On Wednesday, April 30, 2008, Sen. John McCain jumped the
shark.
Now, I’ve got a lot of respect for the man. He’s always been
something of a straight shooter. And when a man spends time in a POW camp and
can’t raise his arms above his shoulders as a result, I’m inclined to cut the
guy some slack. But in a campaign stop in Pennsylvania yesterday, McCain claimed that pork
barrel spending caused the 35W bridge to fall down go boom. Pork barrel
spending didn’t cause the bridge to fall. All reports up until now point to
trade school engineers from the 60s who were likely too baked to carry the
damn one. And given how commonly politicians have taken the "If I say it, it
must be true" approach this campaign season, I would’ve much rather watched the
GOP’s candidate for president actually jump the Mississippi on a
motorcycle than listen to a man formerly known for candid statements trying to score political points by holding court whilst spewing
forth a toxic slurry of obfuscating crap that would rival the noxious sludge at
the bottom of the Mississippi itself.
But why do candidates feel so comfortable hocking these
juicy loogies of misinformation at us? They know that the words
tumbling forth from their forked tongues are simply a devious combo of smoke,
mirrors, and sweet pandering nothings that smoothly caress the genitalia of
their base constituencies, thus lulling them deeper into a bullshit-induced
trance, right? Most blame television for forcing politicians to compress complicated
issues into easy to digest bites. TV conditioned people to want
their news spoon-fed – meaning whoever screams the loudest with the most glib
sound bite generally is regarded as the prophet of truth. This applies even when the person screaming the loudest is the crazy fucker having a dance
party in his underwear in front of Block E.
But the honest truth is that the blame for the sorry state
of affairs that is the American political system falls squarely on the eagerly
nodding culture whores known as American citizens. It’s us. We’re the reason Jeremiah
Wright’s sermons make such effective weapons in a campaign. It’s our fault John
McCain feels justified in using the deaths of 13 Minnesotans to make an
unrelated point about earmarks. And it’s my own damn fault I’m wondering why Al Franken
couldn’t find a nice Jewish uncle to keep his books. We’ve become a
society of listless zombies who claim to be too busy to understand the issues
at hand, but also refuse to devote any of that precious time to information
that may contradict opinions or worldviews developed by listening to the chorus of malformed mewling
creatures polluting the public dialogue.
Make no mistake, it is pollution. Yes, Rev. Jeremiah Wright
said "God damn America."
In fact, he danced on the altar while a chorus of seraphim drifted down from
the heavens to sing those very words in a bawdy sea chanty written by the
Archangel Gabriel himself. It doesn’t matter all that much though, since Wright isn’t
running for president. Plus, it’s highly unlikely that, should Sen. Obama be
elected the next president, he’ll take punitive steps against white America.
Steps like outlawing rugby, New Balance sneakers, Volvos, Joe Mauer and his thrice-damned sideburns or any of the other ridiculous crap we fetishize. But because we’ve spent the
last two months with politicians and pundits alike regurgitating bile and
chunky bits of flag-waving rhetoric, Sen. McCain’s health care proposal hasn’t
gotten the coverage, or scrutiny, it deserves. The lack of details in Sen.
Obama’s plan hasn’t exactly been called out as a particular failing either. And
because we’ve been too busy obsessing over what appears to be an innocuous
accounting mistake on Al Franken’s part, no one has taken the time to marvel at
the profound stupidity of Hillary Clinton staging
a press event at a gas station to demonstrate just how in touch with the
plight of the common man she truly is while advocating for a gas tax
holiday that would save the average American about $30 over three months.
A well-informed populace is vital to the operation of a
democracy, according to our slave-owning, and banging, founding father Thomas
Jefferson. And sad to say, we’re not well-informed. We’re well-indoctrinated. So we debate over whether Obama is,
in fact, an Islamo-fascist for not wearing a flag lapel pin. We fight over whether McCain’s
"senior moments" are the result of campaign trail exhaustion or a sign that
he’ll be in Depends
before his second term. And we shiver in fear as we wonder whether Hillary Clinton is a creature risen from the
grave by sheer force of will, determined to win the presidency in order to
secure access to the delicious babies necessary to sustain her unholy semblance
of life. And all of that pointless noise pollution goes a long way toward explaining why, in the midst of this
interminable, abominable election season, our status as one of the greatest and most influential superpowers
this world has ever known can now be summarized in just under two minutes by Grand Theft Auto IV’s Serbian protagonist –
Nico Bellic.