The Most Ridiculous of a Bad Lot: Vice Presidents on Parade

In looking at the vice presidents over the past 40 years, one is struck immediately by one undeniable fact: very few of them were presidential material should the need arise, and one of them took a plea bargain over a slew of felonies while he was vice president. Also not surprisingly, that one was a Republican, Spiro T. Agnew. He was, however, a perfect illustration of the adage, “Birds of a feather flock together.” He was Richard M. Nixon’s vice president for the first four years of that presidency, and, as we know, Nixon bowed out a few years later, just before they rolled the political paddy wagon up to the White House gates.

Nixoniana forms the basis of my current cogitation on political uselessness. The first political memory I have is of my grandfather, a lifelong Republican accountant, watching Nixon in debate against Kennedy and saying that Nixon was the most reprehensible politician on earth, in itself seeming hyperbole. History, however, bore out my grandfather’s words, until now. It’s a good thing my grandfather died in 1969; this election would have killed him. He could not have tolerated the cowardice of John McCain, nor his ill-advised choice of running mate, nor his reprehensible—not to say vile—tactics in running that campaign. My grandfather was a Republican, not a scoundrel.

Of course, a look at history reveals a number of bad decisions concerning running mates. That same look also reveals the worst of a bad bunch were Republicans. Richard M. Nixon was vice president to war hero Dwight D. Eisenhower; from that platform, he launched his, thankfully, ineffective and unsuccessful first bid for the presidency against John F. Kennedy.

Lyndon Baines Johnson was Kennedy’s vice president. Nothing particularly heinous comes to mind about him. In fact, he had the good sense not to seek another term in the midst of the Vietnam debacle. There remains, however, in many people’s minds, the possibility that he had something to do with Kennedy’s assassination. I’m not sure I believe it. And it hasn’t been proven. So it’s a non-issue…but still, it does mean that Democratic vice presidents can be as problematical as Republican ones, if not quite as thoroughly unprincipled in general.

Gerald Ford, who became Nixon’s second vice president, wasn’t unprincipled, just dumb as a box of rocks. When he pardoned Nixon, it’s a good thing my grandfather was still dead. I was so upset, I almost joined Gramp in a fit of distress. I couldn’t believe Nixon was going to get away with befouling the office of the president as he did. I still can’t.

But worse, that entire incident seemed to pave the way for Republicans to take ever more liberties with both the U.S. Constitution and good sense until we ended up with George Bush the First. He picked a cipher as a running mate, Dan Quayle, and I cannot say his presidency even began to approach his son’s on the Distress Scale. The economy was lousy under Bush I; he had gotten a less vibrant economy coming in than the massively good one Bush II inherited from his Democratic predecessor. So perhaps that’s an excuse. Still, he and his nebbish veep did enough damage, what with Iraq I and various misadventures in the Caribbean. At least he wasn’t a moron.

The Democratic vice presidents during the period before and after Bush I included Hubert Humphrey, from all accounts a skillful and relentless political negotiator, but not a criminal in any sense of the word. Walter Mondale seemed a nice Midwestern guy; nothing much to report. Al Gore was a little pompous—OK, a lot pompous—on the presidential trail after his eight lackluster years with his larger-than-life boss, Bill Clinton. But of course, Gore did invent the Internet. (Couldn’t resist.)

Which leaves only Republicans, two of them before now, to consider; Nelson Rockefeller and Dick Cheney.

Rockefeller was so rich, he didn’t have to do anything else. He had been an OK governor of New York State. He wasn’t stupid, and he wasn’t on the take, and I don’t think any sort of illicit activities (at least beyond private bedroom doors, as he supposedly died in the arms of his mistress) were ever alleged against him.

But Dick Cheney. There are not enough pixels on the Internet to describe the willful damage done by this man. He has single-handedly all but destroyed the U.S. Constitution. He doesn’t need to do more. That, if the union survives the current election, will be quite enough. Can the Constitution be repaired? Is there any will in a Congress divided by partisanship one can only describe, on the Republican side, as Born Again Fascism, to repair it? In light of the very palpable need to keep citizens from starvation in the aftermath of the destruction of our economy, will there be time and interest in repairing it? Or, if Obama wins, will he of necessity have to hand the nation on to the next leader lacking a viable Constitution? Correction: lacking a viable Constitution for a free people. The current one, decimated by the Cheney onslaught and hog-tied by Executive Orders and meatball interpretation, might serve well for a nation of debt slaves. But perhaps that’s as it should be: the economic juggernaut, sent tumbling toward the abyss by Reaganomics, has resulted in two to three generations of financial slavery for the bulk of U.S. citizens.

It is completely unthinkable that John McCain and Sarah Palin, about as prepared to serve in high office as I am to be the first black woman elected governor of Maryland, should be elected. (I’m not black.)

No matter what happens, however, we need to rethink the office of vice president. Fortunately, I have worked out a simple solution: eliminate the office. If a president dies in office, then the next in line to succeed would be the Speaker of the House of Representatives. This has a great deal of beauty in it. First, that person was elected by his or her constituents on his or her own merits, not as a placeholder for the real deal. Second, the person is used to dealing in two-year terms, meaning he or she might be inclined and trained to get the lead out and push programs forward, rather than sitting on them for the better part of four years. Third, the House of Representatives is our lower house, roughly comparable to the House of Commons in England. Thus, those elected to it are more “of the people” than are the upper house, our Senate (comparable in a very loose way to the House of Lords, in which membership is hereditary. Still, in some cases, a six-year Senate term seems like a lifetime.)

Think about it. Write your Representatives and Senators about it. But most of all, think about it when you vote on November 4^th. Sarah Palin is already wanted for questioning in her home state about her potentially actionable activities as governor. She is a gun-toting, smooth-talking pseudo-soccer mom who wants, more than anything, to prove she is capable of serving in high office. She would prove the opposite, because her analytical powers are as lacking as her running mate’s good sense. And the entire nation, not just the few injured when Nixon and Agnew ignominiously stepped down, would suffer acutely, long after an impeachment proceeding—and certainly there would be one—removed her from the office in which she is so unfit to serve.

Faux-Palin: The Devil on Horseback

I think I might have met Sarah Palin once. It was not Palin, of course, but the similarities between the dope I met 20 years ago at Columbia Horse Center and Sarah Palin are too cogent to ignore.
When I met her, the Faux-Palin had just bought a horse. The horse was too tough for her to handle, too strong, too young and untrained.
I was, at the time, an adult beginner. I was avid. I had found the best possible trainer, an Iranian man who is still my friend, who taught there. Generously, I might add, giving his students enormous benefit of his extraordinary knowledge and skill.
His generosity allowed him to let Faux-Palin, riding her new horse, enter the arena where he was teaching me. Ordinarily, a private lesson was a private lesson and no one else could use that arena--there were two others--until the private lesson was over. Faux-Palin had a crush on my instructor. Few women didn't, myself included. So she wheedled, and she won.
Before long, her horse got out of control, which frightened the school horse I was on. My horse, reacting, twirled suddenly on the way to a jump and launched me high and fast and hard through the air. I was powerless to stop it or to stay on; I was too new at the sport, had little experience, and had not yet developed much sticking power, all of which requires time and attention, and good lessons.
I landed on one hip with both heels dug into the footing, and both hands out behind stopping my head from hitting the ground.
My instructor ran to me, and told me to check out all the parts. I found that one elbow was jammed. I told him to take my hand, put his foot against my shoulder and pull my arm hard. He reluctantly did it, and I heard everything pop back into place. I don't know why I thought to do that. I just wish I had thought to keep Faux-Palin out of my lesson. As it was, my worst injuries were two sprained wrists and a mashed sciatic nerve, all of which healed themselves over the next month. Far sooner, I think than the country could heal itself after a round in the arena with Sarah Palin.
Faux-Palin, a vapid, selfish, and ignorant young woman to say the best of her, had a vanity plate on her car. It said MsPrez, because this airhead had decided to go to law school and become the first female president.
She'd be about 42 now, so she could be mistaken for the real Palin if Tina Fey hadn't already done such a darn good job of it.
I'm thinking maybe there's a monkey brain that is parceled out by whatever god there is and installed behind the unfinished faces of lower-class women with grandiose ideas and nothing--such as intelligence and/or experience--to back those ideas up.
MsPrez ended up selling the horse. It remained too much for her because she refused to actually take a lesson from someone who knew something about horses. She preferred to pose and be coquettish, just like Sarah Palin. She hurt people with her ignorance. She ruined a horse, a valuable animal, and a kind one in general, with her despicable overweening arrogance and pride.
Just like Sarah Palin.

Is the urge to puke evidence of the presence of a skank?

I debated whether to write this post for Skankbusters or Review of Applied Ethics. Actually, I shall put it up on both.

I didn't watch Sarah Palin's talent segment last night in her quest for the Miss Skank America crown...excuse me, the vice presidency of a very populous nation. I have read very little about it; there was no need. Her entire presentation, from the top of her bubble do to the tips of her peep-toe little girl high-heels, assures me that, inside, there beats the heart of a teenager who never got past dry humping under the bleachers. Perhaps, actually, she has morphed herself into her bleachers partner, the dumb jock who would now very likely espouse shooting bears from helicopters.

Katie Couric--who, if nothing else, finds it difficult to diss anyone--has damned Palin not with faint praise, but outright disdain. Katherine Parker, a conservative, has seen the light. It would be hard not to. Palin's orb of ignorance shines very brightly.

There is a web site called Women Against Palin, calling for her to step down for the good of us all. Gloria Steinem has rung in with a very reasoned plea for women not to vote for this woman. Steinem noted that feminists regard Palin as a shill meant to fool those women who do not understand the women's movement, a formerly successful movement involving improvements--equality--for all women, with justice and fairness. Nothing about the women's movement called for revolting displays of ignorance dressed up like the doggy's dinner and pandering to dunderheads, fools, and good ole boys. It still doesn't...and as far as I'm concerned, especially in this Era of Imbecility...the movement still isn't dead. See Women Against Palin as proof.

But the original question I posed, above, was this: Is the urge to puke evidence of the presence of a skank? I contend that it is. I say this having, within the past twenty minutes, been treated to a still photo of Sarah Palin 'winking' to the audience at her debate, so called, last evening. I read she also blew the audience a kiss.

After eight years of a smirking chimp, I wonder if we can withstand any years of a Winking Wonk, or Smoochy Sarah. I want to puke.