Fair And Square

In my immediate post-election mourning period, I find that I have no taste for the media's 24/7 repetition of George W. Cheat And Liar's victory speech.

To that end, I have rediscovered my cable channel's plethora of pulp.

Right now, I'm revisiting Cecille B. DeMille's Reap The Wild Wind on the American Movie Classics channel.



1942

While waiting for Paulette Goddard to shock & awe the Charleston Social types with a salty sea shanty, I zeroed in on one of her earlier lines of dialogue: "He's fair and square."

Fair And Square?

Doesn't that describe our current Democratic Party predicament to a T?

In 2000, Eddie Haskell stole the election from Wally Cleaver (aka Mr. Fair & Square).

This week, Eddie stole the election again, this time from our new & improved GI Joe version of Wally Cleaver (aka Mr. Fair & Square II).

Alas, no incarnation of our fatherly and wise TV dad, Ward Cleaver, intervened; hence, there is no final scene moral to reinforce the "Good guys always win" philosophy of the early TV era.

Sadly, we're now learning the hard way that we card carrying Democrats might as well board John Wayne's doomed ship and join Paulette Goddard's sea shanty chorus:

Heave Ho! Haul Away!
Just the same as me.
For you're just another packet rat
Aboard the Nellie B.


Fair And Square has gone down with the ship, folks.

The octopus that stole the show in Reap The Wild Wind (and hastened the John Wayne tragic hero's demise) knows instinctively that all it has to do is drag us all down to its murky depths...

... where, chances are, we either succumb to the sheer power of its tentacles or drown trying to defeat it.