Fetch, Boehner, Fetch!

Funny thing about dogs. They’ll stand by you even if you’re the most despicable person on earth. A dog doesn’t care if you’re a racist, or if you’re a pervert, or if your incompetence caused a fire at the nursing home—he’ll act like you’re the lord of the universe.

But the same kind of loyalty that’s so admirable in a dog is less so in an elected official. Yet “party before country” is the watchword for those Republican senators and representatives who either refuse to believe Bush started the nursing-home fire or are proud that he did.

Rep. John Boehner of Ohio is opposed to the nonbinding resolution expressing disapproval of the troop escalation in Iraq, and yesterday he had this to say:

“This battle is the most visible part of a global war against terrorists. If we leave, they will follow us home. It's that simple.”

Wow. That is simple. It’s simple-minded, too, though I’m not sure it’s as simple-minded as thinking you can conduct a global war on anything by committing a huge chunk of your military to a single place, especially when that place had a negligible connection to terrorism (if any) to begin with.

Boehner’s remark sure makes it sound like Bush is using American soldiers as bait for new terrorists. I find this too reprehensible for words, but maybe it’s perfectly acceptable for Boehner and Bush’s other family pets. (I can’t remember the exact quote, but Immanuel Kant, who might have been a little smarter than John Boehner, once wrote that when the old men who make the wars have to fight them too, then that would be the end of war.)

If Boehner thinks terrorists are going to follow Americans home from Iraq, then I have a solution. On the way back to America, we stop off at a rest area to go to the restroom, and then when the terrorists are over by the vending machines getting corn chips and pop and pretending not to follow us, we sneak out the back window. It’s that simple!

Sigh. Ever since the September 11 attacks, the Bush administration has been hammering us with the same two messages: “Be afraid” and “We know what’s best for you.” The good news is that more and more people are beginning to see through this horseshit. John Boehner isn’t one of them.