Ball players and politicians: Both are mindless
By Paul Campbell

As a lifelong baseball fan of the first order, I have to battle to keep from taking a slap at Major League Baseball, its nincompoop commissioner, idiotic player representative and the juiced up players who are over-compensated, pampered to a fault and, whose paychecks far exceed their common sense.

Instead, I am going to revert to one of my other favorite targets - the politicians.

Have you been watching the never-ending debates on TV? These nonsensical displays of ignorance and ineptness by those aspiring to be their respective party nominee in 2008 are beginning to remind me of those punch toys. The ones with the weighted bottoms that you can smack around only to have them pop up again for even more punishment.
If the American people were to take the time to list our top five areas for any candidates to consider for the upcoming election, the Iraq war and illegal immigration, if not No. 1 and No. 2 on the agenda, would certainly make it.

So what does the moderator of the latest Iowa debates do? She announces at the beginning of the debates there would be no questions asked of the candidates regarding these two areas of major national and worldwide significance.

She also did her best to demean the candidates - as if they need any help to look like fools - by asking them to respond to a question with a show of hands. I was waiting for her to tell them restroom passes were available at the teacher's desk.

There was one thrilling and exciting moment in the Republican debate, though. That was either a time warp taking us back to 2003, or a back to the future moment taking us forward to 2011, when Alan Keyes, an also-ran in 2003, appeared as if by magic as one of the debaters in Iowa in 2007.

Of course, the Democrats, for reasons unexplained, expelled Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel from being allowed to make an appearance at the last Iowa Democratic debate.

But wait, you frustrated, confused and concerned Iowans, you will soon have company from the New Jersey and one of the Carolinas. I'm sure, with the addition of the war and illegal immigration, the questions will be the same. The answers will be the same.

The same ridiculous one upmanship will emanate from the candidates as each tries to convince a staid and knowledgeable public he or she has the answers to the problems we face.

The Democrats are going to try to do it by harking back to what didn't work in eight years of the Clinton regime. The Republicans are going to try to convince us they have the answers when the two parties can't even agree on a budget.

Instead of the debates, maybe we can tune into ESPN and watch the ball players try to explain their involvement in steroids and growth hormones.

Or, here's an idea. Why not let the mindless professional baseball players change places with the mindless politicians?

Would that make any difference? I doubt it.

Campbell is a member of the Gazette's Board of Contributors
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