What Century is This?

We have a little 13” combo VCR/television set that is used for moments like last night, the presidential debates. Or it can be used for watching old tapes of the 3 Stooges. Same thing.

I knew from the beginning statements that it was not going to be a barn-burner evening when both candidates decried the rise of government spending and vowed that they would do something about it. I’m just old enough to be able to remember Harry Truman saying those very same words. And Eisenhower and Kennedy and Johnson and Nixon and… ad infinitum and nauseum. C'mon, give me a break!

If you were already a fan of either candidate there was nothing said last night that would have changed your mind. And if you were on the fence, you would have had to have been politically aware to have noticed all of the half truths that McCain was spouting. And I think that was where Obama made a mistake; he should have called out McCain for being a liar. He shouldn’t have been so nice to him.

The first instance of that was when McCain stated that American businesses face the second highest tax rate in the world; 35%. That is true. And that is why over 70% of all corporations pay no taxes at all. They know about the tax rate and they use every possible loophole to escape it. All quite successfully.

The company I used to work for did just that; becoming a Sub Chapter S corporation and no longer paying a $6 million yearly tax bill. Whoa! I wonder who ended up paying that bill?

On and on it went. McCain being smarmy and avoiding any direct confrontation on his statements. Obama should have tried harder to make him responsible for each lie. Should have pointed his finger at him and said, ‘John, that’s a lie.’

I had this thought about the whole evening; it really was the 21^st century vs. the 20^th. The same old politics vs. something different. Something filled with thoughts and not slogans. (I'm a fan of the 21st century.) And I remember looking at the split screen image of the two of them and wondering who looked ‘presidential’; who would best represent me in the world and it wasn’t the clown on the left.

Two more to go.