The State of America

I have come to the conclusion that SNL's portrayal of Sarah Palin is over-the-top-unAmerican!

The fact that I was tempted for a single millisecond to vote for McCain simply to continue watching Tina Fey as Palin for the next 4 years is wrong beyond words! As my sister would say, "just because they're serving you Kool-Aide, doesn't mean you have to drink it!" And yet, Fey, every week has me damn near spitting my soda across the room in laughter, which is something I am completely opposed to giving up. This is the only thing about the election that has managed to invoke any deep feelings in me. I'm not thrilled with my choices this time around, but then again, why should this time be any different than any other presidential election?

Seriously, McCain scares me. It's not the fact that he's voted with W. over 90% of the time. It's not the erratic, hot-headed behavior that is lurking just below the surface, ready to jump out at you like a prowling lioness at any moment. It's not that Palin has a deeper voice, and I can not for the life of me imagine listening to his nasal-Mickey-Mouse-Arizona-accented voice for the next 4 years. Or even the fact that his wife looks like she could make Imelda Marcos seem like Mother Theresa. While I think all of these things, what scares the ever loving shit out of me is his Skeletor Smile. It simply gives me the creeps.

Well, all of that, and he simply will not live the 4 years if he makes it to office. Look at every single president you've seen in your life. Look at a pic of how they look when they are first elected and then look at the pic from when they're leaving office... They haven't aged 4 or 8 years, they've aged 4 times the length of their term from the stress. To quote Tina Fey from her Leno appearance on Friday night, "Sarah Palin seems to be exactly as smart as me... and that's not smart enough." Amen to that Tina, and since the stress of the presidency will kill McCain, the Caribou Barbie's readiness and intelligence are very much in question.

Don't get me wrong, I'm also not thrilled to the moon with Obama. I have my doubts about him too. Despite his incredible persona, and seemingly unflappable calm; bottom line, he's still a politician. Politicians can only survive as politicians if they learn how to squawk out the side of their necks and talk out of both sides of their mouths while smiling like a Cheshire Cat and cuddling a baby in one arm while shaking hands with lobbyists behind their backs with the other hand and managing to convince the voters that they are as trustworthy as a Catholic priest--oh, wait....

The fact that ANYONE promises to "fix" America is more astonishing to me than the size of Oliver Stone's stones for releasing the film W. while the real W is still in office. No one person can do it. It takes a village--in other words US--the American public to fix things. What is even more bewildering is that we, as a general population, fall for this shit every election. When are we going to wise up and stop thinking that any one president is going to make our lives oh so very much better?

The president is akin to a mortgage company...he might say if we get the loan, but we are the ones that pick the house, decorate it, live in it, and do the maintenance to it. We are the ones that decide who to have over for Thanksgiving dinner and what cars to park in the garage. All the mortgage company does is collect the payment. In the case of W, we just happened to go with the shadiest, most fly-by-night loan company on the face of the planet. Maybe this is why we are so ripe to believe the lies told by the next potential mortgage company. We're desperate to be able to hope for something better in the face of the horrible turn this country has taken under it's current leadership.

Which makes the laughter I experience watching Tina Fey skewer Sarah Palin all that much more addictive. I need the laughs so much more now than I did 8 years ago. Remember when we though Clinton's spooge stain was considered the worst thing that could happen to America?

After 9/11, the War on Iraq, gas prices, the current economy, and "homeland security"; I'd give anything to wake up tomorrow in a Dallas-like turn of events and find myself staring at the shame of one little blue dress again.