Post number 100, aka W the Wonder Boy in a Plastic Bubble

And I love the fact that it happens during these debates...

It amazes me - as much after this debate as after the first, though Bush did much better (God knows he couldn't have done worse) - that anyone can look at that man and think, "He's my idea of the United States President." Staggers me. The man is belligerent, poorly spoken, a hot head, he was at times just all-out rude, not just kind of rude but truly beyond the pale and for no reason, he's occasionally completely lost behind that pained expression when it looks as though a small gremlin is drilling a hot poker through his third eye, he enters vapor lock far far too often, he can't take responsibility for his actions to save his life, his only real position in this entire campaign is that Kerry is a flip-flopper, since he has nothing of a record to stand on, and yet a portion of this population - apparently a large enough portion to vote him once again into office - believes that he represents our brightest hope. To me, it is just abysmally depressing to imagine a populous that could watch that man shout and twitch and then, when he manages to actually respond halfway coherently with complete sentences, wink and grin like he'd just pulled off a real number on someone and isn't he the clever one. Historically, I have not a doubt in my mind we'll look back on this footage, and even the most stalwart Bush supporter will feel an empty sick twist in their gut at the idea that they could ever have taken this man seriously as President. As a friend just said tonight, I wouldn't buy a used car from someone like that - and it's completely true - it's just crystal clear that a person who speaks like that is lying through their teeth or at the very least has something major to hide. And yet an actual large portion of our populous will buy him as Commander in Chief. But we all know what P. T. Barnum said, and he wasn't kidding... and what a circus they make all of this.

It reminds me of a moment in Donnie Darko, which takes place during the 1988 Presidential campaign, when the father is watching one of the Dukakis-Bush debates and Bush Sr. mentions in warm, oh-so-sincere, yet somewhat pleading tones, what a good man General Noriega is. There's something about the whole thing - as brief as the snippet is, and it's seconds long - that communicates just comically pathological mistruth, and yet you know at the time that Republicans were 100% (or at least 90 or 85%) behind Bush Sr. at that moment. "Yes, that wonderful Noriega", I can see my mother and father thinking watching that debate from another time during another Republican sliming campaign, "so misunderstood." It's a brilliantly telling moment that five seconds or less long as it is has reverberated in my thinking about politics since. Reading Bob Woodward's Shadow, it became very clear to me that Bush Sr. had a bad problem with pointing the finger at others for his own problems. Every day it becomes more and more clear that this unfortunate trait is amplified a thousand fold in the son. And yet somehow 53% of our population - including my own parents - see this man, this rude belligerent truth-mangling so-called Christian who doesn't even attend church, as a true leader, a moral leader no less. It's no wonder I cling to gallows humor like the one true last outpost of sanity in the world...