Stop Digging: How dare you?

Barack Obama, you disgust me! Never have I seen such a terrible candidate for the highest office of our great nation.

How dare you try to move people with the spoken word! Who do you think you are? You ought to be ashamed of yourself, making everybody feel so optimistic about politics and their country!

How dare you have Hussein as your middle name! Don't you know that you can eliminate your heritage and conform to the wishes of society by filling out some paperwork and banishing that name? I mean, don't you know that that name refers to the former dictator of Iraq, the one dictator in the world, among dozens, who we as a country made it a point to pursue an undeclared war with? Where is your patriotism?

How dare you attend an all African-American church whose pastor has fairly radical views! Me? Oh, well my all-white Southern Baptist church is extremely accepting. Just no homosexuals please. Or pro-choice folks. But everyone else is welcome. And I always agree one hundred percent with the ideas of my pastor. I mean, who doesn't? Thinking for yourself is overrated anyway.

How dare you try to portray yourself as African-American! It is clear to any reasonable person that this is just simply not true. I mean, pictured next to all those old, rich, white people, you are exactly the same. Get over yourself!

How dare you challenge the superiority of the establishment and the power of the Clintons! How dare you even consider beating Hillary! How dare you pledge to run a clean and transparent campaign and how dare you for doing it, even in the face of familiar smear tactics. How dare you turn the other cheek to constant ridicule by your opponents without lashing back! Who does that, I mean really!

How dare you be so young and inexperienced! C'mon, only the most politically experienced presidents like Nixon and Buchanan do well. And then look at the ones without much political experience like Washington and that Lincoln guy. I think it is obvious that experience is the key to success as a president.

How dare you claim to be in touch with the American people! Just because you were born to a middle-class family, because you barely knew your father after your parents divorced, and because you worked your way up the social and economic ladder, doesn't necessarily mean that you are more in touch with normal Americans than the other candidates. How dare you know so much about sports and other normal things! Sportsmanship, competition, and teamwork, three traits that are not even slightly important in politics!

How dare you try to win this election by giving hope to the disenfranchised! That generation of voters from 2000 who feel cheated, they don't really even count. And all those college students this year who support you, what do they know? The future of politics in our nation is interest groups and old people. We have no use for these younger generations.

How dare you work with those wretched Republicans in writing bills and passing laws, no matter how noble and needed they may be? We, as Democrats, do not work with the enemy regardless of the greater good of society. What it comes down to is partisan differences, not national improvements!

How dare you play by the rules Barack Obama? How dare you stay out of Michigan and Florida like your national convention asked you to? You pulled your name off the ballot and never even set foot in either of those states, just so that you could follow some dumb rules. What a joke! You don't deserve the nomination!

Hillary, ah, now that is a candidate. Experienced, intelligent, and an orator like no other, she deserves the nomination hands down. She breaks the rules, plays dirty, is rich and white and puts people to sleep with her mundane speeches, which is obviously exactly what our faltering country need right now to regain the respect of the world.

Or how about McCain! Man he is just like all the rest of the presidents: rich, white, and out of touch. He is a war hero! He embodies straight talk! Regardless of moving like the Tin Man and reading everything from a teleprompter, he really gets the crowd hopping. For instance, next time you are watching a speech of his, just watch the utter joy and optimism on the stern faces in the background and you will see why he should be our next president.

The point of all this sarcasm? Perception is everything and nothing. It is an absolute shame that the media, in an attempt to have things to talk about, has to shower the various candidates with perceptions instead of facts. Why not talk more about these individuals and what they are involved in. Tell us what Obama was like as a community organizer. Tell us about Hillary and why she turned her back on the Republican party in the 60s. And tell us about John McCain and his early political years (you know, back in the 1840s). When we begin to base our vote on who cries in public, who repeats themselves constantly, and who has a strange middle name, we are abandoning the very purpose of our democracy: choosing the best candidate to be our country's leader. So why not do some research on the candidates and make an informed decision? How dare you do anything different?

Contact Jordan at jmdubois@uncg.edu or post a comment online at www.carolinianonline.com.