An observation about the election… As the primaries and caucuses narrow the field down to three candidates – Dubya Two, Lady MacBeth, and Barry Half-White – I find myself overcome by feelings of revulsion for the pundits, the candidates, and the electorate itself, who together make it such a misery to be in full possession of one's faculties.

As the press and liberals swoon over Barry – he stands for change, you know – the man with the empty smile ejects more programmed statements that mean nothing and lead nowhere.  He is certain that a massive influx of foreign peasants will have no ill consequences and panders to them in their native tongue (as our dear Dubya used to do) – and the electorate asks no better of him than to whisper more of these sweet nothings in their ear.  And oh how he does:  complete troop withdrawal from Iraq, "require" states to improve education, support job creation, and – wait for it – middle class tax cuts!  You've never heard of such daring changes before.  Why, Barry is supporting the creation of new jobs – unlike all the other candidates, who want you to starve and die.  Really, you have never seen more empty rhetoric and shallow policy recommendations in your life until you've actually read one of Barry Hussein Obama Christ's issue statements.  His asinine slogan, "Change you can believe in", suggests a return to the era of faith-based social programs pioneered by earnest liberals in the 70s.

Not that the alternatives to Barry are any less preposterous.  The best of them is probably Hillary, if only because her android-like shrewdness and desperate grasping for power make her unlikely to do anything unexpected.  Indeed, beyond perhaps nominating Bella Abzug to the Supreme Court,* it's difficult to identify just what over the past seven years she might have done differently – perhaps not choking on a pretzel.  I rather long for a leader who will restrict her forays into disastrous policies to tried-and-true disastrous policies (unlike Barry, I desperately fear the sort of change promised by politicians).  Ironically, while Barry is redoing Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign, Hillary is running on a platform of experienced leadership – her main experience being married to a president who made the same promises using the same rhetoric of uplift to the same audience of giddy partisans years ago.

But if you liked the past eight years you'll love candidate #3, the Vietnam vet who has waited in line just like Bob Dole did, so come on, America, let's vote for him!  (For some reason Republican voters – never the brightest bulbs around – love this appeal.)  He is essentially Dubya's clone and it's even harder to discern what he would have done differently over the past eight years – not freeze up during television interviews, perhaps.  In this sense it is difficult to conceive of McCain as a credible contender, for even the easily confused electorate must realize that although he has a different hairdo and can probably list all 50 states without naming a Mexican province, Dubya Two's policies are exactly the same as those of the current, extremely unpopular president, Dubya One.  Just in case you were still on the fence:  both Bill Kristol and John Podhoretz support him.

Surely this comical procession of inane figures is no way to choose a president.  But I fear that since at least the 1988 election, which was as fully fatuous as any normal person could stand, the American elite have perfected a formula for presidential elections that is equal part catchphrases, phony issues, and drama of the dinner theater variety.  Think back.  Has politics not been getting dumber and dumber all your life?  Yet there is nothing to be done about it, except make life difficult for the next partisan or pundit you run into.  I suppose this is how great countries cease to be great.