A NEW "SECRET PLAN"

Many Americans remember Richard Nixon's campaign of 1968, a campaign which officially kicked off the Republican "Southern Strategy," a strategy under which Republicans would court angry white male (and female) Southern voters by using code words such as "law and order" to remind these voters how much they (the Nixonians and the voters) hated blacks. (By the way, Ken Mehlman, RNC Chairman, recently apologized for this strategy, even though he did not say when it ended. That's because it hasn'! Can't apologize for something you're still doing, Kenny Boy!)

One element of Nixon's campaign that proved particularly attractive-and I do not see how - was declaration - made a few months before the end of the campaign - that he had a "secret plan" to end the Vietnam War. He provided no details of this plan. Nor was he apparently questioned as to the details. Voters apparently, though, bought this garbage (can you imagine this working today? If John Kerry said, in 2004, that he had a secret plan to end the Iraq War, Foamies and Friends would have blared, for hours on end, "Yeah - cut and run!!!," until the nation literally vomited its ears out from the sickness that sets in when overrepition infects).

Republicans, though, it seems, still seem to be given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to announcing "secret plans" to win wars. Their strategy for announcing such plans has changed somewhat - they no longer call the secret plan a secret plan - but the idea remains the same - an out-of-left-field idea no one would have expected made close to an election proposed to end a war everyone is sick of.

In the latest iteration, the Republicans have actually revealed the "secret" of their secret plan, and it is a doozy. The Shias must be quaking in their camel shit. The Sunnis must be starting to get all loony. The Kurds must be starting to turn into a mass of quivering turds.

And now, the plan:

Yesterday the House passed a half-a-trillion dollars Pentagon spending bill that included a provision that would allow chaplains to pray in the name of Jesus at official military ceremonies. This measure was backed by religious conservatives and designed to gut Air Force and Navy rules that insisted on nonsectarian prayers at public military meetings.

Under these rules, Christian chaplains were free to invoke Jesus at voluntary gatherings--say, a prayer service. But they had to stick to a nonsectarian script at mandatory assemblies that might include servicemen and servicewomen of various faiths (or non-faiths). But fundamentalists apparently believe there is nothing wrong with forcing a member of the armed forces to listen to a prayer that may be at odds with his or her own faith. And they have prevailed in the GOP-controlled House.

The Republicans in the House rules committee even shot down a Democratic amendment that stated that chaplains should display "sensitivity, respect and tolerance for all faiths." Yes, we wouldn't tolerant, sensitive and respectful chaplains ministering to the needs of those Americans stuck in Iraq. No doubt, that would piss off Jesus.

By the way, this act of "shooting down" is the closest act resembling participation in actual warfare a Republican will ever commit. I am SO glad that this secret plan has been offered, and I do hope that it passes. Because, as we all know, our military's strength lies in its intolerance and in its silencing of opposing points of view and its raping and pillaging of the Constitution. This strength, after all, is how we have been able to win Sunnis and influence Shias, and why we are winning the war so splendidly!

So, without further ado, I say, Onward, Christian soldiers!

(By the way, though, Who Would Jesus backdoor draft?)