Life in the two (political) fairy tale kingdoms

As you prepare to tuck the children in bed for the night this week, you can share with them the latest in the never ending series of fairy tales from our two eternally warring magical kingdoms, Bluetopia and Redland. All the citizens of these two enchanted realms, from the royalty to the knights to the pompous mayors and the drudges working the fields do their utmost keep their battles raging and entertain us all.

Redland is a wondrous place, with a rich, deep history, though it has recently fallen upon some hard times. The kingdom is filled with loyal subjects who are ever alert and ready to break out their swords, axes and pitchforks to chase away the socialists and communists who lurk around every corner in their very midst, and everyone attends the Church of Ronald Reagan each Sunday without fail. In Redland, George W. Bush was a great but vastly misunderstood man who saved a nation largely full of ingrates that didn’t know what was best for them. Iraq was chock full of 9/11 bombers and stuffed to the brim with WMDs, which we’d have found if only we had invaded a few days earlier before they were all spirited away on the backs of evil unicorns to Syria, Iran or the Dark Side of the Moon. The loyal citizens of Redland are ever vigilant, protecting the rest of us from nefarious, scheming homosexuals who meet nightly to plot the overthrow of our nation through the implementation of their Top Secret Gay Agenda. The Redlanders are sad, though, because they have failed to rescue the blacks, Latinos and Asians of our country from the oppressive yoke of a social safety net.

Bluetopia is also a very fine place to live, in many ways the mirror image of Redland. (Trust me on this, as I moved there for several years following the invasion of Iraq. The restaurants are fabulous, but watch out for the cab drivers.) Their Kingdom exists largely on the sunny beaches and in the coastal resorts established next to two wonderful oceans, separated by a dark, mysterious fly-over country peopled with ill mannered, dangerous troglodytes who are jealous of their wealth, intellect and enlightened culture. In Bluetopia, George W. Bush was an evil but paradoxical figure, at once too brain damaged and inept to form coherent sentences, but still somehow managing the role of an evil genius, bent on the destruction of American civil liberties, the invasion of everyone’s privacy, the oppression of anyone who wasn’t a rich, white, heterosexual conservative, and the eventual conquest of the entire known world. (This, of course, could only be done with the help of his cunning Middle East oil baron partners and his leering, evil dark sorcerer / vizier, Darth Cheney.)

The partying has been hearty indeed in Bluetopia of late, following a major victory in which they reclaimed a relatively small wedge of the middle territory which separates the two kingdoms and retook possession (at least temporarily) of a lovely, stately mansion in the neutral Province of Columbia. But the truly odd part about this war is that there never seem to be any real casualties. Nobody is killed in battle, though they ocassionally wander back home with a blackened eye or a bruised ego. In fact, unless they happen to die of natural causes, all of the combatants seem to remain upright after each and every skirmish, coming back again and again until they eventually grow bored or flustered with the endless fighting and move to another continent.

As Patrick Edaburn pointed out yesterday, the long running battles continue to this day, much the same as they always have, but the standard players in the wars seem to have reversed their roles. Now, instead of G.W. Bush, there is a new crash test dummy being battered about between the lines of troops and his name is President Obama. In Bluetopia he is already a figure of legendary repute, rising from seemingly nowhere to save the planet for as long as his light may shine. Any attacks on his character, statements or actions are High Treason and just cause for heating up the vats of tar and ripping open the guest room pillows for the feathers they might contain. In Redland, however, the scene is quite different. Nothing the new leader can do, no matter how positive the outcome may be, can ever be credited to him. Conversely, any evil which befalls the land is laid squarely in his lap.

The two best examples of this puzzling conundrum can be found in the diverse situations of the recent Pirate Hostage Rescue and the Economic Catastrophe of the Century. In the Pirate Battle, Bluetopians are cheering the performance of their president loudly, proclaiming his swift, decisive, aggressive actions as proof positive that he is most certainly not the effeminate, limp-wristed, tea sipping (with pinky finger in full extension, of course) pantywaist his detractors declare him to be. The Redlanders, of course, grumble about the time he wasted and accuse him of grabbing all the credit from his valient military heros who effected the rescue all on their own while Obama sat on his hands dithering.

As for the Economic Catastrophe, residents of Bluetopia who railed against George W. Bush’s flagrant spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the withering loss of the bountiful surplus left behind by former Bluetopian icon Bill Clinton, are now sitting silent as the new leader piles up a debt greater than that managed by all of his predecessors combined. The Redlanders simply shake their heads in sullen rage, declaring that they had predicted this all along, if only the featherbrained chowderheads of Bluetopia had listend to them before it was too late.

In short, nothing changes but the names and the jousting field on which the charges take place. We were likely living in our own, personal fairy tales if we expected any different. But as a side note, I will give a weekend pass from Redland to our friend Ed Morrissey, who bravely risked the ire of the Redlanders by giving credit to Obama for the Pirate Hostage Rescue. Never fear, though… your citizenship will no doubt be restored in full later today when you continue your daily series of Obamateurisms.

As for me, I’m saddling up my Pegasus and riding forth to monitor the next battle from the air. I’m sure it will be a page turner.