E-Mail This Article to a Friend Keeping the choir on key Author Barry Crimmins invites America in from the cold BY DEIRDRE FULTON
	Flag-waiving An excerpt from Barry Crimmins' Never Shake Hands with a War Criminal By Barry Crimmins

IT’S ALREADY COLD in Troupsburg, New York, on the Pennsylvania border just southwest of Elmira, one of the reddest areas of a very blue state. Comedian, author, and activist Barry Crimmins — a founding father of Boston’s comedy scene, an Air America Radio writer and commentator, and a long-time Phoenix contributor — is trying valiantly to stay warm at his home there, despite the icy prospect of four more years of George W. Bush in the White House. He’s stoking the fire (metaphorically) with Never Shake Hands with a War Criminal (Seven Stories Press), his recently released collection of 26 short essays, several of which were first published in these pages. The book is part memoir, part political history, and part social criticism, offered with a good measure of biting humor.

When the 51-year-old Crimmins lets loose on the Bush administration, lambasting one injustice before veering off to the next, you may forget that the foundation of his career has been making people laugh. But then he slips in a wry assessment here and an idealistic hope there, and you remember that no matter how frosty it gets, Crimmins will keep giving us reasons to smile.

Never Shake Hands with a War Criminal (the title war criminal being Henry Kissinger, by the way) has come out just in time for the holidays — the ideal consolation gift for the discouraged liberals on your list, or the perfect bait for potential converts. We checked in with the author and got his views on the left, the Bushies, disenfranchisement, electoral politics, and finding comfort in the long view of history.

Q: You compare the Bush administration’s first term with the torment of long, cold winters in your hometown of Skaneateles, in central New York. It looks like we’re in for another frigid four years — what’s been going through your mind since Election Day?

A: Thoughts of glaciers and ice ages have crossed my mind. But fortunately I’ve had a job to do, writing for Randi Rhodes and Air America, so I’ve had to — it’s odd — remain distracted by remaining connected and continuing to fight.

I think we’re in a very dangerous situation now, where I honestly believe the majority of the people in this country are being told they’re in a minority. And that they don’t hold the dominant view. I mean, I guess the view is dominant, but the preponderance — their view is in the minority. I really don’t think most of the country are reactionary, evangelical lunatics. That’s sort of a fascist situation, where you’re telling most of the country that they’re out of step with the country. So it’s scary. And it’s also scary, now. This administration — anything that could even pass for adult supervision is gone now.

Q: Like Colin Powell?

A: Yeah, people who at least feel guilty when they lie. So it’s gonna be tough, but we’ve been through other tough things before. You know, people thought it was over for good after Nixon’s big win in ’72. These people are really arrogant. Pride goeth before a fall — look out below. All we can do is play it as they lie.

Q: Speaking of Nixon — in the essay that begat the title of your book, you write about standing up to pure evil by not shaking hands with Henry Kissinger when you ran into him in a CNN Green Room in 1988. How can we stand up to today’s evil?

A: Well, I mean, I would like to think anybody — when pure evil’s cut off and just by itself — by itself it’s just this little man, who’s scared and realizes that he’s vulnerable. Being able to summon the drastic resources that he had at his fingertips over the years, he’s very big and scary. But by himself he was just a man. And I as myself was just another man. I ran into him, and I didn’t like that man, and for once the situation wasn’t rigged for Kissinger, and he just looked like a little scared guy. It wasn’t like I was standing up to him at a state dinner or anything.

Q: What would happen if you ran into Bush or Vice-President Dick Cheney?

A: In other words, are they war criminals? Hell yes, they are. I’m not going to back off that. This needless war is a crime. Clearly these people have no qualms about anything. I mean, the United States of America has been caught torturing people under their watch. They have little or no respect for the principles of the flag they wrap themselves in — supposedly stand for. They don’t believe in elections. Their entire keep-out-the-vote effort in this election was really clear. But then again, if you look at how they handle themselves internationally, why would you expect them to be any different here?

Look at what they’ve tried to do in Venezuela; why would they care about free elections here? They don’t. They don’t care about it; they did everything they could to keep out the vote. There’s all this really questionable stuff with all this electronic voting that’s just insane. And they don’t care. They’re just snickering. They’re just fixers. They’re dirty — I think they’re fascists.

Q: So are you still holding out hope that investigators will discover suspicious election activity in Ohio?

A: What would be nice is to discover the true intent of the voters throughout the country. Including a lot of places where I think they probably padded the total with this electronic voting. Maybe Bush really did win this election. But there’s so much sleazy stuff that happened — and there was such an effort to keep people from voting, to keep people from their voting rights, I mean, unbelievably questionable things that happened with this electronic voting, I mean, all kinds of shifty stuff all over the place — that no matter what happens, no one’s ever gonna know if he won this election or not.

So as far as I’m concerned, George W. Bush will never serve one day as legitimate president of the United States. If he had any guts — which he doesn’t — but if he had the guts he likes to pretend he has, he would have gone out there and found out for sure. But why bother, when you can fix it or at least attempt to skew it dramatically. And the keep-out-the-vote effort was at least an attempt to skew it. It was also an admission, as far as I’m concerned, that they didn’t think they could win a fair election. Kerry and the Democrats tried to get out every vote they could, which was an indication that they thought they could win a fair election. That’s the difference. I think that in and of itself is telling.

So after that, to be told that I’m part of this minority, and I’d better change things around, I better start thinking differently, kowtow more to these superstitious evangelicals — you know, people who actually give Christianity a bad name. I’m not going to go along with that. So there’s a lot to do over the next four years. And from a cynical, personal viewpoint, you know, this doesn’t hurt my business at all. But I feel bad. I would rather that I was the person put out of work rather than however million people are either going to be put out of work or be working somewhere a lot worse, under a lot worse circumstances.