It's about honesty

The other day my wife got a new cellphone, which meant that I got her old cellphone. Now, all I want a cellphone to do is to make phone calls and occasionally, usually by appointment, receive one. I don't use it to play music, take pictures, keep track of appointments, text message, learn a language or anything else a lot of other people use a cellphone to do. I just want it to make a phone call when I want to make a phone call or to receive one when I want to receive one. So that's why I didn't mind at all that I was getting a hand-me-down phone. It makes calls, it receives calls it does all I need it to do. But it got me thinking.

As the younger of two brothers I've been getting hand-me-downs all my life. When my big brother outgrew his shirts or pants I got 'em, if they still had some wear in them. I guess that's been a problem for other people with similar experience but it never bothered me at all. Well, all right if I didn't like the shirt (or whatever) I'd hope that my brother managed to wear it out before he outgrew it but mostly I was cool with it and in many cases looked forward to being able to wear the stuff. I was never humiliated by having to wear second hand clothes at all.
As an adult with adult children I'm perfectly happy to take their hand-me-down technology. Computers and iPods welcome. Thank you guys.

So when it became apparent that Hillary Clinton would run for President I didn't have a problem with it. We've had a number of Vice Presidents come around looking for the top job so the concept of a former First Lady seeking to take over the family business didn't rile me at all. What astounded me is when she began selling herself as the experienced candidate.
I mostly (though not exclusively) vote Democratic for President and I thought this year that experience could be important so I eventually decided to vote for Senator Joe Biden. I still think he was the best candidate but it's too late for all that. Christopher Dodd and Bill Richardson were my next choices (although the order varied from day to day) but when the New Hampshire Primary rolled around I wound up voting for Senator Obama. I suppose it's wonderful (to some) that I voted for an African American but to me that's not a reason to vote for him or anyone else. I'm not into voting based on race. I'm not into voting based on gender either so I wasn't going to vote for Mrs. Clinton because she's a woman. More to the point I'm not going to vote for Mrs. Clinton at all because she strikes me as dishonest. And honesty matters.

One of my favorite books is called, "The Friends of Eddie Coyle." The book is largely dialog that is spot on. (There's also a movie version but good luck trying to see it. It's still not available on DVD in any format that I know of.) One of the characters in the book, Jackie Brown, is making his living by selling guns to people who don't want to buy them in stores. At one point he's dealing with a couple of 60s-type radicals (the book was published in 1972)...
"I got two problems selling machine guns to people like you. The first is selling machine guns. That's life in this state. The second is selling to people like you. You aren't honest."
If honesty is important to Jackie Brown it ought to be the least we ask of a would-be President. Now I expect a certain amount of dis-ingenuousness from anyone seeking political office. It goes with the territory. Like an athlete pulling a hamstring, it's an occupational hazard. So a little bit of resume inflation is par for this course. But to say that her time as first lady counts as experience qualifying someone for President is plain and simple bullshit. If sleeping with the President prepares one for high office then I guess we can expect Monica to be Secretary of State in a new Clinton administration? Senator Clinton says she has "35 YEARS" of experience. Doing what exactly?

This would have all been sorted out before Iowa if the news media had an attention span longer than that of the average toddler. Hold up a new toy (in this case today's poll/tracking number/dollars raised) and they run unsteadily across the room, giggling and grabbing for the shiny object. So, at this point it's up to Pennsylvania and a few other states remaining on the primary calendar to sort out the Democratic nominee. If it somehow winds up being Hillary I won't think it's the end of the world because she's a woman. I'll think it's a terrible mistake because she's misrepresented herself and I don't really feel like I know what's really inside the woman in the pantsuit. I'd rather vote for a Democrat if only because I don't want a Republican to appoint another Supreme Court Justice...ever, for the rest of my life, preferably. But if it's Senator Clinton or Senator McCain I'm going with the guy from Arizona, although I disagree with him on almost everything, because I think he's honest.