Is It Just Me?: Or is it Nuts Out There? (2 page)
Chapter 2
Politics Has Gotten #$!@%! Nasty
If you’re involved in politics, first of all, let me say this. I feel sorry for you. Seriously. How do people manage to get up every day and do that job? I don’t get it. I just don’t see how. And it’s always been a tough business. You have to have one thick hide, I don’t care what party you are in.
And being President doesn’t cut you any slack. Not one bit. No matter what a President does, the other side is going to say, “We don’t want it.” Now, that sort of comes with the turf when you have more than one political party. It’s why guys like Stalin and Hitler didn’t need to do too much debating. Or vote-counting. Campaign spending? Not an issue. We have give and take. That’s at the heart of what’s always made our country work, I think. Your side didn’t always win, but you shook hands and moved on. It’s never been perfect, but mostly, it’s been good for the people.
But things have changed. It feels like politics today is not about what’s best for the people. Politics today seems to be about my side shoulda won—and we’re going to do everything we can do to make you look bad.
And wow, do they ever.
Once, when you heard a politician say it was time to roll up our sleeves, it meant to get down to business. Now it’s for the fight. What the hell is going on? Senators flipping people off. Congressmen heckling the President, shouting that he lies. Political negativity has become toxic.
I could never go into politics. I don’t have the patience. I would have popped that guy from South Carolina that yelled “You lie!” right there in Congress. I’m tired of the disrespect that’s being shown to the office. I’m tired of people saying, “Well, we’re not going to let our kids listen to the President of the United States.” How do you not play his address to the children? What’s the message you’re sending? Is it really that you don’t like his politics?
Hey, while we’re at it? I’m also tired of people asking him for his birth certificate. Maybe they’d also like two forms of photo ID so he can cash a check while he’s at it . . . Yeah, like they’d ever cash his check.
Presidents have always had their detractors, but come on. Was there ever this degree of pissing-on-trees acrimony around President Clinton or President Bush?
So what is it? Is it politics? Race? What is it?
Hard question. I go back and forth about what it is. I know what it sounds like.
But if I were President . . . which would never happen . . . but let’s say for these purposes here—let’s say if I
were
the President—I would say to that heckler, “I am the President of the United States. You may not like all my policies. You may not like what I stand for, but you don’t get to disrespect me. We are a civil society. We’re not Parliament, OK?”
But I’d say it an inch from his face . . . But I wouldn’t shout. Because A, I’m not a hypocrite, and B, I’m too cool to stoop.
So what’s the deal? Is it race, or a total lack of acceptance in the turnout of the election? To make matters worse, all the talking heads have been incredibly disrespectful on both sides. There’s never been a shortage of partisan goons to push everybody’s buttons, but never like this before. This feels different.
Debates that used to be about finger-pointing are all about finger-biting. Middle-aged folks are disrupting town hall meetings. Tea Party people are taking their tea bagging to the streets . . . People are scared. It’s kooky.
A few years back, when I appeared at a rally for John Kerry, I made this joke . . . I’m a comic, after all. It started this ugly storm of controversy. You may or may not remember all that, but if you do, let me ask you something. Did you ever see what I said?
No, nobody did. Because if you go back to those newspapers right after the incident, try to find what I said.
Go ahead. I want you to see if you can find what I actually said. Here’s a big hint: You won’t see it.
It was a joke about Bush. But all of the newspapers that said that I said something terrible never actually printed what I said. That drove me crazy. It made it sound worse because it was left to folks’ imaginations. They print other controversial things. There’s a way to do that. You know, whenever someone curses or is crude . . . what they do in print is put in some dots and dashes. “He’s a big old P-dot-dash-exclamation-point-Y.” That’s what you would see.
We saw it when Vice President Biden whispered his F-bomb to the president at the signing ceremony for the health care bill and he didn’t know his microphone was live. Good ol’ Joe. He’s the cool uncle who sort of has this Restless Lip Syndrome. Whether you like his politics or not, that guy always keeps things entertaining. And when he leaned in to whisper in the President’s ear, all the TV stations and the newspapers used the punctuation trick when they quoted him saying, “This is a big f***ing deal.”
Not the case with me.
No one took a moment to say, “Well, where is it? Where is the quote? What exactly did she say?” And here’s the real pisser. Even if I said something about the President, when did that become a no-no?
I’ve messed with Presidents from Reagan to Obama. Although . . . to be clear . . . I never once heckled them. And certainly not in a joint session of Congress. Puh-leeze!
Do you see there’s a difference? I comment. I skewer. I joke. That’s part of what I do as a comic. And it’s a cornerstone of America’s First Amendment rights. I mean, we’re not in Iran or China, where it is courting death. So what was the result? It became economically unfeasible to make any protest or comment. It also got very vindictive, and I got no support from Democrats who were there.
As I think about it, maybe it was the beginning of what we’re seeing more of now.
Which takes me right back to why I would never run for President. I wouldn’t. And know why? Same reason a lot of folks don’t. Or who don’t go for cabinet appointments or judgeships.
Who the hell wants to be subjected to all the prying? Ask yourself. If you had the shot, would you want all your business hanging out there like that? I hear you. Who would?
Let he who is without sin run for office, because everyone else would never pass the test. Or put up with it.
Too bad. It would be nice to have more people running our government who have lived different lives. But we’ve made it impossible for those people to step forward. There’s too much scrutiny. First your bank accounts get pawed through. Then they start pontificating about your affiliations with subversive groups. You know, like AAA and Sam’s Club. And suddenly, some distant cousin finds himself as the lead story on the news. Why? Because someone investigating you ended up discovering poor old cuz smoked pot in college. And what really upsets you is that he never shared.
And then there was that library book you checked out on—gasp!—human anatomy. Hey, judging from what most politicians are into these days, at least it was humans.
The whole process is a barrage of invasiveness. What have you done? Who did you do it with? . . . And then there’s all those forms to fill out.
Now, of course, I am not perfect. I am
really
imperfect.
That’s why I’ll never run for office. Because you have to be too clean. I am not clean. I’ve had a lot of mud. Forget the skeletons, I’ve got the mud. And, know what? I don’t want to have to explain me to anybody.
I think we’re all better off with me here on the sidelines, doing me.
Let me see . . . We’ve had the New Deal. We’ve had the Great Society. I think this era has a name too. Know what I think it is? I think it’s the Fugliness. And not because of all the bad plastic surgery out there. I call it that because politicians aren’t just ugly with each other. Now it’s whole groups of folks . . . and often, the politicians won’t come out and say who they are talking about—like Arizona. In Arizona, they keep saying “illegal aliens,” but to me, that’s ALL illegals . . . British, Italian, Greek, Africans, Chinese, Canadians . . . It’s a long list of those not here legally. So let’s find them. Make them go through the process, right? I’m down for that.
However, that’s NOT what they mean in Arizona. They mean Mexicans, so why not have the balls to say what they mean? Come out and say, “We want the right to check the papers of anyone WE think might be an illegal Mexican.” Because if they had to look at those words, they would have to look at their own BS—and see themselves the same way we see the Nazi period when they did a similar thing.
Or how about when they talk about the welfare system and they always just love to flash somebody’s picture up abusing welfare in some flamboyant way. Like folks all over the country are just sitting around drinking and partying—enjoying the good life on the dole.
Ahh . . . nothing like it.
Guess what? People on welfare generally don’t want to be there. They want to get off welfare.
But, you see, politicians like to label groups in order to manipulate public opinion to their way of thinking. And nothing gets attention faster than demonizing somebody. Put a face on the problem, but don’t leave off the devil horns! They say, “Oh, look at those people over there collecting fifteen checks and beating the system, taking money out of your pocket.” Well, yeah, there are people who are doing that. There are people who did that in the white-collar sector too. It’s not just welfare recipients that double-dip.
How about Enron, or Bernie Madoff, or any of those Wall Street bailout guys who were broke but still throwing lavish parties? Want to talk about abusing a system? The bill for the ice sculptures at those parties was higher than that junk mortgage they sold you. But we don’t feel like they’re the ones doing it to us. Somehow when talk turns to people on welfare, they’re the culprits, they’re the people who are screwing us. It’s always, “We were able to make it. Why can’t they?” . . . Which sounds a whole lot like, “I have my ice sculpture, where’s yours?”
But I think that’s probably changed a lot now since the recession. Because I think people started to see that unexpected things come up, and folks can’t be so certain where they’re going to be. And if that’s you, you want there to be a safety net in place. You want the welfare system to be there for you. The whole reason for these programs is to help when the unexpected happens—to anyone.
Like health care. I’m glad that the coverage passed. Because the truth of the matter is none of us knows when we’re going to need it. And all those folks who say, no, no, we’re never going to need it, they have to take a look at what’s going on. Who ever thought they were going to lose their job? You worked for folks and you thought you had a lifelong job with them. No more.
So because nobody knows if they themselves are going to end up needing assistance, I’d be very cautious before I insulted a whole group of people over stories you see about the bad apples taking cruises and drinking champagne in welfare hot tubs.
Like I said, there are those people, they do exist. But, come on. We all know a small percentage of frauds don’t make up the entire system. It’s like pregnancy. Pregnant teenagers don’t make up that entire picture. Black people on welfare don’t make up that entire picture. Most folks don’t realize the people who benefited most from Affirmative Action were women . . . and white women were topping the list. Why? Because they were able to go into the work force and into colleges in a way that they’d never been able to before. They are the biggest recipients of Affirmative Action—women! But when you listen to people talk about Affirmative Action, it’s all, “Oh . . . all those black kids . . . getting everything just handed to them.” So you’ve got to pay attention. ’Cause there’s a lot of information out there that is sort of semi-right but not totally.
And here’s something else. I know what I’m talking about when I talk about the value of welfare because I was on it.
And thank God for the welfare system.
It helped me through a very tough time. When I went on it, I knew I was going to get a job eventually. And when I did get on my feet, I sent the check back. Yup. I didn’t need it. I wrote a little note that I put in with it and said, “I’ve managed to get myself some work and I don’t think I’ll be needing these anymore. So please remove me from the roll.”
Many people do that, send their last checks back.
You don’t hear about that from detractors, do you? No, because detractors don’t care about the facts. That’s the saddest part about so many things. Facts no longer seem to matter. And then when the truth comes out, it’s way the hell back on page ninety with little, tiny, unreadable print.
They save the big type for the insults. Why? Because every cause needs a demon.
Look at you there. Sitting back, quietly holding this book. Know what you’re doing? You are enjoying something so rare, you might not recognize it. Know what it is?
You are having a private moment.
Is it just me, or does it seem there is no such thing as a private life anymore? Big Brother is here watching you. Except he’s doing it through his blog instead of some science fiction telescreen. Hey, forget the government. This ass-kicking our privacy is getting comes at the exact same time regular folks have lost any sense of respecting a personal boundary. Personal boundaries . . . pardon me while I get nostalgic. Ahhh . . . those were quaint times, weren’t they?
Hey, and in case you’re wondering, this isn’t some boo-hoo from some whiny celebrity. Check yourself. It doesn’t matter if you are famous or not. Not with YouTube and Facebook and Twitter and all the other things that are out there now. It’s the same for everyone. There is no privacy. And we brought this on ourselves.
Cell phones. Man, have cell phones changed the game. How? Simple. They have cameras and video on them.
Anything I do or anywhere I go, someone with a cell phone is there to take a picture or to pick up something I am overheard saying, and then it can be taken out of context. And after it happens, I’ve learned there’s no point in clarifying. People don’t want to listen.
It feels like people don’t want you at your best, they want you at your worst. That’s where we’ve been heading. I guess it makes other people feel better about their own lives.
That’s why I’m going off on this shift away from respecting boundaries. We haven’t just crossed them. We’ve crossed them, kicked dirt on them, obliterated the lines, and then let the dog come take a pee on them. They’re gone, baby, gone.
Not long ago in Manhattan, a blog did an instant posting. “Whoopi’s in the Apple store.” People showed up.
And they chased me.
I don’t like that. Does that surprise you? It lets people driving around looking for me know where I am. Or anybody who wants to do me any harm. Why do they get to do that? Why does some anonymous goofball get to print my whereabouts? It seems wrong on so many levels.
But it’s not going to change, so, all right, you make a decision to deal with it. You make it work.
Michael Jackson did that. Michael couldn’t go to an amusement park. So he built an amusement park inside his velvet prison.
We live in prisons of our own making.
Where do I get my freedom? In a book. On my couch, farting. Eating Wise Potato Chips. Not having to make any explanation to anybody about how many I’m eating or why I’m still smoking.
Home. That’s my freedom.
What is yours? I sure hope you are able to enjoy whatever it is. Because if you are not a famous person and think you are immune, think again. Anything can come back and bite you if you put it out there on Twitter.
People out there—ex-lovers, business rivals, bosses, coworkers, former schoolmates harboring a grudge you forgot about long ago—don’t always have your best interests at heart. Something you said or did—innocently, even—a long time ago on a video or in a picture can come back to haunt you.
It’s easy now for private things to be made public, and when you say or do what you feel in a public space, prepare yourself, my friend. Hear my warning. You can no longer be surprised by the result. And there’s no space more public than the Internet.
It might be cute to get drunk and take your top off in Venice. Woo-hoo, right? But if you put a picture of that out on the Web for your friends, you have no control over who else sees it—or what happens to it after you post it. Or what happens if the friends stop being friends. That put a little ice in your blood, didn’t it?
Listen, the only place you should have nude pictures of yourself is at your house. No one else should be able to look at that. Unless they come to your house and you show them. Woo-hoo.
And, heads up. If you are willing to stay in a job that you hate, and have all sorts of things to say about how bad it is and what monsters they are—sure, tell your friends. But do it privately. Don’t post it on the Internet.
Because nothing is anonymous anymore. There are no secrets anymore. And if it can come back to bite you on the ass, it will.
Now everything’s online. But no one asked me if I want my private information on the Internet.
Did they ask you?