By the time this Thought makes it up on the site we may very well know who our next President Elect is. Of course, nothing’s certain, as the year 2000 election proved, but if things go as they have most of the time, if chads don’t hang our political system once again, and if the news outlets refrain from prematurely declaring a winner (a common problem among middle-aged news outlets…so I’m told), we should know whether it’s a newly annointed Kerry or a Bush redux in the early hours of November 3rd.
So, this Thought will likely be moot by the time it graces T.J. Monkey’s main page. But I’m writing it nonetheless. Therefore, you should read it. ‘Cause otherwise I’ll be sad. And you don’t want that on your conscience, do you? Do you?
TJM is non-partisan, so I’m not going to reveal whom I’m voting for. It’s a secret ballot, people, so stop asking. However, I’d like to address some issues from the debates that have really raised my hackles. Now, I don’t know exactly what a hackle is, but I’m sure mine are raised.
President Bush has repeatedly stated that we’ve rounded up 75% of al Qaeda. Hmm…really? How does he know? And if we know we’ve got 75% of them that must mean we know who the other 25% are as well, right? So, why not go get them too? That would certainly solve everything, wouldn’t it? All of our problems would disappear with a Bush-organized terrorist roll call. He’ll take attendance, make sure everyone’s accounted for, and we can all rest easy.
Of course, these statements have led to multiple jokes among my friends and me. For example,
Said in President Bush’s “down home (Connecticut) drawl”:
We have rounded up 75% of the children who’ve been left behind.
We’ve gotten rid of the jobs of 75% of Americans by shipping them overseas.
We have taken 75% of affordable prescription drugs available from Canada and sunk them with the Titanic.
The only thing worse than Bush’s 75% declaration is Kerry’s failure to call him on it. I mean, come on, man. You cite stats more easily than most people remember their own phone number. You can’t challenge a presidential statement assigning a fictitious number to an innumerable population? What’s up with that, dude? Too busy kite surfing or rooting for Manny Ortez and his fellow Red Stockings?
I’m waiting for Bush to point out that though he doesn’t plan on getting a flu shot this year his opponent Liberal Johnny, who wants to raise your taxes and steal 75% of your children, is planning on getting TWO.
And how about when Bush refused to name even one mistake he’d made as president? Kerry could’ve slam dunked the guy. I won’t go too far into this because SNL nailed it the Saturday after the second debate. Kudos to Seth Myers on that one. All I can say is humminaWHA!?!?
It’s just that we may or may not have a cocky president who has driven us down a dead end road causing a level of worldwide American hate that we’ve never seen before and has led almost EVERY U.S. political scientist with any international affairs knowledge to agree that we need to drastically change our foreign policy. These people can’t agree on whether to order wings or mozzarella sticks at Friday’s, but they ALL know we’re in serious trouble as a country. Makes ya think.
I guess, bottom lining it, I just wish candidates would be taken to task for ridiculous statements or omissions or outright lies. Who’s with me? I know it’s not a new idea, but what’s say we make it happen, huh?
Again, I’m not going to say whom I’m voting for because we objective media types have to stay unbiased. But I will say this.
If a certain person can’t carry the election, I’m moving my tush to cheap drug laden Canada…
Author’s note: I know that Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz play for the Red Sox. Manny Ortez is who candidate Kerry identified at one point as his favorite Red Sox player. Yeesh. Talk about curses.