The Real Scandals
by Michael Arvey
Heavens, another sex scandal smear job--this time on presidential contender John Kerry. Are we in shock yet?
The reports are contradictory, so nothing out of the norm there. In one, Kerry is rumored to have had an affair with a younger woman, 27-year-old journalist Alexandria Polier. In another, the woman (and her parents) disputes the claim in a statement to AP: "I have never had a relationship with Senator Kerry, and the rumors in the press are completely false." Polier is presently in Nairobi visiting the parents of her Israeli fiance, Yaron Schwartzman, who was raised in Kenya. Another report claims the woman taped a damning interview last December for a national television network. Whom to believe? More importantly, who would possibly care? Europeans laugh at such ludicrous moral relativism paraded across the American political stage. If the truth be known, probably a majority of Americans laugh as well. Shall we poll?
Nevertheless, whether Kerry did or didn't consummate such bedroom antics, it remains a so-what scenario, another pathetic diversion from where the light should be falling. Will the right wing ever fashion an outrage more seminal than their standardized affair cliche? It's a fake-out rhubarb, and so 50s.
Simple and more immediate concerns and truths won't go away, however:
Affairs don't bomb and nuke innocent populations with DU weapons of mass destruction;
don't steal their national treasuries, or privatize entire nations by crony capitalism;
don't ruin and run roughshod over environments, otherwise known as communal living space;
don't ransack the future with immense and wasteful deficits;
don't pretend halo by association;
don't steal elections;
don't renege on international agreements and treaties;
don't use a major crime as pretext for wars and pursuits of empire;
don't butter their parsnips at the expense of the commonwealth;
don't huddle around Liberty on tap;
don't ram Constitutional stoplights;
don't revel in absurdity;
don't rule by bugaboos;
don't shock and awe;
don't launch a thousand, faceless missiles.
At a recent Democrat dinner, Kerry said, "Given the record of this administration and their stunning lack of vision, the Republican attack machine may well have no choice but to resort to smear and fear." He also added, "They can't escape the truth." In that light, I'll take the small, contained lie of an affair over the armamentarium of deceits this administration promotes, any day.
Michael Arvey spiritmed@rocketmail.com is a free lance writer and author in Colorado.
