By RON SCOTT SMITH
Paco Bell was elected mayor of Florissant, Colorado last week, perhaps a good omen of things to come in November for the Democrats. You see, Paco Bell is a donkey. The good folks of this small town in the Rockies, probably having had enough of humans in high office, voted Paco into a second term. “This is good and rural,” said Sheriff Kevin Dougherty, as he swore in the mule. ————————— Good and rural alright, like down in Niceville, Florida, where President Bush was shoring up his support base Tuesday. There, like in Florissant, they would appear to lean strongly towards giving the incumbent a second term, even if he is human, certainly not a donkey. Let it be known that the good folks from Niceville hold Bush in a much more exalted position than any donkey could possibly achieve. Gary Walby, a retired jeweler, may have spoken for most of them when he said, “This is the very first time I have felt that God was in the White House.” The President of the United States returned the compliment, saying, “You know you’re in good country when you got a guy holding a sign up, saying ‘Bubbas for Bush.’ “ ————————— Let’s hope the bubbas for Bush from Niceville didn’t hear a statement the President made last week at a signing ceremony for the bill that appropriates another $417 billion in military spending. He told those assembled in the Pentagon, “Our enemies are resourceful and innovative and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people and neither do we.” Is he losing it? But Niceville remains faithful, preferring to focus instead on reflective, repentant statements like the one he made to the Unity Convention of minority reporters days earlier. “I wish I wasn’t the war president,” he lamented. “Who in heck wants to be a war president? I don’t.” Well then, don’t. ————————— A letter-writer to the SMDP, Eric Cooper, said Saturday, “Love him or hate him at least you know where Bush stands on issues.” I had been conducting a scientific page four public opinion survey at the time, asking ardent Bush supporters to “identify the best thing this President has done in his four years,” and Cooper’s statement was a common thread. Granted, in Santa Monica there are not throngs of ardent Bush supporters, but I managed to get to all nine of them, and to the man, their first response was similar to that of Cooper. “He does what he says he’ll do,” most of them would add. They’re hard-pressed to identify a significant accomplishment, but it doesn’t seem to matter much. If he says he’ll do it, he does it, and that’s what counts. ————————— He did say he would conquer Iraq and then turn it back over to the Iraqis and that he did. A thousand American deaths and a couple hundred billion dollars later, he did what he said he’d do. It is with their permission now that we occupy their nation with our 150,000 troops. And it is with their permission that we prepare to mount another all-out assault on natives, this time in the holy city of Najaf. He said he would institute western-style democracy by holding free elections in January, and this is where doing what he says he’ll do could get a little sticky. Will a democracy that would elect someone like radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to rule the country be allowed? Would Bush, if reelected, stay true to his word even then, do what he said he’d do, and allow freedom to truly reign? Maybe then, we could begin getting out of there? With Saddam out of the picture, with no murderous mass weapons threatening, the real danger is the danger created by the continued occupation of a foreign army in a fiercely proud ancient land. ————————— Normally, we don’t do local in this space, preferring to comment on the mules of Florisstan, the bubbas of Niceville and the like, leaving it up to Bauer and the boys to solve Santa Monica’s problems on other days. But this one cannot go unmentioned. The Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce should be embarrassed for sending out a glossy, full-color political mailer with pictures of presumed homeless people in despair, sitting on park lawns, heads bowed, belongings at their side. Screaming across the images in bold red ink are the words, “This is Santa Monica.” Yes, the “this” was underlined for emphasis. Now This may well be the Santa Monica the Chamber fixates on, but many of us have a different image of this town and support the efforts of those who seek a real solution, while offering a helping hand or a bite to eat or a patch of grass to those who have fallen. What exactly is the solution the CC would come forth with to solve this most complex problem of our age? Let’s hear it. Round them up and dump them one step over the city limit? Jail them? Starve them? Using images of people in pain to create a political divide in this community as elections draw near is nothing short of shameful. As the mailer proclaims in bold red type, “Santa Monica deserves better.” (Ron Scott Smith deserves an email. Reach him at).
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 12, 2004. Read the original PDF.