THE “DUMB CLUCK” in the Oval Office (and other quackers)

[Samantha]

John McCain betrayed this Country. He cashed in his loyalty to this Country to pay for a political ploy that might propel him into the Oval Office. Gambling with our future to acquire a personal political advantage, he nominated as his second a person whose credentials do not elevate her to the status of political neophyte. If elected she could conceivably succeed to the Office of the President of the United States with literally zero tools in her political tool bag to fight the staggering problems we face today.

As you know, colloquialisms often pepper the vocabularies of our many diverse cultures found within the United States. My father, a very intelligent man who relocated to the political capital of the world from Knoxville, Tennessee, carried within his language vault a few Southern colloquialisms that left me chagrined whenever he uttered them. One in particular, “dumb cluck” I found particularly offensive.

This man who worked in a very responsible job at the Justice Department would pull that phrase out of his language storage vault and deploy it whenever he encountered someone so beyond dumb, a more precise label to define the depth of his or her “dumbness” was unquestionably needed. And those encounters with such people resulted in his privately referring to that person as simply a “dumb cluck.” How silly that phrase is, how offensive, I used to think in my younger days.

How ironic I find it today, decades after first hearing this phrase and recoiling from it, that I find it is exactly the precise phrase one should apply when attempting to describe the depths of stupidly enveloping a few of our high-profile political players and elected (sic) officials. Beyond ironic is the obvious fact that these same personalities think exactly that of us, the American voting public. We are merely the dumb clucks to whom they can say and do anything because we simply will never catch on.

And that was exactly my reaction when I heard McCain introduce Palin as his Vice Presidential selection. It was simply an obvious political ploy to attempt to split the Democratic base and thus propel McCain into the oval office. It’s a classic Republican trick used in every presidential election season to divide Democrats and give Republicans a leg up in their quest to win the Oval Office.

But if the result of such tactics propel a literal puppet in or next door to the Oval Office, as we saw happen in Election 2000, perhaps we should take another look at the consequences of that tactic. Many said George W. Bush* was not qualified to be President. “But he has been the governor of a major state for two terms, which gives him Executive experience” was the classic Republican response. The fact that the State of Texas was not literally run on a daily basis by the Governor of the State but rather by the Lieutenant Governor was egregiously missing in these debates. The position of Governor of the State of Texas is merely a public relations position, with the hands-on administration been performed by the Lieutenant Governor. It was that unique approach that convinced a man named Karl Rove that this would be the perfect state for an otherwise unqualified candidate to launch his political quest for the Presidency of the United States. And it worked. Nearly half of the voting American people, together with an assist from the Supreme Court, put a man in the Oval Office who was simply unfit to protect the best interests of this Country. His political quackery has brought this Country to near devastation.

Eight years later, the question must be asked: how do you like the results of his work?

Will the American voting public allow this pattern to continue in 2008? Will it “fall in love” with a vice presidential candidate standing but a heart beat away from the Presidency and vote her, along with McCain, into the Oval Office?

If love of candidate, as opposed to love of Country, motivates a party or a voter to promote an unqualified person into the White Office, is not that very act the equivalent of a Benedict Arnold maneuver?

And most importantly, is a person’s love of a moose burger so charming it obfuscates the fact the tools in that candidate’s political tool bag hold a bottle of Worcestershire Sauce and a spatula where his or her national security credentials should rest?

Who will emerge as the true dumb cluck of Election 2008 -- the presidential candidate who selected a number two without a resume to do the job, the voting public who falls in love with the fact she is a historic choice but not a credible selection to possibly succeed to the highest office in this land, or the political adviser Karl Rove, an identified political adviser to the McCain known for sleazy, if not illegal maneuvers, who propelled our current not-fit-to-serve President (sic) into the chair in the Oval Office.

Will 2008 be a repeat of 2000, with the end result be a Bush-wanna-bee waiting behind the curtain to grasp the power of the office when circumstances permit?

Comments?

[melody]

1. McCain will lose more female votes with this than he will gain

To say nothing of other disgusted independents.

[Samantha]

2. I know many Dems are still grieving over Hillary's loss in the primary

But I do not believe they will be so blinded by their grief they fail to observe the radial policies of McCain/Palin. They are smart enough not to vote against their own political best interests and that of the Country.

Thank you for your comment, Melody.

Sam

[calimary]

3. I kept waiting for SOMEBODY, ANYBODY, at the Dem convention to say, in prime time,

"are you better off, today, than you were four years ago? How 'bout eight years ago?"

Hello Dems???????? Anybody home in there?

VERY frustrating. The more often we can co-opt and hijack and remake as OUR OWN - the slogans and jab-lines that the bad guys used against us - and give those same attack lines NEW MEANING AND NEW RELEVANCY, the better.

Plus it turns the bad guys' own words against them in a brilliant blaze of hypocrisy, lies, and incompetence. Which is what we want to laminate all over their miserable selves.

[Samantha]

4. Al Gore did not say this but he said something close

Believe me, elections do matter. What you have now is what the Republicans have always dreamed of having. (I am paraphrasing, of course.) And how did they get it? In 2001, they had the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Referencing the last eight years and the way this Country has changed, he then questioned how did we like the results.

It is disappointing that his great speech received so little comment here.

Thanks for responding to my thread, Mary.

Sam

[calimary]

5. Always!

Thanks for letting me know about it, 'cause I've been in and out of here for a couple of days.

Yeah, it's VERY important to make that connection. Not only is it important to repeat that - YES, elections DO matter. Because THEIR RESULTS matter. And all you have to do is add one more line or two - "do you like the RESULTS of these past two elections? Are you happy with the way things turned out? REALLY???"

I think the vast majority of Americans would have to answer those questions with a resounding "NO." Unless you're in the elite one percent of the one percent, the haves and especially the have-mores who've REALLY benefitted bigtime from the last seven-and-some years, you'd feel compelled to say "NO!" What's in it for the rest of us???? Just more of the same if you put another republi-CON into the White House - especially if you're a 72-year-old crank who's already had numerous bouts with cancer and on his best days is really not a well man, and his sidekick, Gidget: an abject novice beauty queen Mother Hubbard who has so many children she likely can't handle an outside phone call at 3am, who didn't really wake up to the very idea of the Iraq war until it finally hit home, and who's had about 20 months of executive experience in a state whose population is the third-smallest in the country. As Jack Cafferty said, she's the governor of a state that has 13 people and some caribou.

And I gotta tell ya, Sam, the longer this sinks in with me about the choice of sarah palin, the angrier I get. This just shows you what a shallow view of women he has. He thinks all the Hillary supporters, or even some of them, will flock to him just because his running mate is female. That's just about the only thing she has in common with Democratic Hillary supporters. She's got NOTHING for them, and will make sure she gives NOTHING to them. But he figures we'll just all be romanced by his cute little "double date" thing.

And what also brings that home to me rather glaringly - his overall shallow and patronizing view of women, is the track record I see here. His first wife was a swimsuit model. When she wound up damaged goods he lost interest and went chasing a younger, richer, blond cutie-pie who I guess he thought looked better on his arm. If I were cindy mccain, I wouldn't be sleeping too comfortably these days, because - as the woman who stole her man from another woman, I suspect she's always had that little tiny itchy voice in the back of her head - he did it to her. Will he do it to me someday, too? And I couldn't help but notice on Friday when he introduced sarah palin how he stood to the side and kept looking down at her ass and fiddling with his wedding ring. And he really, in effect, just met her. Hardly knew her. I get it, john. I get the way you view women. Message delivered. AND received. Your behavior has told me all I need to know about the way you regard women. Callous, dismissive, exploitive, superficial, inherently dishonest and manipulative. Shallow, patronizing schmuck.

Sleep soundly, cindy.

If you can.

[Samantha]

6. It was because I was furious with her selection that I wrote this thread

I do not remember the last time I got so angry. I had to get the anger out. And all of the thoughts you mention in your response are exactly the things I have been thinking. This selection is an insult to Hillary, Hillary supporters, the Republican party, but most of all the Country as a whole.

Even though the MSM reports she has an "engaging" personality, exactly how valuable a tool is that should we be attacked again? McCain, of all people -- the candidate who not so long ago said the most important attribute a vice president can have is the ability to be president at a moment's notice. Obviously, he knew this was not the case with her.

As I said in my thread, he betrayed this Country for his own self-benefit. And yes, his constant eyeballing of her posterior during her speech was appalling. If you watched the video, the first noticeable thing that happened as the speech ended was that Cindy McCain sprang to her feet from her seat situated right behind them, appearing suddenly between the two of them. She had to have observed what had happened -- she had a ring-side seat.

It is beyond belief to me that our political debates and campaign for the Office of the Presidency of the United States has descended into this, a perverted cartoon. And the world is watching. I am sure that is how we will restore honor and dignity to the name of the Country.:-(

Thanks for your commiseration.

Sam