The dog and pony show...

Over the last several days we've had the Dem's on stage debating each other, and we've had the Rep's debating each other. Why do we need all these debates? If any of those politicians had real beliefs (instead of talking points) we could have one debate a month before the election, and the American public could be spared the dog and pony show.

Really, the whole thing reminded me of the Miss America pageant. I imagine all the candidates lined up on a stage wearing evening gowns and sashes. They ask a lot of leading questions that the contestants already had someone write their answer to (why do you think actors make good politicians??), and then each of the pageant contestants talks for five minutes and never answers the question. OH, and they all want world peace.

You can tell the debates were about nothing because the media didn't talk about the issues discussed, but talked about who had the best hair, who spit out the best canned joke, or what their facial expressions were. How dumb are we, that we can't focus on WHAT our politicians say instead of HOW they say it?

Another thing that really bothers me is that half of the people running for President are currently Senators, and they still have the gall to use the phrase “If I were President I'd do....”. Hello, you're already a part of the legislative branch, if you want something to happen, all you have to do is introduce the bill. Actions speak louder than words, yet half of our candidates have spent the last 4+ years in a position to enact change, and none of them have done any of the things they say they would do if they were in a position that they couldn't do them.

Anyone who is a current Senator or Representative should be smart enough not to run for President. The legislative branch puts the bills together, the President only signs them (or doesn't). If change is going to happen it's going to come from the places these people are, already. How do they get away with telling us they'd do this or that, when they've been in a position to do something for a long time and nothing has been done?

I guess I really shouldn't be surprised, with public schooling the way it is, most of America probably thinks the President does everything and the Senators and Representatives jobs are to lean on shovels and tell the president what he's doing wrong. We treat elections like American Idol, all that's lacking is texting in our votes. Maybe we can get Simon, Paula, and Randy to do the next debate and instead of having questions we'll just cut to the chase and have a hair competition, a teleprompter reading contest, and then maybe we can bring out each contestant's writer to explain why they thing their candidate is better than the others. At least then we'd be getting our canned jokes from the horse's mouth.

Senators: Mr President, we forgot to bring the shovels to this legislative session.

President: Well, just lean on each other until I get there then.

Later

Torqued