So it came as quite a shock to me when I learned recently that there is a small group of people in this world who actually read this Blog. Some even print off copies of my postings and pass them around. Please understand, I welcome you. But it did strike me as alarming. If people are reading what I write, then I actually need to be coherent and smart, and have something useful to say, like: Be good. Don't do evil. Eat fiber. Call your mother. So on.
So I've divided that, as a special treat for those intrepid few eyeballs that actually venture into this rarified cranny of the Web, today I will begin to reveal my secret, private thoughts about the current 2008 Presidential election campaign. Up till now, I've kept them secret. But inquiring minds want to know. And the demand has reached a crescendo, impossible to ignore.
So here goes:
First, I reject the view that George W. Bush is the single worst president in American history. It's not that he hasn't tried. The problem for Bush is the competition. James Buchanan (1857-1861) and Andrew Johnson (1865-1869) were both so abysmal, so incompetent, so malicious, that even a president as bad as Bush falls short. With Buchanan, his mis-management of the 1860 secession crisis set the stage for oceans of blood to be in Civil War. With Andrew Johnson, his naked racism undermined any chance for positive post-War reconstruction and improving the lot of freed African-American slaves for the next hundred years. It's taken until Barack Obama (but more on that later...).
So I nominate George W. Bush as no better than third worst. He has fewer redeeming virtures than Richard M. Nixon, a mean streak never shared by Warren G. Harding, and more destructive in his hard-headedness than Herbert Hoover.
Now, as for the active, serious candidates still standing for 2008: Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and Barack O'Bama (I prefer the Irish spelling). I like them all in different ways, and think the country would be better of with any of them in the top job. Perhaps best would be something like this: Obama as president, Hillary as WH chief of staff, and McCain as Secretary of War. (I think he'd enjoy using the traditional name).
I can't imagine any of these three settling for Vice President. Each probably would agree with John Nance Garner's description of the job as "not worth a bucket of warm piss." None, I think, would side with Chester Alan Arthur (VP to James A. Garfield who became president when Garfield was assassinated in 1881), who described the VP job truthfully as "a greater honor than I ever dreamed of attaining."
In my ideal outcome, there might even be roles for the also-rans: say, Mike Huckabee as ambassador to the Vatican, John Edwards as Solicitor General, Dennis Kucinich as commander of Area 51, and Ralph Nader as Miss Congeniality.
So with that, I'm ready to sit down with a glass of wine and watch the Oscars. I had my coffee this morning. Thanks for reading this, you few, you strong, you intrepid souls. I hope your eyeballs prosper.
Till then, all the best. --KenA
