It’s no accident that election day comes right after Halloween. Most people have already chosen their costume and are working feverishly to be in character as looney day approaches. The streets are filled with zombies, mad scientists, road warrior wannabes, ghouls, gremlins, journalists, and lots of rabid donkeys and elephants. There are all kinds of pranks and schemes afoot, and I don’t mean the kind where you stomp a doo-doo filled flaming bag on your doorstep. These pranks smell much worse.
Robots will call you at dinnertime, because they don’t understand the concept of food, demanding your views or begging for money. Mailers will try to deceive you into believing Congressman Frankenstein wants to confiscate your torches and pitchforks. Somewhere behind a curtain, charlatans are are made to look like scary wizards with smoke and mirrors.
The big story of the nanosecond newscycle is The Denver Disaster, where the President melted into a puddle in front of sixty million people. Just when the Democrats started to believe they had the treat in the bag, Mitt Romney pulled the old Morman trick of calling in Alfred Hitchcock’s seagulls to sweep down and cover their hero in gull guano. The Prez tried to avert his eyes, but was consumed by the onslaught. Horrible!
The spinmeisters on both sides went into high gear. Chris Matthews turned into a slobbering werewolf, rabid with anger over his leader’s ineptitude. He smashed up the MSDNC studios and some execs wanted to put him down, but wolves are an endangered species so they just put a radio collar on him and let him go in the woods.
Over at Foxbat News, Count Hannity went for the throat, digging up grainy, unfocused videos of Obama consorting with demons and changing the address of the White House to 666 Transylvania Avenue. John Sununu, who doesn’t need a mask to look like an ax murderer you would never pick up hitchhiking, called the President lazy and dumb, provoking howls of racism from the werewolfpack at Rockefeller Center. ( Before they corralled him, Matthews bit the rest of the anchors, turning them into barking canines. )
Both sides are mad at the zombies, the wandering unaligned undecideds. It is inconceivable to the parties that anyone could be so brainless, at least until after the election. The Winners will then proclaim them as geniuses, before whacking them in the head with baseball bats. Trick or treat!
The Owl
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
When cats run home and light is come,
And dew is cold upon the ground,
And the far-off stream is dumb,
And the whirring sail goes round,
And the whirring sail goes round,
Alone and warming his five wits,
The white owl in the belfry sits.
When merry milkmaids click the latch,
And rarely smells the new-mown hay,
And the cock hath sung beneath the thatch
Twice or thrice his roundelay,
Twice or thrice his roundelay;
Alone and warming his five wits,
The white owl in the belfry sits.
My dad was a professional boxer in his youth and a fan of the “fights”, and the great boxers, especially Muhammad Ali.
Watching the first Presidential debate, the term “ropa-a-dope”, came to mind.
I googled the term and found that other writers saw the same thing.
At least we hope we did.
http://www.telegram.com/article/20121005/COLUMN44/110059683#.UHA2Vfnti9A