PIMP YOUR CONGRESSMEMBER

There's a show on MTV called "Pimp My Ride". It's basically about how class-A mechanics turn jalopies into classic/cool cars by giving them the vehicle equivalent of a cosmetic, and mechanical makeover. This is followed by massive requests from viewers trying to show up with rides a dead person wouldn't want to be seen in, begging for their ride to be "pimped".

If you've ever had a physical makeover (new makeup, clothes, hairdo), you know how much better you feel afterwards. You look better, you get massive compliments, and you're motivated to keep on looking good. In thinking about the concept of a makeover, I've decided that the members of Congress who believe it's easier to trash the Chairman of the DNC in public for speaking the truth, or distancing themselves from him as if he is "Typhoid Mary" ("I won't have him with me on the campaign trail in Tennessee..." {a guess as to which spineless DLC member made that remark on "Imus in the Morning"}) are crying out for makeovers. As in POLITICAL MAKEOVERS.

Every time I bring up the search for any redeeming quality in such wimpy, any-way-the-wind-blows elected officials, I am continually "shot down" by the people who care about me and don't want me wasting my time on political rehabilitation for those elected officials who don't know they are in an addiction to corporate cash and business as usual inside the Beltway. They won't settle for anything less than complete obliteration of said elected official from anything in the public eye. I guess my Christian side tends to appear when I continue to hold open the door for political rehab for some of these elected officials. One can certainly say if the Al Gore we are seeing now, was the Al Gore we needed to see in 2000, he would be "President Gore" and serving his second, prosperous term in the Oval Office right now. I think when Gore had the 2000 election stolen from him, when he vanished from sight, I think he went to take personal inventory of himself; thinking about what he could have done better in order to provide voters with a clear-cut choice between him and GeeDubya. For all the mangling of the english language, his inability to know anything relevant to politics, and basically acting like a spoiled little boy, there's no way that Bush should have won in 2000 (because he was largely unknown outside the state of Texas) or in 2004 (because he had a failed economy, an unpopular war, and generally everything in America turning into a dung heap) without rigging elections or having the Supreme Court demonstrate they're a gang of partisan gulags.

So, Gore disappears and returns within two years. He's speaking and he's breathing fire! He automatically rules out running in 2004, but backs the current DNC Chair Howard Dean immediately. Where ever Gore speaks these days, he's flaming angry and doesn't mind letting you know it. He's decisive and to the point. He speaks with a conviction of the truth. He's more animated. He lays his soul open to you to see who the real Al Gore is. And that's why there's talk about encouraging him to take up the mantle in 2008 for the Democratic nomination. Because he's made himself over into a progressive Democrat; one who's not going to be afraid of offending anyone with his positions, or not being partisan, or always being willing to compromise in order to get along. He's willing to be distinct, set apart and unique from the masses.

One of the first things I remembered Gore saying in the early public speeches was the expression of regret he had for conceding the Presidency to Bush in 2000. He said he did it for the sake of the country. He also said he instructed Senators who wanted to challenge certifying the election results in Florida not to make the challenge, because he believed the nation had been held in abeyance long enough, and, because he wanted to be gracious in defeat. He now says if he'd known that his actions of concession would have resulted in putting a certifiable individual in the Oval Office, one who has us on the brink of a nuclear war, a busted economy, millions without access to health care or quality public education, and a screwed up economy, he would have fought all the way through Congress and the Supreme Court. He would have allowed a challenge to the election results in Florida. Everything would have been different.

These are the results when a person undergoes a makeover. In Gore's case, a political makeover. He's "pimped" himself as a believable progressive. The DLC has to take a walk now - he listened to them to the point of marginalizing his own Campaign Manager, Donna Brazile. And while we're on the subject of Ms. Brazile, she allowed that political makeover she underwent during the 2000 campaign to the point, that she needs another "pimping" in order to regain credibilty in the political circles going into 2006. I hope she gets it.

For those who decided to trash the DNC Chair, it may be too late for you to get "pimped" because all that dirt you have wallowed in at the corporate trough all these years, has so far removed you from reality, you need to crash and burn, before you can even entertain a political makeover. You are still drunk on the corporate cash and DLC kool-aid; wanting to continue your membership in the Kool Kids Klub (reminds you of KKK, doesn't it?) thinking that your DLC method is going to produce different results. You will need to crash and burn before you wil even entertain that you don't look good as an elected official at all - that you really need a political makeover in terms of rebuilding your character, determining your true morals and values, and in that when you open your mouth, you really are speaking for others like me, because you have been there, done that like the rest of us.

We need to "pimp" our Members of Congress. And those who resist, show them the door in 2006.