The first year of Just Thinking columns:
12/30/02
The Ballad of Lott
The Grand Ol’ Party’s victory
had hardly lost its echo,
and liberals’ scattered corps fled left,
too proud were they to let go.
The libertarians cried out
that theirs should be the guiding will;
be minor margins what they may,
conservatives held the power still.Hi-de-yi-dee, yo-me-bro.
Domestic issues come and go.Into this roiling sea of yawns,
to which there was an angry tone,
with those who urged a blindward leap
and others for leaving fine alone,
the leader splashed, a coiffed buffoon,
who, in among a joking lot,
spoke words that, though he thought them light,
would spell the end of Chester Lott.Pax-a-dixie, trix-a-deed.
Such a man just cannot lead.“If we’d been joined in raising Strom,
this once-heroic Dixiecrat,
we wouldn’t have these problems now.”
The words were spoken; that was that.
The murmurs on the Internet,
soon spread to those with louder calls
and to the Hill and White House, too.
Thus from fonts come crashing falls.Hi-de-yi-dee, yo-me-bro.
Trent insists that he won’t go.Trent, he sent, with cowering bent,
apologies when from him rent.
Still, the swill, with coffers to fill,
would stain him at the top of the Hill.
Rake! Forsake, for your own sake,
the progress your party might make?
Frist, insist the caucus is pissed
and wants its spokesman to desist.Some say in the empty halls
of Congress, when the wind is tame,
one can hear the sighed lament
of Trent for cheers that never came.
And soon, with wars of more than words,
history will forget his song,
but leftward bards will carry refrains,
and hope more than Daschle sing along.Pax-a-dixie, trix-a-deed.
The leader proved he could not lead.
Hi-de-yi-dee, yo-me-bro.
That’s why Trent Lott had to go.
12/23/02 From Raking Leaves to Caroling (Life)
12/16/02 Handling with Resignation (Society)
12/09/02 A Cold Consolation (Life)
12/02/02 The Beauty of Thanksgiving (Government)
11/25/02 Meetings on the Road, IV: Diverse Desires (Poetry)
11/18/02 The Loose Leg of Western Society’s Table (Religion)
11/11/02 Knickknacks, Souvenirs, and Bylines (Life)
11/04/02 Voting: Finally Becoming an Urgent Cause (Government)
10/28/02 Freedom to Mourn; Freedom to Be Warned (Religion)
10/21/02 The Writer’s Autumn Leaves (Life)
10/14/02 Seasoning the Balance (Life)
10/07/02 Fundamentalism by Any Other Name (Religion)
Archives back to 10/29/01