I’m sitting at my desk wondering what to write about. The dynamic duo come to mind, McCain and Palin. It is tragic that the best we can offer is the Iditarod idiot and and a very disheveled Don Quixote tilting his lance at Anheuser-Busch distributorships. I don’t believe that the American people deserve better. I believe we get what we want. I am not that crazy about Obama as well. He has to explain to me why he knew about Ayers and heard his good reverend’s splenetic tirades over the years and did not distant himself from both. Of course, he did not pal around with Ayers but he knew his history. I do not believe in redemption — too “religulous” for me. What irks me about Obama is the unwillingness to answer the question right on, not his association with these men. He is good at giving nuanced answers. I’ll take a nuanced answer if he answers why he knew about Ayers background and did not remove himself from that. Let me get to the quick. I would not shake hands with Mel Gibson, Wagner, T.S. Eliot, Jesse Jackson, Pat Buchanan, Mencken, Dickens, Orwell, Bertrand Russell, FDR and his State department, Louis Farrakhan, Pat Robertson, Henry Ford, and Charles Lindbergh. So, I view Obama as unclean in terms of giving a rigorous response or reply to a rigorous question: “You knew, sir, of Ayers’ background. Why did you then still associate with him?” I accuse you of nothing. I need to know your answer to make an informed decision about my vote.
Of late Mutt and Jeff have pandered to racism. When that malfunctioning woman called Obama an “Arab,” McCain’s response was lame. Rather, he should have taken her on. What is wrong in being an Arab? He would have, in my eyes, dealt with her racism right then and there. Palin is beyond insufferable. I read “payback” in her mentality, a kind of vindictiveness if need be. She is so over her head that as an American I have to wait while she “bones up” on general American history. An ignoramous of the first order, I do not underestimate her craftiness and excessive ambition. Woe for this nation, if we really believe she is the best we can have. Parentheticaly, many do. May I inform you, reader, the yahoos have always been in charge.
Back to McCain. Driven by disordered personal demons — vanity, ambition, high-powered neediness, he gives being “old” a bad name, for it speaks of overweening pride, rigidity, stubbornness, tunnel vision, and dogmatism. I do not see a reflective person in him, a ponderer. When he got on his white horse like the generals of old and galloped into Washington, pennants flying high, flags unfurled, he crashed into himself, giving birth to a stillborn. It was beyond a stunt. It was poorly thought out. He is a limited man which probably makes him perfect for the presidency. It is an old historian’s wisdom that by the time you run for president you have been so sandpapered by corruption, deals, weak compromise and lobbyist ointments that you represent nothing, a tabula rasa for the people to project their needs upon, the Lockean social contract, indeed.
When McCain chose Palin for the second part of his ticket I realized his judgment was poor, his actions and behavior erratic and unthought through. Palin is a political catastrophe and I believe he really lost the election with that choice. Or, he may win it. If you have been polluted by TV while growing up, have developed cataracts from playing games, and have a mind made up of bumper stickers, Palin is the one. I won’t ask what was the last book she read — too elitist; I will ask: what was the last clear series of thoughts that came to mind, that you thought about considerably, that you brought to fruition, that you assayed as worthless or not? And please spare me governance; I speak of the personal inner kind. She is a product of causes, she has, to my eyes, a conditioned mind, consequently she is a flagrant exemplar of what Americans admire — the marketeer.
So Mutt and Jeff, one the empty bottle, the other the empty contents, give some Americans what they want to hear. Americans love to be soothed by con men and women — the history is long for that. I prefer my politicians corrupt and shady, a prerequisite for their running, in my mind. All I want, naive me, is honesty, ha! about their foibles. Never to be gotten. The difference between McCain and Obama is that one has a better soda can to sell. Are these the best choices we could have? Of course, not. The very sad thing is that given what faces us as a people nationally and internationally we have very few options in our leaders. By the by, I don’t need a leader, I require a mensch. What about you?
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