You have all heard the saying that is attributed to pretty much everybody’s grandmother, right? “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” So in that spirit, I thought I would try to say at least one positive thing about every remaining presidential candidate. So that I don’t come near the end and find myself exhausted and unable to finish the job, let me start with the Democrats.
1. John Edwards: since the country is already run by the suits and haircuts, it is high time for us to have a haircut-in-chief.
2. Hillary Clinton: a tough campaign ahead increases the chances that somehow, somewhere, some way, if my prayers are answered, when she complains about a sharp elbow in the eye that some competitor has thrown, that another competitor will say, before he thinks about it—and because the debate is not on a time delay so that the producer can blip it out—that she, if “she can’t stand the heat, should get back in the kitchen.” That would make everything worthwhile.
3. Barack Obama: Tiger Woods for president!
4. John McCain: anybody who can take Huckabee out of the running can’t be all bad.
5. Rudy Giuliani: a heavy percentage of Teutonic consonants in the presidential name has historically been a major contributor to domestic and international strife. Right, Guido?
6. Mitt Romney: it would be good to finally have real hermeneutical congruence between how the theologians of the president’s (private and deeply personal) faith interpret Scripture, and how the Supreme Court interprets the Constitution. Enough with the shilly-shallying.
7. Mike Huckabee: given the precedents, anybody who can come to this campaign as a former governor of Arkansas has got a lot of nerve.
8. Ron Paul: he understands what the Federal Reserve is doing, and yet has not ever been arrested for punching anybody.