly.

Again, the Rude Pundit says that the message of this midterm election is that those who have led the country the last five years need to be made to suffer for their actions. Denying some re-election and stripping away legislative power from the Republicans is one step. But a purge requires boldness.

Somewhere, some country is going to want to arrest Donald Rumsfeld. International law practically compels it. Why not take him into custody now, here? The Rude Pundit understands there's some very interesting ways available to get information from him. And, after a while, of course, after his information is out of date or he's had it all squeezed out of him, then he can stand trial.

This morning, Donald Rumsfeld's head bleeds mighty prettily, impaled on the gate outside the White House, glasses still attached even as the eyes roll horribly upward. And while we may strip down and create ancient-seeming pagan dances around it, we still have yet to understand just how far into the abyss his body has dragged us.

America Says to the Media and the New Congress: Crush This Man:


If there was a clear mandate that comes from last night's midterm elections, it is this: the American people want the Bush presidency destroyed. However it must be done, it has to be done, so that the only legacy left from his squalid six years is bodies stacked like cordwood for the bonfires of uselessness. If you flinch from this sacred duty, if you pretend to bipartisanship and comity, you will have not heeded the message of the citizenry. Destruction first, so that there will be space for construction.

At today's press conference, where Bush congratulates the Democrats, huffs and puffs a bit about not knowing if George Allen is a loser, self-deprecates just enough to seem charming, the members of the media need to use their questions to kick him to the ground, piss on him while he's down there, and then gloat about his beaten, urine-stinking body. Don't allow him to spin it in his favor in any way. To the reporters who are willing to tear apart the administration and dine on its innards shall go the rewards.

And the new Congress needs to be cautious about preaching caution. We'll discuss impeachment when the Senate is secure, but remember that the Republicans are going to treat the Democrats like Visigoths entering Rome. But remember: Rome fell. Don't hold back from demonizing the Republicans now. When Clinton won, the right was all about a scorched earth policy towards whatever the new administration wanted to do: stop everything. So instead, use that anger against President and make the Republicans take a stand: are they with you or with a deliriously unpopular George W. Bush (and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and Karl Rove)? In order to get things back to check and balance, at least for a while, treat the presidency like the President treated the Congress. Then we can all make nicey-nice.

In Romania, after the violence of the Revolution against the Communist dictatorship there in 1989, the new government executed Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife. Television showed the corpses to the jubilant, hopeful nation. And then they outlawed capital punishment.

For now, though, let's party till inauguration day over the whiny corpses of Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, William Kristol, Bob Novak, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, and on and on. Let's prop their bodies up like the wax dummies they are and laugh at how quickly they melt and rot.

Anyone in this Bed Got a Cigarette?:
Let's not worry about cleaning the sheets and ourselves just yet. Let's just lay here, sticky, sweaty, exhausted, blissful, and enjoy the way the sun seems a little brighter this morning...

And South Dakota Discovers Its Citizens Are Sane:
Looks like the good citizens of South Dakota decided that the crazy law banning virtually every abortion was bullshit, voting it away. Power to the people. Eat shit, fundies.

Virginia, Don't Lose Heart:
Let us remember, as indeed we should, that now that the Virginia race is tighter than Ken Lay's asshole in the prison shower, there's still over a hundred thousand absentee ballots to be counted in that state. As of this writing, Allen's up by only five grand. It's gonna be a long way to final tally. Time to hang tough and play rough, Webb.

Tomorrow: Gloating, rude style.

Election Day - Grapes So Sour You Can't Get Your Lips Around Them:
You haven't seen sore losering or sour graping until you've seen the way that, when a loss is even remotely close, Republicans grasp like insane cats falling off a precipice to the last straws they can stick their claws into. This year, you're gonna see massive litigation, spun as the last hope for democracy (read: Republicans winning), that'll make the mythical frivolous lawsuit wave seem like a drip from a leaky faucet.

Don't believe it? Huh. Howzabout a little history lesson, just from the last dozen years or so.

In Connecticut, in 1994, Democratic Representative Sam Gejdenson defeated Republican Edward Munster by a tiny margin. Upon two recounts, Gejdenson was still ahead by 21 votes, but Munster, living up to his comical monster-like name, would not be stopped, and eventually the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that Gejdenson was rightfully elected and that Munster, who was looking for a new election, could go fuck himself. Then a Republican-led panel on the House of Representatives decided to look into "wrongful" voting in the district. The whole goddamned thing ended when Munster decided to be a mensch and gave up in April 1995.

In the same time period, Republican and devoted conservative ball licker Ellen Sauerbrey lost the governor's race in Maryland to Democrat Paris Glendening by 6000 votes. Sauerbrey went to court to have 11,000 votes tossed out, asserting all kinds of things about corpses and felons voting, in a crazed numerical disinformation campaign that would have made Joseph McCarthy proud. Problem was that Sauerbrey could produce nary a piece of evidence to back up her claims. Indeed, so fucked-up was her desperate challenge that she claimed 37 dead people voted, and then it turned out some of those dead people were, in fact, alive. And not too fond of Sauerbrey. When the court tossed out the lawsuit, Sauerbrey said she thought the rules of evidence should have been relaxed for the sake of "truth."

What else? 2004's Washington gubernatorial race where Democrat Christine Gregoire won by a razor thin margin in the intial tally and the recount over Republican Dino Rossi? Where Rossi went to court to have the whole damn election invalidated? Or howzabout Bush v. Gore? There's a reason "Bush" is the first name there - 'cause he was the goddamned plaintiff.

Yep, come tomorrow morning, the troops of lawyers on both sides will tramp out to file suits, but you can bet that Republicans, having spun the slight jiggle in the polls recently as a sign of "tightening" in races they're gonna lose, will be first at the steps to the courthouses to make their last stands.

Election Day - Let the Savagery Begin:
Sure, sure, sure, there's a gonna be a mighty flood of allegations and recriminations come poll-closing time. And you can bet that if ever Republicans are gonna get on board the whole touchscreen-voting-sucks train, it'll be this election. Remember the mainstream media dictum: if Democrats say it, it's just conspiracy-laden bullshit; but if the right wing says it, it must be true.

Shit, if Karl Rove's got any mojo left at all, the easiest thing would be not to hack a ton of machines to make the numbers go Busherific. No, no, the easy way would be to hack one machine, in, say, Virginia and make it jack up the Democratic votes as a way of discrediting and de-legitimizing the entire process around the country. Then, oh, how the cries will go out about black box voting and paper trails and, hey, Chief Justice Roberts, shouldn't we just shitcan the whole damn thing? There would be a manufactured uproar among conservatives not unlike the mad braying of charging hippos.

And, remember, as far as campaign challenges go, shit that goes to court and comes from the state and national parties and their candidates, not from constituent or interest groups, Republicans are some litigatin' motherfuckers.

More on that this afternoon as the true jugular-engorging violence of this savage season is yet to come.

And the People With Good Hair Go Straight To Heaven:
Yesterday, Texas Governor Rick Perry told reporters after a Cornerstone Church service in San Antonio that he was a pea in a pod with a minister there who said all non-Christians are going to hell. Or, to put it more precisely, Rev. John Hagee said, "If you live your life and don't confess your sins to God almighty through the authority of Christ and his blood, I'm going to say this very plainly, you're going straight to hell with a nonstop ticket." Christ's blood, generally very chatty, had no comment, but Jesus himself recommended that it's cheaper to buy a roundtrip ticket and just use half of it.

Perry said he agreed with Hagee. Later, as a way of explaining himself, Perry added, "Before we get into Buddha and all the others, I get a little confused there. But the fact is that we live in a pluralistic world but our faith is real personal. And my Christian faith teaches that the way is through Jesus Christ." So he acknowledges that some people believe other things, but that belief assures them that they're going to hell.

And so many of the people in Texas, Christian and non-Christian, look at their politicians and wonder if hell would be that much worse.

(Tip o' the hat to rude reader Harry P. for the heads up.)

Why Vote For Democrats: Briefly For Nauseated Republicans:
'Cause, really, come on.

Why Vote For Democrats: Rude Version For Lazy Democrats Who Need To Get Out the Fuckin' Vote:
It's all been foreplay, all of it up until tomorrow, it's just been one long cocktease, one endless clit tickle, groping in the backseat, fondling until just before coming, dick yanks and nipple pinches, ass smacks and finger probings, and it's all been a big bunch of fun, gettin' all hot and bothered about the idea that Democrats might take back one or both houses of Congress. Now it's time for the real show, the plunging in and doing the incredible fucking, balling madly, going down for all you're worth and getting your rocks off so that, come Wednesday morning, you have that post-orgasm glow, horny Democrats.

And it's gotta be big, motherfuckers, a big fuckin' orgy of Democrats out there, all forming one heaving sex monster, an effulgence that'll light up the goddamned darkness, and love it, goddamnit, head over to your precincts, and love it. Love the act, love the climax, love the feel of it all over you, in your prick, in your cunt. If we do it right, if we just head in, wet, throbbing, hard, dripping, ready to blow our wads for democracy, then there's a chance we'll stop this mad abstinence, this insane denial of our true bodily selves as breathing, celebratory, fucking entities.

Sure, sure, you, lazy Democrat, might say to the Rude Pundit, doesn't it overstate the case to say that voting is like sex? And the Rude Pundit would answer, Not this time. Not this goddamned time. Just once in your life go out there and treat voting like fucking, and not just any fucking. Desperate living room fucks where you're hanging on to each other for dear life, spontaneous elevator fucks where you have to fuck so hard and fast before the doors open, stumbling teenage fucks in your parents' backroom where you have to come before Dad gets the car in the garage. This time, right now, vote as if you're fucking like your life depends on it. 'Cause it does, motherfuckers, it does.

For if you sit on your ass tomorrow, if you're the wallflower at the orgy, then you may as well go fuck yourself.

Why Vote For Democrats: Non-Rude Version For Tender-Eared Independents Who Might Be Getting Scared:
Let's say, and why not, that you're on a path through the woods, and you don't have a map, but there is a clear path. And let's say, and, indeed, why not, that you've been trying to get out of the woods for days and days, weeks, perhaps months, maybe even nearly six years, and you've stayed on that same path. Sure, sure, you've been tempted to veer off, every time you've seen what looks to be a part in the trees, a previously trampled bunch of leaves. But you haven't. Because, to your thinking, there's no point in trying another way.

Now let's say that your time being lost in the woods hasn't exactly been a pastoral, soul-nourishing journey eating berries, napping under the canopy, staring at stars, communing with bunnies, bathing in clear streams. No, no, let's say that it's been a damned nightmare. You've had poison ivy, poison oak, and rashes from poison plants you never even knew were poisonous. You've been chased by badgers, by boars, even by bunnies, vicious mammals everywhere. Your clothes have long ago been shredded and washed away. Your naked ass has been bitten by snakes. You wonder why cougars keep trying to rape you. You've gotten hideous, endless diarrhea from the bacteria and sewage-infused rivers. If you get an hour of sleep without interruption from the mad screeching of hawks tearing apart mice, it's a blessing. It's all rendered you crazed, paranoid, barely able to shuffle step down the path, shaking, babbling to yourself that one day you'll find your way out.

But you've stayed on that path, no matter how long it is, because it's the only real path you've had.

And let's say you come to another stream. And across that stream is another path. You have a choice. You know what's going to happen on the path you're on. You may lie to yourself and say it's going to get better, but it hasn't in all this time and, gee, look up ahead, isn't that another tumescent cougar awaiting you?

You may think that the new path might be worse, that the devil you know, and all that crap. But you look at yourself in that polluted stream, filthy, scabby, hungry. And you wonder what it would be like to take that short walk over the rocks and water to the other side and see, just see, if this new path will actually lead you out of the woods. There's no guarantees, just the promise of something...different.

Cowards stay on the same path. Cowards would rather get beaten down again and again rather than risk even a bit of the unknown. Cowards ignore the possible to stay with the terrible comfort of the expected. Tomorrow, let's see if we're a nation of cowards.

Later today: Rude Version for Disgusted Democrats