Debateable

Look, I know that Kerry has a ridiculous fake tan now, and I've heard the botox rumors. I also know that he has a leaden personality and resembles the Snow-Meiser (sp?) of that Rankin-Bass animated Christmas special. But this election isn't about his looks or personality. It shouldn't be a Miss Congeniality pageant, but unfortunately, it is. Though he was plainly more intelligent, that's why Gore "lost". I grew up in Tennessee and am well aware that Gore is a cold, unappealing fish. The sad thing is that many Americans perceived Gore's intelligence as arrogance, and he lost points sighing and shaking his head at Bush's ridiculous pronouncements. Somehow, Bush's stupidity appealed to people, and that's the risk we run tonight at the "debate".

Face it, Bush is a moron. We joke about presidents' real shortcomings openly on late night talk shows: that Reagan was senile in office (turns out he had Alzheimer's), that Clinton was a slut, and that Bush is slow and poorly spoken. (And honey, if you can't even pronounce "nuclear", you ain't got no bidness with your finger on any button which might set off anything which is, as Bush calls it "nuke-ya-ler".) Bush couldn't even be interviewed by the 9/11 Comission without puppet-master Cheney at his side. And Michael Moore's genius FARENHEIT 9/11 brilliantly captured that telling moment with close-ups of the clueless moron's face as he sat and read a kid's book in a class-room for 7 minutes while the world fell apart! Is this the great action hero who for some reason, makes Americans feel so safe? Safe because he was willing to lash out at a country in the Middle East--pick a country, any country--as long as they have oil--when America felt the need to strike back at some arab nation, even if it is the WRONG arab nation? Somehow Bush so effectively harnessed our grief form 9/11 that we are still largely approving of his war efforts, despite the fact that there were no weapons of miss destruction, no tie between Iraq and Al Quaeda, that soldiers are still dying (ours AND theirs!) and that the whopping war bill will never be paid off. Why would an administration which ignored the 9/11 warnings make us feel safe?

Is it because we sense that he is stupid enough to retaliate blindly to teach some Arab bad men (when we can't even find the real culprit of 9/11) a lesson? Why should THAT make us feel safe? Kerry is perceived as a 'flip-flopper', but shouldn't a leader have the ability to weigh up new information and decide on new situations accordingly? The ability to change your mind is a GOOD thing, infinitely preferable to bullish-ly charging ahead with the reckless Iraq-attack which Bush had devised even before 9/11, ignoring as we know know, bulletins warning that the risk of continued insurgencies which would destabilize the Middle East. Oh, and make the whole world hate us and see us as the biggest threat to world peace. Hey, as long as there are world leaders attacking other countries unjustly, NONE of us are safe. And I ain't got no ranch in Crawford to hide in or private jet waiting to whisk me off to an undisclosed location.

Bush's ig'nunt, hawkish approach has failed miserably. I'm ready for a wine-drinking, botox-injecting, fake tan-wearing, flip-flopping, billionaire-marrying, maybe-smart but-boring Massachusetts liberal. And so is the rest of the planet. PLEASE! Before it's too la--KERPOW!!!!