Two Card Monte

Have you ever heard of the game called Three Card Monte? I bet you know it, even if you don't know the name. You have surely seen it on TV, or if you live in New York and it isn't out of fashion yet, you have seen it being played on the streets. People will try and hustle you with a table set up and three cards on it. Two are, say, black kings, and one is a red king. He shows you the red king, then says keep your eye on it, then shuffles them around, and if you can point to it again, you win the money, yay! But if you don't he wins your money, boo! Sometimes you see this game played with three cups, and a ball is under it. The trick is, of course, that the guy playing the game has two or three mean looking friends making sure you pay up, even if you point out that he is cheating. Often times, by the end, all three cards are black kings, for the hustler has used his practiced skill called sleight of hand to remove the red king and replace it with another black king.

That is not to say, however, that you need to cheat to do this. You can search youtube and see some very skilled card handlers do this without cheating, meaning there is always a red king with the two blacks (or vice-versa), but he or she will still use their magician skills to trick you. Follow the red king, see it? See it? There it goes, back around again, keep your eye on the red, and where is it? Middle? Ohhh, sorry, it was over here, but thanks for playing.

This game reminds me of our nation's politics. I was listening to a morning radio show one day, a talk show, but not really a political show. They talk about all sorts of subjects, from politics to American Idol to their favorite cheese. The two men, one of which is supposedly "informed" because he watches CNN and Fox News all day (go ahead and roll your eyes and scoff with me), and one background low class joke maker, and the one woman, an ignorant liberal whose heart bleeds for every one except the white male and/or American interest, all agreed that there is no way- no way- that a Republican should win the next presidential election because of how terrible a job Bush has done.

Did you catch that?

There's your new game, Two Card Monte. It is so very sad to think that on the street, a hustler needs three cards to pull off the scam, but apparently the politicians need only two to fool pathetic America at large. What on earth does the next president have to do with the last one!? I can think of plenty of reasons that McCain should not be elected, believe me, and plenty more still that Obama shouldn't. But, unlike so many of my ignorant, two-tone-seeing fellow citizens, party affiliation is not one of them. I would vote for a Democrat in a second if I thought that Democrat believed in what I did. (Not likely, but not the point.) But these radio personalities- who reflect a good portion of Americans and how they think- can't get past the smoke and mirrors.

Am I so crazy to think that party affiliation does no matter? That the candidate ought to be measured on who he is?! Is that so insane? What if King George declared himself a Democrat for the last year of his term? Would that mean that a Democrat should not win the next election now? What if he had declared Democrat for his entire second term? First a Republican for four years, then a Democrat for four years. Would that matter? The conservatives that love Reagan (almost all conservatives do) don't care that he was a Democrat when governing California, then changed when president. I'd hope (and probably be wrong) that they wouldn't care if he was a Democrat president if he had acted the exact same. I can tell you I wouldn't care, though. So what if King George had always been a Democrat? Now all of a sudden a Republican should win, since in this scenario a Democrat screwed things up? The letter in front of his name be damned, R or D, HE'S STILL THE SAME GUY!!! And the two candidates are not him! Just imagine, the greatest president of all time could come along and not be elected because the wrong guy with the wrong letter in front of his name came before him. You know what? I have said this before: George Washington himself warned us, in his farewell address, that the "spirit of party," meaning political parties, would easily be our country's undoing if given the chance.

But I guess people can't see that. Most Americans have never even heard those wise words from our nation's father. When is the last time that was taught in a high school history class, I wonder? No, the people today, they only see in blue and red. The patriotic wool pulled over their eyes. Kind of like the black and white TVs of old, only even those had shades of gray, for God's sake. Nope, right now the presidency is red, and is bad, so next it should be blue! Now if that blue works out good, we ought to keep it for a while, but if the blue ends up bad too, we can try red again. Are you seeing this?

And let us try to follow the card, just follow the card, pick a color, follow the card. Aaand we have the blue over here, now its the red, lets do the red again, but here its the blue, follow the blue, follow the blue, and hey, it was actually red, did you know? But here's the blue, here's the blue, there's the red, follow the blue, now the red... With all this watching back and forth, America has been suckered into trying to keep track of the red card and the blue card, when they are both the same thing! It's either two red cards or two blue, pick one. But don't think they're any different.

In the meantime, the country has been hustled right from under your nose. The two thugs- one big fat stinking elephant and one ludicrous jackass- just walked off with your freedom. Wake up, people! The D.C. mafia's slight of hand lies in the party system the have set up! There is no difference between the parties any more, not really, can you not see? Stop playing Two Card Monte and start looking for, no- DEMANDING, a real candidate. Not just a change in party.