The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future as a

Political Commentator

Interesting choice, kid. Most parents teach their kids that polite topics of discussion don't include religion, sex or politics--of course, the ones who miss that little lesson might eventually make a living violating those taboos.

How you approach this depends on whether you want to be considered right wing or left wing. What's that? Neutral? Oh, that's funny, kid. Nobody wants to hear what a middle of the road rational thinker has to say, so get ready to pick an ideology and go with it.

If you choose left wing you'll go somewhere ivy league, if you can afford it, or some place like Berkeley, which still has a pretty good pinko pedigree. You'll study all the folks so hated by the right--from Marx to Chomsky and everyone in between. You'll also work on the college paper, and enjoy that warm cozy left-wing incubator--never again will your audience be as supportive of your viewpoints on everything from abortion to gay marriage.

If you choose the right wing option, you'll go somewhere less "intellectual" like Bob Jones University. You'll go to classes on foreign policy where the professor's pronounciation of "Eye-talian" and insistence on using the prefix "Red" whenever referring to China makes it clear you're in the heart of Fox News country. You'll join the NRA, get a bumper sticker that has some slogan superimposed over the stars and stripes, and another that has a target superimposed over Michael Moore's face. You'll even buy a confederate flag tie to impress the the Anne Coulter wannabes at the occasional cotillion you're invited to attend.

I figure you for a lefty, though--you don't seem like the pork rind type.

After college you'll turn an internship at some left wing publication like Mother Jones into a low-paying minion job, and hope to climb the ladder to something better. Problem is, you have gone too far left, and you eventually wise up and slip back towards the mainstream a little. You settle for writing op-ed pieces for some mid-sized city's daily rag, and you're always on the side of the liberal angels when it comes to everything from fighting greenhouse gases to eliminating aid to Israel.

Sometimes even you will have a hard time swallowing the swill you have to dish out--you dutifully trumpet the ACLU line on a talk show discussing the case of a fired bank employee who refused to speak the names of the days of the week due to his devotion to atheism--seems invoking "Woden's day" or "Thors' day" counts as prayer in your circles.

You become a frequent guest on shows that pit the left against the right--again, the middle won't be invited--and one Fox News regular will dub you the "Most hated liberal" in America--Michael Moore may be retired by then and any of the remaining Kennedys in public life by that time will be too busy in court-mandated alcohol treatment to challenge you for the title.

You will bask in the glory of your ideological purity. You will be akin to a rockstar in blue state college campuses. There will be only one problem--you aren't getting the same kind of cash flow your right-wing counterparts pull in. They mock you once the TV lights go off at the shows where you battle them, reminding you constantly that the well-connected conservatives whose bilge they sell make sure they're well rewarded for doing so.

You've always refused to sell out, but after some delicate discussions with an agent, you agree to be the spokesperson for the "Universal Encyclopedia of Mankind". It's an ambitious project to put a socially-relevant, politically-correct electronic reference tool in the hands of liberal families everywhere. It's the brainchild of a philanthropic billionaire who you've seen at various left wing fundraising events. He is thrilled you agree to be his spokesperson, and soon your face is on television, print ads and web sites promoting this educational tool.

You'll be shopping for a new Lexus when your cell phone informs you of the disaster. Your benefactor has been very quiet about his brother, and with different last names, few knew that the politically-correct billionaire is step-sibling of the leader of the United Aryan Reich. It will turn out that all the profits from the successful encyclopedia project were being secretly funnelled to train white supremacists in the use of the same weapons it was providing them.

No one will openly explain why you are shunned, but they will make you a pariah nonetheless. When you are told you are no longer grand marshall for the Kwanzaa parade, you'll drink yourself into a state worthy of a Massachussetts senator, and the resulting drunk driving incident will relegate your career to a footnote in the encyclopedia you so effectively shilled.

Hey kid--that finger ain't the peace sign, you know...