Pigs in a Poke

Pig in a poke:  A thing you buy without knowing its true nature or value, especially when you don’t inspect it beforehand. (In Israel the expression is "Cat in a Sack." I guess there’s no call for pork there.)
    Most of the baker’s dozen of Presidents who have occupied the White House over the last 80 years have been okay. They range from the excellent (Harry Truman) to the pretty good (Roosevelt and Reagan) to the competent but flawed (Nixon and Johnson) to the fair-to-middling (the two Bushes and Clinton) to the weak (Kennedy) to the innocuous (Eisenhower and Ford).

    Of the 13, only two have been God-awful ─ Jimmy Carter and the present incumbent, Barack Obama.
    Carter was reputed to be bright and hard-working.
    Objective information about Obama’s intelligence or lack of same has been carefully shielded from the public leading many to assume that he’s a dunce. As far as work habits go, he doesn’t seem to have any.
    But aside from differences in IQs, SATs, and noses to the grindstone, the men share two far more vital characteristics: 

Both were totally unfit to lead the nation.
Both were "Pigs in a Poke," voted into office by a dice-rolling electorate that let hope trump reason

    It’s easy to understand why the two men won their elections.
    Each ran against a weak opponent (Carter against Gerald Ford; Obama against John McCain).
    Carter’s narrow victory over Ford was helped by a lingering revulsion to Ford’s predecessor, Richard Nixon.
    Obama’s sound thrashing of McCain was ensured by the overwhelming support given him by a politicized media establishment, by a public that was eager to show its racial tolerance, and by an outrageously partisan Black voting block that cast 95% of its ballots for its native son.
    There is a more significant question than the election itself, however: Why were two nobodies like Obama and Carter nominated by their party in the first place?
    The answer is not hard to find once you realize that Liberalism is not a coherent political philosophy based on rational thought or enlightened self-interest, but is, rather, a religion, and that all too often it is the Liberal tail that wags the Democrat dog.
    That Liberalism is a religion is not a very original concept. Try Googling "Liberalism Is a Religion" and you’ll get close to 700,000 hits, an impressive number when compared, say, to the 90,000 or so you’ll get by Googling the popular search phrase "J Lo’s Ass."
    In addition to hallmark qualities shared by other religions and cults ─ Hatred, Irrationality, Intolerance, Fanaticism , and Blind Faith ─ Liberalism also suffers from an even more dangerous religious characteristic ─ the yearning for a Messiah, a superhuman leader who will arise like Gilgamesh, sword in hand, to save the world from the barbarians (i.e., conservatives, moderates, rednecks, born-again Christians, White heterosexual Males, and Sarah Palin).
    In the past, we have had a succession of would-be Liberal saviors.
    The trend seems to have started with FDR who, in addition to being an inspirational wartime leader, was looked upon as the physical embodiment of Jehovah by all good Liberals and whose god-head was frequently affirmed by Henry Fonda and other Hollywood luminaries.
    Here’s a list of other Liberals who have aspired to Messiahdom and have come and gone like King Lear’s packs and sects of great ones, that ebb and flow by the moon.

● Henry Agard Wallace, FDR’s one-time far-left vice president, whose failed attempt to defeat Harry Truman bitterly disappointed left-wing Democrats, the Communist parry, and my mother.
● Adlai Stevenson, two-time loser to Dwight Eisenhower, whose genteel manners and professorial demeanor enraptured gay voters, Leonard Bernstein, and the city of Madison, Wisconsin.
● Mario Cuomo, the golden-tongued boy orator of the Plains and Albany, NY, who electrified the 1984 Democrat convention with a ringing keynote oration about absolutely nothing at all.
● Howard Dean whose 2004 "I Have a Scream" speech after losing the Iowa caucus was unfairly used against him by almost everyone with any common sense.
● Eugene McCarthy who ended Lyndon Johnson’s political career with a near victory in the 1968 New Hampshire Primary based on his opposition to the Vietnam War ─ after which he was never heard from again.
● George McGovern, the man who replaced the murdered Robert Kennedy in Liberal affections and was the Democrat presidential candidate in 1968 and 1972. He managed to get clobbered both times despite columnist Mary McGrory’s tear-drenched editorial pleas.

    Blessedly, the country was spared the depredations that would have been wrought by this ragtag collection of incompetents, weaklings, weirdoes, flash-in-the-pans, and one-shot wonders.
    Perhaps luck will again be on the nation’s side when and if our current Boob-in-Chief vacates the White House, but I fear that the American public’s tendency to gamble its future on left-wing Pigs-in-the-Poke will not die out and that false Messiah after false Messiah will continue to erupt like poisonous toadstools from the rotted manure of Liberalism’s godless religion.
    There may be a special providence for drunkards, fools, and the United States of America as Otto von Bismark was reputed to have said, but even the most fortunate gambler eventually runs out of luck.
    If our democracy ever fails and dictatorship does come to America, it will not be in the form of a ranting megalomaniac like Adolf Hitler...or a sadistic, manipulative party-hack like Joseph Stalin...or a corrupt demagogue like Huey Long...or an iron-fisted lunatic like Mao Zedong...or a drunken adventurer like Joseph McCarthy.
    It will arrive slowly and subtly in the shape of a duly-elected Pig-in-the-Poke populist President who, like Julius Caesar seduces the masses with promises of helping the "little man" against "Wall Street," who suppresses free speech in the name of "ensuring fairness in the press," who mobilizes "the youth" to riot in the street against "injustice," who claims to fight wealth disparities by stealing from the rich and giving to the government, who packs the courts with party henchmen, who governs by executive fiat rather than by legislative act, and who, finally, gains control over the armed forces via the installation of crony loyalists as civilian and military overseers.
    For those who care about freedom and liberty ─ that is to say, anybody who doesn’t worship at the shrine of Liberalism ─ don’t say you've not been warned..

Norm Mack, Peterborough, dog@myfairpoint.net

Posted by dome of glass at 12/15/2011 8:00 AM
Categories: Politics
Tags: religion liberalism Jimmy Carter Obama
 

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  • 12/16/2011 12:16 PM Nun wrote:
    So, what do you think of Newt?
    Reply to this
    1. 12/17/2011 5:22 PM dome of glass wrote:
          Well Newt ain't no pig in the poke, that's for sure.
          With the exception of Ron Paul, and with Herman Cain out of the way, you pretty much know what you're getting with the other Republican candidates -- warts and all.
          I'd be satisfied with either Romney or Gingrich. They're moderate, conservative, battle-tested, realistic, and, most important, they'd be competant administrators.
          Of course, neither is a Messiah.
          We have one Messiah too many in office right now.
          We sure as hell don't need another one.
      Reply to this
      1. 12/20/2011 3:12 PM Anonymous wrote:
        Uh oh, Ron Paul seems to be gaining. No way he can beat Obama. I'm for Newt because I want to see him debate the chosen one. That would make for some good prime time entertainment.
        Reply to this
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