 |
 |
 |
|
|||||||
|
|
|
|
||||
| Confederate Flag at Half Mast on Pickup? Jimmy Earl Takes Dean for Ride |
|||
“THEY WILL TAKE AWAY MY COLD STEEL GUN WHEN HOWARD DEAN SAYS IT’S OK” the new bumper sticker proudly dictated. Jimmy Earl had become the first angry white Southerner to announce he was forsaking President Bush and supporting Howard Dean in 2004. “Mr. Pickett, I understand your hands were actually shown in a
1996 television commercial for former US Senator Jesse Helms that most
people outside of North Carolina suggested might have been racist, “
the television reporter asked. “You know, I have always been a good Republican, ever since Strom Thurmond told us these yellow-dog Democrats don’t hunt,” Jimmy Earl told the reporter. “Your neighbor Bubba Zeke says you were going on about Bush as recently
as last Spring!” the reporter recalled. “Besides, my President was talking directly to me
when he was talking about them ‘yellowcakes’ from Niger. When
I was growin’ up, I had this African nanny, who was always making
me eat yellowcakes and stuff. I got tired of those cakes, and I couldn’t
wait to nuke ‘em. But I don’t understand why the President
keeps mispronouncin’ ‘Niger?’ “ “What do you mean?” the reporter asked. “Well, my pappy always pronounced it differently, and my brother — who done graduated the eighth grade tells me the media keeps leaving out the extra “g.” “What turned you away from the President?” the reporter continued. “It looks like my commitment to the new bumper sticker may be short-lived. The mill where I worked just moved across the Rio Grande River to the cheaper suburbs of Texas. Somebody who can’t even vote for my President is going to get my job. Meanwhile, my pickup truck AND my confederate flag bumper sticker is gonna be repossessed. At least, with Howard Dean there’s a chance I’ll get a new job and a new truck one day.” “So you believe in Howard Dean now?” the reporter asked. “Not entirely,” Jimmy Earl answered. “As much as he tries, I just don’t think he’s a good Southern Boy. Hell, he even got some guys from Quebec to come down to one of his meetups in Plattsburgh, New York where they all wrote letters to me and my neighbors explaining how Dean really is a “Southerner.” “You still have some doubts, then?” the reporter persisted. “Yeah, sure, after all this guy is a DOCTOR, for goodness sakes, and he believes in socialized medicine like they have up there in Canada! He says he got all them children in Varmint covered in health insurance no matter how rich their folks are… “ I remember when my little Jessica fell off her bike last year and broke her leg — after the mill cut off our health insurance — we took care of it the old-fashioned, good American way. We held a bake sale and our neighbors contributed more than $98 towards Jessica’s $4,700 hospital bill.” “You have great neighbors,” the reporter noted. “They were pretty generous, considering none of them got a piece of the President’s tax cuts,” Jimmy Earl noted. “You won’t see any of them denying Iraq its $87 billion just so my daughter’s leg can get fixed. “
|
|||
| Home | Archives | Links | Campaign 2004 | Taking Liberties | About Us Liftingthefog.com is Copyright ©2003 by Barbara Sehr Productions |
|||
Jimmy
Earl was smiling for the TV cameras positioning themselves under the warm
North Carolina sun as he scraped away the fading “BUSH/CHENEY
2000” bumper sticker on his Ford pickup truck. Across the
bumper was a still-fresh Confederate flag.