Moving Forward

Moving Forward
Friday, November 16, 2012
by Burt Prelutsky

There is a great deal of hand-wringing and finger-pointing going on in Republican circles after the recent election. Much of it is justified. After all, how is it possible that after four years of Obama’s policies that have resulted in a terrible economy, a weakened military and ObamaCare, Mitt Romney could possibly receive two million fewer votes than John McCain?

On the other hand, it’s not too shocking that Harry Reid and the Democrats picked up two additional Senate seats. Did nobody think to check Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock for signs of insanity before allowing them to win their GOP primaries? When one of these guys talks about legitimate rape and the other schmuck suggests that rape just might be part of God’s overall plan, they don’t belong in the U.S. Senate, they belong in a loony bin. For those who can’t see the difference between the two places, I’m referring to the one with the padded walls.

Going forward, I would like to see the Republicans attempt to impeach the president. I wouldn’t expect to see Obama booted out of office, but I’m convinced that the GOP has to at least go through the motions. If they’re going to give Americans a reason to believe there is a real difference between the two parties, they have to take action against a commander-in-chief who places more importance on his own re-election than on our nation’s security.

The articles of impeachment should start with the leaks from his administration to the NY Times that, among other things, led to Pakistan’s imprisoning a doctor for 33 years for his role in leading us to Osama bin Laden.

Then there’s the matter of all the lies that Obama, Susan Rice and Joe Biden, told about the terrorist attack in Benghazi, pretending that a video had anything to do with the murders of our ambassador to Libya and three of his courageous colleagues. This cover-up not only makes Watergate seem like an innocent prank, but points out how biased the media is when you consider what a big deal they made of the earlier scandal and how little attention they paid to the one that resulted in the massacre of four Americans.

And, finally, there is the fact that the FBI was ordered to hold off going public about the Petraeus-Broadwell affair until after the election. Apparently, the CIA Director shared national security secrets during pillow talk with his biographer, which should lead to his imprisonment and not merely to a divorce. (If nothing else, the affair gives new meaning to a journalist being embedded with the military.)

Getting back to the election, the aftermath reminded me of the 1990 Super Bowl game. With eight seconds left in the game, the New York Giants were leading the Buffalo Bills 20-19 when Scott Norwood attempted a 47-yard field goal. If he made the kick, the Bills would have won 22-20. But his kick sailed right of the goal post by a yard. If it had hit the right goal post and bounced left, he would have been a hero and the Bills would have won the championship.

Instead, the next day all the football pundits were pondering the future of the Bills. What was needed? A new head coach? New assistant coaches? A different quarterback? An entirely different offense? None of these questions would have been raised if the football had gone 37 inches to the left.

Well, that’s how close the election was. Perhaps if Romney had chosen Marco Rubio as his running mate, it would have sucked enough of those Hispanic votes away from Obama to have changed the results. Or, perhaps if half of those two million Republicans who somehow imagined that a nincompoop like McCain would make a better president than Romney had gotten off their lazy duffs and voted, we wouldn’t be facing another four years of Obama, along with ObamaCare and God only knows how many new left-wing Supreme Court justices.

Clearly something will have to change over the next four years if we Republicans are going to have any chance of taking back the White House, but it might be something as seemingly insignificant as getting a new field goal kicker.

I will confess that the other day, I woke up convinced that it was November 3rd and that the election was still three days off. It just didn’t seem possible that America had actually re-elected Barack Obama. I can’t tell you how disappointed I was when I realized that the election had actually taken place and that it hadn’t been one of my infrequent nightmares.

Although I heard a few rumors of cheating having taken place on November 6th, particularly in Florida and Pennsylvania, where in certain counties, the votes apparently out-numbered the voters, I’m not sure if Obama’s victory was or wasn’t the result of cheating, as it surely was when Kennedy defeated Nixon, when Al Franken defeated Norm Coleman and when any number of Democratic congressmen have defeated their opponents. But I do know that nothing will change until Republicans start doing some cheating of their own.

Understand, I don’t approve of cheating, but so long as Democrats receive all the benefits and suffer none of the negative consequences, they will do everything they can to make certain the vile practice continues unabated.

It’s only when boxes of uncounted votes start turning up in the trunks of Republicans, that white thugs start to intimidate black voters and that dead people finally start voting overwhelmingly for conservative candidates, that Democrats will finally have a reason to become morally outraged.

How is it that there are stricter rules governing baseball than politics? I mean, if they can keep cheaters out of Cooperstown, how is it we can’t keep them out of Congress or the Oval Office?
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To read another article by Burt Prelutsky, click here.