The birth of America's first Thee Party

WITH JANUARY weather so confining, I've been devoting some extra time indoors to creating a new (and exciting!!!) pop phenom to show the Tea Partiers a thing or two. It will be called the Thee Party to give it the sort of religious sheen so in vogue in certain quarters today. Actually the title was my second choice. I had decided to go secular with Tee Party but that was already appropriated by the national media that, in the post-Tiger world, never seem to leave bad enough alone.

It's also true that Fox's Brit Hume's insistence that Woods must convert to Christianity for the rebirth of his all-American sportsman's image made the transition from tee to thee a natural. And when the Mega-Rev. Rick Warren can issue a fund-raising plea that immediately rakes in more than $2.5 million, you have to admit that pure secularism has its limits. So Thee Party it will be with a resigned acceptance that I'm hardly in the good preacher's league for a steady cash flow.

Where to begin? With so much fearful talk of socialism by the tea baggers and their enablers on Capitol Hill, I would begin by calling for the total rejection of Medicare by every last U.S. citizen. (Non-citizens don't count because, as we have been told, they are likely to lie about everything. Besides, immigrants don't die from American diseases.) There would be no paperwork to fill out, no arguing with your insurance companies that you do indeed qualify for drug benefits and no threats of filibusters by the Back 40 Republican senators who would insist on being exempt from even minor tinkering with their health coverage.

With Medicare abolished, where would the health insurers turn for their profits, and where would the Back 40 turn for their daily bread? Certainly not to socialistic unemployment benefits and government pensions. Trust me: these would be abolished, too. So would lobbies, girl friends and congressional payrollers who make life so much more livable for their bosses. The cable networks, which thrive on the latest sulking statements from losers like Dick Cheney and John McCain, would have to go, too. (Come to think of it, Grumpy Abe would have to shut down in a Thee Party world.)

Well, you can see there would never be a day off for Thee Partiers. It would begin a new era in which socialism would be replaced.... I'll have to get back to you for more details as they come to mind. Duly inspired by Brit Hume and Rick Warren, I can only humbly tell you that operators are standing by.