Sunday, March 9, 2008

Why We Couldn't Be Wild About Harry..or George or Abe, For That Matter...


I predicted it almost a year ago.

You’ll just have to take my word for it.

I said, at the time, that the Democratic ticket would be Hillary Clinton for president and Barack Obama for vice president.

It seemed like a no brainer, even back then.

And now, neck and neck horse race that the campaign for the nomination has become, the same prediction has gone from back room whispers to front and center predictions by various and sundry media commentators.

Even Hillary has dropped the hint about the “possibility” once or twice.
And it’s only March.

No one, obviously, can tell at this point what’s going to happen. The experts say that no matter what happens from here to the convention, neither candidate is going to be able to show up in Denver with a sufficient number of delegates to claim the nomination. The Pennsylvania primary is still over a month away and the conventional wisdom is that if Hillary wins it, she still wont have a majority of delegates, but she will be able to truthfully say that she won all the “big states” during the primary season, the states that will be critical to the success of the ticket in the fall.

But, given the amount of support that Obama has, even the most jaded politicos are offering that there is simply no way that a “combination” ticket cannot be, at least, considered.

Seems logical.
Here’s a thing, though.

Both candidates have, for at least the last few weeks, been spending the majority of their waking hours telling us what a big mistake it would be to vote for “him” or “her”.

Hillary says Barack doesn’t have the experience to be president.
Barack says Hillary doesn’t have the vision to lead the country in a much-needed new direction.

And the beat, as well as the sniping, goes on.
Drums keep pounding a rhythm to the brain.

And since the goal of each candidate is to make sure that we are saturated with awareness of the weaknesses and failings of the other, it’s a sure bet that each one of us is, sooner or later, going to look at one or the other and say “no way”.

Can you see where we’re going here?

We’re headed full bore toward that zany moment when the two people who have been doing their best to throw each other under the bus suddenly hang a serious u-ee, clasp hands together and raise their arms to accept the adulation of the convention crowd and offer themselves as the “team” that will, together, use experience and vision to lead the country in a much needed new direction.

In other words, the cheap shots and innuendo phase wraps up and the five star, world class lying phase begins.

Lies, you say?
Uh..yeah.

Because if everything they have said about each other all through the primary season is true, then what they say about each other after the convention has to be, by default, untrue.

Lies.

And even if what they said during the primary season was untrue and what they say NOW is true, there has still been a “whole lotta lyin goin on.”

It’s a lot like the T-shirt that George Carlin used to wear on stage.

On the front of the shirt, it said, “the statement on the back of this shirt is true.”
And on the back of the shirt, it said, “ the statement on the front of this shirt is false”.

The whole thing would be hilarious if we weren’t choosing the people who we’re basically trusting with our lives for the next four years.

The moral of the story, kids, is that even the most naïve’, unaware “average American voter” knows the difference between the truth and a lie, when the two are so obviously in our faces.

And if we can’t trust the people who are asking for our votes to tell us the truth when they need our trust to get to the office, how are we supposed to trust a thing they say after they’ve gotten what they want?

I heard somebody say the other day that what this country needs is a return to the honest, old-fashioned values on which the republic was founded and we needed a new George Washington or Abe Lincoln.

Or even Harry Truman.

Well, I’ll tell ya…the thing is that none of the three would stand a chance in politics today.

George?
Not so much.

Cause he could not tell a lie.

Honest Abe would have to be less honest and more practical.

And Harry?

Wouldn’t have a prayer.
Because the buck never stops anywhere anymore.

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