Thanks to the retirement/resignation/whatever* of Congresslady Jane Harman, now we’re being treated/subjected to a new race for her seat. So in the car yesterday, I heard a debate between the two contenders for said seat (it must be a very comfortable seat, since they both want it so badly) on NPR, and boy, this sure has renewed my disgust for politics! I can’t remember the names of the Dem & Repub challengers, but even if I did, I wouldn’t sully the name of this prestigious, honorable blog with them. (<Hey, if you can call a guy who was forced to resign for a hooker-trolling scandal, and a guy who had to resign for a pornographic tweet-sex scandal “honorable”, then I get to call this blog “honorable” too.)
Okay, so the debate basically consisted of some nerdy-sounding moderator (is there any other kind on NPR? That’s why I like them! They put the nerds front & center, rather than making them just run the computers in the back room!) asking meaningful, relevant questions, and then the candidates basically using the question as a jumping-off point to bash their opponent with, while avoiding answering the question as much as possible: Great for a comedy skit, but not acceptable for an actual debate for a real congressional seat, I don’t think. I think we should all vote: “Present” in the election, and send them both a message of opposition. Or maybe we could write-in a joke candidate, some pariah that would let them know we don’t accept this type of bad behavior anymore, like Duke Cunningham. Or is he out of jail yet? I don’t remember. (Actually, that’s probably a bad idea, since they might get the message that they’re not scummy enough! Hmm; I’ll have to think about this a little more…)
Anyway, I wish they would just answer the questions, and stop trying to smear each other the whole time: They both just ended up looking like jerks! Is this the WWE “wrestling” now or something?
Oh, sorry: So to this gang member in a dentist office thing: One of the questions for each person was regarding some smear charge leveled against them by some newspaper or campaign ad (they both ended up looking pretty bad by the end of it). Anyway, the charge against the Republican challenger (naturally) had something to do with his (supposedly) unethical business dealings, saying that his company helped one of its clients propagate (through some newsletter) phony claims by some drug company that their product helped with Alzheimer’s, which it didn’t. So the candidate then said they were trying to smear him through “guilt-by-association”, which he then elaborated with a wonderful little analogy/anecdote about a dentist and a gang member. This was priceless, so I’m going to try to do my best to relay to you the anecdote, and then what it made me think of when he was finished with it. (This, by the way, does not mean I’m bashing him more than the Democrat; she just didn’t give as colorful or make-fun-of-able of a story at any point in the debate as this.)
So, this guy said they were trying to get him with the guilt-by-association thing, and he said it was like a dentist who had a gang-member come in for a teeth-cleaning: now all of a sudden, this dentist is a gang-related low-life who should be regarded with suspicion just because of a client who he couldn’t turn away, and whose other dealings he could have no knowledge of or effect upon.
Okay, what this made me think of was this: This dentist probably put the gang-member under with some gas, then put on his “colors” and shot & killed some rival dentists, so that everyone would think it was a gang-related shooting having to do with refusing to pay protection-racket extortion money or something. So not only is this dentist guilty of guilt-by-association, but he’s even worse than the gang-member for murdering productive members of society for the purposes of ego and greed, and then trying to blame it on another person and that person’s whole way of life! So it seemed like it must mean that this candidate guy was using this publication to trick people into buying all kinds of pernicious pills and phony pharmaceuticals that he himself had created just to make money and poison his victims so there would be no witnesses, and then he could blame it on his crooked client! Right?
Anyway, that’s what came to mind from his little analogy. I wonder if this is what he meant for me to think? But I suppose he couldn’t have predicted the range of my flights of fancy, so it’s not really his fault. But the more colorful you get with your cover-stories, the more creative our imaginations become: that’s just a given for comedians & comedy writers, and politicians should understand this by now and simply stick to the facts.
* Isn’t it interesting how they have, on the congressional website, decided to refer to Rep. Christopher Lee and Rep. Anthony Weiner as “honorable”, in light of what they resigned for? Here is a link to the House-run webpage, for those of you who don’t believe me:
