Category: Pointless Digressions, Politics || By

A couple of political things are bugging me. Let me set up my soap-box here on the corner of Fifth and Walnut, hitch my pants up to my armpits, and say a few things:

. . .

First, for God's sake, stop forwarding Internet hoaxes. A friend just sent me a photo of Barack Obama supposedly holding a telephone upside down. The accompanying email said: "When you are faking a pose for a camera photo opportunity, at least you can get the phone turned in the right direction! And he wants to be President? Dumba--!"

Uh, yeah. Obama doesn't know how to talk on a telephone. And the person taking the picture also doesn't know how to use a telephone, and didn't notice that he was using it upside down. Right.

Doesn't anyone realize how stupid that sounds?

For crying out loud, it wasn't even a good photo-editing job, and when I searched Google for "obama" and "phone," the very first result was a discussion of the fact that the picture is a fake.

It also wasn't an original idea. Someone used the same joke against George W. Bush several years ago.

You might think that things like this don't make a difference. But they do. How many people think that Obama is a Muslim based on unattributed emails? Plenty of people in West Virginia, according to a story in the Financial Times.

(I'm personally trying to figure out how people are holding onto that stupid idea apparently at the same time that they're complaining about Obama's Christian pastor, who married him and baptized his children as Christians.)

For the love of Mike, if something seems too good to be true, check your facts first. And please, don't send me anything else about how Hillary Clinton is a Communist, or how John McCain had a daughter out of wedlock, or how certain oil companies are funding terrorists.

All of those emails are crap. Learn to use Google. It's your friend.

. . .

Second, several people have recently told me that they're not voting for anyone for president, because all of the candidates are the same, or because there are no good candidates.

Really? There are no good candidates?

• One candidate is a decorated Vietnam War hero who spent five years in a prison camp, returned, and has served honorably in the U.S. Senate, where he's fought the White House and powerful lobbyists to ban the use of torture and regulate campaign financing.


• Another candidate is a distinguished lawyer who has held her own against a 15-year-long smear campaign and was elected twice to the U.S. Senate, where she has battled long and hard for the causes she believes in, especially where it comes to women's rights.


• The third candidate is the son of a single mother who lifted himself up from the streets, became a community organizer, labor activist and state senator, and has been a tireless critic of the war in Iraq and tax breaks for the wealthy, among other issues.

And out of those three candidates, you can't find one worth voting for?

Sorry, but in my opinion, these are three important and interesting Americans. You don't have to agree with every single position they hold to find something admirable about at least one of them.

Frankly, this is the first presidential election in my memory where you have a chance to vote for someone, instead of against the other person.

As for the charges that there are no substantial policy differences between the candidates, Sen. McCain thinks that the United States should have a permanent lasting presence in Iraq. Sen. Obama thinks we should start bringing U.S. troops home as soon as possible. Sen. Clinton would design a plan for bringing home U.S. troops in stages.

If you've got a son, daughter or friend serving in the Middle East right now, I'd say those are pretty big damned policy differences, no matter what side you're on.

McCain believes that the free market works best with minimal regulation, and that lowering taxes on corporations stimulates the economy. Obama and Clinton say that unregulated markets have the potential to hurt consumers, and that taxes on corporations have been lowered too drastically already.

Again, if you don't think those are substantial differences, I don't think you can tell the difference between Shinola and the other stuff.

Look, I'm as cynical as the next guy, especially if the next guy happens to be George Carlin or Dennis Miller.

But saying that "there are no good candidates" or "there are no differences between them" isn't cynical. It's just pure laziness.

My grandfather and great-grandfathers came over here in the bottom of leaky boats --- women were spit on in the 1910s --- African-Americans were shot at in the 1960s --- for the right to vote. To say that it's not worth voting or that there are no good candidates is shameful.

And yes, I have tried decaffeinated coffee. Why do you ask?