Since President Obama's handlers won't say it, I will. The Republicans are running yet another rich, far lesser son of a more impressive father. It astounds me how anyone could possibly think another privileged seed which fell so far from the tree could help this country.
I grew up in Michigan when George Romney, young Willard "Mitt" Romney's father, was active, Governor and much admired. He was a man and a good American. He was smart, fair, a working man who respected other working men and labor. When he became chairman of American Motors, he saved the company by deciding they should make small cars rather than, I quote, "gas-guzzling dinosaurs" way back before any else would say it. A smart man. He also ran for president, but was smart enough to know the pentagon was selling him a line of goods about Vietnam, and when he said so out loud, his own party abandoned him. We went on to kill near one million innocent people and some 50,000 of our own. You don't hear many folks today saying the Vietnam war was a good thing. It wasn't. It was the most horrendous thing which happened in my lifetime, it shouldn't have happened and I was right to protest against it when I was young. It wouldn't have happened that way if George Romney was elected, a man I respect and still do.
I also lived under the presidency of George Bush number one, the father of poor student and privileged son young George. Father Bush was smart enough to run the Central Intelligence Agency, and believe me, that takes a smart man even if you don't agree with what they do. He was a war hero and still is. He is a good American. He was smart enough to rebuild the Republican party as chairman after another Republican beacon, Richard Nixon, resigned in well-earned disgrace. He was a moderate and knew how to work with the other party to advance the country. He favored banning the import of semiautomatic rifles (for which the NRA abandoned him) and he raised taxes because he was smart enough to recognize there was a need for it. So of course, the rich men who ran his party abandoned him too. I did not like him, but I respected him and still do. Unlike the Republicans today, he knew the future of the country depended on compromise and intelligent reason…which he had in considerable quantity.
George's son "W" went on to trash the American economy by spending a trillion dollars on a war which killed some hundred thousand innocent people who had nothing to do with 9/11 or the WTC ( which I also lived through) and a good many or our own. You don't hear many folks today say the Iraq war was a good thing. It wasn't. It was the second most horrendous thing which happened in my lifetime. They still haven't counted the dead, and can't. There were far too many…and we will be paying for it with our ruined economy for a long, long time.
I love my country, but sometimes I wonder how stupid some of the voters are. Do we really want yet ANOTHER less than adequate rich son of a respected father as president?
By the way, I am smart enough to recognize I am not the man MY father was either.
