I gotta vote again this November. I say "gotta" because if I don't, I give up my right to bitch about the outcome, and considering the past seven years six months, my right to bitch is about as life affirming as my right to breathe.
And just as it has been every four years for me over the past almost forty, the same ugly thoughts come to me once again.
First off, we might vote for a President, but we end up electing an Administration. I have a number of issues with Mr. Bush, and they're likely not at all different from the ones many of you have regardless of citizenship. When the arguably most powerful man in the free world farts, we all smell it. In alot of ways, though, I find him likeable enough. Probably would like him as a next-door neighbor. Have him over for barbecues, talk about baseball with him. But that would likely be it.
Rumsfeld and Ashcroft and Gonzalez... a bunch of the other moral neanderthals he brought along with him? Toss 'em all in Gitmo, melt down the keys. Cheney? Nothing I could say anywhere on the 'net that wouldn't have Homeland Security knocking on my door. I don't trust a single one of those self-serving nimrods any farther than I could spit them... and they're the ones, the "trusted advisors" and the like who we know about. I can't for a minute believe that there aren't a few big time oil men or defense contractors or Wall Street sodomists who can't hit a single digit on Speed Dial and affect our national policy in one way or another.
All too often, the President is merely the public face of the decisions being made. He's not the thought behind them, he's not the motivations skewing those thoughts, and he's not even the rationale sanitizing those thoughts. He's just a mouthpiece. I don't have too much of a problem with that, actually: I don't anticipate the leader of any powerful nation could be realistically expected to be capable of calling all the shots without relying on the input of others vastly more experienced or educated that he/she on a myriad of complex issues.
I just want to be able to trust the folks who supply that input, and that goes beyond the Vice President who we also vote for.
Look at Cheney. In the past, we kind of expected the VP to show up at State Lunches and Photo-ops whenever the Prez had other pressing business to attend to. For eight years, now, Bush speaks and Cheney's lips move.
Second problem: politicians run for President. Statesmen stay where they often belong: the Senate or the House. Go back and think of some of the real earth shakers we've had: Tip O'Neill, Howard Baker, Pat Moynihan, any number of others who have been most effective for all of us by ostensibly representing their direct constituents. Some people who should be in out government never made it into politics to any great degree. Likely never cared to play the game. So it's a matter of priorities, and when you're going for the Biggest Prize of All, the focus seems to be too centralized: what can I do to keep people less pissed off than the last guy, and how do I assure myself another four years?
Senator Obama is a breath of sanitized air, if not quite fresh. Makes it easier to not have to even remotely consider voting for Senator McCain.
Still not anyone I would pick on my own, but my guys gave up on politics long ago to help our country grow to its fullest potential. They knew where and how they would be most efficient and productive and met the challenge with bi-partisan dedication and a sense of patriotism not defined according to party platforms.
Hope we catch-phrase obsessed, sound-byte suckling Yanks don't let the rest of you down.
P. S. I'd rather have Billary as VP then as Secretary of State, Attorney General or Supreme Court Justice, and I can't help but get the feeling that bowing out so graciously has Obama at least slightly indebted to the Clintons.
