Pride of lyin'.

Pride? You're kidding. After 100-plus days of America Held Hostage--has it only been that long?--I find I have almost no room for pride. Rage. Not pride. I was raised Irish Catholic, and in my family, if you had an emotion, you went to your room. I suppose my therapist would be pleased with my progress.

And if my therapist were Lorraine Bracco, therapist to the Sopranos, the other extended family in the news, I would want to please her.

I remember myself in the pre-GWB years as a fairly omni-emotional gal. Marl. Sad. Glad. I could do them all, multilayered, and on a good day, simultaneously. Now I'm monoemotional. I'm a huge, energy-draining Rage Rover. I range from the very adult, snarky "I know you are, but what am I?" through the bitterly sarcastic "Oh, I bet you do, Bush Boy," to hop-spitting, vein-popping, homicidal fury: "Mother, where is my Uzi?" I'm a humvee of venom, and I don't know where to park it.

It got so bad, I had to call in the anger-management people. They assured me that the anger I was experiencing was in direct proportion to the perversion of pride around me.

Pride is losing the popular vote by 500,000 or more and stealing the electoral votes from the state run by your brother, another pride of the Bush scions, and then acting as if you've got a popular mandate.

Pride is ramming a Japanese boat with your submarine and acting as if it was because you had a late lunch.

Pride is doing bombing practice on Vieques just because you can.

Pride is spying on another country and getting caught and called on it. All China wanted was a phone call and an apology. We've all had exes like that. That would have been a great call. Prep in chief: "Whassup? Crouching ti-ger, hidden li-on, whassup?"

Pride is saying, "I wasn't there to welcome our spies home because I didn't want to disturb their personal tender moment with their families," carried for hours on CNN. Meaning, "I've got four days of fishing at my bass pond in Crawford planned. No way I'm going."

Pride is making those preemptive strikes of self-deprecating humor, which are nonetheless posited on a very large self. Whoo-e-e-e, lookit what I said. I'm an idiot. But I'm your idiot. And here are some baby pictures of the family. And the dining press correspondents fall for it every time.

Then there's the whole pride of lyings. who is really in charge, about the arsenic in the water, about the salmonella in the meat, about who really benefits from the tax cut, about the estate tax, about the family DUIs, about the real plan for abortion and funds for family planning, about those charter schools, about the drilling in Alaska, about workers' rights, about the tokenathon for minorities, gays, and women in the Administration.

There's been so much yanking, it's a wonder he did away with those repetitive-motion protections.

But I suppose anger is better than numbness. Although nothing can shut down my friends faster than my seething "Did you hear what he said about Africa?" (Trick question--he never says anything about Africa.) They sigh and respond wearily, "I only watch The West Wing," as if it were their new spiritual practice of detachment.

I don't want to sound like some kind of Comic Cassandra, pointing out that these guys are wearing Stetsons and they're dragging a big wooden horse into the center of town. So I'm trying a new tack: Replace anger with faith.

I'm a faith-based comic.

And my faith is in action. Action to make sure that this is the last blast of the blasted straight white guys. Action to make sure that they won't take us all down with them when they go. It's dicey. So I'm forming my own church: the Kate Clinton Full Marching Band and Urban Lesbian Swat Team. We hope to get some of those big federal funds to underwrite our Gay Pride Tour and the Rainbow Robes. Watch for us in a parade near you. We're just behind the horse.