There's a television ad running statewide here, promoting the re-election of an Ohio Supreme Court Justice, and I can't help laughing every time I see it. The ad begins,
"Evelyn Stratton, daughter of missionaries..."Really, now, is that the first thing I need to know about a jurist? I get that politics is all about pandering, but I reserve the right to chuckle when it's that obvious.
At the national level, of course, there's no shortage of material that strains gravitas, let alone credibility -- take, for example, a new McCain-Palin television commercial that opens with Sen. McCain asking the viewer,
"The last eight years haven't worked very well, have they?"Aside from the obvious "Well, duh," it tickles me that the GOP nominee didn't start fleeing Pres. Bush until last Wednesday's debate. At this late date it's hard for me to keep a straight face while watching Sen. McCain suddenly try to feel our national pain.
And with most polls showing McCain-Palin running behind, it's been amusing to see the campaign and its supporters thrash about like the de-limbed Black Knight of Monty Python fame -- "'Tis but a scratch! Only a flesh wound!"
In particular, this whole "socialism" thing is a hoot. Never mind that the sources of this neoconservative epithet know about as much about socialism as Gov. Sarah Palin knows about foreign affairs. I mean, when they find out that Michelle Obama signed a $447 room-service receipt for lobster, caviar and champagne, they don't know if they're supposed to be angry or not. Talk about being in a round room.
No, the punch line of the socialism joke is that Sen. McCain -- along with the Bush administration, Sen. Barack Obama and 335 other members of the 110th Congress -- just engineered the greatest act of socialism in American history: the trillion-dollar corporate bailout. Funny, isn't it, how neither campaign brings that up?
Ultimately, humor yields to reality, and I have to face the fact that most of these laughable stunts will actually work. Considering what's at stake in this election, that's not the least but funny -- it's downright scary.
