It’s All Just Crazy Talk

Well, we’re more than a year and a half away from the next Presidential election, but the preposterous claims from the candidates have already begun. You know what I’m talking about, all the stuff that the candidates tell us they’re going to accomplish on our behalf once they’re in office. Never mind the fact that politicians really never actually do stuff on our behalf. They do stuff for themselves and their parties, but not for us. Sometimes the things they do for themselves and their controllers just happen to benefit us too.

Anyway, if you watch the news at all, you’ve probably come to the conclusion that there are only 3 people running for President this time around and they’re all Democrats: Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama. So far Mr. Obama hasn’t offered any real specifics on what he’ll do if and when he’s elected. Some people say that’s because he doesn’t know, but I think he’s still trying to figure out what impact his middle name might have on his campaign. He may also be trying to figure out how to stop Hillary’s people from starting more “Barack is a terrorist” e-mail chains.

Meanwhile John and Hillary have begun the ridiculous claim game. Last week John Edwards proclaimed that when he is elected, he would create a national healthcare system that will insure our entire population. He also mentioned that we would all have to pay for it and our taxes would go up. Mr. Edwards may be the first politician of this century to admit to planning to raise taxes. He’ll have to stop that if he really wants to get elected. As for national healthcare, why would we really want that? Sure, it sounds nice at first until you start examining things. First of all 85% of the U.S. population already has health insurance. Is it really worth raising taxes and thus hurting the economy for the last 15%? 100% probably isn’t attainable anyway. In fact no matter what’s done, it’s unlikely that we’d ever get much beyond the current 85%. Secondly, do we really want our government in charge of healthcare? Take a look at the things the government currently runs and ask yourself that question. How about NASA? Or better yet, take a look at how well we’ve run the Iraq war and keep in mind that we’re actually really good at war! War is one of the things our government is an expert at. National Healthcare gets a bit scary when you consider that.

Ms. Clinton’s big plans for the days after her inauguration include evacuating Iraq. This past week, Hillary announced that if we were still there when she gets elected, she’d order an immediate withdrawal of our troops. What a silly thing to say. Of course we will still be in Iraq in 2009. We’re not going to leave. The Middle East is too important to global economy and worldwide stability for us to abandon our position there. World War II ended over 60 years ago and we’re still in Germany. Get used to Iraq folks, because we’re there for good. Of course Hillary was probably referring to our current troop levels in Iraq more than our presence, but it’s still a ridiculous statement. We will keep large numbers of troops in Iraq until things are stable enough for us to send our Guardsmen and Reservists home and just keep a few training bases open like we do in Germany and Korea. That’s the plan regardless of who’s sitting in the Oval Office.

So stay tuned to your favorite news network for more crazy talk and outright lies from the candidates in the months to come. The claims will probably become even more outrageous as we get closer to 2008. Who knows, maybe we’ll even find out that there are more than just 3 candidates for President.