I wish I were more excited about this election. It's a sad commentary of our political process and its overall nastiness that the best we can do it a John Kerry or George W. Bush. Two guys who wouldn't have made it through a first round of interviews at most companies. And so that's what we end up with - guys who can't get real jobs end up becoming politicians.
Ever heard the saying "Those who can't, teach"? They should add a corollary to that: Those who can't, teach. And those who can't teach run for office. No one bothers to deconstruct these guys. They hide behind "Years of dedicated public service" and other such glossing over the fact that all 4 of these men are nothing special.
Let's take a hard look at them.
First we have our President, George W. Bush. He's a guy who really never had a real job. He was a trust fund baby. Ever look at his job record? Not much there. He simply used his dad's various connections to work his way up. His only redeeming quality is that he's good at spotting smart people to work with.
Next we have Dick Cheney. Cheney is significantly better in my opinion. He obviously knows his stuff and probably could have done well in the private sector (and was, after all, the CEO of Halliburton). Of course, Halliburton is the boogeyman now that he's vice president. But that's mostly the result of dumb people believing manufactured crap from politicians. But he only got that position at Halliburton because he had previously been secretary of defense. Bright guy that could have probably done well in the real world but he'll never be President.
Then there's John Kerry. Here's a guy who converted 4 months of experience in Vietnam into a political career. He immediately went for public office. When he lost (at first) he was briefly a pretty decent district attorney. But like Bush, he didn't accomplish much outside of politics. And in politics he was a pretty mediocre senator. Another rich guy (though good at becoming richer by marrying well) who just coasted through life. He is, at least, able to speak coherently and intelligently, something that Bush doesn't seem to be very good at. But like Bush, just a spoiled frat boy who's coasted through life.
And finally there's John Edwards, my least favorite of them all. Edwards is the ultimate hypocrite. A social parasite. An ambulance chaser who somehow managed to make it look like he was fighting for the "little guy" even as he pocketed tens of millions of dollars in settlements. A guy whose only real expertise is having figured out how to work the insurance industry system of knowing how much he could get out of an insurance company without having to go to court. He has never made anything. Built anything. And worse, he's a hypocrite. While decrying how the government needs to raise income taxes to help provide more to the "other America", he himself bilked the system (legally) in ways other businessmen (such as myself) refuse to do. How? He made his law practice an s-corporation and then pays himself through dividends. So income tax increases don't affect him at all. Nice. I could do the same thing. Our accountants put it like this back in 2000 (I'm quite familiar with how Edwards did his taxes as you can tell): "If you want to avoid paying taxes, your best bet is to pay yourself in the form of dividends rather than a salary." It's perfectly legal but kind of icky ethically. It's a loophole and while I deplore high taxes, I don't believe it's acceptable to exploit the system. So I get paid a salary and pay my income taxes and Medicaid and Medicare taxes as well -- even as slime balls like Edwards complain I'm not paying enough even as he avoids paying hardly any taxes at all.
And I could include Nader who is, sadly, a total nut. Besides not even owning a car (I'm not even sure he has a driver's license) he's weird in all sorts of other ways. A 70some year old life-long bachelor. Want to talk about out of touch with the rest of America.
So these are our choices. Oh joy..
