"The scales have fallen from my eyes," my scabby old eyes, sob!
Last night I watched Gary Johnson and Bill Weld be tortured by the deplorable Chris Matthews. This was at the University of New Hampshire at Durham. This school is a beautiful, smallish place which the state minimally supports financially, on the "live free or die" principle. I taught ROTC classes there for six months long ago after returning from VN and while waiting for my class at the staff college to commence. Fees are high for a state university and Matthews looked surprised when he asked how many students in the audience had student loans or scholarships. There were not very many. Well, Chris, they are mostly there on mommy and daddy's dime. In other words, these are generally not poor kids.
I watched only the second half of this display of Matthew's ego. We had been viewing something worthwhile on France TV Monde. It was a series called "Les Francais" which deals with a small group of middle class French people trying to deal with issues and crises of the day; politics, making a living, philanthropy, etc. Last night's episode had a lengthy segment dealing with the efforts of dairy farmers to survive in Normandy under EU regulation. It was gripping. Really.
In the course of the town hall at U. of N.H. several things were confirmed to me about the Libertarian tcket:
1. Bill Weld is a very smart guy and I wish he were at the top of the ticket.
2. Johnson probably IS an unreformed pot-head and I don't care. Bill Clinton was or had been the same and he really was not all that bad a president.
3. Johnson is a geographical ignoramus and I don't care much about that at all. There would be people around who could show him where Aleppo is on the map, people like Weld. Actually there probably would be far too many people ready to educate him.
4. Johnson doesn't know any foreign leaders except for Vicente Fox, and could not remember his name. He fumbled around with the answer to "Who do you respect among foreign leaders?" Matthews had a good time sneering at him while he did that. The answer Johnson should have given was that he respects none of them and that he would start from that position of neutrality after inauguration.
5. Johnson stated clearly and unequivocally that he believes HC to be a trigger happy war lover who will set out to make the world safe for "the children." Johnson is disinclined to do that.
6. Johnson stated convincingly that he and Weld would try to restrain the growth of federal power and to reduce the influence of the nanny state in our lives. This was music to my ears.
7. Johnson has a sense of humor and asked Matthews if it would be a bad thing to have people running the government who had a sense of humor. I liked that. Humor seems missing from both HC and DT.
8. When asked by Matthews how he answers the question as to why people should waste their vote on him, he replied that "the only wasted vote is one you cast for someone you don't believe in." Amen
At that response I saw the light on the road to Damascus or some similar piece of ground. I am looking for a Johnson/Weld sign for the lawn if any exist.
And then on MJ this morning, Fightin' Joe Scarborough and his buddy Mike Hayden opined that someone needs to "teach the Russians a lesson." That's it for me. pl