Why do politicians hate America?
A short film(?) in two parts
Republicans want arranged gay marriages and mandatory gay exile to Massachusetts, David Shapiro compares elections to a poking America with a sharp stick, Ed Taylor and Bob Anderson want you to eat less chicken, Jeff Snyder loves America and his wife, Zavodnyik tries to clone himself, and Simmonds thinks the whole thing is stupid -- all in all, a mixed political bag
-- John Patten, 10/23/06
-- jpatten@veniceflorida.com

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Politics, especially local politics, can really tear a community apart at election time, and they usually do. Why? And why would politicians do this to the land they love? Do they really hate America?

The answer from the pols below indicate that America is still strong and free -- free enough that I could even ask these questions.

The question itself, "Why do you hate America?," is anything but original. Stephen Colbert regularly asks it of almost every politician on his show. The question was originally derived from President Bush's various comments about why other cultures on the planet hate America, but now the phrase has become a running gag and a meme on the internet (example) with a life all its own. It should carry no more emotional impact than "Why do you believe what you believe?"

Best bits: Shapiro, who responds by saying that he loves America but on every election day, we get to poke it with a sharp stick. You'll have to listen carefully: Shapiro's bit was almost not included because of terrible audio, but his analogy was so hilariously accurate that it was too good not to use.

Then there are the volunteers at the Republican tent who bought into the idea of arranged gay marriages, as that way we could ship all of the gays out of Florida and into Massachusetts.

The video is a bit choppy. Some of the camera work is jumpy. Eh, it was my first attempt at making a short film in a very, very, very long time.

My apologies to Jeff Snyder for clipping off his last syllable, he was stating that his wife is a great lady. My copy has the complete sentence, for some reason YouTube clipped the last two seconds or so. I'll have to do a re-edit sometime in the near future to fix that.

John Patten is the head of Web Operations for Creative Pages, and has worked in broadcasting for over 12 years. He can also be incredibly rude at times.