Our talk lasted quite a while, as they usually do, and we covered a lot of topics - birthdays, aging, walking, fitness - oh, I forget what all - and eventually, politics reared its head.
She started talking about the shutdown and how it is really Obama's fault.
"You have been watching too much Fox News if that is what you believe" I assured her.
"I don't watch Fox News" she said. Perhaps not, but her gardener, who also comes around blaming Obama for the clouds, the wind, his wife's bad mood, his poverty... who stands around for an hour after work, 'splainin stuff to her... her gardener is a huge Fox News advocate. He is certain that we must not, heaven forbid, tax the rich - after all, they create the jobs! Uh, yeah, in Asia.
"Actually", she sez, "I really blame all of them for this mess we are in."
"For the shutdown?" I asked. "It just does not work like that. If a guy comes to your house and holds a gun to your head and says 'give me all your money or I will burn your house down' and I say that I blame both of you, does that make any sense?"
"Huh?" sez she.
"The Republicans, led by a small group of Tea Partyers who where elected through a backlash of hatred and retaliation, by people still fighting the civil war, are holding a gun to our heads, saying that if we do not give them their way, when they could not get that through elections, or through congressional votes, now, if we do not give them their way, despite all that, they will shut down our government. Saying you blame all of them just does not make sense. There are the people trying to actually run our government, and then there are the crazies who do not believe in government, who should never have been elected."
Before I knew it, she was bragging that she had passed a group at an overpass today with signs saying to honk if you wanted to Impeach Obama. I shook my head and started to say "Yeah, that is such BS", but she cut me off, saying "I honked twice".
"Ok", I said, "disagreeing with him is one thing, but impeachment? That is for serious, treasonous offenses. What exactly has Obama done that you want to impeach him?"
"He is a liar", she said.
"A liar, eh?" sez I, "And just what did he lie about?"
"About those things he promised to do during his campaign."
What? She doesn't like him, she didn't support him, she didn't like the things he said he would do, didn't, in fact, want him to do them.... so... should she not be ecstatic if he, in fact, did not follow through? Shouldn't she be giving him a medal?
But I said: "Your party has done nothing but try to stop his every move and now you want to impeach him for not doing the things your party is not allowing to be done? Impeachment? Really? You know what this is? Racism."
"I am not a racist" sez she.
"We are all racists, I replied. I am a racist. I fight every day for equal rights for everyone but in my dark little heart, I am a racist. I don't want to be - I don't mean to be - but you would be amazed at the ugly thoughts that run through my head. I have to consciously let them go. But we are all, to some extent, racists."
"I have never felt that way", she assured me. "When I was a young girl, my closest friends were a family of colored people."
"Yeah," sez I? "Let me ask you this? How many presidents have you ever wanted to see impeached in your lifetime (she is 82) ?
"None of them."
"So... you think it is just a co-incidence that you want to impeach our first Black president - and the reason is because he did not fulfill all of his campaign promises?"
"I don't argue politics" sez she. (yeah, cause most liberals and moderates, and some conservatives tend to just shut up and take it, whilst the haters go about proudly proclaiming their stance, fairly certain they will go unchallenged. And if they are old, or young, the liberals are even more inclined to overlook their behavior - no, come to think of it, those are not even required for a pass)
"You know what?" sez I, "I don't start the argument, but when I am minding my own business in my own yard and someone comes along and tells me that they want to impeach my president, I have something to say about that. You know what you say to me when you say that? That you don't care if I drop dead - because he is the one bringing health care coverage to people like me."
"Now you are just parroting my son"
"What? Your son does not have health coverage and you want to impeach the guy bringing him that? You don't care if your son drops dead?"
"You know what, Rita", sez she, "I like you, and I enjoy talking with you, but you think what you think and I think what I think...."
K then.
Come to think of it, I was on a tear now. Off she went, but I kept talking: "You want to impeach a president for lying, how about Bush? He killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people based on lies. He started the war. Obama ended it." Now she was beyond talking distance...... so I yelled: "You like dead children? Vote Republican!"
