Press Action ::: A Discussion with a Kerry Supporter

Friday, May 28, 2004

A Discussion with a Kerry Supporter

By Micah Holmquist

Readers of this column will no doubt excuse my recent absence. God recently blessed me with my first grandchild. Perhaps one day I will reveal the tawdry details of how my only daughter came to give birth to the child I call George Tibbets Holmquist, but for right now all that needs to be said is Jack Chick’s picture books are guaranteed to delight any child who is not possessed by a Satanic spirit.

One recent evening, after reading a particularly delightful story to George about the evils of the Catholic Church, I retired to the downstairs quarters of my daughter’s home with the intention of first picking out what tomorrow morning’s book would be. Then I saw my daughter.

I raised Anita Schlafly Holmquist just like her brothers, never lacking in the violence the Bible commands parents to deliver onto their children. Somehow though she has always been a disappointment.

“How’s Apricot doing?” my daughter asked me.

“Don’t call him that!” I said, shaking my head. “It is both strange and a sissy name. I raised you right and look how you turned out. Just think of what will happen if you raise him.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Anita asked in a voice so annoying it reminded me of the time she wanted to wear one of those jelly bracelets. I forbid her from doing so because I knew such an object would lead directly to fornication.

Back in the more recent past, I simply shook my head while saying, “I’m going to pick out a story to read to George and then I plan to watch the start of President Bush’s public relations effort. Is it too much to ask that I do so in the peace that Americans deserve?”

She walked away with a look on her face. I didn’t see the look but I have to assume it was a look that said she realized she was unable to counter my vastly superior argument. I imagine that throughout America there are similar looks on the faces of many disobediently liberal daughters each and every night in the homes of people who listen to Rush Limbaugh.

I decided on a text to read to George and then turned on the FOX News Channel to watch President Bush tell us Americans how great things are in Iraq and how they will be even better soon. It is too bad that Fox is the closest thing we have to a conservative news channel. It would be great to have a station that knew the job of the press is not to pretend to make President Bush look bad, but rather to exalt him as the fourth greatest human being to ever live. (President Bush is behind only Ronald Reagan, Jesus Christ and a yet to be determined founding father.)

The brilliant speech began and I noticed a presence in the room. The presence of my daughter, a liberal who probably deserves to be called Apricot, was clear. As we watched it together, like two socialists who can’t afford their own television sets and have to use public transportation, my heart was filled with a terror, a terror as great as anything on September 11, when I imagined the derogatory remarks that must be going through my daughter’s head.

When President Bush said there had been a “swift removal” of Saddam Hussein, was she thinking about the over 12 years we spent softening the country up before invading? When we Americans found out “our coalition will transfer full sovereignty to a government of Iraqi citizens,” could she have wanted to say, “yes, they have ‘full sovereignty’ except for being able to hold the occupying military forces accountable”? Could Anita hate President Bush and America so much that she even doesn’t respect President Bush for saying, “The return of tyranny to Iraq would ... embolden the terrorists, leading to more bombings, more beheadings, and more murders of the innocent around the world” because she believes some poppycock about how America and coalition forces are already doing a fine job of harming innocents?

Despite the seditious and disrespectful anti-American thoughts my daughter was most likely thinking, I still did my best to enjoy President Bush’s glorious speech. President Bush said America is good and right. He stressed what we had a done in Afghanistan — a country where 100 people die each month from land mines, the U.S. endangers aid workers, the opium industry is humming and unrest and warlords threaten upcoming elections — as evidence that the U.S. will build good things in Iraq.

Most importantly President Bush explained that the recent prisoner abuse scandal was the result of “disgraceful conduct by a few American troops who dishonored our country and disregarded our values.” Our President left no doubt that U.S. Army sergeant Samuel Provance is wrong to say that abuse of Iraqi prisoners was official policy and an official of Amnesty International is wrong to say the U.S. government being in the business of “Sacrificing human rights in the name of security at home, turning a blind eye to abuses abroad, and using preemptive military force where and when it chooses” has “neither increased security nor ensured liberty."

The message I got from President Bush was that we shouldn’t worry about “proof of US troops deliberately and indiscriminately shooting civilians.”

“The terrorists’ only influence is violence,” President Bush said, “and their only agenda is death.”

As the speech ended and the War College men, clad in their beautiful uniforms, some of whom have made the mistake of criticizing the “war on terror," cheered loudly, I knew I had to do my part and stand up for President Bush, freedom, God and America. “Young lady,” I said in a loud voice, “you need to support President Bush.”

She shook her head indignantly. “I will vote for a man who won’t take us to war without more allies.”

Those words from Anita stung like a dagger to my heart. “How dare you suggest America wait for France? Don’t you care about freedom?" I said before a lengthy pause during which she cried.

“Maybe freedom doesn’t matter to you liberals,” I would continue. “Maybe you have your mind elsewhere. What about that boy you dated in high school. You know, the one, he’s off fighting for freedom right now while you are here sobbing and raising a child to be a hippie. You don’t consult President Bush or the Lord. What’s wrong with you?”

“Get out,” she screamed.

“Now you’re just waking George up,” I responded.

“Get out,” she continued to shriek. “Leave us alone.”

“Very well young lady. You seem to have made a mess of your life and don’t even want help,” I told her. “But just remember that it is because of people like you that President Bush has to remind us that we will win. If it were up to you, freedom would be defeated. And as President Bush said tonight, ‘The failure of freedom would only mark the beginning of peril and violence.’ Do you want to bring peril and violence into this world young lady?”

What about you, dear reader? Are you doing enough to support President Bush and the “war on terror”? Or are you, like my daughter, helping the purveyors of peril and violence?

Micah Holmquist, editor of Irregular Thoughts and Links, is a Cadillac, Mich.-based writer.

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