As IF Times

Source: Colin Powell Says He’ll Vote for Hillary Clinton – The New York Times

One of the oldest clichés concerning public office is that politics make strange bedfellows.  This old chestnut has never been truer than as it applies to this year’s US elections.  As we all know by now, after a bruising convention, Donald Trump wound up as the nominee for the Republican ticket beating out some well known candidates in bare knuckled fights with unexpectedly personal attacks on their characters and records.

Those hurt feelings have yet to heal (if ever) and many of the contestants have publicly disavowed their support for The Donald.  This animus has extended to other old line Republicans including such as Colin Powell, a former GOP cabinet official, that feel compelled to publicly announce their support of the Democratic candidate.  Party loyalty, at least on the GOP side has been fractured and so other considerations are at play.  While many party deserters are claiming moral conscience in dissing Trump, it is laughingly disingenuous when you consider the alternative.  Party affiliation is obviously more an issue of expediency than of principles.  In the case of Mr. Powell, he claims thusly;

“…I am voting for Hillary Clinton,” he said,  Mr. Powell went on to praise Mrs. Clinton for her skills as a leader and her experience...”

Thanks to WikiLeaks document disclosures of his candid conversations, we know these sentiments are as fake as his former party loyalties.  We don’t recall experience being a requisite when he endorsed the neophyte Obama during his run for office.  Powell should be a man and just state that he despises Trump and would rather eat a bowl of slugs than support him.  Instead, he supports Hilary’s ‘experience’.

Powell’s endorsement is just one of the massive throng of ‘public’ figures rooting for Hilary in addition to most of the major media outlets, so it’s not as if it has any more effect than peeing into the Atlantic.  But if you did not know the issue at hand and only looked at the contingent of people vociferously and publicly championing one side; luminaries such as the bj offering  Madonna, Miley Cyrus, Justin Timberlake, Kim, Alec Baldwin, George Clooney, Mark Zuckerburg, Black Lives Matter, Joy Behar and Oprah, not to mention the political nutters including Elizabeth Warren, Tim Kaine and Al Sharpton, you’d HAVE to pull an opposite George and take the other side of the trade because that would be the rational thing to do.

As it happens, in this case, it’s politics.  The issue boils down to this:  They would rather vote for the person that has a proven record of duplicity, gotten people killed, is funded by hostile governments and is a danger to national security, than for the other guy because he said mean things.   In fact it’s the gaggle of shrill, bleating mean girls that are doing the bullying.

link On first official day on the trail, Rand Paul turns in a prickly performance – The Washington Post.

Ah, election season; let the games begin.  In fact the only game in play will be the gong show which will be the vetting of the Republican contender.  The Democrats have a roster of one, the same one for the past 6 years, known literally as the lady in waiting.   Apparently, that’s enough. The Republicans however have a deep bench as far as eligible and capable candidates, including experienced state governors, eloquent Senators and even accomplished physicians and business people  from which to choose…and therein lies the problem.

What they don’t have is the monolithic, cult-like love of their candidates as the Democrats have for their anointed one.  The GOP contenders have been labelled nutcases, extremists, isolationists, elitist, even left leaning…and this from their own ranks!  Collectively, they represent the wide range of divergent views on things that rational people in society  have when they are not obeisant to the philosophical dictates of party propaganda.

Since only the GOP candidates are  under scrutiny, they will be the ones in the crosshairs of the media.  Of course, the first ones to hit the beach will take the first shots.  Ted Cruz has already taken a few rounds for his ‘extremist’ views and just today Rand Paul is taking fire for his testy comments to some reporters.  The self described libertarian Paul has been taken to task by the media (conservative as well as liberal) for his temperament in dealing with questions from interviewers.  He’s been advised to be more patient and circumspect when addressing the long winded, circuitous and accusatory questions posed to him.  While I personally don’t agree with many of his positions, I do figuratively give Paul a standing ovation for his tack with the idiot media.  The fact that he’s not a lawyer is also a plus.

The reason that people despise politicians is precisely because they are advised to give evasive and vague answers to the inane questions that are pitched to them.  Typically, they are given ‘when did you stop beating your wife’ questions, in order to elicit some sound byte from the candidate that makes the next day’s headlines.   Most politicians are no doubt coached to smile benignly and state that “that’s a very good question” before wandering off on some oblique tangent, toothy smile all the while.  This is the equivalent of “thank you sir, may I have another” while being paddled at a fraternity hazing.

We’d all be far better off if the candidate rolls his eyes at the stupid question, laughs hysterically and points at the guy while saying in a loud voice, “Seriously dude…that’s your question??”  The last guy who wouldn’t take any media guff  was Newt Gingrich, but unfortunately it didn’t help him.  He was painted as an angry white man.  On the other hand, Mitt Romney was criticized for being too gracious and not tough enough during his candidacy so they painted him as a wimp.  Look what that got him.  So it really doesn’t matter.  The left media will pillory you either way.  You may as well be honest.

Here’s an example of what the GOP candidate will face:

“Mr Candidate, your policy on the middle east conflict, the result of George Bush’s lies about weapons of mass destruction and the years of war which saw American lives and treasure spent on behalf of American oil companies and Saudi rulers, which by the way suppresses the rights of women and gays and encourages the consumption of non renewable resources leading to the proliferation of global warming which has shown to be linked to disappearing sea ice and therefore dwindling penguins and the need to consume only organic products that are not GMO since that would cause poverty and disease among inner city children and consequent widening of the gulf that exists in American society, seems to have changed since your first speech in 1995.  What do you have against children?”

On the other hand, the press will pose this to the Democratic candidate:

“Hillary, who was in your bracket for the final four?”

Obviously, politicians are out to get as many votes as possible, but do they need the idiot vote that badly?  They’re going to vote Democrat anyway, so why humor them with even a dumb answer.  Call them out, cut them off and move on.  People can make judgements from what they observe. If they see that the candidate won’t entertain vapid questions and play the media game, they may very well vote for him because he won’t pander to the crowd.

The nub of the issue is that people should be tired if not outright skeptical of the media directing the narrative of how the candidates are portrayed.  For much too long the very small media cabal have made or broken candidates based on whether they fit their biased political views.  They have proven time and time again that they are an unnecessary and egregiously biased filter for politicians’ messages.  So kudos to guys like Paul who have the guts to call them out and refuse to be bullied.  America needs more Churchill; enough with the Chamberlain.