...who's the fairest one of all?
The most recent example of a silly politician gilding the resume with a combination of lies and exaggerations was outed by the NYTimes. And they were picking on one of their own – the attorney general of Connecticut who “misplaced a few words” in describing his wartime activities. In this particular case his misplaced words ended up relocating him from the safe confines of the reserve barracks in the homeland to the unsafe confines of a conflict thousands of miles away in which tens of thousands of real American warriors lost their lives. So, this got us to thinking about two things:
1. This guy is an attorney general which means he tries cases on behalf of the people of his state and that means he holds all sorts of other people to a high truth standard – defendants, witnesses, experts and others are sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help them God, or they violate perjury laws and can be jailed/fined or both. What gives with an attorney general/prevaricator that can hold others to this high standard and, yet, not subject himself to the same standard? Makes no sense. Makes no sense that he can even continue in his present job much less be considered for another position. Haven’t we had enough of this deceit? Haven’t we had enough of settling for weak people? What standards do the people of Connecticut demand of their elected officials? Is Blumenthal the best that they can find for either job? TheFundamentals would think, with due acknowledgment to William Buckley, that any voter in Connecticut could open any phone book from any city/village/town in the nutmeg state, pick any page at random, point their finger at any name in the book and come up with a better qualified candidate. Okay, enough about Connecticut. The simple fact is that the citizens of the nutball, er, we mean nutbag state are entitled to vote for weak candidates if they so choose; we just don’t understand why they don’t give this “misplaced word” fellow the good old heave - ho.
2. But there is a much bigger issue at play when it comes to the way in which some of our political candidates see themselves. Do you remember a few years ago when Hillary Clinton was trying to get Obama’s job and she spoke about flying into a war zone under fire with the obvious connection about her bravery in being on the scene, in person, at great risk to herself because she was such a committed public servant? And, lo and behold, it was not true. It was either a lie or an exaggeration or misplaced words or whatever. And then do you remember when Joe Biden was running for president and he snitched the wording from some English politician about his background and upbringing and educational efforts and a bunch of other crap that not only was not true; the words were some else’s. So here’s what we were wondering. Why doesn’t Hillary quit her job and fly into a war zone and get to work doing something that somebody might find necessary? Why doesn’t she do something that is truly risky? Now. Just resign and say you are off to do something brave, but on my own. Or why doesn’t Joe do something really brave like quit his job and move to Somalia to teach the pirates there about capitalism and hard work? Or why doesn’t Blumenthal join the Peace Corps and move to Haiti and dig latrine ditches for the struggling citizens of that fair land? That’s what we don’t get. All these prevaricators can still do the things that they wish they had done but didn’t just quite get around to it. So just do ‘em now. Quit what you’re doing and do something that will make you look, er, we mean feel, good. There’s still time. Did you know that there are thousands of Americans, tens of thousands as a matter of fact, who make sacrifices every day? They don’t even think about gilding the resume or standing in front of an audience or a camera crew and belching out nonsense about their heroism and their real tribulations. They just do it. No one can make anyone do something for others or do something under difficult circumstances but we sure can acknowledge the ones who really do it and shun the fools who talk about doing it. It’s a fundamental, folk. The ones who really do it seldom talk about it!
In closing we want to make an observation about this guy Blumenthal. There is some evidence that he falls into the burgeoning category of very aggressive district attorneys who use their office for grandstanding and abuse of individuals and entities, particularly those where they are able to manage public opinion on so-called populist or politically correct topics. For those who are interested, we suggest you read a well written article by Fergus Cullen and recently published in the Wall Street Journal -
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704302304575214491462332922.html?mod=WSJ_newsreel_opinion
The abuse of power and the corruption of elected officials can be somewhat mitigated by term limit legislation and, where required, by amendments to state and the national constitutions. This term limit issue is not limited to congressional and legislative offices only. Term limits for all elected offices are long overdue!
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