On the day after George W. Bush commuted the sentence of Scooter Libby I thought it might be appropriate to compile a list of rules one must follow so that YOU too can be a good Republican and receive preferential treatment.
Disclaimer: this is not my list and I don't recall where I came by it. I did, however, add a few extras!
30 Rules for Being a Good Republican
1) Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you are a millionaire conservative radio jock, which makes it an "illness" and needs our prayers for your "recovery."
2) You have to believe that those privileged from birth achieve success all on their own.
3) You have to believe that the US should get out of the UN, and that our highest national priority is enforcing UN resolutions against Iraq.
4) You have to believe that government should stay out of people's lives but it needs to punish anyone caught having private sex with the "wrong" gender.
5) You have to believe that pollution is ok, so long as it makes a profit.
6) You have to believe in prayer in schools, as long as you don't pray to Allah or Buddha.
7) You have to believe that a woman cannot be trusted with decisions about her own body, but that large multi-national corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind with no regulation whatsoever.
8) You have to believe that you love Jesus and Jesus loves you, and that Jesus shares your hatred of AIDS victims, homosexuals, and Hillary Clinton.
9) You hate the ACLU for representing convicted felons, but they owed it to the country to help out Oliver North, Rush Limbaugh, Jerry Falwell, and other religious organizations.
10) You have to believe that the best way to encourage military morale is to praise the troops overseas while cutting their VA benefits.
11) You believe that group sex and drug use are degenerate sins that can only be purged by running for governor of California as a Republican.
12) You have to believe it is wise to keep condoms out of schools, because we all know if teenagers don't have condoms they won't have sex.
13) You have to believe that the best way to fight terrorism is to alienate our allies and then demand their cooperation and money.
14) You have to believe that government medicine is wrong and that HMO's and insurance companies only have your best interests at heart.
15) You have to believe that providing health care to all Iraqis is sound government policy but providing health care to all Americans is socialism personified.
16) You believe that tobacco's link to cancer and global warming are "junk science" but Creationism should be taught in schools.
17) You have to believe that waging war with no exit strategy was wrong in Vietnam but right in Iraq.
18) You have to believe that Saddam was good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush's daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney was doing business with him, and a bad guy when Bush needed a "we can't find Bin Laden" diversion.
19) You believe that government should restrict itself to just the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.
20) You have to believe that the public has a right to know about the adulterous affairs of Democrats, while those of Republicans are a "private matter."
21) You have to believe that the public has a right to know about Hillary's cattle trades but that Bush was right to censor those 28 pages from the Congressional 9/11 report because you just can't handle the truth.
22) You support state rights, which means Ashcroft telling states what locally passed voter initiatives he will allow them to have.
23) You have to believe that what Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital national interest but what Bush did decades later is "stale news" and "irrelevant."
24) You have to believe that trade with Cuba is wrong because it is communist, but trading with China and Vietnam is just dandy.
25) You have to believe that the rich know what's right, and the poor choose to be poor.
26) You have to believe that hunting is a challenge, but art is a waste of time.
27) You have to believe that money can solve all problems, but education is a waste of money.
28) You have to be against abortion, but against sex education as well. And welfare for the single moms. And health care for poor families. And taxes for good schools and after-school programs.
29) You have to preach Christian values while promoting capital punishment.
30) You have to believe that the AIDS virus can be cured by ignoring it.
Could these be our recent additions?
31) You have to believe it was appropriate to execute the Mentally Retarded as Governor of Texas but the 30 month sentence of a convicted liar was "too excessive".
32) You have to believe that what William Jefferson did was outrageous but somehow ignore Jack Abramoff, Duke Cunningham, Bob Ney, Mark Foley, and other Republicans because its not that bad.
33) You have to believe that there is a Fourth Branch of government consisting solely of Dick Cheney.
34) You have to believe that Bill O'Reilly is "fair and balanced" but Dan Rather is horribly biased.
35) You have to denounce the mainstream media as leftist propaganda that must be stopped but celebrate the conservative leanings of talk radio as the triumph of capitalism.
