Some choices are easier than others

Well, it appears what started with over a dozen choices has now been whittled down to two. The final decision has not been made, but there will be hours of discussion, arguments may get heated, and families will be divided. I am of course referring to: Will “Kung Fu Panda” or “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan” earn more money at the box office?
In lesser news it seems we have gotten the two major party candidates set for the 2008 presidential election. The Democrats have been metaphorically bludgeoning each other in a battle like something Tina Turner would have presided over in Mad Max 3. The Republican race was decided so much earlier many people can’t even name three of the former candidates. (Hmmm, let me think…there was Rudy Giuliani…annnd, uh…the guy with the hair, oh, Romney, something, uh, Glove? No that’s not right, uh Mitten, Mitten Romney…and the guy from the Law and Order television show, hmm, Sam Waterston, yeah, that’s him. He played Abraham Lincoln once. He might be good. Wasn’t it Lincoln who said, “You can fool some of the people all of the time and all the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people into thinking an actor can be president more than once.”)
Unless something unforeseen by any political pundit happens, and it is hard to believe anything can be unforeseen by people who never stop foreseeing, we are left with Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain. What strikes me is the historic aspect. For the first time we can select a person of color or a person almost completely devoid of it. I know it is common nowadays to demand that the machinations of government should be more transparent, but I do not think they meant the guy in charge should be see through. I’m sorry, even dyed in the wool Republicans have to admit John McCain looks like he was constructed out of paste.
I am not really a political humorist (which the previous paragraphs may prove). The chief reason is I’m not angry enough. Oh, there are people in power who do things which really toss my salad, but it is hard to point to any one group as the right group. So often in elections I do not see any candidate who embodies the beliefs, wants, and dreams I harbor in my heart of hearts. Therefore, I am forced to vote for the candidate who seems least likely to come to my house, take money from my wallet, sell my pets for medical experimentation, and set fire to my baseball cap collection. To tell the truth that was really why I didn’t feel comfortable with Dukakis, I feared for my hats.
Settling for the lesser of evils as the criteria for selecting the leader of the free world seems far from optimal. The way the parties revel in pointing out every personal foible or past faux pas makes it impossible to not think of the people running for office as losers of epic proportion or simply evil incarnate. For example, if I ran for office someone would point out the previous sentence contained a split infinitive so what’s to stop me from irresponsibly splitting the atom and erasing life as we know it. The continuous nitpicking by the press, the opposition, and roving bands of school nurses who are trained to pick actual nits would show anyone in a horrible light.
I think the President of the United States should not be perfect. Have you ever met someone who seemed truly perfect? Admit it. You wanted to slug that person right in the chops. It would make world diplomacy even more difficult if every NATO leader was not listening to what the President of the United States was saying but rather imagining him wearing a silly hat and dancing the Merengue because they really hate him.
This peculiar desire the campaigns have to paint their guy as a “Regular Joe” bothers me. I don’t need my president to be able to fix the timing chain on a ’89 Ford Festiva. I need him to fix health care. I don’t need him to know the difference between a Willowleaf and an Indiana spinner fishing lure. I need him to know the difference between progressive and regressive taxes. I don’t need him to know all the words to Merle Haggard’s “Okie from Muskogee”. I need him to know all the words to the Constitution and I do mean all the words.

Christopher Pyle will never run for high office because he could not resist punching Bill O’Reilly in the face and yelling “There was no spin on that either.” You may contact Chris at occasionallykeen@yahoo.com.