Will Durst: The center left, right?

Does anybody know what happened to the center? I remember hearing about it in the old days, but it seems to have disappeared like a wisp of mist in a solar wind. All anybody talks about is the left and the right. We're so polarized these days, I'm surprised our compasses still work. They should be stuck on due daft. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan speaking about the Democratic Party: I didn't leave the center, the center left me. And you can blame Uncle Ron for triggering the seismic shift that shoved the center to the right.

For instance:

Q. What did they call the homeless before Reagan? A. Patients.

Bush One wallowed in Ronnie's footsteps and kicked the center a bit more righter and even Bill Clinton nudged it not less than a little. Then Bush Two... Fugetaboutit. He attached a rocket booster to the edge of the center and shot it so far west of Texas, you can't see it anymore due to the curvature of the Earth.

Now I grew up a moderate. A raging moderate perhaps, but a moderate nonetheless. These guys keep moving the center; I stay in the same place and suddenly I'm a Marxist. Just because I believe a society should be based on how it treats its least fortunate not its most fortunate. And that makes me a commie pinko yellow rat bastard? How the hell did that happen?

Think about it: Nixon -- civil rights, the Environmental Protection Agency. He'd have problems getting the Democratic nomination for Lieutenant Governor in Massachusetts. Goldwater -- who said about gays in the military, "you don't have to be straight, to shoot straight," would be written off as an enemy of our troops and close personal friend of Nancy Pelosi's hairstylist, if you know what I mean.

20% of the country is, has been and always will be, far left. 20% is far right. The rest of us are in the middle. Between the fringes. You could say we are average, ordinary, or even god forbid... normal. Me, I'm just a middle-aged, middle-class, Middle-American of medium height, medium build who likes his steaks medium rare. And that's the only thing rare about me. Like a lot of us, I'm just a guy -- a regular guy tired of having to pick either Ann Coulter or Sheryl Crow as my spokesperson. These women have as much to do with me as a Madagascar hissing cockroach has to do with the United Auto Workers Pension Fund. Maybe it's Starbucks' fault for semantic size corruption. Selling America a medium sized coffee and calling it "grande." Everybody expects to be special. Everything has to be extreme. And the only thing I want extreme is the action of my laxative.

We're not just losing the middle, we're losing the middle class, which is not a good thing. Cuz when the middle class disappears, you start to hear things like, "eat the rich," and trust me, nobody wants that. The rich are way too stringy. All that free time to exercise. The fat poor is where it's at. Mmm. The fat poor. Tastes just like chicken. So if you see the center or know what happened to it, please contact me ASAP. Reward on return.

Catch Durst performing previews of his solo show "The All-American Sport of Bipartisan Bashing" in New York at the New World Stages (340 West 50th Street) beginning Monday, August 6 unveiling an open ended run on August 15. Telecharge.com for tickets or willdurst.com for more info. Check out his twice weekly commentaries @audible.com/willdurst. And iTunes audiobooks for his new CD: "Ring Toss for Aliens," $4.95.

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