Insanity, Mendacity, and Incredulity

Sid and I were buying cat litter and other essentials in the usual elephantine quantities (50 lbs of litter) at Sam’s Club the other day when the young, female clerk remarked on my Obama button. She told me that she’d recently had to reassure her mother by correcting an e-mail claiming that Obama was a Muslim and that he wasn’t born in the US.

Well, I replied—I hope you told your mother only if you don’t count Hawaii as a state (since 1960 but it was a territory before that and so everyone was already a US citizen) and only if you stop having it both ways: if he’s not a Christian, why beat up on him for his decidedly Baptist Christian minister?

I had to shake my head. Anyone reasonable who researched the matter of Obama’s birth ought to know that while birth certificates are not public knowledge in Hawaii (thank God because of identify theft), the Honolulu Star-Bulletin publishes regular lists of births, deaths, and marriages in the newspaper. My marriage was listed. And so was Obama’s birth in 1961 just ten days after the fact. Enough, you would have thought. Apparently not. The persistence of these rumors and untruths leaves me wondering about the sanity, mendacity, or incredulity of the people who forward them.

Sam’s Club seems to be a cultural crossroads of some kind. George told me a good one last week about Colorado Springs. Those in the know realize that the Springs is the conservative core of Colorado. No one is as conservative or as sometimes whacky as the Springs can be. A judge had to tell them that an ordinance allowing landlords not to rent to gays because they are gays—was actually against the very Constitution they hold sacred. The Springs is the headquarters of Focus on the Family, which ought to be enough said. A recent drive through some very nice Springs neighborhoods shows a few defiant Obama-Biden yard signs sprinkled among those for McCain and Palin.

Back to George’s story: He heard from a friend that she went into Sam’s in the Springs wearing an Obama button. This is pretty gutsy, but no one said anything until a woman came up to her in a rage and demanded to know if she was really going to vote for a Black Man. George’s friend was deeply offended and told her she was stupid. Good for her. But that question was actually rather exceptional in its honesty and directness. Most other, more PC, people might have couched it as “liberal” or “socialist.” I guess PC in the Springs means Politically Caustic.

I’m bemused by why anyone supports John McCain and Sarah Palin. I respect Senator McCain and I would have preferred him to George Bush, but with the economy making death rattles and over 4,000 deaths in Iraq and the fact that the Republican Party has been the one calling the shots for the past eight years, I just don’t get it. I would have liked to see the current administration forced to defend itself. If that meant an impeachment, so be it, but Speaker Pelosi seems to have desired sainthood and took impeachment off the table. I felt frustrated when she did that. Clinton never cost 4,000 lives or ruined the economy, yet he was subject to it. Why ever not someone who clearly lied about taking us to war? Is this now acceptable behavior for US presidents? I hope the next Congress finds someone more in touch to be speaker.

I’ve already made my feelings on Ms. Palin clear. She’s on the take. I don’t blame her. Everyone else is and has been for eight years. But why ask me to continue the plunder? They were saying on E! (the entertainment channel) that she should be a talk show host. I think she’d be great at that. Her appearance and her spunkiness might give Oprah a run. But run the country? Please spare me.

Somehow or other, I and the country will get through the next ten days until the election. When it’s over, I want to go back to writing genial, funny blogs about human relations and growing older. Until then, I can only hold my breath and hope that no one fixes the elections this time.