MY OWN TWELVE-STEP RECOVERY PROGRAM

My name is Judy, and I'm a newsaholic.

Hi, Judy!

I'm also cross-addicted as a political junkie.

Ooooo.

I guess everybody blames their parents. Mine took four newspapers a day and voted in every election. But I can't really blame them. After all, they stayed Democrats. No, I'm responsible for my own decisions. Like any thing else, it started out small and I thought I had it under control--but then once I started, I couldn't stop. I read a local newspaper, but that didn't give me enough of a fix, so I started reading the Wall Street Journal. From there, there was no stopping me. The "fix" I got from the Journal's conservative editorials wasn't enough, so I started subscribing to the National Review and the Weekly Standard. Then I went on to harder stuff--reading conservative blogs like Powerline and Little Green Footballs.

Aw!

It was the same way with politics. When I moved to the Beautiful Texas Panhandle, I fell in with new friends who enabled my addictions. My county was so Republican that many offices didn't even have a Democrat running on the ballot. If you wanted to have any say in choosing an office holder, you had to vote in the Republican primary. So I took that fatal first step. I registered as a Republican.

Ooooo.

My Daddy warned me (wipes away a tear here), but I wouldn't listen to him. I was getting high on voting for county attorney and sheriff and state representative. I tell you, it was a special feeling! But one step at a time, I slipped farther and farther down that slippery slope. Next thing I knew, I was voting for a Republican congressman and a Republican senator and a Republican governor. There was no stopping me now! Finally I went clear over the edge. I voted for George Bush!

Eeeeew!

TWICE!

Aaaarrgh!

My kids tried to warn me. They tried to intervene. They even subscribed to "Funny Times" for me. But I wouldn't listen. And I ignored the anti-Bush cartoons in "Funny Times" and just read the other stuff. I told my kids they were hopeless squares. I laughed when they voted for John Kerry.

I might have gone on this way forever, but finally I hit bottom. I was so happy when we conservatives got John Roberts on the Supreme Court. We insisted the Senate give him a full hearing and an up-or-down vote, and we shamed the Democrats when they wanted him to furnish documents from his government service.

Then came the Harriet Miers nomination. I knew George Bush had picked a winner. One, a Texan! Two, a fine evangelical Christian lady! Three, a Bush loyalist! But then my old friends the conservatives turned on her. All the things we hated about the Democrats, they started doing! Making fun of her. Criticizing her hairdo. Sneering because she went to SMU instead of an Ivy League school. Whining that being a lawyer wasn't good enough. Calling her a Bush crony. Saying she didn't deserve an up-or-down vote, or--get this!--even a chance to appear before the committee. And they said she had to show them confidential White House documents.

When they finally hounded that poor woman into withdrawing, I had to face the truth. My old heroes like Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer and the like were no different from the Democrats! No longer could I get any pleasure from reading the Wall Street Journal or National Review or watching Fox News or reading Powerline. I had to face the truth. REPUBLICANS COULD BE ASSHOLES TOO!

That's when I hit bottom and picked myself up off the floor. I went cold turkey and quit paying any attention to these people. I broke my dependence on the news. I mowed grass and worked in the yard. I cleaned my junk room. I did a project I had been putting off, gathering my Mom's writings and making a book of them. I visited the neighbors. I got a life.

And I like it.

Thanks for sharing, Judy!