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RICH: Can I ask you something?

ME: Sure.

RICH: Do you fight a lot?

ME: No, I have actually never been in a fight. But I wrestled in high school and I’m pretty confident I could beat you. Then again, I’m fifty and have a bad back. But I think I could take you. At any rate, I just don’t want this “Democrats have sissified politics” to stand. So, I want to fight you.

RICH: Can I take a day or so to decide?

ME: Sure. Take your time. I just figured anyone who said that Democrats had sissified politics would kinda have to fight. RICH: I understand. How about if I sleep on it?

ME: Absolutely. I’ll call you tomorrow.

RICH: Okay, sure.

It was an extremely satisfying phone call. Sizing Lowry up on TV, he seemed just a tad on the wimpy side, which had only been confirmed by his reaction: terrified. I was just a decent high school wrestler, but I was convinced I could take him down, then basically punch his ears till he called “uncle.”

Later that day, I happened to tell my son, Joe, about the call. He thought it was a bad idea. “Dad, if he turns you down, he’s going to feel like a total wimp.”

“That’s the point, son. I couldn’t allow him to challenge the manhood of us Democrats.”

“Yeah, but it’s not nice. If he says he won’t do it, promise me you’ll tell him you were kidding.”

“Why?”

“It might make him feel like he’s a little more off the hook.”

“Okay, if he backs out, I’ll tell him I was kidding.”

“But if he accepts?”

“I’ll kick his ass,” I said. Frankly, I think Joe was kind of impressed.

I called Lowry the next day. As I expected, he said, “I’ve decided this is something I don’t want to do.” Then he said something about crying himself to sleep the night before, which was a joke, but, of course, he was kidding on the square. So, I did what I promised Joe, and told Lowry that I had been kidding, and then suggested we have lunch. We did and had a perfectly lovely time.

A few weeks later, Lowry was on The NewsHour. “Joe!” I shouted, “This is the guy!” Joe ran in from his room, and saw Jim Lehrer.

“Dad, he’s like seventy.”

“Not him. The guy he’s talking to.”

The shot cut to Lowry, and the moment my son saw him, Joe scoffed, “Aw, this guy? He’s a wuss.”

“Yeah, he is,” I shrugged.

Joe just shook his head and went back to his room with, if possible, even less respect for his father.

But I’ll tell you this. I’ve seen Rich Lowry on television plenty of times since then, and I think he’s dropped the whole “Democrats have feminized politics” thing. But, if he hasn’t, I’ll be glad to meet him any time in my parking garage.

39

Vast Lagoons of Pig Feces: The Bush Environmental Record

I want to draw you a word picture of a lagoon. This is not an azure lagoon trimmed with pearly beaches and wreathed with leafy palm trees, not the type of lagoon you may remember from Gilligan’s Island, where a caged lion or an Indian in a canoe might wash up just to get that week’s episode rolling. This lagoon is a rectangle the size of three football fields, lined with 40-mil high-density polyethylene and filled, to a depth of thirty feet, with pig shit.

Now imagine that, at the bottom of the lagoon, pebbles have punctured the liner, allowing the liquefied pig shit to seep under and ferment. A bubble is growing. The polyethylene liner rises like a creature from the brown lagoon. It breaks the surface, spilling a pungent stew of untreated feces and urine into a nearby creek. An undocumented Guatemalan worker is ordered to puncture the liner with a shotgun blast. Retching, he fires. The swollen liner retreats into the fetid depths. Mission accomplished.

The next day, however, one of the most magnificent sights in all of nature, a shit geyser, explodes into the afternoon sky. Those working nearby watch the pillar rise ten, then twenty, then thirty feet above the lagoon. It is as though the Earth itself is afflicted with a virulent case of projectile diarrhea.

Hold that image in your mind.

George W. Bush is the worst environmental president in our nation’s history. As you read this, his