A hard case resists a makeover for the new age

[R.A. Hettinga]

<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 at 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'