Stranger Than Fiction

The primaries are upon us (on top of us really) and the pundits are getting whiplash trying to follow the bouncing polls. Maybe they deserve twenty lashes for bouncing the pols from frontrunner to has-been and back again. Somehow these early primaries and the hooplah that surrounds them seem as divorced from reality as possible. We have commentators asking candidates to raise their hands if they believe in evolution or agree that global warming is a threat. I mean, come on, is this a kindergarten class or a debate? The Democrats’ race is tight and bringing out the trump card gets more challenging. I figured being married to a former President beat all but now comes the power of O, which could really change the landscape. Who would have predicted Mike Huckabee as the front runner, that the sly, maybe-not-so-nice Southern preacher with the simple (some might say simplistic) world view. Actually, we don’t know much about his view of the world except that evolution has nothing to do with it. For simple visions, there’s Obama’s expectation that he can bring even greedy pharmaceutical executives and self-destructive dictators to the table and Rudy’s conviction that the world is divided into them and us and “them” probably deserves to be bombed into oblivion.

One event that struck me as strange and prompted this post was the endorsement of Republican John McCain by former Democrat and now Independent Joe Lieberman. Then again, maybe it’s not so strange. Ignoring a history of differences over a range of issues, they’ve bonded over their shared belief that we can and must stay the course in Iraq. Their conviction that the present policies work may well place them uniquely within their own alternate reality.  Still, I couldn’t help but shake my head in amazement. Lieberman Endorses McCain. Wow, you can’t make this stuff up.