It would be nice to tell the story of Princess Caraboo without calling her a liar. A lot of people would like to believe that a former prostitute named Mary Baker was just a girl with an active imagination who got so caught up in her fantasies that she didn�t know she was lying. She�s certainly a sympathetic character, standing in for all of us boring little people and pulling a big one on the pompous, greedy upper crust. And in the end, it was the glitterati of English society themselves who pushed her to take a place among royalty.
She did lie, though. Her crown and her kingdom existed only in the fanciful stories she told, and anyone who allowed themselves to be ruled by her was only co-operating in the deception. Luckily, Caraboo--Mary Baker--was a benign fraud without any real power to hurt anyone but herself. This may not be the case with our current fraudulent ruler, �President� George W. Bush.
A lot of people would like to believe that �W� is just a dopey guy who got caught up in his family�s aristocratic mystique and sort of blundered into the Oval Office. He became a sympathetic character during his debates with Al Gore, standing in for everyone who feels put-down by uptight intellectuals. Is it really lying when he tries to posture as the majority�s �real favorite�? Isn�t he just taking his cues from the powerful people who surround him?
But it is a lie. The Presidency was stolen in the election of 2000, and the thief is Bush himself�and he knows it. If he were actually confident that he had carried all of Florida, wouldn�t he want every single vote counted so he could demonstrate his clear majority? In fact, the only reason to stop keeping score while you�re ahead is because you know you�re going to lose the game in the next inning!
Let�s look at the Bush camp�s official reason for seeking to end the election prematurely. They said the American people wanted to get it over with, as though speed of election mattered more than actually finding out who won! In reality, there was no social panic among the public. As usual, there was mostly disinterest fueled by the belief--or is it knowledge?--that the will of the average person counts for nothing in our corporate oligarchy. Those who cared enough to talk about the issue weren�t panicking; they already knew that Bill Clinton was still President and would remain so until inauguration day, plenty of time for even the slowest manual recounts. The only protests and clashes came from professional protesters hired by the Republicans (surprise, surprise) to make it look like a riot was breaking out! Next time someone complains to you about the �liberal media bias� ask them why that story disappeared from the news so fast!
In the meantime, while we were being told how dangerous it would be if we didn�t get Bush into power as quickly as possible, we went about our lives and, mostly, believed that the election system would work. And then, with all the caprice of the aristocracy recognizing Java-su as a nation, a deeply partisan Supreme Court appointed Bush to the presidency, just like that.
Maps started appearing on the news that showed counties Bush won in red and counties Gore won in blue. Vast areas of the middle of the country were red--a visual reinforcement of the �Bush won� lie. They counted on us, the general public, not to understand the deception in these maps. While the red patches on the map were bigger than the blue patches, the map was one of geographic distribution only. That is, if you have a county with only two people in it, and both vote for Bush, that whole county is red, even if it�s a massive chunk of land. If you have a county the size of a football field and it somehow has a hundred thousand registered voters in it, and they all vote for Gore, that county will be just a tiny blue dot. With most of the population of the United States concentrated around the coastlines, the huge red areas of the map only show us that Republicans tend to live in sparsely populated counties.
Princess Caraboo had her skeptics. They were mostly lower-class people who weren�t taken in by the hope that her legitimacy would bring them social standing or money. Privately the servants saw the truth behind the decorative Java-su flag and the showy displays of public chanting to the Sun. They didn�t settle for the expediency of simply assuming she was royalty--they dug until they found the truth. It�s time for the people of the United States to question the legitimacy of Bush�s presidency, or we may have to worry that writers of the future will begin essays about our era with the words, �It would be nice to tell the story of George W. Bush without calling him a thief��
