Some Thoughts on the U.S. Election

Let's consider the McCain-Palin ticket.

Ah.

As Joseph Biden said in the Vice Presidential debate, 'where do I begin'?

John McCain, the all-American Vietnam war veteran, as he would no doubt like me to refer to him, could not possibly run the United States as well as George 'dubya' Bush has -- and that's saying something. He is so out of touch with real Americans, it is untrue. For 158 years Lehman Brothers traded competitively on Wall Street, and then, one weekend, it went under. It put thousands of employees around the world out of a job, while investors hurried to get shot of shares in banks and the Dow was sent into a downward spiral. John McCain's helpful verdict on the Monday morning? "The fundamentals of the U.S. economy are sound." Does this sounds like a stable economy? All this on the same weekend as the Fed and the Treasury rescuing Fannie and Freddie, with banks hoarding money. And I am yet to mention the thousands of Americans who have had their homes repossessed and the thousands more who probably will. "The fundamentals are sound." Good call, John.

How can U.S. citizens elect a man who could not even give a journalist a straight forward answer to the rather plain question "How many houses do you own"? Now it emerges he has more cars parked on his various driveways than some Americans will own in their entire lifetimes. Does this sound like a man who has any idea what the average American is going through?

His running mate is trying to convince the nation that she does. The problem is, Sarah Palin knows exactly the same amount as the average American. No sound human being would put some Alaskan 'hockey Mom' a heartbeat away from the Oval Office, surely? Her epistemology seems to evolve around geographical location: she knows a lot about foreign policy, she says, because she is from Alaska and that's closer to the Russian Federation than most of the United States. The absurdity of such nonsense was just flatly disregarded by Barack Obama on Face the Nation last week. "I'll let the nation be the judge of that," he told Bob Shieffer. If there was any doubt about Ms. Palin's foreign policy knowledge -- or lack of it -- I think she made it perfectly clear when she called General McKiernan 'McClellan'. She is, without doubt, a huge liability to the security of the United States and the western world.

But let's not forget, the McCain-Palin ticket is a self-styled 'anti-Washington' ticket. Right, okay. John McCain's been in Congress since 1981. That's twenty seven years! And he is leading an anti-Washington ticket? Give me a break. During that time, he voted constantly for deregulation of the financial sector. He doesn't seem to be in a hurry to hold his hand up and accept responsibility for his actions.

The McCain-Palin ticket is also a self-styled maverick ticket. How ludicrous. Out of the Democratic Gore-Liebermann ticket and the G.O.P. Bush-Cheney ticket from the 2000 election, which one would you think to be the maverick one? Yep, me too. And look where we are now, eight years later.

But hang on, McCain supporters say this is an anti-Bush ticket as much as the Obama-Biden ticket is. What nonsense. The G.O.P. could not pick a sane presidential candidate in 2000 and they have not picked one eight years down the line.

But back to Ms. Palin. She was on the BBC's ten o'clock news last night citing the New York Times as suggesting Barack Obama was in contact with a 1960's terrorist in his early days. That might be true. Whilst Barack Obama is a great man, I don't think he can really be held accountable for what every person does once he has come into contact with them. Forty years from now one of my friends I went to school with might be behind bars for one thing or another. I'm sure as hell not going to take responsibility if I haven't seen the guy for almost half a century.

Perhaps Ms. Palin did not make it through to the Op-Ed section of the Times. That is a real shame. She really would have had something to mull over then. Like her complete lack of popularity with the paper's Op-Ed columnists. Intelligent and much-respected critics such as Bob Herbert, David Brooks and Maureen Dowd tear her apart and mock her day after day after day, and she just does not get it. She made, excuse my language, a complete arse of herself in front of Katie Couric, and she still does not realise she has a hell of a lot more in common with George 'dubya' Bush than she realises. What ties them together most explicitly, of course, is the complete butchering of the English language.

America! Please -- please -- spare us (the rest of the world) from more gory slaughtering of our much-loved language! One is not sure quite how much mutilation it can valiantly withstand.

More importantly, of course, America's failure to elect Barack Obama would signal a great step backward for the nation. He is, by far and away, the best candidate for the Presidency. Whether or not he gets elected simply depends on whether a lot of white Americans bring themselves to put a cross on a ballot paper next to the name of a black man.

(Yes, yes, I know the U.S. has far more technologically advanced ways for people to vote, but hey, the old cross in a box system here in the United Kingdom has never let to some gun crazy, slack jawed vagabond of a candidate to steal a marginal constituency.)

Okay, let me be honest. I was not sure whether to include this last thought, but here it is. The main reason I dislike John McCain is the fact that he is a Vietnam war veteran, and therefore, in my opinion, encapsulates everything that is wrong with the United States. (Cue the sharp intake of breath.) He initially got elected to the House because of his military background, which culminated in Vietnam. Congratulations, Mr. McCain. You fought in most unjust war waged by the West in the twentieth century, save perhaps the Boer War. Nice going. I know this is getting a little outspoken, but Vietnam war vets enjoy too much respect in U.S. society. Personally I have a hell of a lot more respect for Mohammad Ali, and all the other drafted men and women who refused to go and fight 'the yellaman', and for all the anti-war protesters who marched through the streets chanting 'hell no, we won't go'. The fact is, Mr. McCain, like so many other misguided Americans, did not take the moral high-grounded; he folded, and went anyway. At the very least, this shows a lack of strength in his moral character. There can be no questioning of his physical and mental attributes, which were proved in a P.O.W. camp. But he should never have been anywhere near there.

Yours, wherever you may be,
Daniel C. Wright