The Word

I found it! The word my mind has been casting about for, these past several days. Not that I've even been conscious of looking for it. You know how that is, Bush, when your mind is busy searching for a word and won't ever be quite satisfied until it finds it. Kind of a tease. Well, it came to me this morning without my even looking for it, a gift, and I recognized it immediately when it arrived, with that little glint of satisfaction that you get when you car slips effortlessly into gear. And the word is… sanctimonious.

I realized at once not only that I'd found something I'd been looking for without knowing it, but also why I had been looking for it. I'd been searching for exactly the right word--the French have an expression for it, Bush, as they sometimes do, annoyingly: le mot juste--to describe your Frist. It's not just self-righteousness, it's not quite piety, nor quite self-satisfaction or complacency, though all of these come close.

No, sanctimony does it best. Its derivation is from the Latin sanctus, meaning holy, and monia, a suffix suggesting action or condition. As also in parsimony--a related condition, it would seem, in your Frist, when it comes to financial relief for the poor and the needy. Here at home, of course, as well as abroad. As with the majority of your top Republicans, largesse is reserved for the wealthy. (Pardon my French this morning! I don't know what's come over me!)

But back to sanctimony, Bush. Back to your sanctimonious Frist. You see it in his face, his posture, that aura of sanctity, that protest of innocence, that puritanical air of long-suffering disapproval. If you ask me, it all comes down to sex, and the deep inner terror its power inspires in those who fear it. Obsessed by their inner demons, they opt for sanctity. Unfortunately, that doesn't make the demons go away: their power comes out instead in the form of condemnation of other sexual beings. It's an old American tradition, of course. Think of Salem, Bush. Think of the witch-hunters. Put a black frock and a white collar on your Frisk, and you've got your man.

On a lighter note, I'm as excited as the rest of the world about the re-discovery of the Ivory-Billed woodpecker--sighted now in Eastern Arkansas after sixty years of presumed extinction! What a thrill! Has he come back to tell us something, Bush? I hope you're planning some kind of honor for this creature--at least an Ivory-Billed Woodpecker National Holiday, and of course a US postage stamp. Maybe a coin? It's certainly a rare and notable cause for celebration for old Mother Earth.