Listen...that's the sound of the great American lame-o

In the past week I have had many doors slammed in my face as I canvassed neighborhoods looking to recall a Republican State Senator, told that my "friends" in Madison, WI are a bunch of thugs, and given a lesson in economics by a very good friend who happens to have a Ron Johnson for US Senate and Leah Vukmir for State Senate bumper sticker on his car.

Tough week, right? The tears are rolling down my cheeks? I'm biting my pillow and not coming out of my room?

No, no. I'm just doing what dear old dad taught me so wisely to do. Smile.

I should elaborate on this a bit. My dad once gave me a very fine phrase that I come back to again and again. It's pretty simple, but sometimes those simple things prove to be the most effective. Ready? Get your pencils out. Here it is:

"The best way to say fuck you is with a smile on your face."

Pretty nice, huh? I imagine you're smiling now, too. My pop's smart little credo is a lesson in negotiation and reason. The smile is not easily mounted on your face. Far from it. What it requires is listening and a real ability to keep your mouth shut when it is best to keep your mouth shut.

I jot this thought down after watching a short clip of a Town Hall meeting led by U.S. Represenative Jim Sensenbrenner and State Senator Leah Vukmir. If you live in the state of Wisconsin, or, better yet, reside in Wauwatosa, I'm sure you've heard that Sensenbrenner shut the meeting down after folks in the audience were vocally challenging everything that came out of Vukmir's mouth.

Vocally challenging is a pretty kind statement. They were crawling up her ass--let's face facts.

I must first admit that Jim Sensenbrenner has struck me as a blow hard wind bag ever since I saw him speak when I attended something called the Hugh O'Brien Youth Leadership Seminar back in my squeaky clean teen years. (It was nerd camp held in a motel focused on making nerds leaders. You can be the judge of whether or not Mr. O'Brien, a B-list movie and television star, got his propers with me or not.) I will also claim to believe that Leah Vukmir is a fairly incapable public servant and is probably in office now more because she possessed an unbelievable amount of yard signs in the last election than because of any capability or leadership qualities.

I am not fans of either of these elected officials. And this is precisely why I wish to say "fuck you" with a smile on my face.

I mention this, and I know that some of my activist friends think this is a wimpy thing to do, because witnessing a five minute video online of the end of the Sensenbrenner/Vukmir meeting last night, I really kind of wish all the people who were angry in that meeting (believe me, I own that anger right along with you) had zipped it a little more. Had Vukmir and Sensenbrenner continued to talk without interruption, the truth would have been abundantly clear: they are morons.

But morons can hide behind moments like this and say, "But there was no point going on, no one would listen to anything I was saying...blah, blah, blah, blah...more moron talk...blah, blah." I gotta give the morons of the world a point or two on that one. Vukmir didn't have a chance of finishing one sentence in that Town Hall meeting, and that is a shame. Had she been able to do so, today we would have had a full set of on-the-record statements to rip apart, refute, gnash or teeth over and ultimately use to say "fuck you."

Listening is hard. Very hard. (Hearing even more so, especially when you are a man like me and your wife can prove time and again that you suffer from a male pattern of hearing loss called Selecto Wifo Sayo--that's Latin, I think). My father reminds me in my head on an almost daily basis, that I shouldn't tell the asshole in front of me to kiss me where the sun don't shine, but to rise above, listen hard, and slam them good when the time comes.

The end of the video I watched as good men and women frustrated with the political scene in Wisconsin shuffled out of a community room in their neighborhood was filled with the increasingly familiar chant "THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE". Almost, folks. Almost. Democracy is about everyone having a voice. Even the ones who deserve a little "fuck you."