art culture politics music humor

November 6th 3:08AM

By Adam McKay

It is raining an icy rain at two-thirty in the morning and most of the November fifth election results are in. And though it could be much worse, it looks like a really bad day for our country. The coterie of corporate shills, racists, religious zealots, misguided angry and outright fools that call themselves the Republican Party have-after two years of economic collapse, soaring deficits, rising unemployment, and the total disappearance of Osama Bin Laden-taken control of the Senate. Oof.

And if this didn't make me feel enough like I'd been forced to eat a sock full of rubber doorstops, Katherine Harris won a Congressional seat in Florida. Yes, that Katherine Harris. The one you saw canoodling with Satan at a Bruckheimer premiere. I would, without exaggeration, rather have an actual squirrel in the House than Katherine Harris. And yes, I understand that a squirrel can't read or write and that when its turn came to speak it would probably be under a desk nibbling on a piece of moldy peanut butter. But at least the squirrel probably won't turn away minority voters because they happen to share their last name with a guy who shoplifted a handful of lighters from a Dixie Mart back in '88.

So just at the point in this evening where I'm imagining what the country would be like if the blue and red states actually split and formed two separate nations (And who do you think would do better, by the way: the white anti-intellectual isolationists or the progressive higher-learning globalists?) I see coverage that rocks me out of my Territory Ahead chair. One of the big winners on this day of decision is...Arnold Schwarzenegger. That's right. He's considering running for Governor of California and his efforts in support of an ill-conceived Proposition there have now made him a "viable" candidate.

Now rather than go on about how this guy starred in Kindergarten Cop or about how his parents are rumored to have shared a Berlin bunker duplex in '44 with Kurt Waldheim, I will instead just make sounds to express my utter shock:

Whaa...? Uhhhhh? Ahhhh!!! Ieeerrrfghghh!!! And if I may ask the Senator from Idaho to please yield five minutes...Ooooooo!!! Frap!! Frunk!!! Yeeeiiii!!!

And through all of this, through the lack of serious discussion about gun control after a man holds a region hostage for two weeks with a .223 Bushmaster, through Bush and Cheney champing at the bit to attack Iraq and get their hands on all that oil, magnificent oil-attack replacing any sane consideration of containment or nonproliferation (Oh my God! He might have a gun! Quick! Kick him before he uses it!)-through it all there is...oh my God, I can't think of anything there is through all this madness that brings comfort...wow, that's really depressing. Booze? Nah. The NBA? Not quite. My family? Yes. But now I sound like a Republican, except I'm not full of shit.

A little caustic, huh? Well, too bad. I'm tired of agreeing to disagree.

 

Adam McKay is a writer for film and television such as Saturday Night Live and Michael Moore's The Awful Truth. He has also performed at the Second City in Chicago as well as being a founding member of the Upright Citizen's Brigade. He currently resides in Garrison, New York.