War Paint

Women love war paint, as my father used to call it, and that's no lie. We love to color ourselves up, our hair, our faces, lipstick, nail polish, even our clothing can be considered war paint these days. I know I have a love of bright, vibrant, even garish colors, but I resist those, for the most part. We generally color ourselves because it makes us look good, done right, it's fun, especially when we're little girls, smearing our faces and crookedly painting our nails from our mom's dresser, or to attract those people called men. Many's the time I've laid a lipsticked smile on some man, knowing the reaction I'd get. I admit it, it's fun.

These last few years though, the tables have been turned and it's men who are slathering on the war paint, mostly in the form of lies, half truths, and stories made up from the whole cloth to suit their needs and purposes. A new term was created out of this painting, swift boating, used to paint and tarnish any and every democrat who crossed the paths of the painters, mainly republicans. They grew viciously good with their paint brushes too, knowing the make up of the audience they were playing to. Those wonderful, evangelical, value voters, and soccer moms. Oh, and the Nascar dads too, lest they be forgotten.

John Kerry was painted with several brushes. His war record was questioned by those swift boaters, who themselves were mainly discredited because they had not served with Kerry. He was also painted with that religious brush, he was not catholic enough. How much catholic is catholic enough, and how do you prove that you are? Then, too, when he went wind surfing, he was painted with the money brush. John Kerry was too rich, he had married the Heinz catchup heiress, so now he was mega wealthy, and so could not understand the needs of the poor and under served in this country.

Some others? John Edwards paid $400.00 for a hair cut. He's an attractive man with nice hair. They never stopped to say that possibly many other pols do the same thing, fly their barber to them to do their hair for a shoot or something that day, and possibly for more money than that. He was painted as the Breck girl of old. Barack Obama has been painted with so many different paints it's hard to even know where to begin scraping, but the current paint brush is enough, and it's covered with black paint, or no black paint, according to the question, is Obama black enough. The tar brush, they used to call it. Hillary Clinton is being painted too, which is what led me to this piece. Of course, before it's all over there will be many more paint jobs making you wonder if you can ever get to the real layer. I started out believing some of those paint jobs until I began to examine them. The paint used on Clinton was that she was too cold, to calculating, i.e., too damned smart. Al Gore got the same paint job, being too smart and boring, and after all, who wants a smart president?

That wunderkind, Karl Rove left a parting can of paint for Clinton, which means that he will surely return to finish the paint job. The color of the can of paint he has for Hillary? Fatally Flawed. Ohhh, will it be my favorite color, crimson red, plum, fuchsia? What's on the label of that can of paint, what are the ingredients, lesbian, butch, dyke, femme Nazi? Cold, unfeeling, calculating? TOO INTELLIGENT? God forbid! Oh no, not religious enough! It's in the fine print.

Karl Rove has exited, stage right, but it's going to be very interesting what he finds when he goes shopping at RepthugDepot, what kinds of cans of paint will he find on the shelves; TarBaby Black? CrimsomLesbo Red? Madrassa Indigo? PrettyPrettyBabyBoy White? Labels. Got to read those labels you know, and check out the store those paints came from. If they came from RethugDepot throw 'em back on the deliveryman.