A thought on the McCain/Palin (Palin/McCain?) campaign

From IMDB's (http://www.imdb.com) quotes section of "A Fish Called Wanda":

Otto: Don't call me stupid.
Wanda: Oh, right! To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people! I've known sheep that could outwit you. I've worn dresses with higher IQs. But you think you're an intellectual, don't you, ape?
Otto: Apes don't read philosophy.
Wanda: Yes they do, Otto. They just don't understand it. Now let me correct you on a couple of things, OK? Aristotle was not Belgian. The central message of Buddhism is not "Every man for himself." And the London Underground is not a political movement. Those are all mistakes, Otto. I looked them up.

This, peeps, is precisely how I feel when I have to deal with McCain--or, more aptly, (Sarah) Palin--groupies.

I am just so effin' sick of the blatant lies. And sicker yet of a populace that enables them. And from sheer intellectual couch-potato flabbiness, allows itself to be numbed and dumbed-down even further.

So here's a little channeling of Wanda Gershwitz:

• "Reformers" do NOT support a "Bridge to Nowhere" before turning against it (much less spend the earmarked funds elsewhere).
  
• Campaign finance reformers, in particular, do NOT appoint lobbyists to the top positions of their campaigns.
  
• "Beltway outsiders" do NOT pay lobbyists for $27 million in earmarks for a town of 9000 people. Nor do they appoint (ahem!) "uncredentialed" friends (whose qualifications for Ag. Administration include a childhood "love of cows") to lucrative government positions.
• "Historic women" do NOT appoint police chiefs who charge rape victims for the medical exams used as evidence against the perps. They also do NOT attempt to roll back a century's worth of progress by being blatantly anti-choice and opposing sex education that includes information on contraception. Why? Because a woman is more than a uterus with legs, regardless of demographic.
  
• Talking smack about other governments--particularly those which have The Bomb--is NOT an acceptable substitute for foreign policy. It is a demonstrable evidence of a lack of foreign policy (or understanding thereof). Particularly at a time when most of our fighting forces are pinned down in a sandy quagmire of our own misguided making.
  
• Conversely: Talking smack about governments who don't have The Bomb is NOT an incentive to make them stop wanting one. Especially when you talk about bombing them first.
  
• Linking the late Saddam Hussein with 9/11 does NOT enhance your qualifications for leading the War! On!! Terror!!! Why? Because connecting Dot 1 and Dot 427 does not make a good picture. Twit.
  
• Gas prices are high as the result of speculation, NOT a lack of offshore--much less ANWAR--drilling. If drilling were the the silver bullet, maybe oil companies would already being doing that on 40 million godd--n acres. Got that? 40 million acres of public land they can already drill. But don't.
  
• A flyboy who sat out 5 1/2 years of Vietnam does NOT "know how to win wars." In case you missed it, Senator, the North Vietnamese and the VC won. Despite our superior technology and firepower. And 58K+ dead. And if you can't recognize that that simple fact of history, you have absolutely no @#$%ing business being CoC for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Where the Humvee vs. IED battle isn't doing so well. Why? Because we're making the mistakes of your generation over and over again. Dumb@$$.
• God is NOT running for President of the United States. Stop acting like He is. If He were running, he would have filed with the FEC, like a good Deity. If God wanted George W. Bush to go to war with Iraq, mightn't He at least have pointed out the location of the WMDs? Except that there weren't any. Similarly, if God wanted an Alaskan pipeline, He would be more than capable of putting one wherever He d--ned well felt like putting it.
• People who have been in Congress for over 30 years are NOT agents of "change." Stop it. Just stop. You're getting moron cooties all over the rest of us.
  

Grrrrrr. I could go on (and on). Except that I hear the callings of this "elitist" thing called education. Namely a stats class, plus studying toward a work-related certification. But even in this anti-science, anti-intellectual age--wherein anyone who can spell their name without referring to their belt buckle is an effete "elitist"--that's just how I roll.

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Addendum. Let's add this to my "To Do" list once I'm El Supremo Presidente Dictator for Life: International curriculum for any school child will include a minimum of three years of logic, two of rhetoric, the equivalent of three semesters of statistics, four years of another language, and lots and lots of math and science. No driver's license nor diploma will granted until those requirements are met. Period. The criterion of "who you'd rather have a beer with" is will no longer be a valid qualification for public office, from the county dog-catcher on up. Enough is enough. We're not electing the Homecoming Queen, for @#$%^'s sake. This is the real world, with real people whose real lives are affected in real dollar terms. If your thinking is still in terms of the high school pecking-order, you don't deserve to vote. End of discussion.

And if, ultimately, my (benevolent) dictatorship is overthrown, I at least want the comfort that the coup will be executed by people who are adequately educated (and hopefully rational human beings). Seriously, I'll face a firing squad with a smile with that knowledge.