I believe I can fly . . .but I'll call Southwest just in case

Saturday. Sofa. Coffee.

One of the reasons I love Saturday mornings is that for three or four hours I behave as though I have nothing to worry about or stress over. The Saturday morning rule is "do what you want to, don't do it if you don't." On Saturday mornings I pretend. It may be the healthiest thing I do for myself.

A vivid memory of pre-school childhood is that of my friend and I pinning one end of bath towels around our necks so that the rest of the towel flowed down our backs like a cape. You got it, Superman's cape. On rainy days we would run down the hall, through a bedroom door, leap into the air and land on a bed. But on sunny days we would be outside, where the flying was much easier, our only limit the sky. We climbed up onto the long picnic table, gathered our formidable strength as we crouched at one end, then in a burst of hypersonic speed we raced the eight foot length of the table/runway before launching into space, capes flapping behind us. We knew with every lift-off that we were staying airborne a little bit longer, much like the pioneering Wright Brothers, and before the day was finished, we knew that we could really fly.

It really hurts me to admit it now, but we never really flew. We just wanted to real bad. And it seemed like if we talked about it all afternoon as if it were really happening, then it really was happening.

I'm glad we didn't launch from the tree house.

But we did consider it. We climbed up the ladder to the platform that I called a tree house, stood at the edge and peered over staring at the dusty, root laced, rocky ground below. We didn't move. We couldn't move. Reality overcame us. Our capes suddenly scratched like terry cloth dried in the sun. Even at our young age we knew that the soft grassy yard was only two or three feet below us as we zoomed off the end of the table, but to continue pretending from the height of the tree house would most certainly result in pain.

So we peed off the edge instead. That's what five-year old boys do in such situations.

There is a lot of pretending going on these days. But it doesn't seem to be limited to Saturday mornings, nor is their any hint that reality will set in.

There is a style of politics that depends on the ability to pretend that the truth is a lie and a lie is the truth. Those that are gifted at this style have a way of inciting the crowd with short, emotionally charged assertions that may or may not have a basis in truth and require a complete absence of conscience to utter outloud. I still remember a master at this, Alabama Governor George Wallace, when I was a child, speaking at political rallies.

"Ain't no pointy-headed liberal intellectuals from Washington gonna tell us here in Alabama what we gonna do . . ."

The crowds would go wild.

Governor Rick Perry has the gift. So does Michele Bachman.

Evolution is an unfounded theory. Global warming is not affected by the activity of man. Our men and women in uniform don't trust their president. The federal debt can be reduced without additional taxes. Government is bad. Corporations are good. Regulation is bad. The founding fathers who wrote the constitution fought tirelessly until slavery was abolished. Ben Bernanke is a traitor if he prints more money for quantitative easing, but Rick Perry is not for suggesting that Texas might leave the union. Homosexuals can be cured. Dependence on foreign oil is increasing at an alarming rate. Social Security is already bankrupt. Elvis was born on August 16 (that is the day of his death, which created another embarrassing gaffe at a Michele Bachman rally Tuesday when she kept wishing the King happy birthday).

The list is far too long and gets longer every day.

The thing that really sets Perry and Bachman apart is the ability to pretend that everything they say is true, even when their error is clearly pointed out. Reality is not welcome. It only gets in the way when you're on a roll and the crowd is with you. And this crowd won't tolerate any talk about being wrong.

But, reality will set in, sooner or later. Pretending does not change truth. At some point all pretenders stand on a ledge high above the rocky ground, a place that they have climbed to on a rickety ladder so unreliable it is frightening to climb back down, with no way to move forward except to take a step out into space as their bluffs are ultimately called. And they may have gathered a large crowd ready to follow them one more time, making it almost impossible to turn back.

When the stakes aren't so high, nobody gets hurt by pretending. But from this height?

I wish they'd throw in the towel and pee in the wind.

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