Amber Alert for John McCain! Amber Alert!

I’ve never had the opportunity to vote for anybody that I really wanted to be President. In fact my reaction every four years has been “If these two bozos are the best we can come up with for President, then something is terribly wrong with our system.” After decades of analyzing this, I have concluded that something is terribly wrong with our system.

For a long time I have wanted to vote for John McCain. I wanted McCain over Gore or Bush in 2000. I wanted him over Bush or Kerry in 2004. (Of course, I would have preferred most pipe fitters I’ve known over Bush or Kerry.) I was very happy when his campaign came back from the dead in 2006. Or 2007. Or both.

But McCain has gone missing. Somebody is running using his name, but it’s not him. That’s become so evident that I think of the guy I’m seeing now as McCain^?.

McCain talked to the media. He talked to ME through the media. He figured if he phrased something funny or made a mis-step, then I had sense enough to know that everybody misses a few, and he would trust me to figure out what he really meant. And I could do that, because he said it over and over again, different terms for different audiences, but basically the same message.

McCain didn’t lie and he wasn’t sleazy. He was in charge and he made all the professional campaign pukes meet his standards of honor and integrity. McCain peeped out for about ten seconds with that idiot woman who thought Obama was an Arab. He said “No Ma’am. He is a good, decent citizen, a family man, with whom I have some fundamental disagreements.” That my friends, was John McCain. But he was gone before I could get downtown and cast my early vote.

McCain^? has dominated the Republican campaign. He picked Sarah Palin. (See Hades Behind a Palin Horse.) He said that Obama voted for comprehensive sex education for little kids which he didn't by any stretch of the imagination. (I’ve read the bill.) Oh, I mis-spoke. It’s within the imagination of several writers for National Review and, apparently, that of McCain^?.

McCain^? accuses Obama of voting against funding for troops in Iraq knowing that he (or McCain, whichever one was in the Senate) did exactly the same thing.
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The truth is, everybody in Congress has voted for and against almost everything. You take a bill supporting motherhood and apple pie, and some jackass will tack on an amendment that the President must always wear a pink tutu for inauguration. I don’t care how you vote on that one, you’re going to hear about it in the next campaign.

One point that really bothers me: Obama said several times that if he knows where bin Laden is and Pakistan won’t do the deed, he will give the order to put bin Laden topside with his 99 virgins. McCain^? calls this “attacking Pakistan.” Does that mean he would let bin Laden off the hook in those circumstances? I sure hope not! But the only other explanation is that McCain^? wants me to think Obama said something that he didn’t say. McCain^? wants me to vote against Obama not because I disagree with Obama, but because I disagree with something Obama never said, but that McCain^? said that he said. McCain wanted me to vote for him because I knew who he was and what he stood for, and because I agreed with it. That's why I wanted to vote for him, even though I didn't agree with a lot of it.

If you go to their websites and look at the proposals, the numbers don’t add up for either party’s candidate. They never do for any candidate, any year. Who cares? Those proposals have to go through the Congressional Get Some machine, and they will emerge unrecognizable. What matters to me is whether the guy has been consistent with himself or with his website. The Republican candidate, whoever he is, has been all over the map. Maybe McCain handles some public appearances and McCain^? shows up for the others. That would explain the inconsistency, and also explain how a guy of 72 manages to seem so energetic.

My confusion is which one of these guys would be President? Or would we be electing a tag team? I’m not sure the Constitution allows for inaugurating two guys at once. On the other hand, it would put Sarah Palin two heartbeats instead of one away from the Oval Office, and I’m all for putting more obstacles in that path.

So I’m hoping that sometime in the next 48 hours, John McCain will reappear, declare his candidacy, and talk to me. If not, then at least before January 20.