Politicians are funny creatures…at least much of the time. For instance, the governor of Kentucky, while running for office in 2007, promised to bring on casino gambling to solve the state's financial woes while stating flatly that he would not be for increasing the tax on cigarettes. So…now that the guv has discovered that there will be no casino business, his legislature refusing to structure a system that will satisfy the "horsy set" by letting the pony owners run the "gaming" show, he has recommended an increase of $.70 per pack on cigarettes, with – get this – part of the reason being that there will be "health-care" benefits, meaning that people will be discouraged from smoking, therefore not buying the coffin nails and paying the new taxes that will solve the state's revenue problems. Egad!
Or, take the case of Clinton-supporter and onetime Congressperson Geraldine Ferraro, who said the other day that if Barack Obama were a white guy he wouldn't even be where he is today. She may be right, but she seems to have forgotten that the only reason she was on the democrat ticket in the vice president slot in 1984 was that she was a woman. One need only remember that the feminist movement was in high gear in the 80s, so why not hornswoggle the populace into voting democrat by putting a woman on the ticket and recognizing the end-all of existence itself…namely, DIVERSITY. Egad!
It gets worse for Ferraro. According to CNNPolitics.com of 12 March, "In an April 15, 1988, article in The Washington Post, Ferraro is quoted as saying that because of his 'radical' views, 'if Jesse Jackson were not black, he wouldn't be in the race.'" Does this woman have no memory, or, if she does, is she simply making what to many appear as racist statements because she thinks this plays well in certain segments of the population? Hopefully, she's just blabbering without thinking.
Or, take the case of currently resigning New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, who made the promise of cleaning out the criminals an important part of his campaign in 2006. After all, he had trashed the prostitute rings and at least some of the Wall Street thieves as the attorney general, so he had the bona fides – he said – to be the governor. The rest of the sad tale is in the media every day now, his spending tens of thousands of dollars having trysts with call-girls, even transporting at least one object of delight across state lines as recently as last month. Some say he was just arrogant…but maybe he was just a bit dumb to think he was beyond the reach of the law, his enemies…or both.
There's no way to one-up Senator Clinton's inference the other day that Obama would be a fine addition to the democrat ticket in November…as the vice president candidate, of course, with her in the catbird seat. Problem: Obama was well ahead in the democrat presidential sweepstakes then and is even farther ahead now, so why on earth would an apparently reasonable U.S. senator make an outrageous suggestion like that? Suggesting that the first-place vote-getter should play second-fiddle to the runner-up is like asking a horse (okay, the jockey) 20 lengths ahead in the homestretch to wait ten yards short of the finish line in order to be overtaken by a nag. What are these people thinking…that the great unwashed out here in the boondocks have sand between their ears?
And then there's Obama, who makes a big deal out of his always being against the war but didn't even have a vote, while claiming Clinton was for it before she was against it – sort of like John Kerry in 2004 – but then talks about invading Pakistan to go after bin Laden if Musharraf doesn't collar the butcher. This guy thinks he's ready to be the big enchilada? Egad again! Of course Clinton doesn't think he's ready now, but, since the veep has to be ready at any time if a prez becomes incapacitated, thinks he would be ready by November. And the dummies out here on the fruited plain or in the purple mountains aren't supposed to notice this stuff?
Wannabe First Gentleman "Loathe the Military and love interns" Bill Clinton, who couldn't dodge the impeachment bullet, took some pain to explain the other day how a Clinton-Obama ticket would simply be unbeatable since she could gather the women's and the old codgers' votes while Obama (not yet 50) could get the young vote and the black vote. Only the old white guys are left, and what do they matter anyway? They mostly have made this country what it is, but so what! They can vote McCain…if they can find the polling place and understand all about hanging chads.
Clinton's latest ad (a copycat version of Lyndon Johnson's in 1964 – that h-bomb cloud by Goldwater over the little girl with the daisies, remember?) describing how a girl-child can sleep peacefully if Hillary is at the helm (not so with Obama, apparently at least before November) conjures up a gal in her yellow pants-suit meeting the enemy with a lethal hatpin. Neither she nor Obama would know a salute from an obscene gesture, but so it goes. And we're supposed to believe these people are serious? Egad!
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
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