Pick your Targets

A lot of times, it just doesn't pay to go after your political opponents on anything other than policy.

Remember, back in the day, when the Republicans used to go after Bill Clinton on everything they could think of? Remember how, no matter what, they never really could "get him" on anything?

There even came a time when the republicans had enough evidence to impeach Clinton, but then they couldn't get the votes to convict him, even though he had gone on national television and basically said "yeah, I did it".

Boy those were the days, huh? The Republicans looked like belligerent jerks, Clinton looked like a victim and MTV called Monica Lewenski the most powerful young person in America.

Even today, Ken Starr wanders around his garden in a dirty bathrobe saying: "I had him! He was soooo close! I had him!"

The Democrats are already getting dangerously close to this with Sarah Palin and they've only been aware of her existence for two weeks.

Although they hate her, Palin's popularity is growing by leaps and bounds. But what about all the crazy stuff she's done?

Let's look a the craziest thing she's accused of and follow it through logically. I mean this business of her supposedly saying she's the mother of her daughter's baby.

Let's suppose for a minute that it really is true, and the Democrats have absolute proof. What's she really guilty of? Was somebody hurt? somebody cheated?

The very last thing Democrats want is to force Palin to have to go on television and say "yeah, I did it---and I did it to help my daughter and my grandchild".

If she does that, then the Democrats will look like the biggest heels in the world. They successfully outed a mother protecting her child. It could even create a wave that pushes Mccain-Palin into office.

Nevermind that it's kind of creepy because Bree on Desperate Housewives tried to do the same thing. Stick to discussions of policy and everything will be fine, but if democrats keep pushing it on all this bullshit stuff with Palin, it could really backfire.

Who is The Great Advisory

They call him "the great advisory", but if you read the bible, there's no character more powerless than Satan.

Even the animals are capable of direct action once in a while, but not the devil, all he can do is try and talk people into things. That's it. He can't change the weather, he can't make or take life, he can't do anything but whisper in people's ears when nobody is looking.

He can't even use the one power he has to get people to do things for him, all he can do is try and talk them into things they themselves benefit from.

It's that quality that makes me wonder. Is the devil really just a metaphor for our own selfish action? Are we, or some part of us, Satan?

I've never liked the idea of some guy sitting down in hell rubbing his hands together, just waiting for the day that he might take over. Most of those ideas come from Milton and Dante rather than the bible anyway.

There is no evil in nature. Hurricanes hit the coast because that's how they're made, not because of evil. Evil comes from us. It comes from our own greed and lust and fear and selfishness.

When the bible talks about Eve eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, it means that, unlike all the rest of God's creation, we are responsible for our own acts--because we do know the difference between good and evil.

Even atheists believe this. But, I have to wonder if they would believe it, if religion hadn't thrashed out these ideas for thousands of years beforehand.

Illustration: Gustav Dore