Published: July 05, 2008 10:17 pm            

Jimmy Espy: Darn you, brain

When it comes to politics I wish I was young and stupid again — filled with hope and confidence that we were only one good election away from cleaning up the messes this country has inherited or created.

Maybe if I were young and stupid again I could convince myself that “the change” that Sen. Obama promises actually might be a real, lasting change in the way government does business.

I like the way Obama talks — it’s pretty and all — but the closer I listen I realize that I was never THAT young or THAT stupid.

In fact, I haven’t detected any real change at all. The senator from Illinois walks and talks and quacks like a duck — in this case a standard liberal, big government duck. The packaging may be a little different, but that seems to be the extent of the change we can expect if he is elected and even that decoration might be tossed aside quickly once the reins of power are in hand.

I must admit to liking the idea of an African American president. I just don’t want it to be this African American. He’ll be a pansy on terrorism, reflexively liberal on the economy and a danger when it comes to nominations for the Supreme Court.

Now swap him for a Thomas Sowell or Walter Williams (or even Charles Barkley) and I might be able to have my chocolate cake and eat it too.

And speaking of vanilla. They don’t come much more vanilla than Sen. John McCain.

Again, the younger, stupider Jimmy Espy would convince himself that the Arizona senator’s late-in-his-political-life “rethinking” on key issues is because of a heartfelt change of mind and not political expediency.

But time and the smidgen of wisdom accumulated over the years don’t allow me to “rethink” my long-established view of Sen McCain, as an ideological bumper car, careening from one obstinate position to another.

And the idea of four more years of a president who is unable to articulate clearly and forcefully why we are in Iraq is the equivalent of Freddie Kruger dragging his “fingernails” down the chalkboard of my soul.

The first election I was ever really cognizant of was the 1976 clash of the titans between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. At the time I pulled for Carter and had a long list of reasons why, but truth be told I wanted him to win because he was from Georgia and so was I.

Thirty years later, it’s the only reason I can remember for supporting the big goon.

Then came 1980 and Ronald Reagan. Now that was an election.

You had the whiny, defeatist, blundering Carter Administration sucking up to the Soviets and a lot of other hooligans, as well as demolishing our economy with a level of ineptitude not seen since Boss Hogg’s heyday in Hazzard County.

The country was a mess and we were in retreat.

Then came Reagan.

There’s a lot of myth associated with the man and I’m not drinking the “special” Kool Aid for him or anyone else, but the fact is Ol’ Ronnie grabbed the federal government by the neck and gave it a yank.

He jerked the political center of this country back in the right direction on a lot of issues and most importantly climbed aboard the bucking bronco of Totalitarianism and rode the beast into the ground.

Voting for that man was a pleasure.

But in the ensuing years — the drab Bush-Clinton-Bush years — voting just hasn’t been any fun. I’ve pulled the lever for Bush 2 once but mostly voted Libertarian, my way of giving the Bronx cheer to the two big, fat, inalterably corrupt political parties that dominate American politics.

I could swing Libertarian again and Bob Barr is from Georgia. But even that doesn’t jangle my juices. Then again I could just sit the whole thing out, but my wife would nag me incessantly about it.

My head hurts.



Jimmy Espy is executive editor of The Daily Citizen.

        

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