Politics

Look, I know we are in the all important season run-up to a very important presidential election …maybe the most important of my lifetime.

I understand that this is a watershed moment in the history of world harmony.

I totally get the idea that the next leader of the last remaining superpower will face challenges we can’t even imagine – perhaps including more internationally spawned terrorism, economic recession and a continued, confounding lack of bi-partisan cooperation from Congress.

However, I can’t help but shake my head and make that tsk-tsk sound your Mother used to make when you did something stupid.

This political season has turned stupid.

Democrat vs. Republicans

Neo-Cons vs. Liberals

Evangelicals vs. Mormons vs. agnostics vs. atheists vs. all the others in between

Now, female vs. male ??? [click to continue...]

I don’t want Iowa deciding for me. Although I grew up in the middle of America I don’t have a lot in common with Iowans.

I don’t want New Hampshire deciding for me. As nice as they are I don’t have much in common with those folks either.

Nor do I want South Carolina voters or those in Michigan or anywhere else deciding who the final two Presidential candidates are that I get to vote for.

I want more of a voice in the final choices!

I want to decide which candidates I will be able to vote for in the upcoming Presidential election. I don’t want a pre-selected pair of homogenized candidates ~ I want a whole platter of choices just like the people in IowaNewHampshireSouthCarolinaMichigan get! But, the way the system is set up now I don’t get a chance to have my voice heard. [click to continue...]

With apologies to Simon and Garfunkel …

Where have you gone Mr. Tip O’Neill?

Or more precisely where has the political style of long-time Democratic Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill gone?

I’m afraid the answer is: Gone and dead ~ just like the legendary Massachusetts pol who made it part of his job in leading the House of Representatives to work with and compromise with the opposition party to get things done for the good of the country!

Look, I don’t pretend to be an expert on O’Neill’s behind-the-scenes strategy. That is, perhaps, best left to his one time aide and my former MSNBC colleague Chris Matthews. I was just a rookie reporter on Capitol Hill back in the 80’s when Matthews escorted our rag-tag group of journalists into the ornate, ceremonial Speaker’s Office. He would be seated behind a huge mahogany desk and we would all gather and stand before him. The set-up must have reminded him of his Catholic school days and being called before the Mother Superior. [click to continue...]

Let’s do a God-forbid scenario here.

What if last week’s hostage standoff at Hillary Clinton’s campaign office in New Hampshire took place, instead, at the office of a candidate who didn’t happen to have life-long Secret Service protection. Let’s say it happened at candidate Joe Blow’s campaign office … and Joe Blow was there.

And let’s say for the sake of this argument that it wasn’t just a mentally disturbed man who’d strapped harmless hardware store flares to his body but, rather, a bone fide terrorist swathed in plastique trying to make a horrific point about our election system.

Under the rules of the game right now Mr. Blow wouldn’t have had any government supplied security to protect him as he ran for the nation’s highest office. As it stands right now only Hillary Clinton, as a former first lady, and her closest Democratic Party rival, Barack Obama, are under the protective umbrella of the Secret Service. No Republicans are presently covered. [click to continue...]