A Georgia Riddle

Who am I? I elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate and then applauded every time he voted with Republicans. I pledged my support to improving Georgia schools but helped defeat a governor who demanded better teachers.

I support a president who gave me a war without a reason I understood, sent home dozens of young GIs in coffins after he said the war was over, allowed hundreds of thousands of jobs to be transferred overseas, bragged of a tax break that barely showed up on my pay stub and watched as the national government ran up a record deficit. I plan to vote for his re-election next year.

In past years, I voted for candidates who promised to keep “the Negro in his place” and voted against candidates who vowed to improve my economic plight, though I wallowed in poverty at the time.

I proclaim my love for the wondrous natural beauty of my state – for its great mountains, magnificent rivers and majestic marshes. Yet protecting the environment is among the lowest items on my list of public priorities.

I am opposed to sex education in public schools, yet I live in a state that has one of the nation’s highest illegitimate birth rates.

Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are my heroes. Al Franken is a big fat Communist. And he’s not funny, either.

I consistently vote against women for high office, and I am secretly proud that my state is one of the few that has never elected a woman governor.

I am a dyed-in-the-wool Georgia Bulldogs fan; I adore Athletics Director Vince Dooley and believe Coach Mark Richt may be a saint. Yet I read and write at an 8th-grade level and never attended UGA or any other college. To tell the truth, I didn’t graduate from high school.

I support the 1956 state flag, the one with the Confederate cross in the middle. I plan to vote against any legislator who voted to remove that flag. I participate in loud and raucous demonstrations to demand return of the 1956 flag to its official status. Yet I didn’t open my mouth last year when the Legislature introduced a law that would allow other folks to buy and sell the rights to Georgia’s water. I watched in silence as the politicians adopted another law that allowed lenders to legally gouge poor people.

I am in favor of closing all X-rated shops that carry films and books depicting explicit sex; yet I buy tickets to every movie involving the Matrix, the Terminator and any other purveyor of violence, mayhem and mass murder.

I am opposed to abortion under any circumstance, but I wholeheartedly favor the death penalty.

I spend four hours a day watching television and about five minutes reading a newspaper. I seldom go to church and have not visited a library since I left school.

I hate Jimmy Carter, and I’m not sure why. I think Bill Clinton is a lowdown, lying skunk, but I idolize Newt Gingrich and never understood why he resigned from Congress. I miss Newt.

I think Google is a website for watching naked girls.

I curse the traffic that becomes worse each day, but I am unalterably opposed to any new or expanded roads to relieve the traffic, especially if those roads are planned within a 100-mile radius of my home or work.

I drive a pickup truck or an SUV. I consider myself a conservationist.

I believe we ought to be able to deport any Muslim any time without having to go through a long courthouse rigmarole. I think we should suspend the Bill of Rights until we rid this nation of terrorists acts by Islamic fundamentalists. No, I do not think the same rules should apply to Baptist fundamentalists.

If I am black, I believe every public issue, no matter what, is tainted with ulterior racial motives. If I am white, I believe the same thing.

I tell my friends that Andy Young is one of our greatest and smartest African-American heroes, but I wouldn’t vote for him for dogcatcher.

I am overweight. I do not jog, eat quiche or go to gyms. Massage parlors? Maybe.

So who am I? Beats the hell out of me. I don’t know anyone like that. Do you?