Canthook

When Momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. Ain't nobody happy at this house.

My wife, Blondie, is a Clinton fan. She thought it was OK when Bill Clinton was screwing around on Hillary; and she told me that if I ever get elected President, she would expect and permit the same behavior on my behalf. She couldn't imagine why Bill was impeached and disbarred for lying under oath. She thought nothing of Travelgate, couldn't imagine why anyone was distressed over Vince Foster, figured the lost-then-found Rose billing records was "just one of those things", figured that a smart cookie like Hillary could have made money honestly on cattle futures even if she'd had to predict price moves before they actually happened.

I'm from the midwest, not from Philadelphia. While I have a vision that says fundamentally dishonest politicians should go to prison, she has a vision of the world in which everyone is fundamentally dishonest. When she moved from Philadelphia to Lancaster a quarter-century ago, she was flabberghasted to find how naive and innocent Lancaster was; when I moved from Ohio to Lancaster a decade ago, I was flabberghasted to find how corrupt Lancaster was.

So we've had different opinions on the Democratic race. Both of us initially thought John Edwards was a great candidate for the Democrats to run, and we were both intrigued by the idea that a high-yellow Chicago pol won the Iowa caucus.

The tide turned when Obama said, "You're likeable enough, Hillary." I still haven't figured out why; maybe that's a guy thing. Maybe it was because it was a lie; Hillary's biggest problem at that time was that she was the only politician in the race with a kneejerk dislike quotient similar to Dubya's. Since then, she's replaced the kneejerk reaction with a reasoned one, with attacks perceived as unfair, and campaigning perceived as dishonest.

According to the exit polls in Indiana, 67% of the electorate believes Barack Obama is honest and trustworthy; of those voters, 66% went for Obama and 34% went for Clinton. Of the 31% who believes Barack Obama is dishonest, 89% were Clinton voters, and 11% were Obama voters. That's the category that Blondie fits into. She can't point to anything specific. Maybe he's really a Muslim. Maybe he's a drug dealer. Maybe he eats scrambled eggs with fried babies for breakfast. She doesn't know what he's lying about, but she's sure he's crooked as a dog's hind leg; that's how you know he's incredibly dirty, is that she can't catch him in a lie.

And in a way, that makes sense. Better the devil you know than the devil you don't know - but she was comfortable with Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton at this point in the race. Like Obama, both of them appeared out of nowhere, nobody having heard of either one before the Iowa primary. The difference is that nobody's really found any skeletons in Obama's closet.

She talks about his inexperience. "He wasn't supposed to be the candidate this time around," she says; maybe eight years from now. But he has more experience than Senator Clinton, I point out. She shakes that off, and decides that the real problem is that Obama is "flat".

I think that may be the real problem. Obama seems to be suffering from "personality deficit disorder" if you don't listen to his speeches, but only listen to Hardball and News8 at 11. In many ways, personality is based on one's shortcomings. Dubya was a draft-dodging druggie. Clinton was a saxophone-playing philanderer. Bush41 was a CIA paper-passer. Reagan was a cowboy. Carter was a Jesus freak with a drunkard for a brother and a mother from hell. Jerry Ford played football a few too many times without a helmet. Nixon was a crook who probably stole "Checkers" and that cloth coat Pat wore.

If Barack Obama were to play Texas Hold-em with Daniel Negreanu and Jennifer Tilly, smoke cigars openly instead of trying to quit cigarettes, and were to drink heavily, she'd find him more acceptable. Those are sins that make him seem real, instead of simply a paper doll with large ears. If it were to turn out that he secretly owned a chain of pawnshops, that'd make him dirty enough to believe in.

Instead, he's another Dan Quayle, whose wife said she wasn't worried about him fooling around with whores if he had the opportunity to play golf instead.

Rogers and Hammerstein figured it out with the lyrics from Carousel:

My mother used to say to me
When you grow up, my son
I hope you're a bum like your father was
'Cause a good man ain't no fun!

Stonecutters cut it on stone
Woodpeckers peck it on wood
There's nothin' so bad for a woman
As a man who thinks he's good!

And to win "Big States", it might be best if Obama were to develop a vice. He needs to choose carefully, to find one that won't kill him in small states.

Ronnie Campbell wasn't very smart when he chose his. He's a Member of Parliament in the UK. He announced that he would wear purple to honor National Fetish Day last January. When the local newspaper called him up to ask about his support, he said, "I have no problem with it and I am happy to show my support. I have a purple tie and a purple shirt so I will be able to wear their colors."

"I must have a thousand [fetishes] but," he added, "hand on my heart, I couldn't tell which is the most important one. Probably the horses."

When they told him the kinky meaning of fetish, he said, "Oh my God almighty! I thought a fetish was a worry, like worrying about backing the right horse."

So I wouldn't recommend that Senator Obama develop a horse fetish. Maybe he could develop a thing for barbecuing ribs. Ribs are messy, there's the meat thing, there's the cholesterol thing, and yet it's consistant with his background in Chicago, his background in Hawaii, a mother from Kansas. Barbecue sauce is a deep dark secret, with nobody sharing their recipe with anyone else. He could explain that he has tried to keep it a secret because he didn't want anyone to think he was black, and vote against him for that reason.

Dark, smoky, mysterious barbecue sauce. When they ask him his recipe for ribs - and some reporter is *sure* to ask - he can simply say, "Did you see 'Fried Green Tomatoes'? The secret... is in the sauce. You knew my father was from Africa, didn't you?" There'd be lots of nervous tittering. Someone would joke that you have to be careful what you write about Obama, because if he doesn't like it, he might have you for supper on Saturday night. More nervous tittering. You think Hillary seems tough?

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Barack Obama - barbecue - big states - carousel - corrupt - fetish - horses - ribs