Even after you have achieved the considerable task of possession of power, inaugurating an impostor isn’t an easy job. This is especially true if the people are aware that something as important as the presidency of a country has been stolen. However, with careful perusal and enactment of the following 10 easy steps, you will have a good probability of accomplishing your rather formidable undertaking.

1–Try, by any and all means, to legitimize the impostor and his government before the inauguration takes place. The mass media should play a key role in this endeavor. If the impostor came to power by thievery, coup d’etat or by a combination of the two, make sure that the mass media never mention the words "stolen" or "coup d’etat" in reference to your man. In fact, the term "coup d’etat" is a good case in point for us here. Since it has no English equivalent, most people probably wouldn’t have a clue of what the term actually means. A careful omission of this or any other offending term will go a long way in assuring that the concept will not be developed in your subjects’ minds and that your ruse will be safe. Plant positive stories regarding the impostor. Talk about his future plans of government, his cabinet appointees or the type of restaurant where he dines. Always try to deviate the conversation by any means necessary from the key issue of the impostor’s illegitimacy and true identity. Relentlessly attack any who may bring these topics to light.

2–Never allow the impostor to be by himself in front of the press. He might say something as foolish as "Things would be easier to accomplish if I were dictator", and people might begin to realize what he really has in his mind.

3–Always provide the impostor with a prepared speech and a teleprompter. Teach him how to read the text without a glassy or studied expression. Make sure to eliminate any mannerisms or gestures that might be construed as wimpish. Have him practice in front of the camera so that a goofy or clueless look won’t give him away.

4–The impostor should always wear dark clothing, smile confidently and wave a lot to the cameras, like a passing movie star. Make sure that your man’s image is continually presented coupled with that of your country’s flag. Always have plenty of scary-looking bodyguards around him to give the impression that he is so important that he has to be protected from unknown dangers. Make sure that everyone knows that the army is on your guy’s side and vociferously attack the patriotism of anyone who fails to support you.

5–Assure that the impostor’s cabinet includes only insiders and/or family cronies who have some experience in running the country. That way nobody will realize that the impostor doesn’t know how to make his own appointments, much less how to run the country!! Appoint a couple of members of key minority groups to the cabinet to placate critics that may accuse your party of being elitist and/or racist and to showcase your party’s diversity. Make certain that the appointed minorities know the script and will walk the walk.

6–Ensure that the impostor’s ex-opponent (the true winner) disappears from the scene. Techniques should fit the situation, but will include:
• aggressively accusing him and his followers of being sore losers;
• having mobs repeat any chosen impostor mantras millions of times, because a lie repeated incessantly will become the truth in the minds of your subjects;
• stirring up some vigilante thugs to threaten any of the impostor’s detractors;
• telling critics to "get a life", "get a grip", "stop whining" or "leave the country";
• intimidating anyone who denounces the impostor with a visit from the secret police so they stop complaining about the stolen election;
• vilifying your detractors as being communists or any other bogey man of your choice,
• accusing them of being mentally feeble or unstable.

7–Be creative, learn to use every argument and its opposite to win the hearts and minds of the people. For example, if before the election the polls say that the impostor is going to win the popular vote but may lose the electoral one, say that it would be "a travesty of justice" if it worked out that way. If, on the other hand, the impostor happens to capture the electoral college vote and lose the popular one, say that "the popular vote never meant anything and anyhow this is a republic, not a democracy". You may want to study up on nazi propaganda techniques and scan some army psyops manuals. They have step-by-step formulas on how to control, manipulate and silence a discontent population.

8–Hire some CIA consultants with experience in manipulating public opinion worldwide to write positive articles and to pressure media to be favorable to the impostor and to encourage others to do so. Consider having him named "Man of the Year". You might, for example, cultivate the same friendly media contacts that declared your candidate the winner before the election process had been completed. Have them repeat affirmations regarding your man’s legitimacy, intelligence, character, moral values, etc. and always insist that your guy is on top and that any opposition is minimal, whether or not this may be the case. Belittle your critics, repeating over and over "get a job", "nobody cares", "get over it". Now, all this brings us to the grand culmination of our meticulously crafted steps: The Inauguration Day!

9–Prepare your impostor for the big day. Teach him to use the right hand so that he raises the correct hand when he is sworn in. Have him repeat the oath in the mirror a thousand times so he can perform correctly on the occasion. Apply lots of make-up to the impostor and have him practice eliminating any potential puppet–like movements or idiotic expressions.

10–At this point, all of your careful preparations should be in place.

However, if for some unknown reason all of the above fails, bring lots of tear gas to the inauguration day, and let the inauguration party begin! --Bananna Republicans, 1/19/01

The movement to restore the Confederacy is really picking up steam. John Ashcroft's alliance with a wide range of far-right groups is but the tip of the iceberg. I was particularly struck by Gale Norton's comments lamenting the defeat of the Confederacy. Is she advocating the restoration of slavery? Probably not. But she is certainly part of the movement to undo the legal reforms that overthrew Jim Crow. The pattern is clear. You will recall that the conservative wing of the Supreme Court, in its breathtaking concurrence with the decision that ended the vote-counting in Florida, twisted the Court decisions that overturned States' Rights defiance in the South into an instrument for deciding the election. And that was just the culmination of a long-term trend.

Until now, the States' Rights party has been sufficiently marginal that we haven't had to look hard at their arguments. But now they control the country, so we have to start looking more closely. And when you look closely at the arguments of States' Rights and Property Rights proponents, you generally find something surprising: despite what they say in their headlines, they are not actually claiming a right to be left alone. Quite the contrary, they are arguing for a right to inflict harm on others. Gale Norton worked for an industry- backed legal foundation that supported so-called property rights in environmental cases. She also strongly supported similar positions as attorney general of Colorado. But in most cases those "rights" consist of activities that cause pollution to enter other people's air and water, or that cause erosion of neighboring land or beaches, or that harm migratory animals that had provided benefits to others long before such a thing as property existed. And as Nathan Newman points out below, the controversies over slavery that led to the Civil War were not just a matter of permitting southern whites to buy and sell human beings without interference from the north; in fact they were attempts by the southern states to compel northerners to abet these evil practices.

Of course states have rights, and so do property owners. Nobody is contesting that. The real controversies begin when the exercise of putative "rights" spills over the borders and property lines and affect others. That is why we have a federal government, and it is why we have laws, and democracy, and a judicial system. The "leave me alone" party is, in fact, the "do unto others" party. Their modus operandi is to go around hitting people while yelling "stop hitting me". This was entirely clear during the election, and it is becoming plain as day right now. --Phil Agre, 1/12/01

This morning a NYT editorial floated the absurd idea that "Democrats on Capitol Hill are beginning to consider [the] theory [that] Mr. Bush really did start out as a moderate, but has leapt to the right because his advisers have concluded that the closeness of the election was due to his failure to bond with the most zealous part of the G.O.P. base." What a joke. The Dems would have to be deaf, dumb, and blind not to have seen Bush's Reagan-like political views a mile away. While he was admittedly trying to be all things to all people during the last six months of the campaign, a simple look at his record as Texas governor, what he has said in support of that record, and his behavior during the primaries should have been more than enough to predict that as our new Resident he would be right in their with the Ashcrofts and the DeLays. It's no secret that Bush is a conservative, not a moderate. He's been saying that for years, and so have we.

But it's not just the Dems, according to the NYT editorial: "it does not take a lot of snooping around to discover that Republicans and Democrats alike are beginning to suspect that President-elect Bush is far more conservative than either side suspected during the campaign." Hogwash. The Christian Coalition types knew the fix was in. DeLay, Lott, and Falwell kept their mouths shut. While Bush made nice with the moderates and independents, the rabid right slept soundly, knowing in advance that Bush would show his true self once the election was over. The bottom line is moderate Republicans are perfectly willing to live with Bush's ill-considered conservative economic policy and are even willing to accept the impending social repressions of theocrats such as Ashcroft as part of the Bush package.

If the NYT is right and both the Dems and the Republicans are now saying they didn't realize Bush was as conservative as he is now acting, with his cabinet choices and his economic and foreign policies, what we're seeing is the D.C. moderates and liberals trying to hide before voter reaction sets in. "Hey, don't blame us. We didn't know." That's an excuse. They knew. And the majority of the voters knew as well. That's why Bush lost the popular election by over a half million votes. Now it's payback time for the voters, and the modrate and liberal politicians don't want to take their lumps. Tough. --Politex, 1/19/01

"In 2000, Bush ran as a uniter, while Al Gore ran as a populist who would "fight for you" against "the powerful interests." By drawing lines and naming targets, Gore's message made it harder for him to get elected. But it would have made it easier for him to wage partisan battles as president because adversity reinforced his rationale. Bush, on the other hand, chose a bipartisan message that made it easier for him to get elected. Now he is paying the price: A president who promised to stop the fighting can't, once attacked, fight back without forfeiting his rationale. He is a political hemophiliac, surviving at the mercy of his adversaries. For the past week, Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer has lectured reporters daily about how determined Bush is to "change the tone," and how "disappointed" he is that some liberals aren't cooperating. On Jan. 4, Fleischer lamented that organizations opposing Bush Cabinet nominees John Ashcroft, Linda Chavez, and Gale Norton were "seeking to divide as opposed to unite." Fleischer dismissed these organizations as "special-interest groups," accused them of exploiting "ideological divides," and drew a "contrast" between their obstructionism and the deference a "Republican Senate" accorded Clinton's "very liberal nominees." Nevertheless, he vowed, "President Bush is going to work as hard as he can in a bipartisan fashion to bring people together, even in the face of any partisan groups that seek to divide."

Change the tone? Let's start with the tone of these lectures....The Bush administration's spin on the confirmation fights is divisive about divisiveness, ideological about ideology, and partisan about partisanship. It says Democrats are too partisan, liberals are too ideological, and Bush seeks unity "in the face of" those who would divide us. Bush himself never proposes to divide the country. He merely reiterates at every opportunity that his philosophy "stands in stark contrast" to that of his divisive opponents. And what separates sowing division from drawing contrasts? A distinction without a difference.

How did a candidate who sincerely prefers cooperation end up in this position? By campaigning on style rather than substance. He outlined proposals but kept them peripheral and vague. Instead of seeking a mandate for a clear direction, as Ronald Reagan did, Bush emphasized that he was a uniter. Toward what would he unite us? He glossed over that question, leaving each voter to infer that Bush shared her views. Bush made it through the primaries, the convention, and the debates without filling in the answers. Political consultants who favor this kind of campaign think that a candidate who wins this way gets the ideal prize: a blank check. They misunderstand. The blank check issued by middle-of-the-road voters in Missouri, New Hampshire, and Florida wasn't made out to Bush. It was made out to unity. And without unity—which neither party can secure alone—Bush can't cash it.... His attempts to spin his side of the quarrel as a stand against quarreling are, as Fleischer has demonstrated, irretrievably oxymoronic. Bush looks like the child who, having been caught by his exasperated mother in a sibling brawl, protests that his brother started it. He may be right, but his mother doesn't care....You have to feel compassion for the guy. He's empowered to do as president exactly what he promised to do as a candidate: nothing." --William Saletan, 1/15/01

Here in Washington another fibber now has the spotlight. He is John Ashcroft, the recently defeated Missouri senator who is George W. Bush's choice to be attorney general of the United States. In the spring of 1999, with a publicly confessed hankering for the White House, Ashcroft -- then already the preferred presidential Republican of the Christian Coalition -- delivered the commencement speech at Bob Jones University. The South Carolina Christian school is best known publicly for its prohibition against interracial dating and its battering of the Catholic Church as a "cult" and of the pope as "the antichrist." Less than a year ago, Republican presidential candidate Bush publicly apologized to the late Cardinal John O'Connor, the New York archbishop, for his failure to criticize the official bigotry of Bob Jones when he was addressing the university-sponsored campaign rally on the campus. Ashcroft does not deny giving the Bob Jones commencement address. What Ashcroft has publicly insisted, through his official spokespersons, was that he had no prepared text, that the speech was "extemporaneous."

"That is bull, bunk and a whopper. Commencement speeches -- especially when the speaker, as Ashcroft was, is awarded an honorary degree from the college, are written, rewritten and then read for delivery. They are not off-the-cuff exercises, most especially not when the speaker is the Christian Coalition's presidential favorite and the sponsoring institution is a formidable religious/political force in a crucial primary state. Ashcroft's speech at Bob Jones was probably more pandering than provocative. But for him to deny -- under oath when asked at his confirmation hearings -- that there was no text, and for him to fail to produce that text and the tape of the speech to which he would have access, is unacceptable. Add to this Ashcroft's beyond-belief February 2000 excuse that having accepted the honorary Bob Jones degree that he "did not then and does not now have knowledge of their (Bob Jones) specific teachings."

Forget that this was after the nationally covered John McCain-George W. Bush brawl over Bob Jones. If John Ashcroft delivered a speech and accepted a degree from a school he knew nothing about, he doesn't qualify to be attorney general of Missouri. Which is exactly what Ashcroft was -- attorney general of Missouri -- in 1983, when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an IRS decision denying Bob Jones tax-exempt status because of its politics of racial discrimination. It was a major political event inflicting a major black eye on the Reagan administration. If the attorney general of Missouri did not know about Bob Jones and its policies then, he owes his home state constituents a refund of the salary he accepted. So important was the Bob Jones speech to Ashcroft that he told about it in the family Christmas card recording the 1999 highlights. He wrote and delivered a speech to and for Bob Jones. Who will ask Ashcroft why he does not want anybody to know what he said there?" --Mark Shields, 1/15/01

by Jerry Politex

I drove my silver Audi down Mesa Drive, the spine of Cat Mountain, hung a left at the cat's tail, drove quickly up the hilly, winding 2222 in low gear, took a right onto Balcones Drive, and came to a stop in the rear parking lot of Chez Zee.

Another sunny, warm early spring day in Northwest Austin, Texas. The lunch crowd was pretty much thinned out by now, so I had choices of parking spaces. I got out of the car, the turbines winding down, and stood by the rear entrance to the restaurant, a pretty-good place for not very expensive Southwestern food. I didn't have long to wait.

...click here to continue the novel.

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