They sat down for dinner. He reached for the vegetables and:
“Dad!”
“Yes?”
“What am I?”
“Whadda you mean?...You’re an eight…oops… nine- year -old who is supposed to be eating his supper.”
“No. I mean—am I a Republican or a Democrat?”
“You’re neither. When you get big, you’ll be able to choose one, or the other, or stay a neither.”
“But when I grow up, which should I be? What are you?”
“I’m a Democrat.”
“Why?”
“Aint you hungry?”
“Tell me, dad.”
“Lots of reasons. Let’s see. At first I guess I became a democrat because our state, Maryland, is largely democratic. My friends were democrats. So….”
“What should I be?”
“Be what you want to be. But listen! And remember this! No matter which party you choose—even if you don’t join either—you’ve got to figure out who is the best for the job and vote for that person. The best for the job! Got that?”
“Yessir.”
“Okay. Eat your supper.”
Many, many suppers—in fact, many, many years since his dad issued that advice, the “boy,” tries to figure out who is best for the President’s job in 2012. There are two incredibly smart, handsome, experienced, and patriotic men vying for the office.
Like his father, the “boy” has a bias. But he wants to be fair. Listen to the other side. Give the other candidate his due. Yet so many lies cling to the candidates or their parties. Real lies. Not just mistakes, but false statements intended to deceive.
Maybe he should choose the candidate whose side tells fewest lies. Read the reviews of independent fact checkers—not the so-called “fact checkers” each party employs”—and do basic arithmetic. Apply cool reason.
Do that and it appears the GOP team is winning the race to issue whoppers.
Among the tall tales are cheap fibs like the Veep Candidate’s extravagant claim he ran a marathon in “two hours, fifty something,” a blistering pace. It’s impressive that Rep. Paul Ryan, the would-be Veep, can –or could—run a marathon. In fact though, it’s known that he completed the mentioned race in more than four hours. And though Mr. Ryan left the impression he was a regular marathoner, he actually ran just the one race.
And there are flagrant untruths like the Presidential contender’s claim that President Obama goes around “apologizing for America,” and that he “eliminated” the work requirement for welfare recipients. Also there is Mr. Ryan’s assertion that President Obama is responsible for the closing of a Janesville, Wisconsin, GM plant, when the plant closed five months before President Obama’s election and seven months before he took office. There is more.
Yet tallying the lies seems not to matter to political partisans. Partisans are “Predictably Irrational” –to borrow the title of the book by MIT professor Dan Ariely. And as psychologist Jonathan Haidt points out, “We can believe anything that supports our team.”
In his fascinating book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, Dr. Haidt notes, “Political opinions function as ‘badges of social membership’. They’re like the array of bumper stickers people put on their cars showing [their] political causes.” He insists that gut feelings actually determine political choices and the mind merely comes up with reasons to support our emotionally dictated selections. Still, “Reasons sometimes do influence other people,” he writes.
Trusting that last thought, what reason would the biased “boy” use in choosing the best candidate for the job? Well there’s this and it’s big:
The smart, handsome, GOP candidate, Mitt Romney, won the Massachusetts governorship as a moderate politician who declared among other things that he was pro-choice and that we should “sustain and support” Roe v. Wade, which he now says has “gone too far.”
Recently on Meet the Press Mr. Romney said he backed certain provisions of the Affordable Health Care Act, or “Obamacare,” although for months he has proclaimed that if elected he would begin working to eliminate the Act on his “first day in office.”
In short, the former moderate now says he is a “severe conservative.” Okay. That’s his prerogative. But he owes us an explanation why he came to completely reverse his position on matters of concern to the electorate.
Absent that explanation, voters are left to believe he will say anything to gain the Presidency regardless of facts and regardless what he actually believes. Can one who would do that be trusted and be “best for the job?”
The “boy’s” father would say, “Absolutely not!” And as they say, “Father knows best.”
------------------ ------Gus Gribbin
(Note: In case you're interessted, Kenya’s Patrick Makau set the world marathon record 0f two hours and three seconds for the 26-mile-385-yard run in 2011.)
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