Town Hall, Different Than 1692

This is a blog, it does not reflect the opinion of anyone, nor should anyone with anyone’s opinion be offended by the opinion of the blog, which is the opinion of no one in particular, by which I don’t mean me, and I also don’t mean the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. And while I don’t mean to implicate them in this blog, written by no one, for no one, about no one, forever and ever, Amen, I do wish to say that they sing very nice and might sing a lot better if they were rewarded with ice cold delicious Coca-Cola after a performance. It might send them to hell, but hell could use a few songbirds.
I don’t know if it is just a theme among some of the more public discourses in the country, but no one is honest about what they want to know, what they want to say, and what they want to hear. If you’re an avid subscriber to this little ditty, you’ll remember my take on weddings, and how honesty could play a much larger role in making the world a better place – it might even reduce the divorce rate because it would eliminate the following conversation:
Wife: You’ve been drinking mega-ritas with those 23 year-old whores from your office, haven’t you?
Husband: You never said I couldn’t, what’s the big deal.
Wife: Actually, if you’d like to pop in our wedding DVD, I clearly state that during our vows.
Husband: I do remember, and I do apologize. Would you care to engage in sexual intercourse?
Wife: No.
Husband: Ahh. I’m so glad we can be honest. I’ll go buy you something we can’t afford.
Wife: You know me so well.

Last night on public television, hosted and moderated by Tom Brokaw, was the second presidential debate. The debate was meant to be held “Town Hall” style which means that both candidates will answer questions posed to them by random individuals who have attended the meeting in hopes to air their grievances and to hear what their leaders are going to do about it. The debate last night was more theater-in-the-round than any kind of “Town Hall” meeting. If the precedent for town hall meetings was a list of specific questions from the internet and the executive producer of CNN, edited and re-written by a staff of professional television workers and then lobbed up like grapefruits for the two candidates to smash out of or into the park at their will all the while aiming their responses to the “folks” who were a carefully collected group of non-offensive, non-old, non-young, non-racial, non-biased, non-political friendly faces. . . if that was the 17th century precedent of a “Town Hall” then Salem would have been a lot friendlier place to live in the 1690s. As I understand it, a Town Hall Meeting should be the place where the crazy assholes in society are finally allowed to ask the questions they want to ask and it is the teeth-grinding duty of the elected official to ANSWER them despite their lunacy, accuracy or embarrassing insinuation. Let’s take a look:

Moderator: Senator McCain, you are an old man, are you not?
McCain: Yes, I am. I am quite old.
Moderator: And you are also a gambling man, often in the casinos until the early hours of the morning.
McCain: Yes, I am. I love the dice.
Moderator: The janitor here at the town hall has scribbled a question on some toilet paper, I’ll read it aloud. “The country is worried that you are old and crazy and have spent so long wanting to be president that you have forgotten what the office means and stands for. The country is worried that you are, campaign-wise, staying too long at the Presidential Craps table, trying to win the presidency by any means necessary and that adding Sarah Palin, let’s face it, a glitzy twit, might be your first public act of senility.”
McCain: And I have to answer this?
Moderator: Yes, that is the format that is chosen for the debate. Answer the janitor’s question.
McCain: It’s true, I am a maverick, my friends. My running mate is more glamorous than most women in politics and yes, she believes that the bible is written by God’s own court reporter, that the world was created in seven days and that dinosaurs lived among man in the garden of Eden where they listened to the snakes talk. But I put this to you, my friends, my little fellow Americans – is it not true that Harry Potter also talks to snakes? Are we to believe that a talking snake is impossible when one of our own pop-culture icons speaks freely with them? My tax plan for the…
Moderator: I’ll stop you right there, Senator. We don’t want to hear about your tax plan. We’re moving on. Senator Obama, you are in fact not an old white man, though you are applying for the job of one.
Obama: The rich history of the office of President of the United States has been largely Caucasian and largely older men, yes. And I am running for that office, yes.
Moderator: While Senator McCain brought on Governor Palin to serve as an idealistic opposite and a pretty party-puppet, it would seem that you brought on Joe Biden to be your “old-white-man”, is this true?
Obama: He is white, and from Delaware, and he is older, that much is true. But it is also true that he has been in the senate for over thirty years. He was first elected to the Senate when Sarah Palin was 8 years old, and he’s been on the Foreign Relations Committee since 2001, which is almost four times longer than Ms. Palin has been in the Governor’s Mansion in Alaska. Sure it says 2006, but we forget that it was December of 2006 when she was elected. To have her in the passenger seat of the office of President of the United States with only 22 months of Gubernatorial experience is reckless and political and, pardon me for saying, insane.
Moderator: Are you worried that the American people will “do it wrong” and elect a filthy rich, dice-throwing war hero who wants to bomb everyone and his pretty little friend whose foreign policy might involve a map and a set of colored darts?
Obama: Terrified.
Moderator: Us too. That concludes this Town Hall Meeting, let’s everyone go have some pie at Mabel’s Diner down the road. Best pie you’ve ever tasted.
McCain: My tax plan includes pie, my friends, it includes pie for everyone. Everyone gets a piece of the pie.
Moderator: We’ve turned your microphone off, please stop growling and jumping up and down, a man your age could break a hip. Senator Obama, would you please help Senator McCain across the street to Mabel’s Diner for some pie. He looks like he may stroke.