Can Anyone Here Play This Game? The Nightmare of New Hampshire

Does anybody feel good about New Hampshire?

I'm busy trying to keep an eye on Iranian attack boats in the Middle East and our presumed future leaders are concentrating on this season's brand of swift boating. Let's put aside Hillary's tears, Romney's religion, Edward's haircut, Obama's youth and Giuliani's wives.

Can someone tell me which of these candidates could best slap down taunts from Tehran and squash a couple of Iranian speed boats?

I am trying to avoid all political ideology, stay away from the "you're a liberal, you're a conservative, are too, am not, my dad can beat up your dad" school-house stuff that passes for modern day politics.

But when the most concise political comment I can find comes from a Palestinian writing for Al Jazeera I am afraid for my nation.

"Never has a country that looked so powerful sounded so fragile than in this year's presidential election,"wrote Marwan Bishara, a Palestinian political science lecturer at the American University in Paris who is a senior analyst for the Al Jazeera web site.

The man's bona fides would probably make the average red blooded American immediately reject anything he says. Forget used car salesmen, network political pundits or celebrities who endorse all-in-one incontinence/denture and hemorrhoid solutions; is there anyone who could possibly fall lower on the believability scale than a Palestinian academic with an Israeli passport who makes a living sitting in Paris sniping at Americans?

In this case, however, the guy is making sense. Less than a month ago somebody killed Benazir Bhutto, the well traveled diva chosen by the White House as the face of democracy in South Asia. The reaction from Democrats and Republicans was complete incoherence.

After the demise of both Ms. Bhutto and the pubescent fantasies of State Department wonks who claim they knew her at Harvard, Bishara wrote, "The inadequacy of the (Democratic) candidates was matched only by the incoherence of the White House as the Bush administration tried to put a brave face on a failing interventionist policy."

In other words, the world is going to hell in a hand basket and no potential leader has offered an iota of hope that they can help.

In my youth, Casey Stengel was manager of an expansion baseball team called the New York Mets. The Mets struck out, fell down and fielded like they were using ping pong paddles instead of baseball mitts. After one particularly humiliating loss, Casey was quoted as saying, "Can't anyone here play this game?" I look to New Hampshire and wonder whether "Marvelous Marv" Throneberry is a Republican or a Democrat and if he is still available for a post convention draft.

Let me dial down the sarcasm for a moment before I have the Department of Homeland Security tapping my phones and toting up my wife's purchases of hummus, pita and other suspicious items:

I believe the United States is in the middle of a battle that could easily be described as World War III.

I believe that Islamic fundamentalists are looking to eradicate our way of life and that even if they can't win they can inflict a heck of a lot of damage. Michael Collins, the Irish terrorist of the last century said, "The job of a terrorist is to terrorize." As head of what became the IRA, Collins didn't need to win the war of independence, he needed the Brits to surrender. Same for the fundamentalists; they don't need Muezzin loudspeakers on the Empire State Building, chanting Allah al-Akbar to declare victory. As long as they can keep us nervous, keep oil at $100 a barrel, keep us doffing our shoes before boarding the Jet Blue to Fort Lauderdale spring break; as long as our "solution" is to pretend that Condi Rice is Gary Cooper and can keep the bad guys in line, the terrorists are, in fact, winning.

Who is going to stop them? One of the folks shaking hands and kissing babies in New Hampshire?

When the British faced with another war, they reinstated Winston Churchill, a relatively dislikeable bigot who nevertheless got stuff done. Post Civil War, we picked US Grant, a man who makes Donald Trump look humble and Britney Spears reliable. Just as the Russians looked like they were going to fossilize in the Siberian deep freeze and like hordes of Tyrannosaurus Rex who couldn't cope with climate change, they install Vladimir Putin and suddenly are on top of the world.

I'm not suggesting a dictator, a Republican, a Democrat, a Darwin-hating fundamentalist or a southwestern Governor who can't seem to get the top button to fit snugly under his jowls.

I'm just looking to New Hampshire don't see anyone who makes me comfortable about the future.

Can anyone there play this game?

Comments

[Desiderata]

Gary Hart?

[JustAnotherJoe]

No, I don't feel good, but not for the same reasons you don't feel good. Why should any leader get worked up over a few Iranian speed boats? Or feel that they have to slap down taunts from Iran? Aren't there bigger issues? The thing that makes me uncomfortable is that our destroyers are there in the first place only to keep the Straits open for the oil supertankers, yet no candidate really talks about doing what it takes to get us off of the oil. No candidate talks about whether we should still manintain our global empire and its 730+ military bases. No candidate talks about true nuclear disarmament, starting with our own vast arsenals of atomic weapons. If the goal of terrorists is to induce fear, then they've accomplished a whole lot if you think a few Iranian speedboats swarming around US Navy destroyers is indicative of WWIII. The first step is to not buy into the fearmongering. We aren't involved WWIII as much as we are losing our empire.

[Pdubya]

DIEBOLD WINS NEW HAMPSHIRE

www.prisonplanet.com

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