Published: August 27, 2008 07:05 pm            

OLSON: Both parties chose poorly

Remember the scene in “Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade” when Walter Donovan, the grail-seeking businessman, was faced with the difficult choice of deciding which among many cups was the vessel Christ had drunk from at the Last Supper.

We all know he chose “poorly,” picking the most elaborate one, and we all remember the result; he aged about a 1,000 years in ten seconds or so, then pretty much blew up, turned to dust and dry bones, and blew away. Bad, bad day for Walter.

Let’s just hope Mr. Donovan doesn’t represent America in the next four years, but the potential for real disaster is definitely present, because I believe both candidates are not the best choices. On either side of the aisle, there were better candidates to pick from, but America chose the contenders that logically should have been the “also rans” of 2008. With either man, I think we’re gonna pay.

Let’s start with John McCain. The man is 71, and unfortunately, not a particularly vigorous 71. Once again, as with Bob Dole, the GOP went to its stable and chose the oldest horse in the barn. If we were 16th century China, where the aged living and long-dead ancestors were revered, this move would have been universally applauded. In 21st century, youth-worshipping America, probably not the best strategic play.

Next, conservatives are asking themselves if the man is even a Republican. He has in fact a long record of poking his finger into his own party’s eye on such issues as global warming, immigration, and most egregious, the McCain-Feingold Incumbent Protection Bill, a flagrant attempt at limiting first amendment rights. When it passed, I remember thinking it would be the death knell of the American republic; since then, the Supreme Court has thankfully struck down portions of it, but the fact that McCain co-authored such an abomination is ominous.

Lastly, even McCain admits that economics is “not his strong suit.” Sorry, but with the mess we’re currently in (a whole other column, folks) we need a world-class economics genius in charge, a whiz-kid of the first magnitude - can we say “Mitt Romney"? Instead, we’ve got a computer illiterate oldster with a trophy wife who seems constitutionally unable to exhibit any life on the campaign trail beyond a facial tic or two. He doesn’t seem to have the energy necessary to swat a fly on his nose, let along be president.

Then there’s Mr. Barack Obama, the apparent winner in the mud-wrestling marathon with Hillary Clinton. Just where do we begin with this guy? Is it too much to ask that someone applying for the world’s most important job have a little experience? Picture a four-year old on a trike demanding to participate in the Tour de France and you have a reasonably accurate analogy. How about a sixteen-year old beginning burger flipper clamoring to be McDonald’s CEO? Sound ridiculous? Thank you very much.

And we must not forget the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, as much as Barak would like us to. He only ditched this trophy-class nutcase when it was political suicide not to, but how can you logically explain away a twenty-year relationship with a man that said God should damn America and who thinks AIDS is a white plot against blacks? Twenty years of warming a pew in this asylum masquerading as a church, and he asks us to trust his judgment. I’m sorry, but he has yet to show the judgment necessary to not pee into a gale-force wind.

Another argument against him would be the surge in Iraq. He’s on record many times as saying it wouldn’t work. Guess what - it is working, and the war is practically won over there, albeit no thanks to him. Even now, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, he still won’t admit he was wrong.

Speaking of WRONG, examine his anti-drilling stance and you truly see ignorance on parade. Of course increasing supply via more drilling will lower prices! Does the man not understand economics 101? Did he never have a lemonade stand when he was a kid? I did, and was doing a barn-storming business at a quarter a cup until Denny Dutchnik, the neighbor kid, saw my success, envied it and started selling his lemonade at twenty cents a cup. I had to counter at fifteen cents, and I hope you’re getting the picture that more supply of a commodity brings prices down. Duh!

Obama apparently doesn’t grasp this mystery, though it seems the cynical politician within him recently woke up to the fact that the vast majority of Americans want more drilling now, so he’s currently flip-flopping like a fresh night crawler on a hook, one of about a dozen reversals lately. Some kind of new politician? Try the same old same oh with a suntan.

There, I actually feel liberated and light, having vented my spleen at both candidates. Have I been an equal-opportunity abuser? Have you guessed by now I’m not too thrilled with either party’s “offerings"? Frankly, I admit to hoping that both Mitt and Hillary storm their respective conventions and arm-wrestle the nominations away from the current grade B candidates. They have nothing to lose by trying, and what does America have to lose if theydon’t? I shudder to think.



Olson is a former teacher and currently an antiques dealer in the Sellersburg and lives in New Albany. He can be reached via e-mail at dgolsonwriteon@yahoo.com.

        

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