Column:

Wayne fit as a GOP mascot

By Dan Friesen

Published Feb. 28, 2006

Extended metaphors can be tricky. When you write a 600-word column based on one, as our esteemed Henry Atkinson attempted to do, it is crucial to make the metaphor watertight.

Full disclosure: I'm not a member of any group aligned with a political party of any stripe. Politics is a misguided fascination. I read the newspaper because I like to laugh at the ugliness that parades as reality these days.

Republicans are idiots in how they pander to the religious nuts in this country. They also seem to have an "encroaching civil liberties" streak, or at least a "position ourselves to possibly encroach upon civil liberties" streak. I'm not a fan of this. They are idiots for opposing the morning-after pill, sex education that teaches methods other than abstinence and this new genital warts vaccine that could eliminate cervical cancer in women. If you can find any argument for these positions that doesn't eventually go back to "my God said so" or "I don't want people getting laid without consequences," I would love to hear it.

Granted, Democrats are douche bags as well. I think the ACLU goes a little too far sometimes. Democrats are a bit obsessed with catching President Bush in a scandal. They would love to catch Bush lying about something and impeach him. To be fair, that seems like a "turnabout is fair play" situation. The only time Bill Clinton lied about someone getting shot in the face, the victim wasn't sprayed with buckshot. Oh, no, it was semen.

All things considered, I would rather line up with the Democrats if I had to choose. Thankfully, I live in America. Therefore, I don't have to choose.

Now, to tear apart Atkinson's really shitty metaphor. Clearly, the point of the metaphor was to denigrate Democrats and glorify Republicans. Let's see why that doesn't work.

First, Woody Allen is accused of moral relativism as a bad thing. Let's try to rationalize that by approving of Bush. Torture is bad, but it is OK relative to the good of stopping terrorism. Spying is bad, but again, we've got to stop terror.

Who cares if Allen doesn't believe in God? Is Atkinson seriously trying to claim that religion is a uniquely Republican phenomenon? Plus, how is atheism a negative? I thought the United States had a few years left before it became a theocracy. OK, Allen's matrimonial choices have been sketchy, but he and "the Duke" — you might know him as John Wayne — have both been married three times. The Duke's last two marriages were to women 19 and 21 years younger than him. These pale in comparison to Woody's 35-year age difference, but they are still pretty sizable differences.

It seems unfair to compare Allen's personal life with the character Wayne played in the moving pictures. Let's take a closer look at Wayne. My esteemed co-columnist claims Wayne was not a racist. Now, I didn't know the guy, but I did read a quote from him saying he "believed in white supremacy until blacks were educated enough to take on a more prominent role in American society," without a hint of humor. That was from the May 1971 issue of Playboy, a magazine that calls into question his "not sexist" credentials.

Plus, did you ever see "The Conqueror"? That movie was slightly racist. Oh, yeah, Wayne was also a notoriously violent alcoholic. He once punched Frank Sinatra's bodyguard because the singer was making too much noise in his hotel room. Wayne also was quoted as asking for a fifth of bourbon as payment for playing a role on "The Beverly Hillbillies."

If you want a violent, alcoholic, self-proclaimed racist as the Republican mascot, take him.