Vote Maher-Stewart in 2008
Bill Maher, meet Jon Stewart.
Okay, they’ve already met, I’m sure.
And they share overlapping public mindspace: socially conscious comedians not afraid to mock the powers-that-be. In recent years, their biting, belly-laugh inducing commentaries on Bush & Company have sustained more than a few of us in the dark years of War, Katrina, and Rigged Elections.
For example, today’s HuffPo piece by Maher was music to my ears:
As documented in this incisive Washington Monthly article by Art Levine, after 9/11 the Environmental Protection Agency looked at chemical plants across the U.S. and concluded that at least 700 sites posed a potential threat to kill or injure over 100,000 people if attacked. In neocon math, that’s over thirty 9/11s.
After nearly a year’s worth of work led by Christie Todd Whitman and Tom Ridge, twelve senior Bush administration officials met in March of 2003 to finalize legislation granting Whitman’s EPA the authority to oversee chemical plant security and require them to submit plans for lowering their risks. But then Philip Perry, at that time the general counsel for the White House Office of Management and Budget, waltzed in, said Congress would never go for it, and the deal was dead. Our chemical plants would have to go back to being protected by the same folks who protected them before: nobody.
Maher exposing another corporate shill in this Republican administration.
I’m writing today to declare the fictitious (unfortunately) new hope for better government, running for President on an independant ticket in 2008, Bill Maher and Jon Stewart!
I’m only 1/3 joking; I would love to see how these intelligent, funny, real guys would step up to the high responsibilities of the executive branch. I happen to believe in the Jefferson’s ideal of the possibilities for greatness in “We, The People.” I trust that when The People are faced with hard realities or diplomatic crisis, leaders from among us could make the right calls much more reliably than all the corporate-owned politicians in D.C., of either party.
I honestly feel the need for an alternative to Red and Blue. We’ve had actors win the presidency, and university presidents, and peanut farmers, and generals, and even the occasional politician who actually remembered The People by the time he ended his odyssey to the presidency. I don’t criticize anyone for playing politics; it’s the language, the culture of government when conducted by human beings. It’s part of the reality leaders must master if they will be successful leaders.
But I also reject any notion that politics per se corrupts anyone forced to play those kinds of games. Jesus himself was a wise leader of people coping with the corruption in the Jewish priesthood, the Sanhedrin council, and the local synagogues he visited. His followers even received advice on how to handle the delicate politics of living with Roman overlords (render to Caesar what is Caesar’s; if they ask you to carry their gear one mile, go an extra mile in order to foster good will).
Honest representation of The People requires a healthy mix of unbending integrity and political savvy. Those traits are not difficult to find in this country; every town has, I’m sure, at least a dozen men and women qualified to share leadership responsibilities, even at the highest levels such as President, Vice-President, and members of the Cabinet.
If this past 7 years has taught us anything it has demonstrated that even the most un-savvy corporate-owned Yale flunky draft-evader can sit atop the Executive Branch, surrounded by men and women without integrity, and avoid completely destroying the nation.
If our smirking chimp-in-chief can do it, Maher and Stewart (or your local mayor, or the guy down the street, or you) could do it, too.