Politics and people and other general gripes

It's been a very interesting American political week and even though I have tried not to make comments, I just can't seem to help myself.

Coming from Canada where the Prime Minister announces when elections will be held without any fanfare or a year's notice, I just can't seem to grasp the American way of choosing a President. Everyone insults the competition for over a year and once the elections are over, they are expected to get along and work smoothly together.

This week alone, Geraldine Farraro - who was working with Hillary insulted Obama about having a chance to win because of his color and one of Obama's people called Hillary a monster. Both comments were complete uncessary and in very poor taste. Of course both Hillary and Obama denounced both these people and had them removed from their staff, but the damage is done and continues more of the insults and dirt which they have been slinging since Iowa voted in January. Do I have faith that between now and the November elections things will improve, heck no. It will only get worse as the counts of delegates are taken and by convention time this summer when it's realized that neither Hillary nor Obaba have a clear majority, it should really get very ugly. I can't wait to see which Democrat is the one the convention chooses and wonder what happens to the loser since both Hillary and Obama have very strong personalities and I don't see either losing with a lot of grace.

The other thing which blows me away is the downfall of Eliot Spitzer, the Governor of New York who was elected based on his cleaning up the corruption on Wall Street and the prostitute business. Turns out he is not as pure as we were lead to believe and now has become the brunt of late night jokes. I find it ironic that he was caught by the same IRS wiretap which he himself created to catch the ones he set out to catch while he was Attorney Gereral. Call me a simpleton but I absolutely cannot believe anyone can have such an inflated ego as to believe they are better than the American people they serve, but apparently such a person is Eliot and I have to admit I have enjoyed watching the bugger squirm all week. I sure hope he enjoyed his time with his high price hooker because it will be paying for his pleasure for a long time to come. I know we do end up forgiving our politicians (Teddy Kennedy, Gary hart and Bill Clinton come to mind immediately) but in the meantime, it gives me pleasure to watch the unravelling of such a man. The ones I feel sorry for are his wife and kids who must suffer in front of the media with a stiff upper lip. If I were a friend of his wife, I would suggest she give him a stiff upper lip and a black eye to go with it.

I am also confused as to why the Government is rightly going after banks to reduce their interest rates and refinance the home loans so that good folks won't lose them BUT the same Government NEVER goes after the OIL companies who make and announce $15 billion dollars profit every quarter to lower their prices. I just don't understand the difference.

Anyway, back to the national Election. We have almost 5 more months for the Democrats to insult each other before their convention, plus 3 months of both parties insulting their opponents then we will vote and whoever becomes President will come out and tell all of us how wonderful the opposing party is and well both parties will work together to give us Americans the great things we deserve because we are after all the greatest country in the world. Seems like we are set to hear a lot of nonsense for the next 9 months and probably longer when it would be so much wiser to take all the money spent this past year for the election and give it to schools and social programs across the country.

I am guessing that by March, of next year, we should start hearing names being brought up as possible candidates for the year 2012. Now how stupid is that??

I was too young to vote when I left Canada, but I have to believe that it's got to be much easier to choose the Canadian (and for that matter most other countries') leader than the way we do it here!!