Idiot Parade

One stormy Hawaiian evening last week, I resorted to watching the CNN YouTube Republican Debate, which presented all of the leading contenders for alpha male of the elephant herd. A former Bush-lover myself, I was shown the distinct evolution in myself and my own views over the past several years as I became increasingly agitated by some of the answers given to the questions of the general YouTube audience. It was more than the transparent attempts to woo voters, as every true politician is an expert at doing, using slogans and buzz words and even dressing like the President, it was some of the idiotic and prehistoric standpoints that really bothered me.

Of particular irk, a question challenging the military’s ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ policy about gay service-people. See clip.

I was astounded by Duncan Hunter’s answer, which proposed that “most” of the young people entering the military come from “Judeo-Christian” (buzz word) families, and because of this, would be uncomfortable and unfocused on the task at hand (in combat) if one of their peers was openly gay. Duncan wants to protect these poor children from the real world, and prevent the metaphorical bursting of their bubble. He gets the home school vote.

Mike Huckabee, Governor of Arkansas, accepts the rights of homosexuals to be whatever they want, but seems to allude to the potential “conduct” of these people as something of a lower class breed. He gets the fundamentalist vote.

Governor Mitt Romney skirted around the issue, not really answering in the end, knowing full well his answer could make or break him with some in the audience. If you look closely you can see him sweat when Anderson Cooper presses him for an answer, eventually saying that he doesn’t know, he’d ask his military counterparts. I hope he gets nobody’s vote.

Back to Mike Huckabee, Governor of Arkansas. It was he who was filmed with a Mr. Rick Mercer a while back on a hilarious CBC show called “Talking to Americans”, where we get a kick out of displaying the ignorance of some of our neighbours by getting them to say things like “Congratulations Canada for finishing the Tunnel to China!!”. (Really, we just want to make ourselves feel better about our inferiority complex.) Anyway, Presidential-hopeful Mike Huckabee is featured with a congratulations of his own. While I like to point out this little knowledge gap of someone wanting the planet’s top job, I have to say, he wouldn’t really be taking the cake, currently being eaten by the man of the [white] house. Take a look at Mike.

I almost want to take my chance at becoming an American citizen JUST to NOT vote for any of these guys.