COLUMN Holt's Harangue

Author: Christian Holt

The great thing about an opinion column is you get to voice your own views. The great thing about having a humor column is that people generally don't take your opinions seriously. The following views are those of a satirist, not a Democrat or Republican. With that in mind, I would like to address the national elections.
I did not honestly foresee the Republicans winning Vermont. But we all must accept that the Republicans, even in the most liberal state of America, destroyed the Democrats like a chainsaw through a young sapling.
Maybe I'm exaggerating here. After all, the incumbent for House won, and he's an independent. Several Democrats were elected to the State Senate and State House. So the Republicans didn't really crush the Democrats in Vermont. They just mopped the floor with them all over the rest of the country.
For the first time since oh, I don't know when, the Republicans didn't lose seats in the midterm elections, and gained control of both the House and Senate. With Bush at the helm, and a Congress supporting him, the Republicans now dominate two- thirds of the government branches. What does this mean, to John Q Public, the average American?
Who cares! I'm not him; I'm Chris Holt, Middlebury student. And I'm not, repeat not, going to complain about the Republicans winning big here. After all, it's not like this stuff will affect me, right? I mean, here at Midd, I'm safe and sound from all that confusing stuff on CNN.
And heck, what's bad about this whole war thing? I'm sure that Bush will stop after taking down Saddam. There is no reason for him to take on oh, I don't know, North Korea or China next. Just because North Korea broke a treaty and now has the bomb doesn't mean we'd classify them as a "threat." Nah, we wouldn't think of them as hostile. And even if we did, Bush wouldn't want to target them. I mean, they're over there, like near Vietnam, way on the other side of the planet.
If we did send troops over there, I'm sure the war would be clean and quick, just like Kosovo. I'm almost positive the Chinese would not intervene on behalf of the North Koreans, plunging us into a world war. The Chinese can't have that big an army, could they? Bush wouldn't then declare a draft, including college bound males? I'm sure, if that happens, my draft number has got to be pretty high.
And there's always Canada to flee to.
But I love America, and I'm sure we, the people of America, would never do something as foolish as give a man absolute power to do any thing he wants. It's not like the Senate and the House will pass anything he proposes, simply because voting against the war on terror would lose their re-election campaigns faster than Rosie O'Donnell could eat a Ho-Ho. Naw, that could never happen. I'm sure Bush realizes that the world, and even the United States, isn't completely into this whole war thing.
(Real Bush Quotes):
"Republicans and Democrats in Congress are strongly supporting our war against terror."
"The world has now come together to say that the outlaw regime in Iraq will not be permitted to build or possess chemical, biological or nuclear weapons."
Oh, crap.