It's Stupidity, Stupid

Straight talk= revival of Obama campaign. What this country needs for the rest of the presidential campaign, including the prolonged Democractic primary season, is straight talk from Obama who must prove to his core believers that he is not just another politician. Let's go back a few months to a time when Obama was genuinely inspiring people of all stripes with his words and his ideas. What he appeared to grasp at the time, but has since lost in the shuffle of Rovian/Clintonian style politics, is that under Bush this country has taken a giant step backwards in all of the areas of government that really and truly need change in order to restore American integrity. For the last two months, the political landscape has resembled the game "Trivial Pursuit" as politicians and media alike dwell on minutiae of such insignificant import that it makes one gag. For example, in the blogosphere yesterday I saw a photo of John McCain without a flag in his lapel. Oh my God did you hear what I said? He didn't have a flag in his lapel. How someone could want to be president of the United States and not wear a flag in his lapel is completely beyond me. Then there is the major issue of guilt by association. The New York Times carried a story the other day about the selection of the style of print that McCain has selected for his campaign posters, i.e. really important stuff. But they didn't go far enough. What I did was Google the designer of the print type and discovered the shocking fact that he had fought for Germany against us in World War II. McCain, the war hero, is actually using posters which carry stylized words of a man whose actions supported Nazis. I would bet good money that McCain doesn't wear a lapel flag on his pajamas at night time either.

What I am getting at is tough to say and probably explains why I have danced around it for a couple of paragraphs first. Politicians and the media dwell on this stuff because they think voters are stupid. They think voters are stupid because voters, in many cases, are stupid. Let's consider the Obama/Wright matter. I cannot tell you how many e-mails I have received vilifying Obama because of the things his minister has said. What is it about sitting in a church and listening to someone who makes people uncomfortable by saying things that make people think that disqualifies such a listener from being president of the United States? We live in the United Sates and the chief characteristic of this country is the openness of the citizen's rights of freedom of speech, expression and religion. These rights, by the way, include the right to be both stupid and wrong. It is the ability to engage in dialogue, rather than spout some party line required by mandate, that makes our country unique. To draw the conclusion that someone who listens to what another has to say and by doing so automatically believes and endorses everything that is being said is stupid.

I could go on and on about such stupidity. I think a president of the United States should be more than someone who sips on a shot of whiskey in a bar and washes it down with a glass of beer. If such a gesture causes someone to vote for Hillary, that person is stupid. The electorate placed a man in office nearly eight years ago because they decided he was the kind of guy they would most like to sit down and have a beer with. That was stupid as evidenced by the performance of that guy the last eight years who can't tell the truth, before or after the fact, about anything.

This country needs someone who can tell us the truth. It would be stupid to punish someone who needs to tell us that a tax increase will be necessary to offset the absolute craziness of there past eight years. We now have three viable candidates; two of whom have pledged not to raise taxes and the third will cut taxes for corporations. We are stupid if we don't demand straight talk and honesty about this vital issue.