I'll Take Sanity -- and Make It a Double.

Well, I hope you have enjoyed the hiatus as much as I have. I will no doubt get around to what I consider Grave Issues soon enough, but for today I have only the following lament, regarding the presidential primaries thus far:

It is, as is frequently the case, that people are idiots. Women vote for Clinton, African-Americans vote for Obama, people who like Chuck Norris support Huckabee, fundamentalists are scared of Romney because he's not their type of fundamentalist, and people under sixty are scared of McCain due to his age.

All of it boggles my admittedly weak mind: it has never occurred to me that the paramount considerations in my deliberations about candidates' suitability for the job should center around selecting the person who looked most like me, wore the same sort of undergarments as me, observed the same rites, or had a similar background. I for one don't care in the slightest if the winner is someone with whom I fancy I would enjoy riveting conversation over a glass of wine (or, in the case of Huckabee and Romney, over root-beer floats at the ice-cream parlor). (And, of course, in the case of John Edwards, pin-shaped bottles of domestic beer at the bowling alley on Rock-n-Bowl Nite.)

After all, this isn't an election for Student Body President. It is, or at least should be, a quite serious decision. We have seen the sorts of things that can go wrong. And yet, for the position of Commander-in-Chief of the sole (for now) remaining superpower, Baptists are voting for the Baptist, Mormons are voting for the Mormon, and people with wombs are voting for the Mom in the group. The job is so much larger than Roe v. Wade, creationism, or immigration; it has an enormous international, and diplomatic (well, ideally) component, as well, for but one example, and yet it seems the bulk of the populace is treating it with approximately the same level of deliberation, soberness, maturity and dispassion as would be required in deciding which of the Village People is their favorite, or whether Angelina Jolie or Gwen Stefani is hotter.

I realize the field will be narrowed later, but if it is narrowed by these sorts of emotional, juvenile, fatuous decisions, we will deserve whatever we get -- and that four years could be even longer than the last eight.