Only 14 Months of Disappointment to Go

I’m a politically conservative guy. Some may say “Well duh. You’re Mormon. Of course you’re conservative.” Oh how wrong you are to think that! I’ve known a few liberally-minded Mormons over the years. Mind you, they’re rare as a snowfall in Southtown, and half of those I’ve known are relatives of Brokeback, but they do exist.

So being a conservative type, I thought it might be a good idea to watch the Republican candidates debate each other last night. Get informed and see who I’d be willing to back. All that good stuff. I had been thinking I would like Mitt Romney based on some of the stuff I’ve heard from him in the past. Giulliani is someone that I have a hard time backing largely because my personal background with marriage. Cheats tend to put me off. But that’s just me. Plenty of people don’t have a problem with cheaters at all. McCain I just don’t get.

What I came away with instead was the following summary for the GOP hopefuls:

• Sam Brownback
  Nice guy with what sounds like reasonable thoughts. Not a chance in hell of getting elected.
• Rudy Giuliani
  He has a lot in his personal life to live down before I’d be comfortable with him.
• Mike Huckabee
  Got the most points from me for his very passionate, and obviously honest (or Oscar-worthy) position on the honor of our country and us as a people. Also not a chance in hell of getting elected. He’s talking about honor in a presidential race, after all.
• Duncan Hunter
  The robo-candidate. If this guy sounded any more cold or calculating, he’d be a liquid-cooled processor in a high-end computer (geek reference). While his ideas didn’t sound bad, he’s the perfect charicature of the cold-hearted Republican that more liberal people love to paint.
• John McCain
  He’s a great centrist Democrat. A man that panders this much shouldn’t be trusted to walk my dog, let alone run my country.
• Ron Paul
  Good freaking grief. If John McCain is a centrist Democrat, this guy is the DNC chairman. I have no idea what he’s doing in the Republican party, let alone trying to win a nomination in it.
• Mitt Romney
  What happened to the Mitt of a few months back that was affable, casual, and easily spoke his mind? He looked like he had a broomstick under his shirt, a corn cob up his butt, and a hand in the back of his neck making his mouth move. If a man can’t be himself, he’s hard to trust.
• Tom Tancredo
  Was he in this debate? He was? Was he dressed up as one of the other candidates or something?
• Fred Thompson
  He wasn’t even on the debate. He hadn’t even announced his candidacy yet. But somehow he still got as much or more attention in the debate than everyone else. That alone probably puts him ahead of all the others, even though I don’t know a thing that he stands for yet.

So the short version is that there were a bunch of nice guys that finish last, stealth Democrats, and political weasels on the stage. And one guy who seems to know how to play them all like a fiddle so far not even showing up. If this is what the Republican party has to offer, the next year-plus is going to drag on for a long time.

Do it again and you’ll pull back a stump

So, I don’t exactly live in a sleepy rural area. I live in a fairly good-sized city actually. But if you were listening to the top-of-the-hour news on the radio here this evening, you might have thought otherwise. Headlines might have been about the restroom dalliances of Senator Craig, or the pending fiasco that is unrestricted Mexican trucking within our borders, or one of several other weighty issues. But no. Those were all trumped by something of more importance, certainly.

This evening, our local police issued an alert, carried on the public airwaves, for an unknown man who grabbed a woman’s butt at an Arby’s. Black male, mid twenties, about six feet tall. Apparently the man should be considered “touchy-feely”.

Now, just so we’re all clear with each other, I don’t approve of copping a feel on a stranger in line at Arby’s. Or anywhere else. With a significant other, hey, just be discreet if you happen to be in line at Arby’s when the mood hits. My friend who works as an Arby’s manager would probably be grateful since he’s also been single for a while and hates to see anyone having a good time that he’s not having. So with that being said, my question is “What the hell?!” I mean, I know crime in our area is down, but certainly there must be something a little more pressing than the “Booty Bandit”.

What have we come to when women are making a report to the police over something like this. Half the guys in my high school journalism class would still be in jail doing time if this had been a bookable offense. Juvenile? Sure. Criminal? Uh, no. The common reply back in the day was “Do it again and you’ll pull back a stump!” followed by some expletive-enhanced description of the perpetrator’s intellect, nether-regions, or creative combination of the two. And if the guy dared do it again (at least within the same day) he could be assured of a solid smack and possibly a date for Friday night. I did spend my high school years in Cooterville after all.

If the Bandit had actually tried to sexually assault the…uh…what’s a word that’s like victim but really conveys more of a sense of wussiness? You know, something that says “yeah, I was wronged, but only in such a way that maybe I’m owed an apology but instead I’m really going to play it up and make a big, stinking turd of a deal out of it” with a dash of crybaby added in? Anyway, if the Bandit had actually tried to sexually assault that person in the line at Arby’s, I could totally understand a broadcast going out that said “Be on the lookout for a man suspected of attempting to rape women while standing in line at Arby’s. Women are advised to keep exact change for orders to shorten wait times and minimize their risk.” But that would never happen, because the curly fries with dipping sauce are too delicious for anyone to be doing anything else.

So I had a moment of stunned silence in the car followed by some serious laughing on my part. Not laughing at the woman’s pain or humiliation, but just at the over-abundance of it. And the fact that the big-time news radio station carried a bulletin about it. Perhaps moving to the “big city” lo those many years ago didn’t take me as far away from my roots as I thought.