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April 03, 2007
Personally I Think It's Because His First Name Is Rudolph
Stantis isn't terrible today. I know - shocker - he should have run this on Sunday as an April Fool's gag. But he's got a point about Americans not wanting to elect someone with a last name they can't spell easily. I've actually had a theory for years that Americans won't elect a President with a vowel as the last letter in their last name unless it's silent (like "Pierce"). Chalk it up to elitism or bias against "foreign" sounding names or just plain laziness, but that's how we Americans are. That, and we want our President to sound like an action movie hero - hence why Michael Dukakis was never a resident of the White House and Tommy Tancredo doesn't have a chance in hell (unless Mexico declares war on the U.S. and plans to use illegal immigrants as projectile missles against us).
However in Giuliani's case the Republican faithful are making an exception. I could go on and on about the reasons why he'd make a terrible President, especially a Republican one. I'd think six marriages between him and his current wife (including her secret marriage and his to a cousin) would normally be a deal-breaker for most "true" Christian Conservatives who supposedly want pro-marriage folks in office (and by pro-marriage I don't mean "get married as many times as you can"). Rudy recently said that he wouldn't mind if this current wife sat in on cabinet meetings, something even Hillary didn't do casually ("Hey Rudy, what are you up to today? Thinking about nuking Iran? Cool - I'll invite the girls over and we'll brainstorm with you and the rest of the Cabinet. Then we'll hold our book club afterwards in the same room if that's okay with you").
But by far and away the most frightening reason why Rudy would make a horrible President for true Americans is something that is getting ZERO attention in the mainstream media. Rudy recently told some key conservative journalists that 1) he believes the President should have the authority to arrest ANY American citizen without review (albeit "infrequently") and 2) he thinks the President should be able to fund HIS OWN WARS whenever he damn well pleases. Don't believe me? Glenn Greenwald at Salon has been following the really scary story.
Think about that: what would Republicans have said if Clinton decided he could arrest anybody whenever he wanted and not tell anybody why? And oh, by the way, I'm going to start a wars with Italy, Canada, and Panama and pay for them with my super-secret slush fund?
Now for neo-cons this is a wet dream. Giuliani isn't talking about just being an "authoritarian President" - this is wanting to be a balls-out fascist dictator. But hey - did you hear that Sanjaya kid is still on American Idol? Luckily he's got a hard name to spell or he might become president some day.
So will Stantis go all the way with criticizing Rudy? Now that it's out there that he's not a fan, will Stantis actually give the real reasons why Rudy would be the worst of the worst and make Bush 2 look like a pleasant dream? Of course not. He thinks it's plenty to simply suggest that he's a "rebel" and not going along with the rest of the Republicans because he's not fawning over "America's Mayor" (that even the fire fighters hate because he called off searching for their fallen comrades after 9/11, allowed workers to stay at Ground Zero knowing that the air was toxic, and letting them use material from where those buildings fell and where the bodies of those brave souls had been crushed as filler for potholes). Yup Stantis, you're a rebel - just like Rudy. At least your name is easy enough to spell.
Oh god - I hope I didn't just give Stantis any ideas.
