<http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/columnists/10116684.htm> The Philadelphia Inquirer Posted on Sun, Nov. 07, 2004 Center Square | A hard case resists a makeover for the new age By Chris Satullo Guantanamo Bay Nov. 7 My dear wife, They are letting me write one letter to let you know that I am alive. I am at the new Liberal Media Re-Education Camp here at Gitmo; I am not allowed to see a lawyer or make phone calls. They are afraid that if I talk to a lawyer, I'll pass a coded message to my old colleagues on the Editorial Board, telling them to oppose the flat tax or support Arlen for Judiciary Committee chairman or something. This letter will be censored, so I have to be careful. First thing: I am OK. I am not harmed. There has been no torture. Yet. We're not in those steel cages in the sun or anything. It's a simple barracks, Spartan but not filthy. We get three squares a day, though the fare isn't doing much for my South Beach diet. It's all takeout from Cracker Barrel, Hardees, Bojangles. They say we've got to learn to eat like real Americans. You must have been worried sick. I don't know what they told you, but here's what happened: Wednesday afternoon, the gang and I were on our way to a mourning lunch at that French/Arab/gay fusion bistro where we like to go and plot our liberal propaganda. Suddenly, guys in dark glasses swooped up in black vans and snatched us. They didn't take the black hoods off our heads until we got to Gitmo. I haven't seen Trudy Rubin since we got here. I hear she's being treated as a "high-value" prisoner. The high values are in a cell block across the compound. Rumor has it she's in a cell with Molly Ivins and Maureen Dowd. Word is some torture goes on over there. Bill Moyers supposedly was gagged and forced to listen to Chris Matthews talk for two hours straight. Today, the guy next to me at mess, used to be a columnist at the Fresno Bee, told me they flew Paul Krugman and Michael Moore out of here by chopper last night. To Pakistan, is what I hear. Some good news: Bob Shrum, Kerry's campaign consultant, is being held somewhere in the compound, too. May he rot in his cell, the idiot. I'm not considered high value, thank God. Just a run-of-the-mill lib-symp. They chuckle when I explain I'm really a centrist. My "trainer" says nobody wants to hurt me; as soon as I show I've seen The Light and can cover the news "objectively," "without bias" and "with proper appreciation for all the President has done for the nation," I can come home to you. I'm working on it, my love. But you know those character traits that made me spend most of high school in detention? They keep coming back. Like, I'm in this seminar today called "Christian Nation: How the Bible and the Constitution Are Really One and the Same." And I raise my hand and ask: "If one candidate is a practicing Catholic who carries a rosary in his pocket, and the other one is some vague evangelical who doesn't even freaking go to church on Sunday, why did the Catholic bishops order the flock to vote for the non-Catholic?" My trainer was upset with me. So tonight I have to read three Tim LaHaye novels and write an essay on why George W. Bush is the doorway to the Rapture. Have to say, these LaHaye books are crisply plotted. Got in trouble yesterday, too, during a lecture class, "Living in Fear, and Loving It." Right after the Cheney video, I asked, "How come the states where terror attacks have actually happened or been planned went big for Kerry, while the states that Osama bin Laden's never heard of, the ones with more sheep than people, went for Bush?" For that, I had to sit through a double session of Remedial NASCAR 101. Did you know, that, of the 249,982 laps possible in 781 career starts, Terry Labonte has completed more than 90 percent (226,729)? I think of you all the time, and the kids. I know I should submit and scour my brain of the horrible addiction to facts and reality-based analysis that landed me in this hellhole. If I can do that, maybe I can come home. I'll have to get a job writing obituaries or jingles or something. They've made it quite clear my days as a pundit are over. But they tell me that if I sign the Bush loyalty pledge, my pension is safe. As safe as anybody's, anyway. But, hon, there's this guerrilla voice inside my head that just won't shut up. The Boss keeps singing in my mind: No retreat, no surrender. Even &%$!#@ Kerry couldn't spoil that song for me. Sorry, babe. Vive la Resistance! When not immersed in paranoid fantasy, Chris Satullo is still (he thinks) editorial page editor of The Inquirer. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'