The Template Test

"It's a Barnum and Bailey world, just as phony as it can be" -- E.Y. Harburg and Billy Rose

When the cerebral David Brooks of the New York Times looked over Obummer in 2008, he knew he would make a good president because of "the crease in his pants." Chris Mathews was equally smitten with this candidate because he "sent a tingle up his leg." And Joe Biden was sold on Obummer when he recognized him as a "clean, articulate, bright Aftrican American." (This quip also got him a cushy job for eight years.) These three political decisions were made not on studied judgments ... but on the basis of feelings. Templates were held up to this candidate and he passed their quick profile tests. Unfortunately, these template judgments were wrong. Obummer has been one of the worst presidents in a long unfortunate history of simps, scalawags and scoundrels who have occupied 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Of course, there have also been great men who have been President of the United States. But, using the template test, many of them would not have passed muster. I'm thinking particularly of Harry Truman, Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln.

What happens as a result of voters' preference for using templates to pick presidents. Obviously candidates are preened, poked and posed into predetermined templates in the hope of getting elected. A very good example of this is Hellary Clinton. If one compares what this woman was like as Secretary of State ... frumpy, disheveled, detached, almost lazy ... to what she has become today. Clearly her handlers have reshaped her into a slick robotic presidential candidate ... both in appearance, demeanor and rhetoric. This remake is designed to appeal to voters who can't be bothered to look beyond her staged appearance ... her template. To me, this artifice of reforming candidates into templates is so Hollywood, so tinsel town, so Lady Gaga ... that I want to flee to someplace genuine, like a petting zoo.

I think I'll stop here ...