Westerville’s Outraged Left Calls In A Heavy Hitter To Expose The Wardmeister
It had taken the entire weekend, but by Monday morning it was clear I had rid myself of the majority of the viral contagions associated with my cold. Were it so with the contagions associated with Ward Churchill’s tour of Westerville last week. Most of the folks attending Churchill’s Westerville Uptown Downtown Chamber of Commerce sponsored “How to be Ethnic for Fun and Profit” workshop seemed quite happy with Ward’s performance. Using the Ward Churchill System™, nearly everyone has finished discovering their Inner Ethnic Identity™, establishing their Inner Ethnic Grievances™, and firing off vitaes and cover letters to every four-year university, two-year community college and technical school in the U.S. In fact, George Dill announced on Friday that he is forming an independent education committee to pressure the Central Ohio Institute of Spot Welding, Burger Flipping ‘n Pig Farming to add an Ethnic Studies component to the curriculum and an Ethnic Studies ‘professor’ to teach said component.
But while all the Republicans in town were pretty happy with the results of their investment in Ward Churchill, our population of Democrats, Leftists, Progressives, Socialists, Democratic Socialists, Anarchists and brain-dead hippies were not happy with theirs. They had shelled out $2,500 plus expenses for an afternoon of Churchillian rabble-rousing, and by the number of long Leftist faces that were seen around Westerville last Friday, the rabble-rousing that had transpired didn’t quite meet their expectations. Normally, the thought of that crew being upset would constitute a source of joy for yours truly, but in this case the appearance of Noam Fernworthy at my lunch-time table at the Carbs ‘N Coffee meant there would be no joy in Dennisville this day. After my run-in with Janeane Garafolo, I really wasn't in the mood to either humor or entrap our Village Hippie.
“Mind if I join you, Dennis?” Noam asked.
It was to my great misfortune that Noam had asked that question at the precise moment I was trying to chew through a rather large piece of chicken-fried steak. What was supposed to be “no” came out “morgflorph”.
Noam took that to be an invitation.
“Thanks,” he said as he sat down.
Ethel came to the table and gave Noam a short once-over, a raised eyebrow and then popped the question: “What’ll it be, Noam?”
“Oh, I guess a vente latte sounds good.” he said, and smiled weakly.
Ethel set a full cup of coffee in front of him.
“Vente,” she said.
Then she set two containers of cream next to the cup of coffee.
“And latte,” she added, then turned and walked away.
Noam gave me one of the disturbingly earnest looks that only clueless Lefties can manage.
“Dennis, can I ask you a question?”
“Flurfnorfle,” I answered, as I pretended to still be wrestling with the chicken-fried steak.
“What did you think of Ward Churchill?”
It was clear Noam wasn’t going to go away, so I dropped the mouth-full-of-food act and decided to get this over with as quickly as possible.
“I didn’t really talk with him, Noam. He showed up at my office, called me a fascist and demanded his workshop fee,” I lied. “I paid him and off he went in a cloud of dust.”
“Did he, like, try to sell you anything?”
“You mean other than the idea that he’s a bad-ass, a revolutionary, a scholar or an Indian?”
Noam furrowed his brow and sat in silence for a minute. Then he looked at me.
“Ward Churchill tried to sign up each and every one of us to be Amway distributors.”
Unfortunately for Noam, I had chosen his thoughtful pause to take another mouthful of steak. So when he sprang the Amway distributorships on me, my first reaction was to laugh out loud.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I managed to get out as I was laughing.
“Don’t laugh, Dude,” Noam replied as he picked chicken-fried steak off the front of his shirt. “This is a major bummer.”
I couldn’t say anything. I was convulsed by laughter to the point that half the people in the Carb has stopped their lunches to see (and hear) what was going on.
“Man, Dennis, pull yourself together,” Noam said crossly. “I don’t want all these establishment types hearing about this.”
I wiped the tears from my eyes and promised Noam I’d behave. Noam leaned over the table towards me and said in a low voice, “Not only did he try to sign us up for Amway, he tried to sell us franchises in some sort of used car and art gallery thing.”
“Did any of you buy a watch?” I asked.
“I didn’t. Some of the Democrats did, though.”
“Good for you, Noam.”
Noam had had his head down, and as he raised it I could see he was tearing up.
“Ward’s with the Man, Man. He is the Man, Man,” he blubbered. “If you can’t believe in a guy like that, who can you believe in? We’ve been majorly betrayed, and so has the revolution, Man.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Hey, whadda gonna do, eh?”
“That’s why I came to you, Man. You did all that investigative reporting on Churchill last month. You’ve got to publish the story about Ward being the Man right away.”
“Noam? Did you actually read any of the stuff about Churchill on my web site?”
Noam shook his head ‘no’, “I just assumed it was all reactionary slander and McCartneyism.”
“McCarthyism.”
“Yeah, right.”
“So what difference would it make if I did right it up and put it on my sight. Everyone will assume it’s another Karl Rove plot to perpetuate the present Republican theocratic state.”
“You got a point there, Dennis.”
I took a bite of steak and gave it a thorough chew. Noam waited until I had swallowed before saying anything.
“What would you suggest then?”
“Well, Noam,” I said as I worked to keep a straight face. “I think you’ve got to bring in someone who’s got the kind of credibility I don’t have. Somebody who’s a fearless crusader and a heavy hitter. A heavy, heavy hitter.”
Noam’s face brightened, “Yeah!” and then darkened again, “But who?”
I leaned across the table conspiratorially and worked hard to keep from laughing, “Oliver Willis.”
“Whoa!” Noam half-shouted. “Oliver’s the man. That’s brilliant!”
“Yep,” I said. “The man’s basically got Brit Hume and Fox News on the ropes.”
“Right on!” Noam said. “Has Hume been fired yet?”
“Um, not quite,” I answered. “But it is only Day 27.”
“Oh.”
“But he’s got Al Franken on his side!” I said. “Anyway, Noam, I think you need to get Oliver down here and let him take care of this.”
“Do you think we can afford to do that? Between Ward Churchill’s speaking fees and the bar tab he ran up at the hotel, we’re pretty close to being broke.”
“I’m pretty sure he can be had for the price of a plane ticket, a hotel room and a couple days’ worth of Krispy Kremes. Look at that picture of him at his site. He’s basically got the black Homer Simpson thing goin’ on there. Donuts should do it.”
”Cool,” Noam said as he stood up. “I don’t care what that Rall freak said about you. You’re one righteous dude.”
“Well, thanks, Noam,” I said, shoveling a large slick of chicken-fried steak in my mouth. “Coming from you, that means something.”
Noam threw some change on the table to pay for the vente latte he hadn’t touched and started for the door. Suddenly he wheeled around, stuck a fist in the air and shouted, “Fight the power!” as he opened the door to leave.
And right on cue, everyone in the Carb replied with “Whatever!” and a one-fingered salute as I lost yet another mouthful of chicken-fried steak to uncontrollable laughter.
It could turn out to be a really nice week after all.
