Election 2008: Midget-Wrestling
This is a grim time for those of us who would like to see Team America do well. We are tied in Afghanistan, but we’ve been playing defense and have been pushed back to our own twenty-yard line since the start of the second half. In Iraq we are two touchdowns behind at the start of the fourth quarter. We have no Peyton Manning, and the referees have been paid off by the home team. Only a miracle will save us from certain defeat.
The home front is no better. Next year’s elections are bound to be a disaster for patriotic conservatives like myself, which means the neocons will have a fresh start to once again con the incoming crowd. Those running for president bring no relief to the gloomy weather report. Hillary Clinton—she’s dropped the Rodham now that it suits her to be simply Clinton—makes my skin crawl. If I have to look at that smug, bloated, power-crazed face for another 8 years nightly on the idiot box, I will seriously think of moving to Grozny. She was and remains a socialist, and if you believe what she says now trying to get elected you are the type that believed her hubby when he said he “never had sex with that woman.” (What he should have done is what JFK would have done. Told the same whopper but with a wink and a smile. End of story).
Barack Obama sounds very exotic but he is an unknown quantity with a 100 percent liberal voting record and whose only claim to instant fame is his skin color. What the hell is going on here? Just because a part-black man has obvious charisma and is soft-spoken and decent, is it enough to make him president? Why not pick an even nicer guy like Colin Powell?
The third guy, the hard-left lawyer now posing as a centrist, John Edwards, was good in screwing money out of tobacco companies—not necessarily a bad thing—but is he any good in trying to run the vast bureaucracy that is the American government nowadays? I don’t think so.
Which brings me to the Republicans. I’ll start with the present leader in the polls, Rudy Giuliani. There’s something of the night about him, have no illusions. Yes, he did fix New York City, as he and his fans tell us at every opportunity and then some. Yes, he’s arrogant and a bully, but those things have never stopped one from being a good leader of men. But his undertaker’s looks bother me. He’s more Richard III than Henry V, and now we’re at a time where the latter is needed.
I also have somewhat of a personal problem with the mayor. About ten years ago I wrote a spoof column about the Puerto-Rico Day Parade which had some busybodies screaming for my head. Then Giuliani got involved. He told a press conference that he would look into it and have me deported. The fact that I am an American citizen never entered his mind—which was concentrated on getting some Puerto Rican votes. He then threatened to boycott Conrad Black’s newspapers unless he fired me. Imagine what a great defender of free speech Giuliani is when at the drop of a hat he demands the firing of a poor little Greek boy like yours truly. As someone wrote in an English paper at the time, anyone who is for bringing in more Puerto Ricans to go on welfare while deporting a non-welfare recipient like Taki has to be wrong.
Yep, things ain’t lookin well, folks. A thrice divorced Catholic who looks and smells of Savonarola may be the next president, but don’t bet on it. People who look like undertakers win in Rumania but in these here United States, I’m not so sure. Mind you, if a congenital liar like Clinton made it, why not his lying wife or Giuliani? But Clinton was a bubba, which appealed to folk down south. Giuliani is Inspector Javert, without the latter’s propensity to jump in the water out of guilt.
John McCain is obviously a very good man and a patriot but he no longer has the fire. Gone is the ebullience of the past. Iraq has ruined the Bush presidency and McCain’s candidacy. He appears farther away from the White House than ever. Too bad. A very worthy man has gone down Swanee, thanks to the neocons.
My favorite, of course, would be Mitt Romney if he wasn’t so obsequious to AIPAC. He is a Mormon, which I would be if I could choose my religion, but the Christian Right in cahoots with the neocon cabal will put the kibosh on his candidacy. Romney is no one’s gofer, and that spells trouble. Big corporations like their candidates to play ball. Alas, look for Romney to bow out early. Too bad. There is only one Peyton Manning but he has not as yet made up his mind.
Chuck Hagel. Now there’s a man who could win one for old Uncle Sam. Just imagine the greatest Super Bowl of all time, Chuck Hagel vs. James Webb. But it won’t happen next year. Maybe in 2012. A gloomy time indeed.
Comments
What about your pal Pat? That’s who we really need (since it is too late for for Ross Peroit).
Click to flag this comment as abusive
I have no objection with friends in our thing passing notes in the classroom to Hagel, but if you want us to go along for the ride, hedge with Ron Paul now and we will consider Hagel in good faith (should he run.)
Click to flag this comment as abusive
If you do find yourself in a position to choose your religion, I could arrange for some gentlemen in white shirts and dark ties to come discuss the matter of Mormonism with you.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
What? Mormonism? “Women, women everywhere, but not a drop to drink.” No thanks. Living with women without booze is like having teeth drilled without novocaine or laughing gas.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
The only honorable candidate on any side is Ron Paul. He gets my vote and what little money I can afford to donate.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
J. Ball,
I’d submit that given its dual limitations of temporary effect and, occasionally, addiction, alcohol is unsuitable as a a palliative for women. Better the monastic life if one can manage it. :-)
John Lowell
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Kirt,
Haven’t voted since 1992 for obvious reasons. Catholic first last and always, I’m concerned about Paul, a Libertarian, to the extent that Libertarians explain fundamental problems in terms of structures - the state - much as do Marxists, albeit it with an entirely different twist. In my mind this kind of thinking hardly goes far enough. There’s the reality of sin and in structures, sin is derivative, not basic. I’d prefer St. Francis or St. Therese of Liseaux but neither has appointed a campaign manager. :-)
John Lowell
Click to flag this comment as abusive
the only way hillary should allowed near the white house is with a mop and bucket
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Mr. Lowell,
Kind thanks for validating my ancestors opinions of certain religous migrations, they get such a bad rap in the present. Under the cloak of Rum Romanism and Rebellion, that we liked, for your consideration.
Best,
Click to flag this comment as abusive
wesley clark for me. I’m a libertarian but he is the only one of the electables who has a chance of putting together a non moronic foreign policy. not divestive enough for me, but the best of the worst.
also, obama was a professor of constitutional law. just thought I’d throw that in there
Click to flag this comment as abusive
John, Ron Paul is a practical rather than a doctrinaire libertarian and I have no problem with that. I don’t expect to agree with all of his positions but he is pro-life, anti-war and wants to downsize government. I could certainly never support Clark, whose proudest accomplishment was pulverizing what was left of Yugoslavia, driving hundreds of thousands of Christian Serbs into exile and turning Kosovo over to Albanian Moslem gangsters.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Rep. Ron Paul of Texas is clearly the best man for the job, but in the interests of practicality, I’d happily settle for Nebraska’s own Sen. Hagel.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Mr Lowell,
You’re right, in your retort to what I said about women and booze. And thanks for taking my Swiftian remark in the spirit (no pun intended) that it was intended. ;-)
To any Mormon readers: Seriously, I have high respect for all Mormons, for the same reasons why the US State Department hires so many of them as loyal and reliable patriots: Mormons don’t drink or drug or whore around, and so they’re especially reliable diplomats in hostile countries where the honey-pots loom. I think the Mormon religion is looney, but it’s looney in a way which is perfectly consistent with the true interests of the USA. Thus, in all honesty I would not object to a Mormon President of the USA.
To Taki and our readers, regarding this article: Frankly, Obama scares me more than any other Presidential candidates, because I perceive that he has the potential to become a very American kind of National-Socialist demagogue. And NO, Obama is NOT “eloquent” and he is NOT extraordinarily “intelligent.”
He’s the quintessential beneficiary and personification of America’s obsession with race, and all the more dangerous for his personification of a lurid, salacious fantasy.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
J Ball -
I’ll take your “looney in a way which is perfectly consistent with the true interests of the USA” as one of the better compliments of Mormonism I’ve seen. Thanks!
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Ron Paul is the only true constitutionalist
running (I can live with the founders of
our republic envisioned). Paul is also the
only one who voted AGAINST this insane war,
is for sensible economic preactices (no IRS or
Federal Reserve) and against amnesty,
birthright citizenship, etc. He is known,
even by his enemies, to be an honerable man
whom the lobbyists no longer even try to
currupt.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Bill Richardson has been preparing for battle, and will be out in force as something to reckon with. He’s a Democrat, but speaks Spanish and has a cowboy hat. If it worked for Bush, it could work for anybody.... right?
Click to flag this comment as abusive
“is he any good in trying to run the vast bureaucracy that is the American government nowadays?”
If George Walker Bush can do it, anyone can.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
“To any Mormon readers: Seriously, I have high respect for all Mormons, for the same reasons why the US State Department hires so many of them as loyal and reliable patriots: Mormons don’t drink or drug or whore around, and so they’re especially reliable diplomats in hostile countries where the honey-pots loom.”
Posted by J Ball on Mar 21, 2007.
Your comment reminds me of a line from the 1939 movie The Mask of Dimitrios, in which the ever-huge Sidney Greenstreet says to his besotted friend Peter Lorre, “Wine, women and song, Victor, you flatter me. You know I can’t sing.” And then there’s Adolfo Cieli (Did I spell that correctly?) in Thunderball saying to his sociopathic hit man, “Vargas does not drink, Vargas does not smoke, Vargas does not make love. What do you do, Vargas?”
Unquestioning patriots, yes, as when they refused to believe Uncle Sam would poison them with fallout from our atom bomb tests, but what do Mormons do?
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Post a Comment
By submitting this form, you give Taki's Magazine permission to publish this comment. Comments will be published at our discretion, and may be edited for clarity and length. Personal attacks, ethnic slurs, the riding of hobby horses and the beating of dead ones will be deleted as soon as they are detected by our small but alert staff. Repeat abusers of this policy will be barred from leaving comments. All comments reflect only the views of those posting them and not necessarily those of this website, its editors, or authors. For best formatting, please limit your response to one paragraph and don't hit "enter" to force line breaks.
Commenting is not available in this section entry.