Sunday, March 04, 2007

I Just Flew in from the Senate, and Boy Are My Arms Tired


It shouldn’t bother me since he won’t get the nomination anyway, but McCain making his official announcement to run for Prez on Letterman irks the fuck outta me. What’s next, Gore announcing on “TRL”? What the fuck? We’ve made it so that the very people who are running for THE most serious, important job in the world next to Gary Busey’s chauffer have to go on these shows and act silly, pandering to voters who wouldn’t know their names if they didn’t appear on MTV 40 fucking times during an election cycle. And these are the voters we ask to choose the man who will decide whether or not to send young men and women into a meat grinder. And by that I mean Iraq, not the NBA All-Star Weekend. Why isn’t it okay to have a presidential candidate who is sober, smart and serious? Now we insist on them being silly. John Kerry turns out to not be Shecky Green and he’s crucified. This is one of my problems with Bush, you can tell his default button when he walks into a room is to go for the quick laugh, you get the feeling he’d rather be at the kiddie table than with the adults. Hey, I’m the exact same way. But guess what? I’m not the fucking president, I’m not sitting with world leaders, I’m not sending people off to die. After years of this nonsense, maybe it’s not the worst thing to have someone with some gravitas. Look at John Edwards. Dude’s son was killed at age 16. Here’s someone who has been touched by death, touched by shocking realness, maybe he’ll take pause and actually think about it before sending off other young people to be shot at. Bush? He’s the rich-boy frat guy, untouched and sheltered. He’s the guy who was told his dog was sent to a puppy farm upstate. “You mean with Grandma?” “Yes, Georgie.” Floating through life unscathed in any way; tis how he’s able to pull the trigger on anything and everything so quickly without thinking or caring. “From the gut.” “Instinct.” How bout someone who actually thinks about things before acting? As someone who, as I just said, is more like W in that way and always quickly defaults to a joke it’s fascinating to me to watch Edwards being interviewed. Thoughtfully constructs an answer, doesn’t mind taking a second or three to actually think about it, and always seems slightly surprised/off guard when the other person makes a joke. You know what? That’s fucking alright with me. I want my president to be fucking WAY smarter, more serious and thoughtful than myself. Our great experiment of choosing someone because they’re dumb and “would have a beer with us” is over, it was a fucking disaster. Let's insist on a higher standard, and let's start with NOT having our potential fucking leaders making official announcements on fucking comedy shows. Enough.









"President Carrot Top Wants YOU!"

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