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forum,n. A public meeting place for
open discussion.
Therefore, you'd expect discussion at
a candidates' forum hosted by a Republican women's club in an
economically cleansed sector of Mobile. Unless you'd noticed
how the invasion and occupation of Iraq had become liberation.
How the installation of a puppet government manipulated by the
conquerors constituted freedom and democracy. How the decimation
of the populace was sanitized into collateral damage.
Then you'd expect a beauty
pageant rather than the advertised forum.
But you might go anyway, hoping
for a flub that would allow a question and conversation with
those claiming to represent us. A phone call in advance gleaned
nothing about which candidates would attend.
If congressman Jo Bonner, running
for reelection in a compulsively Republican district, appeared,
I had a question for him. If not, I would put it to the local
candidates.
It sprang from the recent reports
on a careful study across Iraq comparing death rates before W's
attack and since:
A statistically sound survey
has found that about 655,000 Iraqis have died as an ongoing result
of the March, 2003 invasion. Why do you continue to support
George Bush in the continuation of this slaughter?
* * *
As I followed the FORUM signs
toward the meeting room, Jo Bonner eased into the parking lot.
Was this Divine Intervention on my behalf?
No. Others had already corralled
the Higher Powers. The elegant, sprightly woman presiding opened
with devotional remarks on the sanctified Republican party, followed
by a prayer in the same spirit, followed by the pledge of allegiance,
wrapped up by further devotional remarks. The cumulative effect
was to weave the party, America, God, conservatism, family, traditional
values, president Bush, Jesus, and patriotism into one radiant
canopy spreading over the crowd and outward.
She introduced congressman
Bonner to speak first, and he oozed in the same vein. The world
he sketched contained no wars in the Middle East, no nuclear
chicken games in Asia, no mammoth budget deficits in DC, no poverty,
no racism, nobody still homeless in the Katrina zone or on the
streets of Mobile, nobody without health insurance, no global
warming or any other assaults on life's support systems.
And this cheerful world will
stay that way if everyone votes a straight Republican ticket.
Nods and smiles all around. Applause followed him toward the
door.
Wait, wait! Come back, Jo!
This is a forum. I have a question. That's what I was thinking.
Saying it would mark me as someone to shun when the locals spoke.
* *
*
It happened that a candidate
for state senate is a friend of many years, and we happened to
sit together. So I grumbled to him about Bonner ducking out
without taking questions, and he said I could ask him one. But,
knowing me, when his turn came he talked, and talked, and talked,
then sat down.
"You were supposed to
call on me for a question," I said.
"I ran out of time,"
he replied with a wink.
* * *
The other candidates for the
legislature, sheriff, school board, and whatnot all did the same.
Praised the party, extolled conservative values and virtue,
flattered the crowd, basked in its adulation, and invited no
questions or discussion.
One even proved, inadvertently,
that madame chairman could not have ruled my question out of
order as irrelevant to local races. Although running for juvenile
court judge, he slipped the Middle East into his spiel about
his qualifications for the judgeship. His roots are Lebanese,
and he took care to tell the receptive crowd that his Christian
extended family remaining in Lebanon is being persecuted by Muslims.
He didn't tarry over any distinguishing
terms like radical Muslims or Islamo-fascists that would leave
some Muslims untarnished. I am a Christian, you are Christians,
Muslims are the enemy, vote for me. That was his message.
* *
*
A candidate for the school
board provided the comic relief for these proceedings. He didn't
speak; he performed, in the accents and manner of Mayberry.
But he wasn't acting. That's him. I wouldn't have been surprised
if he'd dragged Opie onstage to display a typical student. But
he did bring a large pumpkin as a prop-something about seeds,
nurturing, growth. No dreary educational policy speech from
him. It was highly entertaining and the audience was charmed.
My question, too, would have
enlivened the event, though in a different way.
* *
*
As the forumless forum expired,
my friend the state senate candidate suggested that I could pose
the question individually at the meet-and-greet around the snack
bar. Rather than pester stragglers, I just snagged a bottle
of water and departed.
Chugalugging down the road,
I saw that the bottle doubles as a campaign trinket. The label
says JO BONNER - U.S. CONGRESS.
My first impulse was to treat
it like he had treated my desire to ask him a question. Chuck
it. Why would I want to keep something advertising him? But
suddenly I realized it might have some use.
Several years ago a bottle
brought a flickering gleam of fame to a dim lieutenant governor
in Montgomery. His title made him the presiding officer of the
senate, where a testy partisan spat obliged him to man his post
through extended wrangling. He feared that if he left even for
a weewee break, he would lose control of the chamber.
So he brought a bottle to use
behind the rostrum when nature insisted, which it did, which
could not be completely concealed. And he became a nationwide
celebrity, briefly.
I'm not seeking fame, but at
least my car is now equipped with an emergency bottle, courtesy
of Jo Bonner.
David Underhill is an occasional voter in Mobile,
Alabama Mobile, Alabama. He can be reached at drunderhill@yahoo.com.
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