The Choice is Clear

In my own personal poll I have not met anyone who thinks that Senator John McCain would make a better president than Senator Barack Obama. Then why are most national polls showing the race so close with Senator Obama holding a narrow lead over Senator McCain throughout the summer.

Over the last month Senator McCain has repeatedly been on the offensive against Senator Obama by questioning his experience, criticizing his opposition to most new offshore oil drilling and mocked his overseas trip.

Even a good friend of mine is feeding on the lack of experience “BS”. In my opinion, we are in the mess we are in today because the people with experience are running the country. What we need is toss the whole executive branch of the government out and replace them with people with fresh ideas. We have had a president with a gunslinger mentality for the last eight years and now a guy who even calls himself a maverick wants to take over. The dictionary defines maverick as a nonconformist, eccentric, individualist, rebel. Sounds like a person who is out for himself instead of what is good for the country.

We are almost done with unintelligent leader in the White House and here is Senator McCain who was in constant conflict with higher-ranking personnel at the U.S. Naval Academy for not obey the rules. He did well in subjects that interested him, such as literature and history, but studied only enough to pass subjects he disliked, such as math (and a class rank of 894 of 899). Attending high school at a private preparatory boarding school should have prepared him for the curriculum of the academy. He probably only got into the academy because his father and grandfather were both graduates. After the naval academy he began training as a naval aviator at Pensacola, Florida. There he earned a reputation as a partying man (lots of alcohol like the current president). He crashed twice while serving as a naval aviator and once collided with power lines. (How he managed to keep his wings is a mystery to me).

Senator McCain seems to think that being a former prisoner of war qualifies him to hold the office of president. Then why didn’t the other POW run for office. In truth Senator McCain turned down early release as a POW because it would help him later in life. The senator likes to say how much of a hero he was, but in truth he tried to commit suicide while being held as a POW and made an anti-American propaganda confession.

Senator McCain like to portray himself as a great family man while in truth while his first wife was suffered from a crippling automobile accident, he became a celebrity of sorts as a returned POW. During this period he had extramarital affairs. In 1979 he met Cindy Hensley and they began dating, and he urged his wife to grant him a divorce, which she did. McCain and Cindy Hensley were married in 1980. McCain’s children did not attend the wedding and several years passed before they reconciled. John and Cindy McCain entered into a prenuptial agreement that kept most of her family's assets under her name; they would always keep their finances apart and file separate income tax returns.

He went to work for Hensley & Co., his new father-in-law large Anheuser-Busch beer distributorship. As Vice President of Public Relations at the distributorship, he gained political support among the local business community, meeting powerful figures such as banker Charles Keating, Jr.. He was later investigated in a political influence scandal of the 1980s as a member of the “Keating Five”. Between 1982 and 1987, Senator McCain had received $112,000 in lawful political contributions from Charles Keating Jr. and his associates at Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, along with trips on Keating's jets that McCain belatedly repaid two years later. In 1987, McCain was one of five senators whom Keating contacted in order to prevent the government's seizure of Lincoln Savings and Loan. In the end, McCain was cleared by the Senate Ethics Committee of acting improperly or violating any law or Senate rule, but was rebuked for exercising "poor judgment".

In 1997, McCain became chairman of the powerful Senate Commerce Committee; he was criticized for accepting funds from corporations and businesses under the committee's purview, but in response said the restricted contributions he received were not part of the big-money nature of the campaign finance problem.

And for all you Black folks who think Senator McCain is so great, in 1983, he opposed creation of a federal Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. This year (in the midst of a presidential campaign) he admitted: "I was wrong and eventually realized that, in time to give full support (not until 1990) for a state holiday in Arizona." Yeah right; only after being forced to do so under threat from the U.S. government of pulling federal money from the state and the treat from the NFL of not bring the Super Bowl to Phoenix.

Senator McCain mocked Senator Obama as a “Rock Star” on his on Obama’s overseas trip when in truth McCain visited the same countries and more and acted like he was the head of state as he accused Senator Obama of doing. McCain himself urged Obama to visit Iraq and when it turned out that Senator Obama was received very much better than Senator McCain, he began to whine. Senator Obama’s overseas trip killed any notion that he is not ready to lead.

Senator Barack Obama is a true American story. In no other country could the child of a single mother who was raised by his grandparents grow up to be at the doorsteps of the highest position of that nation. No I’m not telling you who to vote for. I’m just telling you not to be doped by the routine U.S. political attack machine. We cannot afford another four years of the same policies as the last eight years. In the words of Bernie Mac, "Who You Wit".