by Honkitonk Shapyro
August 2006
Someone said that Dick Cheney is the ultimate white trash VP of American history. If he don’t like ya, then he’ll train a goddam shotgun on yer face. I don’t know American history all that well, though I believe that country has had some spectacular white trash presidents. Andrew Jackson probably qualifies. More recently, there is Bill Clinton. If Bill Clinton ain’t pure white trash, I’ll smoke a clodhopper.
But then W. ain’t real white trash, though oddly, he seems to be a’wishin’ he wuz. I wuz lis’nen’ to one of his recent speeches - if one optimistically would call it a speech - in which he precisely imitated the jargon of white trash Texans. And he did a heck of a job of it. But W. was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, or a silver foot in his mouth, as one Texas politician once said, to a wealthy noble patrician family from the northeast. He didn’t grow up a’talkin’ the talk he talks now. Is that what thangs has come to these days: to get elected president of the U.S.A. a son of the privilegeds gotta talk white trash patois? Lordy, lordy.
If W. had putted as much effort in understanding global history and geography as he puts into trying to appear white trash “folksy,” he might rise to the level of one of the lesser mediocre presidents. Then there’s this big white trash electorate in America. They drive enormous, gas-guzzlin’ pickup trucks, buy lots of lottery tickets, listen to contemporary country music, drink cheap beer, consume cheap hamburgers, and visit hateful white trash churches on Sundays and Wednesdays. I know them folks. Regular I picked up they litter they throwed along my place in America. Empty beer cans, discarded church bulletins, and worthless scratched Lotto tickets are tellin’. I know this litterin’ white trash. Went to school with them, grew up among ‘em. And I know Dick Cheney. I cannot think of any worse - “wurst” as some among them might say- vice president in American history. And believe me, I ain’t no liberal.
Some of them Americans used to say spitefully that each nation gets the government it deserves. America! you’ve now got W. and Dick Cheney. Embrace and enjoy! You’ve had ‘em comin’ for some time. And shout one goddam hallerlooyer while y’er at it!