Inevitability: John McCain, Hurricanes, & Rape

It's August in America, during an election year, which for a homegrown Southerner brings to mind hurricane season and old white men helming their mastery of the universe with the confidence that comes only to those whose supremacy has never been challenged. The only difference this year being that the old white man at the forefront of public thought, John McCain, has been treated widely as an afterthought by the bulk of voters in this country, far more interested in seeing who would come out on top between a white woman and a black man. The weather persists in normalcy, however, with hurricane Fay about to boomerang and bitch slap Northeast Florida, where my family resides. In other fun news, honor killings in the middle east, murdering a raped female family member for having dishonored her kin, are all the rage, if they ever went out of style in the first place. Honor killings are a little like Chanel No. 5, good for parties with a certain dress code and able to lend said party with a sense of occasion. Timeless.

But we've forgotten about poor John McCain again, and he's having a rough summer. Barack Obama got to go on a big trip, and John only got to go to Pennsylvania, which may be the keystone state, but it still isn't as cool as having an "Ich ben Berliner" redux moment in front of thousands of Europeans who are screaming at you because they're happy to see you. He also had to admit that he didn't know how to use email, which, in this day and age, 'nuff said. My blind, incontinent shar-pei knows how to use email. In fact, I think she has a blogspot.

But perhaps the lamest moment came back in June he had to cancel a fundraiser that was being held for him by a supportive Texan named Clayton Williams after a soundbite came to light from 1990, in which Williams joked that rape was like bad weather, saying "as long as it's inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it." In a time when a growing number of people find rape jokes tasteless, this did not go over well, and being the brilliant surveyor of a national room's temperature, McCain postponed receiving money from Williams publicly and had his spokesman Brian Rogers condemn the joke as being "incredibly offensive."

Well done, John! When I think of the forerunners of women's rights, I think of you. When I read reports that you once blew up at your wife, who teased you in front of a reporter, and said "At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt," I think, that's the man I want in charge of my abortion policies, a profane grand-toddler with a short fuse.

But, you did react appropriately with the Clayton Williams situation, so perhaps you do have a sense of what women do and do not deserve. Perhaps that's why, in 1986 during a run for Senate, you made a little joke to win us over to your side:
"Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, ‘Where is that marvelous ape?'"

It's like you've been reading my diary, John. Or maybe you just enjoy the imagery of a silverback screwing a blond. How much younger is Cindy, John?

John, John, John. I don't mean to judge. If I claimed to have never cracked a rape joke I'd be a filthy liar. I know I've said more than a few times, "Rape is not funny, unless you're raping a clown," and God knows I'm a fan of clergy-molestation humor. But here's the thing John, no one is committing honor killings against raped white men from Arizona, who, indeed, have a low incidence of being raped by human or gorilla. Unless there's something that happened when you were a POW that you don't feel like sharing, I'd maybe back off on a subject where you really have no currency.

I sympathize with John McCain, as I sympathize with all dementia stricken seniors, those left in the wake of a natural disaster, or someone violated against their will. And perhaps it feels as though he is currently in the eye of a generational, national hurri-rape. The old white man, for the first time in US history, is not the given choice in an election, nor seen as the voice of reason by the majority. This must feel to John McCain as though the natural order of things, as it walks home in the rain, has been pulled into an alley only to be nailed against a dumpster. It must feel like everything he knows to be good and true is being violently split and spit on. It must be a terror he may never get over, at least not for years and years, and he'll probably die in the next few, spending them ensconced in a house with boarded up windows as he listens to the storm of change outside.

Well, John, as long as it's inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it.