Opinion > Star Staff
Up the Creek: How tall is that flagpole?
By Ken Byler
I don't know about you, but I don't believe I could stand another week of presidential campaigns like this one.
This presidential election has been cast as a choice of biblical proportions. Like in the Cecil B DeMille movie "Ben Hur," folks can choose between another four years under the leadership of Edward G. Robinson or go with the new guy, Charlton Heston.
For the first time since I've been old enough to vote, I voted early. It was on the same day that President Obama also voted early. He voted in Chicago and I voted in Allen, but both of us had to show an ID before we were allowed to vote.
I didn't notice anything strange going on at the polling place. There could have been, though, because at the urging of the NAACP, the U.N.'s Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) announced it would be sending international poll monitors to monitor the voting in states that have recently tried to implemented voter ID laws.
The other breaking news (just in time for this election) is some Baptist organizations have removed Mormonism from their lists of cults. But it appears they may have added progressive Democrats to the list.
After Nov. 6, Romney and Ryan will rumble or the country will be led by Barack and laughin' Joe as an Obama nation for another four years. Either way, there's still 40 miles of bad road up ahead of us. We're not gonna get out of this mess without some pain.
There may have been some good reasons to vote for Barack Obama the first time. But four years, 36 czars, nearly 20 paid vacations and a hundred and eleven executive orders later, Barack Obama's community organizing skills have the populace organized into hyphenated American cliques, engaged in class warfare and the country six trillion deeper in debt and held in diminished regard throughout the world.
With few exceptions, the press continues fawning over the man. Some claim the press has an unfair bias. Surprise surprise! That part in the Constitution about freedom of the press doesn't even mention the word "fair."
Any medium that reports news is part of that thing called the press. Television news is part of it, as is this weekly newspaper. It's a fact that opinions free of judgment are dang nigh impossible. But what really chaps the cheeks of most folks is reporters and writers passing off personal opinions as scripture with "we" rolling off their tongues as if they're speaking for legions of mutes.
Calling the second debate a debate was a joke. Connect the dots. Candy Crowley, CNN White House correspondent, is the moderator. Candy Crowley picks the questions and knows the question about the Libya attack is coming. She has the Rose Garden transcripts handy for fact checking. What the Sept. 11 attacks on the American embassy in Libya has brought to the surface is collusion and institutionalized coordinated lying at the upper level of government.
It's only my opinion, but President Obama won't win re-election if the campaign is about his foreign policy. He won't win re-election if the campaign is about his domestic policy. He has to make this election about who cares for women the most or who feels the pain of the "disenfranchised" the most. I believe he wants to make it about a rock star from the 'hood against an out-of-touch capitalist born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
What is a mystery is how the populace can all be looking at the same thing and half will see it one way and the other half will see it totally different. Like the story of folks trying to figure out the height of a flagpole. Some thought unbolting the flagpole at the base, laying it down and measuring it was the way to go. Others said it wouldn't work 'cause they needed to know how tall it is; not how long it was.
As for my vote? I'm a libertarian, but I didn't vote for Gary Johnson for president. That would've been like voting for Ross Perot again. I voted for Charlton Heston.
Ken Byler is a Star columnist, an author and an artist. Email him at kbyler@tx.rr.com
This presidential election has been cast as a choice of biblical proportions. Like in the Cecil B DeMille movie "Ben Hur," folks can choose between another four years under the leadership of Edward G. Robinson or go with the new guy, Charlton Heston.
For the first time since I've been old enough to vote, I voted early. It was on the same day that President Obama also voted early. He voted in Chicago and I voted in Allen, but both of us had to show an ID before we were allowed to vote.
I didn't notice anything strange going on at the polling place. There could have been, though, because at the urging of the NAACP, the U.N.'s Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) announced it would be sending international poll monitors to monitor the voting in states that have recently tried to implemented voter ID laws.
The other breaking news (just in time for this election) is some Baptist organizations have removed Mormonism from their lists of cults. But it appears they may have added progressive Democrats to the list.
After Nov. 6, Romney and Ryan will rumble or the country will be led by Barack and laughin' Joe as an Obama nation for another four years. Either way, there's still 40 miles of bad road up ahead of us. We're not gonna get out of this mess without some pain.
There may have been some good reasons to vote for Barack Obama the first time. But four years, 36 czars, nearly 20 paid vacations and a hundred and eleven executive orders later, Barack Obama's community organizing skills have the populace organized into hyphenated American cliques, engaged in class warfare and the country six trillion deeper in debt and held in diminished regard throughout the world.
With few exceptions, the press continues fawning over the man. Some claim the press has an unfair bias. Surprise surprise! That part in the Constitution about freedom of the press doesn't even mention the word "fair."
Any medium that reports news is part of that thing called the press. Television news is part of it, as is this weekly newspaper. It's a fact that opinions free of judgment are dang nigh impossible. But what really chaps the cheeks of most folks is reporters and writers passing off personal opinions as scripture with "we" rolling off their tongues as if they're speaking for legions of mutes.
Calling the second debate a debate was a joke. Connect the dots. Candy Crowley, CNN White House correspondent, is the moderator. Candy Crowley picks the questions and knows the question about the Libya attack is coming. She has the Rose Garden transcripts handy for fact checking. What the Sept. 11 attacks on the American embassy in Libya has brought to the surface is collusion and institutionalized coordinated lying at the upper level of government.
It's only my opinion, but President Obama won't win re-election if the campaign is about his foreign policy. He won't win re-election if the campaign is about his domestic policy. He has to make this election about who cares for women the most or who feels the pain of the "disenfranchised" the most. I believe he wants to make it about a rock star from the 'hood against an out-of-touch capitalist born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
What is a mystery is how the populace can all be looking at the same thing and half will see it one way and the other half will see it totally different. Like the story of folks trying to figure out the height of a flagpole. Some thought unbolting the flagpole at the base, laying it down and measuring it was the way to go. Others said it wouldn't work 'cause they needed to know how tall it is; not how long it was.
As for my vote? I'm a libertarian, but I didn't vote for Gary Johnson for president. That would've been like voting for Ross Perot again. I voted for Charlton Heston.
Ken Byler is a Star columnist, an author and an artist. Email him at kbyler@tx.rr.com
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