Candidates' Qualifications

A recent Non Sequitur cartoon showed a man in an interview saying, “My qualifications are that I’m not nearly as unqualified for the job as the other applicants are…, who are all members of a satanic cult, buy the way.” He is carrying a sign that reads: Hire me or the terrorists win. The interviewer is looking over the applicants resume and says, “Oh, nice list of celebrity endorsements.”

In the bottom right of the panel Wiley Miller, the creative genius behind the strip wrote, “If we hired people the same way we elect them.”

I laughed when I read it, then I cheered. And I wished it could be a wake-up call for the voting public. If only enough people could see the truth behind the humor of this cartoon and start calling for change in the political process, I would be a happy camper.

In following the presidential campaigns, I have seen little being discussed that has anything to do with how a candidate would do the job. And the debates, especially the most recent ones, disgust me. There is no respect shown, candidates don’t answer the questions, and there is a lot of name calling.

Gee, remind you of Kindergarten anybody?

I’m tired of the candidates sniping at each other. I’m tired of the media telling us who is likely to win because he or she has the most money. I’m tired of the candidates avoiding a direct answer to a direct question. And I’m tired of everyone focusing on things that have nothing to do with a candidates ability to serve the office he or she is campaigning for.

Is it possible to change this political system, or are we forever tied to this huge machine that keeps clanking away and leaving the people in the dust?

HILLARY CRIED

I couldn’t believe it when I turned on the Today Show this morning and there was an interview with a woman who was explaining what Hillary Clinton’s tears meant on the eve of the New Hampshire primary. I couldn’t believe it. Another story about the emotional display. I thought we’d pretty well exhausted that topic yesterday.

And speaking of exhaustion. That’s what probably caused the chink in Hillary’s armor in the first place. This campaign stuff is grueling and it is bound to take its toll. I could see the exhaustion in the faces of other candidates, too, but the men are just better at swallowing their tears than women are.

It is ludicrous to me that the media is making such a big deal of this. Come on fellow journalists; is there nothing better to write about than Hillary’s tears?

I turned off the TV, hoping that would be the end of it, but later today I was reading the Dallas Morning News and a columnist actually wondered on paper whether Hillary had planted the woman in the audience who had asked the question that prompted the emotional response.

I shook my head. Have we sunk this low that we have to suspect every move a politician makes?

Then I realized how silly I was to ask. Of course we have. The last twenty years has seen such deterioration in how people behave in Washington, on Wall Street, and any other street in America, that it is hard for folks to know what truth is anymore.

When I start getting this cynical about the political process, I watch “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” and pretend for a little while that there is one person of character and integrity who can truly bring change to the government.