| "Some Cynical Guy" No. 8:
August 4, 2000
Bush vs. Gore: It Could Be Worse
I have to confess that the current American
presidential campaign makes me yawn mightily. I'd rather watch a
Discovery Channel documentary on the nesting habits of the
pied-billed grebe. In fact, I'd rather be present at the tryouts for
Slovenia's Olympic curling team. Here we are in the Year of Grace
2000, faced with the prospect of deciding who will assume the office
once held by Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and the two illustrious
Roosevelts. And here we're presented with a pair of rival candidates
who'd be better suited to preside over the Terre Haute, Indiana
chapter of the Kiwanis Club. It's a pretty bleak state of affairs
for the self-styled 'Greatest Nation in History.'
I write this nugget of observation as the
Republican Convention is cranking up in Philadelphia, the same sober
Quaker city that midwifed our nation to life more than two centuries
ago. In fact, I'm in Philadelphia as I type these very words. You'd
think any cynic worth his bile would relish the opportunity to
pounce upon the sorry hides of Messrs. Bush and Cheney, and for that
matter, Gore and his intended. How easy it would be to contrast them
with the likes of Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, John Adams and the
other noblemen of the spirit who once walked these same streets!
Sure, I could fling a lance at Bush the Younger for his undeserved
admission to Yale, his morbid fear of books or his stunning record
as Lord High Executioner in Texas. I could heckle him for selecting
as his running mate a defiantly dweebish archconservative with a
history of three myocardial infarctions. It almost beats his
father's choice of Dan Quayle back in 1988; you have to wonder if
faulty running-mate selection is a genetically inherited Bush family
trait. I could lampoon Gore for looking like a mannequin and coming
across like a marionette, complete with strings. I could chastise
him for basing his public utterances on pollsters' surveys; you get
the impression that he'd come out in favor of giving dairy cows the
vote if it meant winning the state of Wisconsin. I could go on, but
what's the point of using up all that hearty cynical invective on
such an underwhelming pair of presidential aspirants? I'm getting
accustomed to political disappointment at four-year intervals; I'd
rather save my poisoned arrows for the next major dung-art
exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum.
I've been watching the carnival of U.S.
presidential politics since Stevenson challenged Eisenhower back in
1956... I've been a student of the presidency almost as long... and
the sad truth is that I've yet to witness a genuinely great chief
executive in my lifetime. We haven't had one of those since FDR was
toppled by his terrific headache in 1945 -- that's 55 years, count 'em,
without a giant at the helm. JFK may have talked like a great
president, and Reagan's supernatural luck lifted him above the
common mortal, but in both cases their ghostwritten words outshone
their deeds. We've now gone without a great president longer than
ever before in the nation's history, including the famous drought
between Lincoln's assassination in 1865 and the rise of Teddy
Roosevelt in 1901. You know the period: all those interchangeable
bewhiskered presidents who looked like the Smith Brothers on the
cough drop box. What we fail to remember is that even those
lackluster chief executives -- Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Benjamin
Harrison & Co. -- were without exception decent, conscientious
and capable men who did credit to their office. That's more than we
can say for the recent cast of characters, too many of whom have
been either weasely or ineffectual -- and sometimes both.
Whether good ol' boy Bush or goody-nasty Gore --
surely the Eddie Haskell of American politics -- ultimately moves
into the White House, we're faced with the most dismal choice since
Harding and Cox vied for the presidency in 1920. How, you might ask,
do we endure yet another four years of presidential doldrums? How do
we contain our disappointment? Should we invite the descendants of
Louis XVI to start a new dynasty on these shores if we promise not
to behead them? Should we simply read 'People' magazine and look to
celebrities like Leonardo Di Caprio as the leaders of public life?
(Too late, we already do.) Here's my survival plan, for what it's
worth: I'm adopting the "My Life as a Dog" coping
mechanism. Allow me to explain. In the great Swedish film "My
Life as a Dog," the young hero reflects on his fate as he's
shuttled around to relatives while his mother lies dying of
tuberculosis and his beloved dog languishes in a shelter. "It
could be worse," he confides to us; "I heard about a guy
who walked onto the field at a stadium and got a javelin through his
chest. You have to compare." Sage words indeed; you DO have to
compare. Instead of Bush vs. Gore, we could be faced with something
infinitely worse: say Donald Trump vs. Richard Simmons, or Geraldo
Rivera vs. Rosie O'Donnell, or Daffy Duck vs. Yosemite Sam. So what
if Bush and Gore vaulted to national prominence with a little help
from their daddies? It could be worse: they might have been given
their own talk shows. And what's the calamity if either of them gets
elected president? It could be worse: they might have been running
on the same ticket. Or consider this: if the 22nd Amendment to the
Constitution hadn't been passed in 1951, we could have been faced
with another four years of Bill Clinton. Well, at least I wouldn't
have been yawning.
© 2000 by
Bridget Petrella Media Relations. "Some Cynical Guy" appears here by
permission of the publisher.
"Some Cynical Guy" column archive:
2002
81 -- A Brisk Walk Through the Ruins
80 -- The Fountain of Futility
79 -- Farewell to the Big House
78 -- The Cynical Guy Contemplates Cell Phones
77 -- Rich and Poor in Paradise
76 -- Dead Ducks: A Tale of the Food Chain
75 -- Old Comedians Just Fade Away
74 -- Suburbia Comes to Manayunk
73 -- When Nestlings Won't Leave the Nest
72 -- The Curse of High Standards
71 -- Inside the House of Horrors
70 -- The Post-Yuppie Handbook
69 -- Spring Reflections
68 -- Priestly Perversions
67 -- British Teeth: An Apology
66 -- The Sniffling Snout
65 -- Bullies with Social Skills
64 -- Supermarket Rage
63 -- Is the U.S. Really the Greatest?
62 -- The Holes in Our Armor
61 -- A Breath of Used Air
60 -- The Cynical Guy Has Sex
59 -- Let's Abolish the Seven-Day Week!
2001
58 -- Why Worry About the Future of Books?
57 -- The Friendly Face of Evil
56 -- Why We Live Where We Live
55 -- The Cynical Guy Discovers Talk Radio
54 -- Kite-Flying and Other Crimes
53 -- My Night as a Socialite
52 -- Gardening Is Not for Sissies
51 -- Invaders of the Honeysuckle
50 -- To Be a Cat
49 -- The Upside of Terrorism
48 -- The Vanishing Nerd
47 -- Anger Management for Cynics
46 -- Let's Level the Playing Field for Disadvantaged WASPs
45 -- First Impressions, Lasting Impressions
44 -- Close Encounter with a Go-Getter
43 -- Cheering for a Perennial Loser
42 -- The Cynical Guy Reads the Tabloids
41 -- When Does the Good Part Begin?
40 -- Confessions of an Internet Addict
39 -- The Decline of Punctuation and Civilization
38 -- Oh Baby, What a Nightmare!
37 -- The Cynical Guy Watches 'Xena: Warrior Princess'
36 -- A Night-Stroll into the Void
35 -- In Search of the Elusive Wild Tomato
34 -- Getting in Touch with Your Inner S.O.B.
33 -- The Lure of the Lurid
32 -- Black Tie and Beard Stubble
31 -- In Heaven There Is No Pez
30 -- Did You Make the Forbes Celebrity 100 List?
29 -- Redesigning Mt. Rushmore
28 -- On Listening to Dead Voices
27 -- Selling Your Soul on eBay
26 -- Sympathy for Colonel Klink
25 -- Democratic Celebrities in Exile
24 -- High School Revisited
23 -- A Farewell to Bachelorhood
2000
22 -- Requiem for a Middleweight
21 -- Is There a Gene for Tackiness?
20 -- How the Beautiful People Entertain Themselves
19 -- The Cynical Guy Gets Behind the Wheel
18 -- The Fickle Finger of Fame
17 -- Adventures in Bodybuilding
16 -- Some Don't Like It Hot
15 -- The Cynical Guy Watches Oprah
14 -- Sports Parents: Menace to Society?
13 -- Airfare Is No Fair at All
12 -- There's No Such Thing as 'New and Improved'
11 -- Celtomania!
10 -- The Naked Pate
9 -- Vanishing Act
8 -- Bush vs. Gore: It Could Be Worse
7 -- Who Wants to Be a Survivor?
6 -- Adventures in Heart Attack Prevention
5 -- Where Men Are Men
4 -- Thoughts While Listening to the Car Radio
3 -- History Is HISTORY
2 -- The Great Casino
1 -- Greetings from Your New Cynical Guy
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