It Bothers Me That McCain Is Such a Liar

I have absolutely no problem with calling lies lies. And liars liars. We had it all through the Bush years and you thought it couldn't be any worse than that. But, I regret to say, it could be.

My own way of thinking is this, that We The People love our country and want the best for it. But if we get bad leadership -- the kind of craven, evil leadership we've had with Bush and his gang of crooks -- it depresses everything, and where prosperity and peace would have, could have, should have reigned, the deceit and criminality tips the balance the other way. It's like something in the nature of things, that lying has consequences. It's like something in myths, the land wasting away.

The rather odd thing is that it takes people quite a while to see it. Or we see it and we distribute the blame, since there are so many sectors. And we're not given to this notion first that the kind of people we are and the kind of leadership we have has actual consequences. Because we start with a self-image that's already on the 70 yard line. The old proverb that you reap what you sow isn't instantly believed. So even now we have around 28% of the population essentially deadenders who see George Bush as still having credibility. That's scary, but like I said, so many sectors. And other factors, family, political ties, ignorance.

What I want is government, a president, who is more or less someone you can be proud of and someone who more or less merits our pride. Someone who has some civic virtue, who wants the best for the country, someone you don't suspect (or know) is cavorting with criminal types, liars, behind the scenes to undercut the rest of us.

So, because of all this, it ticks me off that McCain and Palin have to be such liars. Because they stand a realistic chance of being elected. That's scary. If they're elected -- God forbid -- it could be that they would moderate things a bit. Maybe whatever civic goodness McCain's had, if any, would reemerge and we would be more or less happy under him. It sounds bad at this point. He's not inspirational in the least. He doesn't inspire trust and confidence in me, I know. He looks like more of the same, actually, and maybe worse. If he's surrounded by the same time of weasels that Bush was, and Bush took us so far down, and if we're crazy enough to elect the same bunch, what new depths might they plumb? Really, what would restrain them?