Managing Editor Scott Wright has been with The Post since 1998. He is
a past winner of the Society of Professional Journalists' Green Eyeshade
Award for humorous commentary. He is a native of Cherokee County.


The Wright Angle
March 10, 2008

Agreeing to disagree

By Scott Wright

I got an email last week from a reader in Gaylesville. For purposes of discussion in this column, I'll call him Ray. Ray is a regular reader of The Wright Angle and a proud Cherokee County Republican. I suspect that -- regarding the latter, at least -- he is not alone, though he is almost certainly in exclusive company where the former is concerned. (Hi, mom!)

Somewhat unsolicited, since I have not fired off one of my highly regarded (by me) if somewhat monotonous (according to my friend Shane) “George W. Bush is an idiot” columns in a few months, Ray hit me broadside with the following exclamation last Monday: “You know, for the life of me I can't understand why someone with your intelligence can back such people as these liberal Democrats.”

Specifically, as Ray indicated further down in his correspondence, the “liberal Democrats” he was referring to are Hillary Clinton, the wife of Monica Lewinsky's ex-boyfriend Bill (thanks for that one, Jake) and Barack Hussein Obama, the America-hating Muslim (not really) who has been pre-programmed (I doubt it) by his real father Saddam Hussein (totally untrue) to reach the Oval Office and run the whole country to hell in a hand basket. Sounds preposterous, right? To me, too. But there are people who actually believe some portion or other of that fantastic fiction.

I also appreciated Ray's assumption about my intelligence. Obviously, though, he has never had the opportunity to examine the transcripts from my junior year of college. A hint: That was right around the time I turned 21 and this apple didn't fall far from the Wright family tree.

I enjoyed the compliment, Ray, but let's get back to your email: You also mentioned a current Democratic talking point, but claimed it was Al Gore who was the first to kick up so much dust about global warming and that “everybody else jumped on board because they hate George W. Bush.”

First of all, Al Gore has so far been credited only with inventing the Internet; I believe his patent on global warming is still pending. Secondly, I hated Bush a hell of a long time before Gore's movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” debuted at the box office in May 2006. As a longtime reader of The Wright Angle, Ray will be reminded of this when he checks the online archives at (WARNING: shameless plug alert) www.postpaper.com for my 2005 columns “When Bush lies it's just another day at the office” and “Our do-nothing president doing what he does best,” along with my March 2006 column “Is Bush an idiot or a liar, and does it really matter anymore?”

Actually, I'm probably closer to being in agreement with Ray on the global warming issue than he realizes because, nuclear weaponry aside, I'm not convinced that mankind has yet achieved a level of self-destructiveness that would allow him to damage the planet beyond its ability to recover on its own, although I may be willing to reconsider that position a decade from now when the outskirts of Atlanta finally reach the Alabama state line and 15 million Georgia crackers are using all of Weiss Lake and half the Tennessee River to supply their backyard landscaping fountains.

Next, Ray accused Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of being every bit as much of an idiot as George W. Bush. That's a high hurdle to clear, folks. The first word I'd probably have thought of to describe Reid is “gutless,” but based on evidence that becomes more overwhelming every time the senator from Nevada opens his mouth, I am willing to concede this particular argument to Ray and his fellow Republicans.

Ray's next topic was the fair tax proposal. He's for it all the way and I'm not against it. I emailed him right back and informed him that I'm planning to read Neal Boortz's book on the subject soon, which will hopefully reinforce my relatively comfortable impression of the plan.

It wasn't until a few minutes after I replied and hit the “send” button that I remembered Boortz is a conservative radio talk show host (yikes!) who probably has shaken hands with Rush Limbaugh (double yikes!) and possibly has even attended a top-secret neoconservative gathering where he stood within oozing distance of columnist Ann Coulter (totally gross). So, on second thought, I'm still on the fence about the fair tax plan.

Finally, Ray asked me if I hate the United States military, “like a lot of Democrats do.” In my email reply, I told Ray that I don't think Democrats or Republicans hate the military. What I proffered as an explanation for the different approaches the country's major parties are presently taking regarding the military was this: Democrats seem to me to be more concerned about individual service members than some Republicans.

After all, I told him, it is the current Republican administration that invaded Iraq with a force too small to police the country -- as at least two commanding generals have stated publicly, only to find themselves herded off to an early retirement by President Bush. The Republican-led Pentagon also initially refused multiple attempts by the Marines and Army to hurry the deployment of thousands of mine-resistant armored personnel carriers to the front lines, vehicles that might have saved the lives of hundreds of U.S. soldiers who died serving in Iraq. And it was the Republican-led administration that has for years provided sub-standard health care to thousands of American soldiers who have returned from Iraq with their brains shaken and bodies broken.

How, I asked Ray, could anyone who wants to fix all those problems be accused of hating the military? And both Hillary and Obama say they want to try and fix all those problems. Bush and the Republicans have had eight years at it and they have failed miserably, but somehow Democrats hate the military? That makes about as much sense as my Boortz-Limbaugh-Coulter logic triangle from a few paragraphs ago.

Ray and I ended up swapping several other emails before I left work Monday afternoon and I can honestly say I enjoyed the entire exchange. I wish there were more readers out there like him, because he gave me the opportunity to exercise a part of my brain that hasn't had much of a workout since the presidential race began in earnest back in November, primarily because the target of most of the political acid I'm fond of spewing has been keeping to himself lately instead of sticking his foot in his mouth or making decisions that defy common sense.

In my final email to Ray, I told him I have every confidence that a similar process of unsound, illogical decision making will soon begin again, in earnest, regardless of whether a Republican or a Democrat becomes the next president of the United States. I think, deep-down, he and I agree that seems to be the way this country is run anymore by either party ... God help us all.

I suppose I'll be supporting Barack Hussein Obama come November. And I hope Republicans won't crow too loudly if he does get elected and runs the country straight to hell, because it was the guy they put in the White House eight years ago who got us to the point where Obama won't have very far to go.