Thursday, April 17, 2008

Elitist? Are You FUCKING Kidding Me?

This kind of shit just pisses me off. Not the CNN article, which is quite well written and notes correctly that wanting to be President pretty much makes all the candidates elitist by nature, but this whole line of attack.

In case you haven't heard, Obama made some remarks in Pennsylvania about how some small-town folks are bitter about the government and turn to guns and religion for comfort.

Now just because that happens to sound 100% frikkin' accurate isn't really relevant to the discussion.

But it's spurred this whole thing of Clinton and McCain trying to paint Obama as some member of the elite, removed from the society that he wishes to govern.

Kristi Keck (the writer at CNN) notes that as the candidates hit the campaign trail, "They fight to show they still share the average American's values, visiting bowling alleys, diners and schools along the way."

Seriously? This is what some of you want in a President? Even better, this is American life? Bowling alleys and diners? Should they drive around a NASCAR track and slug down a six pack while hunting too? Is that really what we, as a country, want to be?

Honestly, I don't really want Obama to be like me, except insofar as he represents some of the things I believe in, like universal health care, a reduction in corporate influence in our government, better energy and environmental policies, etc. In fact, the more Obama is like me, the more we're going to get a President who would rather not deal with national and international politics, instead favoring a Rock Band get-together or a D&D night with the Cabinet.

Which I think we can all agree we've had eight years of already. Just substitute "clearing brush at the ranch" for D&D and Rock Band.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

An evening of Champions never caused the hangover that 'clearing brush' does. I am still amazed that the news made a big deal about how the Vice War Profiteer was in charge when the War Profiteer in Chief was under anesthesia at a hospital, but there is no mention of him being incapacitated as he 'clears' a fifth of 'brush' every night. The media is about as incompetent as this administration, which happens to be quite a lot.

Chris said...

Randy,

Dude, seriously, you do not want universal healthcare.

We need a major reform in how the pharmaceutical companies are allowed to run, because that's where the vast majority of the current healthcare costs come from.

Seriously.

Universal healthcare is not the answer.

Randy Lander said...

You're not wrong, the major problem is with the pharmaceutical corporations and the insurance companies, but let's be honest... government interfering in corporate behavior is not terribly likely to happen in modern America. Or if it does, it's likely to be so slow as to be helpful to my grandchildren, at best.

Universal healthcare is a more realistic short-term solution. It's not the answer. But it's a better answer than what we have now, which is immensely expensive insurance that doesn't really benefit anyone except the insurance companies.