Bizarro World

Did you see the warning issued last week by three Iraqi insurgent groups, including the the Ansar al-Sunnah "Army"—the sweethearts who like to show pornographic beheading videos on the Internet?

They are threatening anyone who takes part in Iraqi elections, because democracy is un-Islamic. It could lead to passing such abominations as homosexual marriage, the statement said.

Does this strike you as vaguely familiar? Here is our our president trying to, if you'll excuse me, shove democracy down the throats of people who agree with him on one of his major issues. They probably would see eye to eye on gun control, too. And taxes? Well, I can just imagine how these guys feel about big government! If only we'd known how much we had in common before things got nasty.

Perhaps you remember the DC Comics concoction, Bizarro World. An attempt to fashion a Man of Steel from lifeless matter resulted in a parallel universe populated by Bizarros — an "imperfect, unliving duplicate of Superman who does things in a crazily mixed-up manner" [Superman #174].

The grotesque creation of Lex Luthor was often comically inept, but Bizzaro had his dark side as well: "Me unhappy! Me don't belong in world of living people!  Me don't know difference between right and wrong — good and evil!"

As young Clark Kent's step-father told him: "This great strength of yours — you've got to hide it from people or they'll be scared of you!"

And mother Kent chimed in: "But when the proper time comes, you must use it to assist humanity."

Proper time or not, it's too late now. Bizarro has been loosed and we're not in Smallville any more.