Running on Policy, Not the Past

It is often said that nobody who wants to be president should be. While that may be true, more often than not the man (or quite possibly soon woman) who inevitably becomes president wants the job pretty badly. This person wants the job so much that they will endure months of intense scrutiny and borderline harassment in order to obtain said position of authority.

The media seldom stops at the nominee as well. They will also delve deep and criticize members of the candidate’s family, namely spouse, children and probably parents. It’s not pretty in the slightest. Throughout a presidential campaign, especially in recent years, the media has been more apt to report on a candidate’s peccadilloes rather than their policies. This may be because sex and violence sells and thus they are responding to the publics demand for shoddy journalism or it just might plain laziness on the part of the reporter. My guess is that it’s a little from column A, and a little from column B.

However, there should come a point where a man can leave his past behind, let his professional record speak for itself and not have the media dredging up skeletons buried decades ago. The worst case I can recall was the 2004 Presidential election between Bush and Kerry. All it seemed the media wanted to talk about was Vietnam and whether or not George W. Bush had dodged the draft.

Abortion?

Stem Cell Research?

Trade and the Economy?

Oil and Energy?

Nope. We’re going to have an entire presidential race consumed by a 40 year old war. Now it didn’t help that Kerry ran on the fact that he had fought in Vietnam and the Bush people opted to battle him on that front rather than, I don’t know, analyze his Senate record and question him accordingly (and since this isn’t a third grade student council election, calling him a “flip-flopper” doesn’t count).

It was bad back then and it appears to not be getting any better this time around, over one full year before the next presidential election takes place.

You may have read either directly in his own memoir, Dreams of My Father or the recent news articles that Jr. Illinois Senator Barack (the jerk conservatives call him Hussein) Obama wrote about trying cocaine in high school and using pot after he finished law school. Never mind this mans record in Illinois or his stated policy views, now all people want to talk about is whether or not this is going to matter in voting publics eyes with regards to his White House bid next year. Seeing as drug use was not an issue in his 2004 Illinois Senate race, either in the primary or general election I don’t see why it would matter but that hasn’t stopped the conservative jerks (after having finally gotten over finding out that the mans middle name is Hussein) from babbling on about this issue ad nauseum.

Obama isn’t alone here. The media is also obsessed with Giuliani’s divorces, Newt’s sexual harassment issues, Romney’s religion and any number of other picture postcards.

As much as I don’t like Bill Maher, he summed it up best when he said something to the effect of if you are not a screw up in your 20’s then you don’t deserve to be president today. In other words, there isn’t a person among us who didn’t have an “interesting” youth and thus their questionable past should not bar them from serving in the White House if their public service record is well within the expected parameters of a political leader.

However, if you are one of those people who think that every politician should have the constitution, history and integrity of Jesus Christ himself, then I suggest you write in “Robot” as your candidate of choice because no human being will ever live up to that expectations. Another suggestion would be that you grow up and get real when dealing with politics.

Frankly I’m disgusted with the way the media handles elections. I hardly ever hear a policy debate bandied about and then people wonder why our institutions are so corrupt. If the media is too busy starting catfights with elected officials instead of doing any actual reporting, why should any institution run by man not fall to corruption?

Unfortunately, because the Republicans have painted themselves into a corner with regards to the drug war, I expect that they’ll have to say something about Obama’s admitted drug use. I’m sure it’ll be some token anger and coy sound bites so as to be consistent with their claim that even collegiate drug experimentation is a doomsayer and worth the full weight of federal prosecution, not to mention billions in tax payer dollars to fight a never-ending prohibition war that makes Iraq look like a paintball game. They’ll say their piece for consistencies sake and then quickly forget about before somebody reminds them that the President is a recovered drunk and Rush Limbaugh needed treatment for OxyContin addiction.

But real journalists are not shackled by policy consistency nor are they slaves to public records. They should be reporting the news and contrary to public opinion, telling me that somebody in public life did drugs in the 70’s is not news. It is a waste of my time and an insult to my intelligence.

You can be assured that I’ll be covering this topic more in depth on my Radio Show this Sunday at 12:30 PM.

In the meantime, do yourself and this country a favor, do not ask whether or not Obama’s admitted past drug use will be an issue in the upcoming election, and ask what his issues are in the upcoming presidential election. Stop allowing the media to put these people in a position where they spend the entire campaign running on their past instead of telling us what they will do with our future.