The ‘Regular Guy’.

Up until last Friday, conventional wisdom said that most folk liked Bush better than Kerry because Bush is a ‘regular guy.’ They liked that. They liked that they can have a beer with their president. They liked that they can eat some barbecue with their president. In contrast, Kerry filled them with unease. They wouldn’t be able to have a beer with John Kerry. John Kerry didn't look like he wanted to eat barbecue. John Kerry ‘summers’ when everyone else goes on vacation.

Well, I say, good for him! I like a good slab of ribs, but do I want to eat them with my President? Hell no! Do I want to have a beer with my President? Fuck off! I want to sit in a lecture hall on a quiet East coast campus and listen to my President wax wonkily on foreign policy then invite me to have a drink in one of the anterooms at the White House with his equally wonkish staff. That’s what I want. For me, the ‘regular guy’ can take his warm beer, his sagebrush, his fucked up Iraq policy and sit in that cul de sac he calls an administration.

Being a regular guy means you can’t be anything else while simultaneously being everything. It means you’re not a woman, you’re not a person of color (‘regular guy’ is totally code for ‘white’) and you’re pretty much nothing else. You’re definitely not gay. Just regular. Just guy. How… beige. It’s one size fits all. It’s the definition of the lowest common denominator, an identity without anything distinguishing it. It’s an ocean of mayonnaise, a plethora of mediocrity. A total flat line.

And ‘regular guy’ is so inelegant. If I had to put a pop culture reference on it, Regular Guy/Bush is like one of those dumpy shlubs on “Queer Eye.” Every week we wince when the Fab Five drags him out of his cave and we gasp at the stained unstylishness of his existence. For these men, those who can’t shave correctly, can’t seem to get out of the 80s, and fumble conversation to the point of incoherencies, Regular Guy is their anti-hero. He is a comedy of errors. When Regular Guy needs a scalpel, he uses a butter knife. When Regular Guy’s language should soar, he comes out with this dud:

“Free societies are hopeful societies. And free societies will be allies against
these hateful few who have no conscience, who kill at the whim of a hat."
-George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Sept. 17, 2004

Well, pardon me, but I’m tired of errors (not to mention homicidal hats that cause global terrorism.) I’m tired of action for action’s sake. That’s like asking me to settle for bad sex. I want finesse. I want knowledge. I want my President to know where the body politic’s erogenous zones are, dammit!

But I don't recognize the body politic nowadays. It’s a great big hairy, sweaty, beer-guzzlin’, gun-totin’, Arab hatin’ bear daddy – lulled to sleep by the reassuring stroke of the Regular Guy. And in the morning the body politic looks into the mirror and sees the reflection of his own unshaven face and thinks “Good enough.”

So I say this to the Regular Guy: go away. Go back to your cave from which you crawled and stay there. You’ve lowered standards for everyone around you and now it’s time to go back to the bland, reactionary, mayonnaise world you live in. Your shambling mistakes have cost people lives and it’s time for you to take a Time Out. Learn how to form a sentence and hire a housekeeper, for god’s sake. Read a book or two. Visit the people you’ve killed. See what you’ve done. Realize you’ve made a mess and other people have to clean it up for you – again. Grow up. Learn some fucking responsibility. Get a job. Go to college. Move.