Politics again.

Rob and Goblin and I have a new ritual. Given Goblin’s addiction to chasing squirrels and her general inability to get anywhere near them, we came up with a plan that is working quite well. Rob now goes ahead to lure the squirrels into the open by tossing them peanuts. Then, when they’re vulnerable, Goblin and I pounce, and the squirrels are lucky to escape with their lives from the jaws of the ferocious beast.

This got me to thinking about Republicans. I have read a couple of studies lately that reveal that the most ardent supporters of our National Embarrassment, as a bloc, are not the people who benefit most from his policies, but rather the people who are actually hurt the most: blue-collar white men. No one is quite certain why this is (apparently, no one thought to ask the blue-collar white men), but the theories are that they have been swindled into believing not only that the “President” likes them and takes them seriously (which is probably true to an extent), but that he is some sort of hero that they can look up to (which is true to the extent that I can sell you the Brooklyn Bridge).

The hero aspect, you may have noticed, is getting a great deal of play in the press: his tough cowboy talk about terrorists, his movie set of a Texas ranch, his staged landing on an aircraft carrier wearing a flight suit. Never mind that he comes from a family of millionaires, bought the ranch a few years ago in an effort to look like a rugged Texan, and skipped out of the Vietnam war by getting an Air National Guard posting and then going AWOL. None of this has any bearing on the fantasy world that brings us the fearless George W. Bush flight-suited action figure, or the fearsome George W. Bush bronze bust, which raises our chickenhawk commander-in-chief to the level of Caesar.

The other explanation for this masochistic blue-collar support is actually more insidious. George W. Bush, in responding to the concerns of these people, earns their support by throwing them the peanuts of his scripted rhetoric. Distracted, they do not notice the slobbering Boston terrier on the other side of the tree, waiting to devour them.