Politics as Usual... Sigh...

By Andy Wallace

They are all lying to you. The sad part is not that you don't believe it, because you do, or that you don't (publicly) deplore it (because you do), but that you keep on going along with the whole thing. Republican, Democrat, it doesn't matter, it just depends on who tells the lies that you like to pretend to believe most.

One of my favorites this year is Bob Dole. Yes, he's let loose with a pack of crap (the most recent one I heard about was his repeat of an earlier lie about how the Clinton administration is letting these horrible drug traffikers bring in under 125 pounds of marijuana into the country into San Diego and ignoring it. But, I digress. The marijanua datribe will come at another time). No, my favorite bit is when he spouts off about Manpower Inc being the largest company in the country. Oh, how horrible it is that those awful Democrats have dug us this deep pit, where the largest employer in the country is a temporary agency.

Why do you think that this is the largest employer in the country? Because the CEO's of all the big companies have figured out that they can cut some costs by hiring temporary workers instead of those nasty permanent workers who want benefits, and nice working conditions, and other wastes of money like that. And what party do most of these guys (and gals, there are a few) support? Ain't Democratic, folks. Recently, I heard of a company that was bragging about having the most efficient engineering workforce - they earned the most dollars per engineer of all of their competitors. Why? Because they have a lot of contractors, who don't count as employees, so the ratio goes up. This looks good to the stock market, so the stock goes up. The senior officers, who are the ones who make the decisions about hiring contractors, have a LOT of stock. You do the math.

Ross Perot - here's a man who rails about special interests sucking from the government teat. A man whose fortune was made doing data processing for Medicare. The "I do it for YOU" man, who couldn't stand to see anyone else at the head of his party, although it was supposed to be up to us, the people of this country.

Of course, a classic political lie is Bill Clinton's "...but I did not inhale..." remark. I will never forgive him for that piece of crap. That wasn't even a good lie. If he had said "I tried it, but I didn't like it, and never did it again", well, that probably would have been a lie too, but one that I would have let pass.

So, choosing a candidate for president these days is a matter of "choose your liar". My personal liar is Bill Clinton, because I just can't stomach the crap that flows out of the Republican Party most times. Cut taxes! Cut Spending! Trickle Down! We can do this, it won't hurt a bit. Make sure that we, er, those guys over there make LOTS more money, and it will all flow down to the little people. That's just a bit too much of a load of crap for me to want to carry around. And besides - who wants to have a president who won't refer to himself in the first person?

Probably the most honest guy in this whole election is Ralph Nader. He's beholden to pretty much nobody, and I haven't heard anyone claim that he lied about anything, except for the hardcores who are still pissed at him for removing the Corvair - the real chance that GM had of holding off the Japanese invasion - from the road. Like, they couldn't do ANYthing else? This one car contained every possible idea that they could ever come up with? Give me a break. But Nader has no chance, unfortunately. I would be really interested in seeing what he would do as president.

So, I hope you chose a liar that you can stand. I just wish there was a "None of the Above" box on the ballot. The real reason there isn't is that no-one in politics today wants to see "From the Office of President None of the Above" on White House stationery.

That's it! I'll change my name to "Andy None of the Above" and run for president! I'll be a shoe-in!

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