Dear Mrs. Vera,
How will we ever do without Michele Bachmann in Congress? Does her time there really need to end? Fondest regards… and PS: you are my favorite Autumn! I can totally see you in this pale persimmon silk blouse with cream-colored Peter Pan collar under a pale, not too minty green/nut-brown pin-striped pencil skirt business suit ensemble, and I’m thinking: Jimmy Choos for you, I am!
Mrs. Marcia Fosterton-Pacman,
Sweetloafer, MN
Mrs. Vera Newman,
San Francisco, California.
Photo: M. Johnstone.
Dear Bride of Bachmannenstein,
Let’s all take a deep breath, stop chewing on the curtains fretfully, and calmly tell ourselves the following truth in a gentle and comforting way: This great tragedy, which endangers the rosy future of our struggling nation, though probably not the bleak present, will not destroy us. In fact, everyone would be pretty surprised if it didn’t make us a lot stronger, starting the day after she leaves office.
The lost, misplaced or stolen America that we all love and miss will, of course, endure, and of there is always the off chance that it might actually turn up, at last, either in her gym locker or maybe under her chair, like a wad of used-up gum, when Congress’s recess bell rings again throughout the land, like a schizophrenic coo-coo clock (after any three days of “work” it punches in for, or in the middle of the night on K street). It’s always in the last place you look, Ha-ha.
I’ll assume that the “we” in your question isn’t the “royal” kind of wee, for though not uncompassionate to the plight of fools, suffering easily, I do not myself suffer them breezily, not when self-indulgent, selfish self-pity blinds the solemn quitters with teary eyes of self-importance. We may be tempted to worry that without her keen face and pretty legislation, so full of judgmental condemnation and hypocrisy, and free from factual basis, and that seldom, if ever, passes, Congress may not recognize itself. We can only hope the voters will detect the continuity between her failures, once she is gone, and what everyone still stuck in congress waiting for the lobbyist job market to open up a bit is still doing whenever they still bother to show up for work, and that those voters, in turn, bother to show up and do their own work at the ballot box, whenever they are allowed the opportunity.
One of the people certain to benefit from her being around the house more, a lot more, will of course be her happy spouse, Mr. Marcus Bachmann, a politics widow whose tears will be of real joy, and should not be mistaken for the sweat flying from his brow as he sees the health benefits of slimming down from being chased all over the conjugal master bedroom suite (which is done mostly tastefully in acres of pale blue satin – blue is for boys, with simply oodles of antique Willowware™ accent pieces tossed everywhere), the two lovebirds jogging round and round the room’s fabulous ornately carved princess canopy bed shaped like an elephant. Both friends and detractors alike wish both plain, old regular Citizens Bachmann the happy, satisfying return to the normal life she so shrilly insisted be inflicted on all Americans whether they wanted it or not. I, for one, look forward to her spending much, much more time at home with her twenty eight children and multi-million dollar government subsidies, happily re-familiarizing herself with the tax code, which she, apparently, has a degree in, which is kind of cute, because she likes to tell how Marcus made her get it, so she did, as a good subservient Christian lady should. Aren’t they and their super-huge family just adorable and not weird in any way? Good luck and good ridd… – gumdrops, I say.
But much more important than the effects of Michele Bachmann’s departure upon herself and the people who are going to have to listen to that all day long, now, are the opportunities that open up in her highly-anticipated and eagerly-attended Congressional wake. It is, all will admit, a breathtakingly enormous void to fill. Anything, I guess, would be better. Actually, even nothing would be better, so her disappearance from public life, whenever it happens, is a win-win already.
Naturally, like-“minded” people will not be so happy to see the champion of their many intolerances, both vague and highly targeted, go, but the Tea Party Einsteins out there will have no trouble seizing the moment, when someone tells them to have it occur to them that the reason for Bachmann’s failure was that she simply was not ideoillogically inclined enough for them, and that their only hope is to embrace an even more extreme slate of candidates with which to plan their fear-based, dystopian future on the back of napkins in a Denny’s with. With dead-weight middle-ground seeking compromisers like Bachmann finally out of the picture, the real grass roots of the Tea Party can show themselves, perhaps finally revealing that they are chloroplastian invaders from the plant planet Lawnmowerius 7, whose beloved Emperor is made out of Tetley tea, Wicker, Morning Glory Vines and, um, I’m guess I’ll go with “background checks.” Or perhaps not.
We can look forward to close races between moderate Democrats indistinguishable from moderate Republicans from 30 years ago, when there were nice ones who weren’t dicks about everything and still had independent thought as an option, who weakly contest strong, loud Tea Party cry-baby candidates they hope can somehow replace the legendary expertise of Ms. Bachmann, such as this toilet brush with GooGleY eYeS glued on the handle, or some foreign affairs experts who don’t know what Continent of Europe the Libya part of France lives in, plus a wealth of Angry, Angry, Angry rich guys who can totally do Hispanics , Coloreds, Orientals, chicks, you name it, whatever it takes, they’ll say it like they pretend to mean it. But, of course, not the Gays!, No, never the Gays. They’ll just write those votes off, don’t need ‘em, don’t want ‘em, and proud of it. Screw them, their friends, their kids, those neutral about the issue, and the country they live in.
The new face of Post-Bachmania likely won’t even have a face at all, because brains can receive information through the various sense-holes that dot the head. Many potential candidates will have their eyes and ears removed to win their primary races, and in the Deep South, where per capita government spending is at its highest, we can look forward to politicians without any heads at all, who have elected to campaign in total silence, all the better to keep the liberal media from twisting their words by quoting them or recording them. This lack of anything to hang their face on will pay off handsomely whenever a body that looks like theirs is caught on a gaycation with a meth-weekend boyfriend or subordinate staffer. Donald Trump, in fact, the instant he heard Ms. Bachmann graciously accept her place as history, had his arms and legs and head all sewed down together onto his body to better resemble a big flesh ball, one covered entirely by Creamsicle™-colored toupees so he could be perceived as an electable patriotic, old-timey western tumbleweed, before announcing his intention to buy Arizona and run for President of Congress there.
Karl Rove has been reaching out to Americans who just have super good names, or look like the pictures of things Tea Party Types want, to recruit to run for office, people like muffler salesman Rodchild “Shakey” Longfinger Accusowitz of Quaking Rage Bend, Ohio, or Private Equity Magnate Ms. Victimoria Gunclench from Notbama, OK and, alright, one more, migrating mansion development expert Girlexicablack Sharesconcerns from Borderurbanpony Coast Trail Commune, CA. Mr. Rove has been bringing with him to the Sunday talk shows a person whose head looks like a bald eagle sitting in a bucket of barbecue and whose arms and legs are semiautomatic AK47 rifles that shoot crosses, and the current senior senator from Mississippi is a delicious plate of spaghetti and meatballs on the floor of the front porch that the dog is eating.
Thanks to this kind of leadership we can be grateful that, in short order, the dog, at least, will have a job to do on the neighbor’s lawn soon enough, and, hopefully when no one is looking. Jobs, Jobs, Jobs.
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Mrs. Vera Newman is a San Francisco absurdist character, humorist, artist, writer, community organizer, clothes horse and co-founder, with Mister Tina, of The Verasphere. She has been answering the unasked questions she receives from the lonely, empty rooms of America’s heart-shaped circulatory pump room ever since it began beating. Nestled in the politically bent bowels of the Nation since she was a young girl babysitting the very same newborn Nation, her ability to self-reflect about anyone else’s embarrassing shortcomings, inept fumblings or lousy recipes has enabled her invisible rise as a modern-day Cassandra, whatever that means. Feel free to dispose of all your worries by leaving them on her doorstep!
