Scarlet "A's" Return

You know, I can't say that I honestly believe it, but a London tabloid is reporting that the White House has told Prince Charles that his fiancee, Camilla Parker Bowles is NOT welcome there because she is a divorcee. (Uh, George? Hate to break it to you, but Charles is too...) Mitigating circumstances include "American's love of dead Princess Di" and the fact that Charles is considered a bit of a dweeb over here, but the big reason given for the decision is "to reinforce the President's stand on the sanctity of marriage."

I gotta say I'm a bit stunned on several levels. First of all, I don't give a rat's ass about Charles and Camilla (and don't want to) so the fact that the story has taken up any of my time at all is annoying. But the larger issue... As a born -in-America and still wanting-to-love-my-native-land type person, I am, of course, totally apalled. I'm amazed that the hypocrisy of this administration can sink to ever-new jaw-dropping lows. Remember that dead guy they laid out in the Capitol Rotunda last summer? (You know -- the one who ignored the AIDS crisis and let hundreds of thousands of Americans die in the '80's?) Divorced. Those bastions of the Republican party who become apoplectic about gay marriage? Divorced -- many several times over. Now a divorce is preventing some horse-faced woman from eating KFC (or whatever George and Laura serve) at the White House? So when do stocks and pillories go back up in village squares? Are we gonna have to wear those silly hats with buckles on the front? Will I ever stop feeling like I'm trapped in a never-ending episode of "The Capitol Hill-Billies?" The last few years living in America feels like that time Mom wore a robe and hair curlers when she picked you up at school -- Have we no shame?

And why did Arthur Miller have to die just when we really needed him to write "The Crucible 2?"

Of course, the other part of me - that liberal, left-wing side is absolutely thrilled. Part of me loves it when they do things like this because, being the eternal optimist, I hope that this will be the thing that finally goes too far. That maybe this will be the thing that pries American eyes off of reality-tv long enough to make them say "What the hell...?" To make it finally dawn on them that what we've been saying all along is true -- sure, they may START with trying to abolish gay rights, but their secret agenda leads right to your household pal...

I've always thought that people who drag out analogies to the rise of the Nazi party were overreacting, but the last couple of years, well, I'm just not sure anymore. We're seeing our news coverage turn into a right-wing spin machine (with the happy co-operation of our multi-mational media conglomerates) and now we're risking insulting foreign leaders (and England is about our only friend, George) because we're unhappy with their "lifestyle choices?" C'mon -- they used to let Barbara Bush visit them wearing her polyester dresses from K-Mart. Which is worse?

The pessimistic me (I'm not schizophrenic, just "multimdimensional") is afraid however, that this is yet another of those "Lucy with the football" moments. Remember the "Peanuts" comic strip? A running gag was that Lucy would promise to hold the football for Charlie Brown so he could kick it. Every time, though, just as he ran and kicked, she would whisk the football away, letting Charlie Brown fall flat on his back. Charlie Brown invariably allowed himself to be convinced over and over again that THIS time it would be different. It never was. So is Camilla just another football? Probably, I'm afraid. More than likely we'll be seeing all kinds of editorials praising Bush for his strong moral standing. But damn, that football looks tempting...