A petty bit of writing

I don't like "Son of Swan." I dislike him for reasons both trivial and substantial. I'll offer reasons from each category, starting with the petty one.

Attacks on people based on appearance and unsubstantiated character assassination ARE petty, and not particularly humorous.
Swanson "doesn't like" Hillary Clinton's face. She has "perky little squirrel cheeks." Her supporters are loud and their attraction to such an unattractive person suggests they are tasteless and superficial. Clinton is "rude, loud, unattractive... What is there to like about this woman, sharp pantsuits notwithstanding?"

What has anyone actually learned here about Hillary Clinton, about her policies, about why she should or should not assume the prerogatives of the most powerful person in the world?

And yet there is a clear conclusion to be drawn about character and depth: so far, Swanson has shown he is woefully bereft of both - precisely because he thinks what is merely "trivial" and "shallow" to him is cute and folksy, rather than spiteful and mean.

But Swanson has found Clinton out in what he calls a "flat and provable" lie - and perhaps this weighty matter will somehow justify the fierce fluff with which he opens and closes his screed.

Well, no crime he could catch her at would really justify the pettiness of assaults on Clinton's wardrobe or of presumptions that she is somehow using gender to qualify herself for the presidency.

That would be stupid indeed, Son of Swan. There are women still living who when young were deprived the franchise. Perhaps we should take the garbled prose literally: "Does (being born without a Y chromosome) qualify our former first lady to lead us? Of course not. That would be stupid." Res ipsa loquitur.

She's a LIAR, though. Swanson spends quite a bit of time proving this "flat fact" by elaborating, in paragraph after vicious paragraph, first on the story Clinton told of dodging sniper fire in Bosnia, and then on the absurd spin she gave that story when it was demonstrated to be false.

Granted, this episode grated. My wish is for a president who doesn't need to obsess on the "Rambo" credential. We've had that for seven years now.

Ultimately it is a species of fear-mongering; it causes an "ends justify any means" arrogance that has made all of us very much meaner than we can justify.

We may insist that our president worship the Prince of Peace, but we seem in fact to venerate Jack Bauer's ethics. There is a difference.

The point I want Swanson to hear, though, is that every candidate left in this race has lied. Flat out and provable. Obama had to have known far more about Rev. Wright's beliefs than he would now like us to believe. McCain courted the endorsement of Rev. Hagee (http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/the_mccainhagee_connection_1.php).

Both candidates so "DESPERATELY" want to rule this country that their actions mirror Clinton's exactly: ignore facts contrary to self-interest, and then spin like crazy when the facts come out.

Self-aggrandizement and dissembling are not the exclusive purview of Clinton; either Son of Swan knows this and is simply and cynically hating the candidate safest to hate around here, or he truly thinks his dislike of the shape of a woman's face trumps, say, the fact that she excelled at Wellesley and Yale.

Son of Swan says, "I can't answer why she's still in this race." Son of Swan cannot even coherently say that he is baffled. So I won't read him again.

But he, like Hillary Clinton, is, "in fact, human." And that is all the reason I need not to hate him.

David Newman
Odessa