Politricks

Since the state of California has renamed my independent voting status as a "Decline To State" voter, I actually can request a Democratic primary ballot this coming Tuesday. This means I am the unenviable choice of punching my chad for one of these two goofballs shown to the right.

In an effort to make sure that I make an "intelligent" selection, I decided to tune into the debate held Thursday night at the Kodak Theater. They say knowledge is power. But, in this case, knowledge renders me powerless. Because, after two hours of watching this dribble from who are allegedly the finest candidates one political party has to offer, I can easily understand why half of our national population stays home on the first November Tuesday every four years. Our country is officially in one very tight embrace with mediocrity. We are now receiving exactly what we deserve. And, in a shout out to the heavenly beyond, I can finally tell my father he was right.

They all stink!

First of all, our election process now resembles something akin to a season's boxset of Desperate Housewives. Tons of twists and turns, but absolutely not a single issue resolved. Actually, Marc Cherry does a better job tying up a season full of Teri Hatcher and Marcia Cross than our news media does in analyzing an election. When I was a kid, I remember televised debates as very much serious discussions. They were usually anchored by one of the top TV journalists of the day, like Cronkite or Brokaw. Now, you get a media event with softball questions phoned in from some peckerwood in Nebraska. Wolf Blitzer looks like a high school chemistry teacher proctoring a midterm exam. All in all, you get more useful information from this week's TV Guide.

This latest debate was further hampered by its placement at the Kodak Theater. The audience shots of various celebrities made it look like they all showed up early for the Oscars. Of course, most of Hollywood makes a big deal of who is supporting which candidate, as if there is any justification for knowing that Ugly Betty wears a Hillary button. These people all make tons of money, so, in reality, it should make no difference to any of them whether the next President is Hillary Clinton or Calista Flockhart. Stevie Wonder was spotted in the audience, and now I want to be a fly on the wall when he goes behind a curtain to vote. We saw Diane Keaton wearing something from the Annie Hall wardrobe department, and it's clear she missed her 1978 wake-up call. Nevertheless, Hollywood showed up in droves, and it was a darn good night to be a jewelry thief in Bel Air. They cheered wildly every time their "favorite" candidate uttered some bon mot on the set which looked like it had been borrowed from "The Price is Right." I was waiting for Ba-lack Osama to get up and try his hand at a game of Plinko. They also included several shots of Chelsea Clinton, and given the fact that Bill and Hillary are reasonably decent looking folks, I have no idea how she could be their child. She always has a scrunched up look on her face as if somebody is cooking up a pot of cabbage.

I listened to everything both of them had to say, and realized that substantive political discussions in this country have gone the way of Silly Putty and Reggie Bars. Indeed, the whole night's exchange did nothing more for me than just illuminate how totally unprepared either one of these clowns are to lead this country. In her TV ads, Hillary keeps talking about her 35 years of experience, a factoid that had me scratching my head. I went on-line and discovered that she's been married for 33 years, so I am supposing that she's also including two years of dating Bill as well.

Meanwhile, Obama Bin Laden is presenting himself as a breath of fresh political air, but, realistically, he hasn't had a sincere public moment in 10 years. From my vantage point, he's as dangerous as Jimmy Carter was when Americans elected him becuase he was the panacea for Watergate. Smiling Jimmy turned out to be one of the worst Presidents of the 20th Century and now he's really nothing more than a sober Ty Pennington with a college degree. Ba-lack as the most powerful leader in the free world? I wouldn't trust him to valetpark my car. He wants to unite the country, but he can't even get the Kennedy family on the same page.

This is not to say that the other side of the nominee fence is any better. In a world which is increasingly imperfect, our own leaders are the most flawed of all. And, sadly, we can't even come to expect an intelligent two-hour discussion from any of them.

Yeah, Dad, I know. I hear you.

Dinner last night: Asian Beef Salad at the Farm.