Reasons to vote Republican

As the 2006 elections approach, I'm reminding myself of why voters keep returning Republicans to office. A list of obvious reasons made the rounds a couple of years ago. I don't know its author, but one of the many online sources is Extremely Smart Humor.

Here are the things you are required to believe to be a Republican today:

1. Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush's daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him, and a bad guy when Bush wanted an excuse to invade Iraq and hand its oil fields over to Halliburton, even though his daddy had written in a book that trying to overthrow Saddam would be a bad, bad, bad idea.


2. The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches while (a) slashing veterans' benefits and combat pay and (b) inviting into the military high school students who before 2004 were considered too short, too unwell, too stupid, too fat, too lazy, or too gay to be soldiers, and telling the fat ones they won't have to exercise or eat less.


3. A president lying about an extramarital affair is an impeachable offense, but a president lying to drum up support for a war in which thousands die — including well over 100,000 innocent civilians — is solid defense policy.


4. Having the top one percent of Americans become even more wealthy while more than 4.1 million Americans slip into poverty is a huge success for Bush economic policies.


5. Jesus loves you — and Jesus hates homosexuals, Hillary Clinton, liberals, uppity women, uppity blacks, uppity hispanics, uppity orientals, immigrants, and everyone else you hate and/or fear.

For points 6-19, see Republican dogma.