Editor’s Note: Today’s letter was written on the back of a “Four More Years” sign, which makes me wonder if Belacqua has infiltrated the convention. He once told me that during his stay in the ashram he mastered the advanced yogic position “Hot Air” which would have allowed him to drift past security.
Dear George,
You are the man! You are the scam king of New York City! Of the nation! Of the world! If, God forbid, you should ever leave office your future in sales is assured. Within five years you’d corner the used-car market in this country. You have the Midas touch, George. One word from you and a lemon becomes a rose. So awed am I, it is difficult to write. My hands tremble, tears blur my vision. But, I must press on.
For me, the high point of the convention was when Arnold told the world, “For those critics who are so pessimistic about our economy—don’t be girlie men.” (Take that between the cheeks, Krugman!) George, if you do nothing else in this campaign, build on that theme!
Arnold has given us a clarion call for the stiffening of our national backbone, for stoic endurance in the face of misery. Broke and out of work? Be a man and stop whining. Are your children crying because they’re going to bed hungry? Tell them to stop acting like babies. Tell them to say their prayers, instead, and thank God that they live in the greatest country in the world. Sick and unable to afford medical care? By a book on folk medicine. It was good enough for our forefathers, it’s good enough for you.
If you pound home the point that suffering and machismo are one, that only real men can endure pain, then the public will accept your every economic initiative no matter how much it trashes their lives. And Arnold personifies strength in the face of hardship. Did you catch him in “Conan the Barbarian”?
One other point. You owe a great debt of gratitude to the anarchists and riff-raff who have tried to disrupt the convention. They scare the shit out of Middle America, for they are living proof that freedom threatens stability; that the product of freedom is both radical change and the undermining of our social and economic order. (Could they be on your staff?)
Never forget: In both politics and governance, the bywords are “slash and burn.”
Your admirer,
Belacqua Jones
8:56:44 AM 
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