PunkAssBlog.com

In America, it’s hard to be a minority. Sometimes, your Mercedes gets a door ding in the Tiffany’s parking lot. You just know the hired help’s rummages through your things, even if you can’t prove it. And, worst of all, you have to sit in the back of the Armed Services Committee.

Just ask these poor chaps:

President Bush tried to rally House Republicans on Friday as the lawmakers hunkered down on the Eastern Shore and struggled to come to grips with their new minority status and the challenge of the continuing war in Iraq.

I can see why the semi-dead-to-me NYT had to qualify Bush’s rallying effort with a “tried to” — these forgotten outcasts have been treated so horribly due to their status as second-class citizens, their souls may be too trampled upon to recover. But god bless our president’s outreach efforts. Surely the hookers and lines of blow he provided comforted these folk in their time of need.

Gathered to plot how to make their stay in the minority as brief as possible, 160 House Republicans were exhorted by Mr. Bush to work with him on education, health care, immigration and retirement issues and to give his troop buildup in Iraq a chance to work.

Viva la revolucion! Not to continue nitpicking on the Times’ word choice, but if a party was just going to go about the normal political process to regain power, describing its efforts as “plot[ting] to make their stay in the minority as brief as possible” seems a little dramatic, no? Maybe the Republicans really are planning to mobilize the wealthiest 2%, perhaps via a million-SUV gas guzzle or a Young Republican boycott of trust fund taxation.

I also look forward to how the party of voter fraud, xenophobia, and the slaughter of hundreds of thouands of innocents in Iraq expects to recapture the American imagination on social issues. Perhaps they can call for an end to all the free K-12 that’s been hampering the private school industry, offer everyone who can’t afford health care a job administering it to the rich who can, build border protection that makes the Great Wall of China look like a pile of balsa wood, and smack old people in the face for daring to request government aid just so they can continue watching game shows on Uncle Sam’s dollar.

“I fully understand there are differences of opinion, but one of the things I have discovered is in Washington, D.C., most people understand the consequences of failure,” Mr. Bush said. “And if failure is not an option, then it’s up to the president to come up with a plan that is more likely to succeed.”

Ah yes, if there’s one thing Bush the Deuce will be known for, it’ll be plans for success. In Iraq. And Afghanistan. And here at home, with balancing the budget and coping with gobal warming. Count on him, fellas.

“And he said: ‘Know this,’ ” [Representative] Putnam said. “ ‘There is a commander in chief and I ran for this office and that is the expectation of this office and the responsibility of this office.’ ”

It doesn’t get much clearer and more inspiring than that.