Just a thought...

This morning, when I crawled out of bed, I had an interesting thought.

What if, in the 2004 1st Presidential debate, John Kerry had led off his closing remarks with this homey anecdote:

My fellow Americans, I had some closing statements prepared, but during the debate, while I listened to Governor Bush, a story from my childhood came to mind that I would like to share with you. When I was young, back in Denver, there was a boy who lived three blocks down named Harold. Harold, you see, was a "special" boy, who today we would call mentally challenged. I remember till this very day his simple, innocent, toothy grin, and the shine of the sun on his silver helmet that he wore on his head to protect him from further injury. Ah, that Harold was always falling over something! He was quite a klutz. Anyway, Harold's parents, like many of you here tonight and watching on television, were poor hardworking people and both his mother and father and older brother worked full time jobs, though usually they had at least one member of the clan stay at home to watch special Harold. But one day each member of Harold's family had to go to work, forced by their bosses to show up or be fired.

This presented quite the dilemma for the family. They had never left Harold alone, and they were worried that their "special" little boy might hurt himself. They even tried to get someone to sit with him but their neighbors had jobs of their own. So giving their boy strict orders, they all went to work, silently praying that their child would have the good judgment to take care of himself and their home.

You can see where I'm going with this.

Harold, getting hungry, thought to himself that he would make a bowl of soup for himself. He'd seen his mother cook, and saw how you turn the gas on, and place a lit match onto the stove top. Beyond that though Harold thought he was a grown man and that he was capable of cooking for himself. So he turned the gas on. But Harold didn't know where the matches were. He looked all over the kitchen for at least ten minutes, with the gas on, searching for matches. He finally found them (they were next to the stove) and after a few tries lit it.

Boom! The house explodes in flames, shooting "special" little Harold out through the kitchen window onto the lawn, where his head was protected with his helmet, and when the fire department arrived they found Harold, eating grass and smiling happily saying, "Pretty fire, pretty fire."

Yes, Harold reminds me a great deal of George W. Bush.

I'm not saying by any means that Governor Bush is mentally challenged, though he might not be the brightest star in the sky, as his high record of scholastic, and business failures, his inability to defend the country during 9/11 and likewise develop an exit strategy in Iraq shows us. But what I am saying is that some people are just incapable of doing some jobs. Like Harold's family we trusted him not to set our house on fire and just like Harold's family we now find our president sitting in front of the wreckage, grinning, and telling us that it is a pretty fire. This is not a pretty fire, nor a game, but a conflagration that threatens to consume us all, and unlike George we don't have a helmet for protection. Now is the time to take the Harold's of our nation out of office and replace them with competent and bold leadership. I am that leader.

Goodnight, and may God bless you all.

Now that would have been something.