Marx-A -Lot

A specter is haunting Europe - the specter of communism. - Karl Marx

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it, and then misapplying the wrong remedies. - Groucho Marx

In case you didn't know, the Political Right has shoveled a boatload of devalued, inflated dollars into the coffers of expensive qualitative research companies in order to discover the one perfect word that the public could not abide when applied to the Democratic Party.

In 2004 the winner in this category was "flip-flopper" even though it was total gibberish.

This year they first tried the word "muslim" on focus groups but it didn't take.  "Too Jewish", most said.

They then tried "left-handed", "bepimpled", "cranky", "twitchy", "sneezy", "dopey" and "grumpy". Not quite, said the assembled group of average Americans.

For a while the analysts toyed with "elitist" but it only made middle-aged women think of John McCain. Uh-oh.

The winner was "marxist", mostly because no one really knew exactly what it meant although it reminded panelists of a scary old guy with a beard. Good enough for the GOP.

So whenever you hear the word "marxist" bandied about by Fox News or a pundit from any place with the word "Freedom" in its name just remind yourself that the lawn needs cutting or that perhaps you should play with your kids more or that gas is at $4.00 a gallon and rising.

=mike=