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Enterprise, Number 16, October 15, 1996.
Saddam Hussein for President
By L. Neil Smith
[email protected]Exclusive to The Libertarian Enterprise
In the most repulsively cynical attempt to reelect a president for all the wrong reasons since ... well, since the last Persian Gulf unpleasantness, Bill Clinton is doing his conscienceless, bloodthirsty damnedest to whip up another phony conflict with Iraqui dictator and Ernie Kovacs lookalike, Saddam Hussein.
Meanwhile, as usual -- exactly as they did in Viet Nam -- all Republicans can do is whimper "I don't think our response was strong enough." Response to what? To a nation's vain attempt to recover its sovereignty within its own borders? (And how would Bob Dole react to being told that, as a result of our imperialism against, say, Mexico, the United States Air Force will no longer be allowed to fly its planes south of the Mason-Dixon Line?) To Iraq's desire to defend itself against an occupying super-power? To Clinton's Nixonian stab at electioneering by showering the citizens of another country with guided missiles?
It would appear that war is the health of Bill Clinton. His actual poll numbers (as opposed to what his campaign staff, the American mass media choose to tell us) must really be something to behold. This kind of thing is usually the last move of a desperate encumbent. Or maybe it's just part of the litter of dead bodies he and his vile wife seem to leave behind them wherever they go.
Careless Bill. Messy Hillary.
Careless Hillary. Messy Bill.
Will the American people fall for this guff? They certainly always have in the past. All it takes is a magical wave of a bloody shirt. That's how we ended up (even under the most charitable historic interpretation) with the War of 1812, the Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, Korea, and Viet Nam. The war in Viet Nam that Bill Clinton is supposed to have opposed in the 1960s.
As for today, well, to be perfectly honest, the picture is pretty frigging bleak. This was, after all, never the brightest electorate in the world, and a century of public education hasn't helped things any. Those among them who didn't vote for Clinton last time around, voted for George Bush. Duh. And those who didn't vote for Bush, voted for Perot. Double duh. Even the best and brightest of the lot seem to have gone Rush Limbaugh one better and put half their brain in a blender. Politically sophisticated gun owners have apparently decided that they would rather be enslaved by Republicans than set free by Libertarians.
And Libertarians have nominated Harry Browne.
That's too bad. It's too bad for America. It's too bad for history. It's too bad for individual liberty. It's too bad for the human race. What we need most, presidentially, right now, is James Stewart. What we've got now is Jim Carrey.
What we've got is "Dumb" with "Dumber" waiting in the wings.
With the exception of Browne, none of these guys is even bringing up real issues. What do we need with a war on drugs? We know who the bigtime drug pushers are: George Bush and the Central Intelligence Agency, while Arkansas governor William Jefferson Blythe Clinton looked the other way -- "Do this little favor for us, will you, Bill, and pretty soon we'll let you be the President."
What do we need with anti-terrorism legislation? We know who the real terrorists are: after all, we watched Bill Clinton and Janet Reno burn 22 children to death -- along with their parents -- in broad daylight on national TV.
What do we need with a faceoff with Iraq? We know who the real butchers are. They're the ones who defecated on everything this country is supposed to stand for by giving medals to the terrorists who murdered Vicky and Sammy Weaver.
Where's Simon Wiesenthal when you really need him?
As for the media, remember, this is the pond-scum that pressured a state government into dismissing and punishing a Pennsylvania road repair crew for the "crime" of paving over the carcass of a dead deer -- while they themselves are still paving over the corpses of their favorite President's mass murder victims.
Waco Willie may have inadvertantly gotten us out of one dilemma, however. Here it is only a few weeks before the general election and I still haven't decided which of these slavering mental and moral cripples I'm going to vote against.
I'm considering, however, a choice which will allow me to register extreme dissatisfaction with the Democrats' having offered me a pustulent human cancer for president, the Republicans' having offered me a specimen of the undead, the Reform Party's having offered me anybody at all, let alone the Nacogdoches Napoleon, and the Libertarian Party's having jammed a smalltime conman down my throat.
It'll also give me a chance to protest Waco Willie's unspeakably evil and self-serving foreign policy. I'm thinking about writing in "Saddam Hussein": at least it's one way to find out exactly how secret our secret ballot really is.
L. Neil Smith's award-winning first novel, The Probability Broach, long out of print, has just been republished by TOR Books. A complete list of his novels and collection of his essays and other data may be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.lneilsmith.org//. Permission to redistribute this article is herewith granted by the author, provided that it is reproduced unedited, in its entirety, and appropriate credit given.