The Next President: Better Than Dubya, at the Very Least

When I was a boy --- I wish I could think of a way to start this without that phrase, but I'm just too tired --- the only presidents whose birthdays we observed were Abraham Lincoln's (Feb. 12) and George Washington's (Feb. 22).

I remember my second grade teacher, Mrs. Shirley Swoyer, assigning us to write little essays --- if we could remember one fact, it counted as an essay --- about each of these distinguished gentlemen. Creepy little Addams Family creature that I was, I proudly stood up in front of the class and announced, "Abraham Lincoln had his brains blown out by a nutcrazy actor, John Wilkes Booth, while watching 'An American Cousin'in Ford's Theatre on April 15, 1865. He bled all over his wife's party dress and the last words he heard were an actor saying, 'you sockdologizing old mantrap!'" I would have gone on --- I certainly was holding the rest of my classmates' attention --- but Mrs. Swoyer said, "That will be enough, Clifton."

George Washington's life did not provide very many grisly details, so I made up a few: "When George Washington crossed the Delaware River in the dead of winter, several of his soldiers got frostbite and lost their toes which turned black and fell off!"

Nowadays, Lincoln's and Washington's birthdays have been replaced by the more sanitized Presidents' Day, and I suppose second grade students now draw names and provide mini-essays on the likes of Chester Alan Arthur ("He became president when James Garfield took a gut shot at a railway station"), William Howard Taft ("He was so fat that he got stuck in the White House bathtub") and Warren G. Harding ("He and his cronies got their hands caught in the Teapot Dome").

I was born during the Harry Truman era ("He beat the snot out of a reporter who said his daughter sang like a shaggy dog baying at the moon.") and became a teenager during the presidency of John F. Kennedy ("He shagged Marilyn Monroe and a Mafia hooker and had his brains blown out all over his wife's pink Chanel suit while cruising in a convertible in Dallas, Texas, on Nov. 22, 1963 --- Mrs. Swoyer? Why do you always cut me off?").

The first vote I ever cast was against the re-election of Richard Nixon ("He was a big crook who got kicked out after a big black lesbian from Texas named Barbara Jordan made a speech against him in Congress."). The only presidents I've voted for who actually won were Jimmy Carter ("He was attacked by a killer rabbit after he announced he had lust in his heart for a Playboy foldout.") and Bill Clinton ("He liked McDonald's French fries, big fat women and cigars.")

And the current president we have is George W. Bush ("He was a prep school cheerleader, couldn't stand up and utter a coherent sentence at the same time, and goosed the lady prime minister of Germany.") After him, let's face it, Millard Fillmore ("Kia gave away soaps-on-a-rope that looked like him as a Presidents' Day promotion.") would look pretty doggone good.
Consequently, whoever is elected president in 2008 has the advantage of Not Being George W. Bush. As of this writing, the next president will be Republican John McCain ("He was a prisoner of war and called a smart-alecky kid at a debate a little jerk") or one of the two Democrat finalists, Hillary Rodham Clinton ("She won a primary in New Hampshire by crying.") and Barack Obama ("All the people who go to snake-handling churches think he's a Muslim because of his name."). Happily, all three are strong candidates who would probably make good presidents under any circumstances.

I personally like and admire, but will not vote for John McCain, partly because I disagree with many of his positions on issues, but mostly because the Republican party does not deserve to have another president after giving us eight years of George W. Bush, a pointless war in Iraq, a collapsed economy and aid and encouragement to the religious right, whose agenda is alarmingly similar (if somewhat couched in more subdued language) to that of most European fascists during World War II.

Consequently, that leaves me with a choice between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, one of whom will eventually become the Democrat nominee. In Kentucky, we have a late presidential primary, and until lately, have not paid much attention to a race which we expected to be decided by all those early primary states like Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina before we had a chance to appoint our poll workers, make them swear off dueling (a requirement for all state workers in the Bluegrass State) and open the election booths. A lot of us liked John Edwards, who's out of the race now. Me, I simply figured that Hillary or Barack would have already scored enough delegates without the Commonwealth of Kentucky's to clinch the nomination, and just planned to vote for whoever the Democrats in other states chose.

But it looks like I may have to make a choice. My partner says he's for Hillary. Me, I go back and forth every day (today's a Hillary day). For me, the main issue is which potential president is most likely to be supportive of gay rights --- looks like Clinton and Obama are both ready to be supportive as long as we don't go "too far," whatever that means. Personally, I still wish Al Gore and Dennis Kucinich were running.

So, it boils down to which candidate is likely to beat McCain. Today, I think it might be Hillary --- she's a tough egg, even if she does seem like she'd be no fun to take to The Garage --- Norfolk, Virginia's sleaziest and most entertaining gay bar. She's been attacked by everyone for years, plus had to undergo the humiliation of being cheated on by her playboy husband while he was president --- and then with a woman whose butt was even bigger than Hillary's!

Barack Obama seems like a nice young man --- I like his message of idealism and hope. But as someone who has lived in the South, I know that some white folks who say they'll vote for a black candidate won't actually do so. Maybe the time has come when that's no longer true --- I surely hope so. But I worry that the race thing, which is supposed to be a thing of the past, may rear its nasty head again and defeat him in a one-on-one with McCain.

John McCain is an American hero and an independent thinker unrestrained by party dogma and I would not hesitate to vote for him if he were a Democrat. I like the fact that he offends the extreme right wing of the party and that gorgons of conservative commentary like Ann Coulter and the cyclopses on the religious right (like James Dobson) who are the gorgons' soul mates are so put off by him that they say they would rather vote for Hillary than McCain --- or even better, just sit out the election.

Have a seat, folks --- please.

McCain is volatile and unpredictable. Hillary Clinton is cold and tough. Barack Obama is untested and unspecific at times. All of them are flawed human beings, like the other presidents we've had. But at least they are all intelligent, interesting people. And anyone of them will be much tolerable to watch on the evening news than the pathetic little monkey occupying the Oval Office right now.