John McCain betrayed this Country. He cashed in his loyalty to this Country to pay for a political ploy that might propel him into the Oval Office. Gambling with our future to acquire a personal political advantage, he nominated as his second a person whose credentials do not elevate her to the status of political neophyte. If elected she could conceivably succeed to the Office of the President of the United States with literally zero tools in her political tool bag to fight the staggering problems we face today.

As you know, colloquialisms often pepper the vocabularies of our many diverse cultures found within the United States. My father, a very intelligent man who relocated to the political capital of the world from Knoxville, Tennessee, carried within his language vault a few Southern colloquialisms that left me chagrined whenever he uttered them. One in particular, “dumb cluck” I found particularly offensive.

This man who worked in a very responsible job at the Justice Department would pull that phrase out of his language storage vault and deploy it whenever he encountered someone so beyond dumb, a more precise label to define the depth of his or her “dumbness” was unquestionably needed. And those encounters with such people resulted in his privately referring to that person as simply a “dumb cluck.” How silly that phrase is, how offensive, I used to think in my younger days.

How ironic I find it today, decades after first hearing this phrase and recoiling from it, that I find it is exactly the precise phrase one should apply when attempting to describe the depths of stupidly enveloping a few of our high-profile political players and elected (sic) officials. Beyond ironic is the obvious fact that these same personalities think exactly that of us, the American voting public. We are merely the dumb clucks to whom they can say and do anything because we simply will never catch on.

And that was exactly my reaction when I heard McCain introduce Palin as his Vice Presidential selection. It was simply an obvious political ploy to attempt to split the Democratic base and thus propel McCain into the oval office. It’s a classic Republican trick used in every presidential election season to divide Democrats and give Republicans a leg up in their quest to win the Oval Office.

But if the result of such tactics propel a literal puppet in or next door to the Oval Office, as we saw happen in Election 2000, perhaps we should take another look at the consequences of that tactic. Many said George W. Bush* was not qualified to be President. “But he has been the governor of a major state for two terms, which gives him Executive experience” was the classic Republican response. The fact that the State of Texas was not literally run on a daily basis by the Governor of the State but rather by the Lieutenant Governor was egregiously missing in these debates. The position of Governor of the State of Texas is merely a public relations position, with the hands-on administration been performed by the Lieutenant Governor. It was that unique approach that convinced a man named Karl Rove that this would be the perfect state for an otherwise unqualified candidate to launch his political quest for the Presidency of the United States. And it worked. Nearly half of the voting American people, together with an assist from the Supreme Court, put a man in the Oval Office who was simply unfit to protect the best interests of this Country. His political quackery has brought this Country to near devastation.

Eight years later, the question must be asked: how do you like the results of his work?

Will the American voting public allow this pattern to continue in 2008? Will it “fall in love” with a vice presidential candidate standing but a heart beat away from the Presidency and vote her, along with McCain, into the Oval Office?

If love of candidate, as opposed to love of Country, motivates a party or a voter to promote an unqualified person into the White Office, is not that very act the equivalent of a Benedict Arnold maneuver?

And most importantly, is a person’s love of a moose burger so charming it obfuscates the fact the tools in that candidate’s political tool bag hold a bottle of Worcestershire Sauce and a spatula where his or her national security credentials should rest?

Who will emerge as the true dumb cluck of Election 2008 -- the presidential candidate who selected a number two without a resume to do the job, the voting public who falls in love with the fact she is a historic choice but not a credible selection to possibly succeed to the highest office in this land, or the political adviser Karl Rove, an identified political adviser to the McCain known for sleazy, if not illegal maneuvers, who propelled our current not-fit-to-serve President (sic) into the chair in the Oval Office.

Will 2008 be a repeat of 2000, with the end result be a Bush-wanna-bee waiting behind the curtain to grasp the power of the office when circumstances permit?

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