Thread: Popeye for president

Popeye for president
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Journal Star
Posted Jul 08, 2008 @ 10:00 PM

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Republican or Democrat or unaffiliated, voters all should consider wearing flip-flops to the polls in November - popsicle toes though they might tempt - as a symbolic protest against the wishy-washy ways of their candidate of choice.

Lately the "flip-flopper" tag that was most famously attached to Democrat nominee John Kerry in 2004 has been pinned to Barack Obama, but in fact Republican John McCain's "Straight Talk Express" has taken to zigging and zagging, as well.

In particular Obama has gotten considerable grief for his reversal on taking public financing for his campaign - first he promised he would, now he won't. Before that it was his 180-degree turn on pastor Jeremiah Wright, whom he could "no more disown ... than I can my white grandmother," right up until the moment he did just that.

Along the way there have been shifts in position on electronic eavesdropping of citizens, on our trade embargo with Cuba - against it, now for it, especially when campaigning in the Miami area - on gun control, on the decriminalization of marijuana, on cracking down on employers that knowingly hire illegal immigrants, on negotiating "without preconditions" with America's enemies, etc.

Enough of that and Americans may start to believe you stand for nothing more than getting elected.

Alas, Obama cedes nothing to his Republican opponent when it comes to changing course.

McCain has been a veritable contortionist on the Bush tax cuts, which he now proposes extending - and then some - after being one of just two GOP senators to vote against them in 2001. He said then that "I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us at the expense of middle-class Americans." He reinforced that stand in 2003.

On immigration, McCain now opposes his own bill to create a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, saying border security should be the top priority. If in 2003 ethanol did "nothing to reduce fuel consumption, nothing to increase our energy independence, nothing to improve air quality," now it's a "vital alternative energy source" renowned for its "greenhouse-reduction effects" and contributions to national security, especially when he's campaigning in the Midwest.

If once upon a time McCain was inclined to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, now the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling to allow prisoners there to challenge their indefinite incarcerations in federal court is "one of the worst decisions in the history of this country." If warrantless wiretaps were probably illegal before, now McCain says the Constitution is "ambiguous" about them. Where once he took on lobbyists and special interests as enemies of good government, now he's hired some of them as campaign staff.

As a result we hope no one has been either swayed or reassured by the belief that one candidate is a flip-flopper, while the other is not. We'd call it a tie.

Arguably their risks of losing favor with the electorate are greater now than if they'd stood firm. Obama has raised expectations as a new breed of politician. Is he now just another face in the politics-as-usual crowd? McCain has built a persona as an independent, a maverick, his own man. Is that now just a caricature?

The campaigns tend to defend their candidates as having "evolved." How convenient that their metamorphoses have come just in time to run for president.

Oh, it's hardly a first for ambition to have gotten the better of a politician. People change their minds; Americans would not be well-served by a leader who is suicidally consistent, utterly resistant to altering course even when the facts warrant it. To some degree it's our own fault, as we reward candidates who tell us what we want to hear - even when it's naive to believe them - and punish those who don't. The result is that they try to be all things to all people.

Still, just once in this modern era it would be a nice to have a candidate with an actual shot of winning stand up and say, "I yam what I yam. Take me or leave me."

There you have it - Popeye for president.
http://www.pjstar.com/opinions/x1816440 ... -president

Still, just once in this modern era it would be a nice to have a candidate with an actual shot of winning stand up and say, "I yam what I yam. Take me or leave me."

There you have it - Popeye for president.

Perhaps a rubdown---with olive oyl will help!!!!!!!

Originally Posted by April

Still, just once in this modern era it would be a nice to have a candidate with an actual shot of winning stand up and say, "I yam what I yam. Take me or leave me."

There you have it - Popeye for president.