NP - Mitt's Magic Underwear and the Granny Ass Dance

[David Morris]

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/mitt-romney-mormon-underwear-12188879

TAMPA, Fla. Mormons are Christians, aren't they?

After all, they have the Mormon Tabernacle Chorus. Not only does the
Chorus do a mean Hallelujah, but Ronald Reagan said they were
America's Chorus.

They have good-looking children with excellent teeth.

They are pretty much over that extra-wives thing.

Still, there is one small nagging question in the back of more than
one delegate's mind at the convention here — a question most are too
polite to ask, a question that follows them right into the voting
booth: What is it with that Mormon underwear?

It's a question Ruben Israel and his band of brothers at Bible
Believers — "Preaching at big events for over two decades" — are only
too happy to answer. Brother Ruben et al have brought a genuine
article of Mormon underwear all the way from Los Angeles so that
delegates may personally examine the offending garment in the halls of
the RNC.

"You'll put on silky underwear when you put this man in office,"
Brother Ruben calls out like a sideshow barker. "Why don't you feel
this stuff? This is real Mormon hooley underwear!”

It's not like Romney is "some wacko-Methodist," he explains, offering
the underwear for inspection. It's a thin, off-white garment of some
sort of synthetic fabric, with a few small embroidered designs and
several large holes. "It's actually a female," Ruben says with only
the slightest trace of apology, as if he's just up-ended the wrong
hamster. And indeed there is a small bit of lace trim set into an edge
of the garment.

 [...]

Granville eyes the Bible Believer display, its banners railing against
Sin and Homo Sex, with suspicion. "Who are you kidding?" she demands.
"When you die, you are going to be looking up through the dirt on your
eyes, just like I am!"

"Woman!" thunders Brother Rueben in response. "You will live the Red Flame!"

Now there are three things Brother Reuben doesn't know about Karen
Grandville. First, she is the daughter of the late Yvette Cormier, a
longtime political operative in Maine. Known fondly as "Mrs.
Democrat," Cormier once filed a grievance with the state Democratic
party after observing, during a tie-breaking vote at a local caucus,
"Some people are holding up both hands."

Second, back in January, Granville was up at three in the morning,
watching television, when she heard someone trying to vault her fence.
The intruder was a carjacker being chased by police, and Granville
used her .38 Special revolver to hold him until the cops got cuffs on
him. Some details of the event remain unclear — was Granville watching
Rio Bravo or the The Real Housewives or Watch What Happens Live when
she first heard the intruder? — but one suspects Brother Ruben is not
one to get hung up on the details.

Third, Granville is skilled at what might be best described as the
Granny Ass-Shaking Chicken Dance, wherein wings are wildly flapped and
a senior posterior is shaken in the general direction of face of the
offending individual. Once a rhythm ins established, colorful
un-Granny-like expletives are thrown over the shoulder.

Brother Ruben is only momentarily fazed after an "asshole" clips his
left ear: "In my day, we didn't let women carry on out like this in
public. You need to clean up your mouth and go back to the trailer
park!"

Kirk Granville is his Momma's son. And he don't sit still for any
Your-Momma-ing, even if the accuser has cut him out of the
conversation and is addressing his Momma directly.

He rises from his wheelchair, and takes one deliberate step forward.
He is a large man, with orthopedic shoes that look like, if a leg
could lift them, they could deliver a quite satisfactory kick to a
face. He takes another step. One half-expects the recognition of a
bona fide miracle right here, and maybe a few cries of Hallelujah in
appreciation of Ronald Reagan and America's choir. No such luck.
"You're legs are weak before God!" warns another of the Brothers.

Kirk takes still another step forward, and then another, and then
another. He stops, and stands there for one long moment, staring down
the Brothers...