Send In The Clowns.

One of the favorite old saws to rocket from the lips of Republicans today is "the Democrats have no plan."

This is a familiar pattern with Republicans; keep saying it and it will become true. Of course, you and I know that's impossible. Nothing becomes true with repetition. Republicans simply play on the notion that if enough people begin to hear the same thing over and over again as the story is repeated by the mainstream media, rumors and innuendo -- and outright falsities -- will take on a life of their own, effectively representing fact in the minds of the masses.

And it's worked.

Now, Bill Frist, the once-famous heart surgeon who has destroyed the very pulp of his own respectability by becoming another sickening, shrill mouthpiece for the false Republican message, is doing it again.

Democrats, he says, want to surrender in Iraq. That's right. We're chickens. A bunch of God-Damned cowards and crybabies. We're a bunch of limp-wristed sissies.

We're all Pussies, if you will.

The common response to this nonsense is to either get all charged up to the point of apoplexy, or to simply say it's not worth the energy to respond. But here's a better response before I move on to the real clown show.

Was my own hero, Paul Douglas, a pussy? Was Douglas a limp-wristed sissy, who at the age of 50, enlisted in the Marines as a buck private? Was he perhaps wearing pink ruffles (a favorite among sissies) when he earned his second Purple Heart citation by taking a burst of Japanese machine-gun fire that nearly ripped his arm off?

What's that about John F. Kerry? Shot some Vietnamese kid in the back? Prove it. Were you there? What's that about the Swift-boating? Did you have the nerve to serve two tours of duty in Vietnam? Oh, look at your cute little Purple Heart bandaid. How sweet. Wait until I introduce you to some of my VFW biker dude buddies who would like to rip your heart from your chest for suggesting that they may have earned their Purple Hearts with little bandaid scratches.

Was Max Cleland possibly wearing a dress when he dropped on top of a live grenade that was accidentally dropped, in an effort to save his buddies? It was OK for Ann Coulter to smear Cleland because, in her words, "he was on his way to drink beer" when the terrible episode unfolded. What a pussy! Why did he have to be so pissy about it and only lose an arm and two legs? Why couldn't he have just died or something?

With any luck, Ann Coulter will be on her way to finally getting laid when she is killed by a speeding aircraft or locomotive.

From today's ranks, what about all of the black military personnel from Florida and Ohio who were overseas and had to vote by absentee ballot? You know, all those voters who were purged from the voter ranks in both those states -- to the tune of tens of thousands of votes -- because of a scheme cooked up by greedy Republican operatives for Gov. Jeb Bush, and Ohio Sec'y of State Ken Blackwell? What about them? Are they pussies?

And where Hastert, Fristy, and Rove, and the outrageous statements they have made for the public record of late:

Hastert: "we must steel our resolve..."
Frist: "we must not surrender..."
Rove: "Democrats ... will not be with you in the last, tough battles..."

There can only be one response to this, and it's a pretty simple question.

You have got to be fucking kidding me, right? Where were these three "gentlemen" when real bullets in real battles were tearing off limbs of boys they knew in real life? Hiding. They were pussies. And so was our President.

And so was Dick "Dick" Cheney, who was apparently un-muzzled again this past weekend, giving Democrats another pound of his heart-choking fat to throw on the raging fire he has created in the Middle East.

For while the real business of politicians is increasingly becoming too much work for them to do (even on an annual basis, since the Senate now wants two-year appropriations packages), these little pussies are making up comic adventures and smearing the names and creed of anyone who dares to get in their way.

Instead of meaningful energy reform that creates jobs by challenging the automotive industry to increase fuel efficiency standards every single year; instead of meaningful economic packages that reward companies who do right by their shareholders and employees, we have companies defaulting on the pensions of their 30-year veterans, who will retire on Social Security and a pittance.

Instead of infrastructure improvements at home, guys like Denny "J. Dennis" Hastert simply go to Washington as the hired shill for their monied cronies, and lard on pork that destroys thousands of acres of farmland and paves over historic properties, creating new, unnecessary roads. And all the while, the existing roadways suffer. And on other days, they simply do the bidding of the White House, because that's what the Republican party does. They never step out of line. Never.

Instead of even attempting to get to the bottom of billions in Pentagon waste, in the inexplicable disappearance of $9 billion by Paul Bremer, the billions wasted by FEMA and Homeland Security in the wake of Katrina, your government, with your money, pushes pins in the voodoo dolls of its adversaries, and claims "the other side" just doesn't get it.

And instead of doing what they commonly refer to as "the hard work of governing," this Republican party has, en masse, become the fucking Clown Show of the Century.