Just Like Us

Is it just me, or has half of America’s voting spectrum completely lost its damn mind?

 Back in the day, when bread was a nickel and gas flowed out of water fountains free to any kid with knickers and a bucket, this country took pride in electing the most qualified, most experienced, most intelligent people to hold the highest offices in the country.

 Oh, how the mighty land has fallen.

 According to a recent psychological study that examined the qualities of so-called “great presidents” throughout history, they found that the best candidates tended to have exceptional mental capacity and the ability to absorb enormous amounts of information, facts and figures. Great presidents tended to be open minded. They were attentive to their emotions. They were willing to question traditional values and try new ways of doing things. But, when it came to faith and morals, they tended to rely on leadership from church and religious figures on these matters, rather than bring them into the civic dialog.

Great presidents of the past were more imaginative and more interested in art and beauty than the less successful presidents. They were "tender minded," with great concern for the less fortunate.

 Sound like anyone we’ve elected lately? Well, not in the last eight years, anyway.

 The great president definition fit the likes of Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Lincoln (although he would never get elected today. “Abraham. Too Jewish.”)

 But today’s “informed” electorate has a different, and definitely lower standard when it comes to picking the Prez. Many of the folks who voted George W. Bush in office…twice (it actually hurt my back to type that) went by the notion that Bush was…

 A man like us. A simple guy. An everyday Joe. Somebody I’d want to sit down and have a beer with. Somebody like me.

 Somebody like you? But you’re an idiot! I don’t mean that to be overly-insulting, because I’m an idiot, too! We’re all, most of us, idiots when it comes to things like advanced economics, foreign relations, taxation and the environment. That’s why we try to set the highest standard possible when it comes to the character and intelligence of our candidates. And to tell you the God’s-honest truth Bubba-Lee, I want the smartest person in the room. I want the Rhodes Scholar, the person who speaks seven different languages and graduated Harvard cum laude. I want a great communicator who can carry on a conversation with anyone from farmers to heads of state. I want that candidate. I don’t want some beer drinking good ol’ boy who reads at a sixth grade level, votes every week on American Idol and whose idea of high humor is lighting his own farts.

 Is this what we’ve come to? Are we so dumbed down and insecure that we’re threatened by anyone who has the least modicum of intelligence and isn’t afraid to show it? I think we are. And the Right Wing has played us like a fucking Stradivarious.

 Take for example the word “elite.” A harmless word co-opted by the Right to mean: Upper crust. Stuck up. Snobs. The Intelligencia. People who think they’re better than you.

 Left-Wing Elitists.

 But isn’t “elite” a positive term? If we have a huge brain tumor, don’t we want an “elite” team of doctors to zap it out? When we need to invade a hostile nation and take out it’s leader, don’t we always send in an “elite” fighting force like the Green Berets or the Navy S.E.A.L.S? Isn't the "elite" the top, the A-Team, the best we have to offer? Is “elite” a bi-polar word? Can it mean what you want it to mean whenever you want it to? 

Convenient.

 So that’s how we got Dull Witted, War-Monger George Dub-Ya in for eight seemingly endless years. He wasn’t one of those Left-Wing “elitists” who were all so smart and educated and knew important things and flew around the world and used them big words with more than two syllables. He was a regular guy. The kind of guy you want to have a beer with. A guy just like us…an idiot.

 And now they’re trying the same tactic again. Last week, with much confetti and fanfare, they rolled out Sarah Palin as the new Vice Presidential candidate for the Republican Party. A nobody. A woman with almost two years experience as Governor of Alaska, the least populated state in America, and as Mayor of Wasilla, the state’s second largest city (population 9000)

 ???

 That’s it? It’s a joke, right? Wrong. And did the dull-witted, under-informed voters care that this woman has less experience than a Senate page, has proposed the banning of books from libraries, laws against gay marriage, cut funding from housing for unwed mothers and is so Bat-Shit Religious she actually got in front of people to say that the war in Iraq was “God’s war”? Did they care that, when approached for the position, she really and truly asked what it was that the Vice President actually did? No…no they did not.

 They all just love the fact that she’s (here we go again) just like us. She’s a hockey mom. She has five kids (that she constantly hauls out in front of the cameras, only to say “stop focusing on my family” when they get too close). She’s a regular gal with small town values and a great head on her shoulders.

 So this qualifies her to be sitting in the second most powerful seat in the world? To be one, fairly certain heart attack away from the Presidency? Is that fact scaring anyone else into severe diarrhea? It should, ‘cause her Uber-Mom dog and pony show has them dead even in the polls.

 Barack Obama…you know, the Democratic elitist? The smug, smart guy? His VP nominee was Joe Biden. Experience?

 JD, Syracuse University College of Law, 1968
BA,

 History/Political Science, University of Delaware, 1965.

Adjunct Professor, Widener University School of Law, 1991-present


Attorney, Private Practice, Wilmington, Delaware, 1968-1972.

Candidate, United States President, 2008


Senator, United States Senator, 1973-present


Council member, New Castle County Council, 1970-1972.

Vice Chairman, North Atlantic Treaty Organization Parliamentary Assembly.

Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights - Member


Foreign Relations - Chair

Judiciary -  Member


Subcommittee on Crime & Drugs -  Chair


Subcommittee on East Asian & Pacific Affairs - Member


Subcommittee on European Affairs - Member


Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law - Member


Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Refugees - Member


Subcommittee on International Development and Foreign Assistance, Economic Affairs and International Environmental Protection - Member


Subcommittee on International Organizations and Operations, Democracy and Human Rights - Member


Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South and Central Asian Affairs - Member


Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security - Member


Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Peace Corps and Narcotics Affairs – Member

 

God, what an elitist know-it-all.

 So do the math, folks. Would you rather have someone with the insight, seasoning and experience to handle the job of Vice President? Or do you want a radical religious hockey mom with small town values?

 I mean, she might not know a Shiite from a Sunni, but her Apple Brown Betty is a hit at the church book burnings.

 

I’m Anthony Wood. I’m angry. And my armpits smell like beef soup.