My pal Charlie caresses his brown IPA bottle and declares, “Problem is, these guys take what the other guy says and turn it into something nasty.”
“Like what,” I ask, knowing ‘these guys’ means Obama and Romney.
“Okay, so Obama says Romney wanted to leave ten thousand troops in Iraq, or maybe it’s thirty thousand; it seems to change every few days,” Charlie says. “But the real truth is Obama wanted to leave troops there, too. He failed to create a ‘Status of Forces Agreement’ that would allow a slower drawdown of troops that he and the Joint Chiefs of Staff wanted. So here you have one guy who turns his own failures into a nasty narrative about the other guy. They do it with all sorts of things. Why can’t they be more like this beer?”
John Cole / Scranton Times-Tribune (click to view more cartoons by Cole)
Charlie hoists his microbrew craft beer bottle and points to the label emblazoned with a detailed list of ingredients. “This is a bottle of India Pale Ale. Hoppy. Some level of bitterness. Look, it says,’ Cascade hops, Willamette hops, Fuggles.’” (Fuggles?) “Then, light Pilsner malts and Barley malts. That’s what you get. If this beer was running for president, its opponent would say, ‘this America-hating brewer poisoned his pure, patriotic water with filthy, nasty strobilaceous botanicals!”
“Okay,” I offer,” so you’d like the candidates to actually debate real issues.”
“Yes! So when Romney says Obama failed to hash out a Status of Forces Agreement, Obama wouldn’t just say ‘nanny nanny boo boo,’ he’d say, ‘yeah, Romney, because we wanted to create a power-sharing deal between Jalal Talabani, the Iraqi President, and Aya Allawi, who we think will be friendlier to the U.S. and keep the authoritarian Prime Minister al-Maliki under control. Talibani refused. I tried to negotiate an agreement that would keep troops there beyond 2011 and those Iraqi knuckleheads in Parliament wouldn’t make a deal so I felt it was safer to just bring the troops home.’
Now, Rick, wouldn’t that be a better answer?”
The question nudges me from my momentary nod. “Huh? What did Romney say?”
Charlie gives me his creepiest Steve Buscemi glare, sips his beer and snarls,” Romney hates Detroit.”
I’m awake. “Romney loves Detroit. He supported a government-backed managed bankruptcy for General Motors and Chrysler, just as it occurred, except he believes we should follow the law and pay off creditors equally instead of giving so much more to Obama’s campaign-contributing union cronies.”
“So you’d like them to be as honest as this beer?” Charlie’s glad his pal is back in the game.
As a reward, he gets an earful of snark. “What, that ‘fresh as a mountain spring water from the magical healing pools of Borvo, burning calories and attracting hot babes in togas? THAT beer?”
“No,” Charlie insists. “The one that lists Cascade hops, Willamette hops, Pilsner and Barley malts with an IBU of 78 and 6% ABV.”
“Hmmm.” This All-American dilemma is worth pondering. “Would I rather take the time to read and develop an true understanding of policy details and craft beer ingredients or choose candidates and beer based on focus-group-tested messaging designed to elicit an emotionally-based decision? Is that what you’re asking?”
“Yes.”
“Hmmm. How about deep policy debates between two beer-toting babes in togas?”
Ready for that response, Charlie smirks, “How about Hillary Clinton and Phyllis Schlafly in togas?”
Aack!
“We’ll need more beer.”
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© Copyright 2012 Rick Jensen, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.
Rick Jensen is Delaware’s Award-Winning Conservative Talk Show Host on 1150AM WDEL and 93.7FM HD3, Streaming live on WDEL.Com from 1pm – 4pm EST. Contact Rick at rick@wdel.com, or follow him on Twitter@JensenVoiceover.
