The Other Side

The Other Side (1999)

Man, it's scary on the other side. Is your Halloween scorecard handy?

The War: TRICK
One seemingly endless, utterly useless, based on lies and NeoCon delusions, and profoundly sad national trick. We passed 2000 dead this week. Millions of us want to know

[Cartoon by Mike Luckovich]

Harriet Miers: TRICK and TREAT
The other side eats its young. She was an unqualified crony who saw Bush as the second coming of Jeebus --absolutely. But the left did not chuck her out of the Dr. Evil chair and into a flaming pit. No indeedy -- she failed the far right's go-with-your-gut cravings for hardcore conservative fury and purity. She was whacked by the monsters on the doorstep who howled for up and down votes on SCOTUS nominees and screeched that no ideological litmus tests should be taken. Give us Barrabas is now the banshee cry of the evangelical Twilight Zone. Recall these are the same changelings who impeached a president for fudging about a blowjob -- but now claim perjury over falsifying evidence in order to push an agenda of pre-emptive war for political gain and personal opportunism is "a technicality." If the Dems ever needed that spine transplant, it's now. If Bush nominates a creature from the depths of Wingnut Bog, hunt it down and drive a stake through its heart. The Repugs, unmasked as Jekyll/Hyde hypocrites, have shot their own excuses full of silver bullets. Dems: You've got a green light now. Fight the next would-be Werewolf SCOTUS with everything in the arsenal.

PlameGate: TREAT
Follow the marching frogs. Their bag of dirty tricks could become our Halloween goodie sack. Take 'em down, Fitz. Keel-haul them on their own Swift Boat. Send those cursing major league assholes clear to the other side of no return.

George Bush: NEITHER
Even the former stenographers in the MSM are no longer treating Dear Leader with kid gloves. More chilling for the Rovians, the red state faithful aren't buying the usual tricks of flag-waving, gay-bashing smoke and mirrors. No king outfit for regal George this Halloween. Instead, his costume will be: Lamest. Duck. Ever.

Three more years of Bush political and cultural devolution? The horror...The horror...
[Illustration: The Other Side (1954) by Stanley Pitt]

Dick Cheney: TREAT (WITH EMBEDDED RAZOR)
This Halloween the Creep Veep is wearing a collaged costume combining Darth Vader threads with Grim Reaper rags. That is, he'll be a death warmed over who likes to hear himself talk. We always knew the guy had acid for blood and a bad ticker -- a compassionate conservative with a heart the size of the font on a subpoena. Doctored candy and frog costume optional -- with a t-shirt that says LAST THROES.

Judith Miller: PUNK'D
A martyr for free speech who passed over to the other side of BushCo cheerleader of cooked intelligence. Judy has more arrows in her than St. Stephen. Why do I keep visualizing the demise of the Macbeth-like king in Kurosawa's Throne of Blood? Keep those bows strung and taut.

Democrats: ?????
Like the question marks at the end of a bad monster movie, the American audience is left hanging to wonder if these nearly extinct reptiles will ever return from the other side. Will they rise from a watery sleep to breathe fire and stomp their puny (minded) adversaries? Or have they slipped down the evolutionary ladder, becoming invertebrates, spines trailing behind them like prehensile tails, slithering on their bellies, and disappearing forever under the pond scum?