Yesterday, my colleague Bob Cesca wrote about the hideous-looking baseball-mitt sized ribbon-shaped magnets that adorn the cars of the unthinking across our nation.
They are indeed horrible, both aesthetically and ethically. If you know someone who is spending money on these trinkets, remind them that buying one of these DOESN'T support the troops, it supports USA Magnets, Inc. I know. I just talked to Janice, a nice woman at USA Magnets who cheerily told me that, while they don't give a percentage of profits to the troops, they do keep the costs low at the stores near Army bases that sell them. Idn't that great!
But if you go to the USA Magnets website, you'll see something even more disturbing. This magnet here. This "Pray for our President" magnet.
Is it me, or didn't a bunch of Americans go to war and die a little over 200 years ago so that we could rid ourselves of a monarchy? "Pray for our President"?! Sounds a little like "God Save the King/Queen," doesn't it? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!? Folks, the President is an elected official. He works for US. We are his bosses.
More to the point, why should this elected official who lives in a mansion, has his own chopper and jumbo jet and two getaway estates (one paid for by us), be receiving our prayers any more than the over 100,000 Iraqis we've killed? Or the close to 1,500 Americans we've gotten killed? Or the tens of thousands of vets of this war who have lost arms or legs or eyes?
If you're going to pray for the president, pray that he gets a fucking clue.