Are you the singing Bush?

Anybody who is paying even a minimal amount of attention to the current campaign sees something quite disconcerting and almost spine-chilling about this election. However, I cannot seem to put my finger on it. Yes – our candidates are strikingly similar in a multitude of ways, they are slinging mud at each other constantly, they are both telling half-truths that happen to support their cases, and there is far more attention to relatively inconsequential aspects of the candidates rather than to the concrete issues at hand. The only problem is that this has been going on for years, and yet, something seems different this year. Here are a few examples of what I mean:

* In the second presidential debate, Bush called Kerry “the most liberal member in Congress,” and it was universally acknowledged as a political insult of sorts, meant to invoke a calculated negative response from voters. I have two problems here. First, the fact that liberalism is now considered a political liability for Democrats seems almost eerie. Second, the notion that John Kerry is the most liberal of the liberal, though untrue, makes me physically ill.

* What’s the story with Bush trying to bash Ted Kennedy? He’s pretty much approaching townsfolk and proclaiming, “I saw Goody Kerry with the devil!”

* The whole voting record accusation thing is out of control. Uh, Bush - there's a difference between 2004 and 1979, and there's a difference between being a senator and being president. Just for the record, John Kerry voted against freedom 16 times, he voted against morality 37 times, and he voted against trust in government 78 times. Now he’s changing his position!

* Is it me, or is Bush advocating that all our nation’s problems can be solved by issuing different types of identification cards? What’s next? Issuing ID cards to children in case they get left behind? No - let's issue ID cards to terrorists.

* We currently have a Democratic nominee for the presidency that strongly supports, and indeed has centered much of his campaign platform around tax cuts, military intervention and victory, and smaller government. Adlai Stevenson is rolling over in his grave right now.

* Bush’s little sinister laugh is freaking me out. It is the perfect mixture of hilarious and downright disturbing. I must wonder if the Bush campaign focused tested that laugh. If so, who did it test positively with? Comic strip villains? The all-powerful ‘dirty old men’ voting bloc?

* Someone pointed this out to me the other day, and was surprised I had never heard it before: George Bush looks like Alfred E. Neumann. This is the funniest thing I have heard all month. I can no longer look at Bush and not see this. Thus, if re-elected, I will have as my country’s leader – the man who dictates our foreign and domestic policy and is leading us into war – Alfred E. Neumann. As Richard Pryor once said, “I went to the White House. I met Reagan. We in trouble.”

* By far the most disturbing aspect of this campaign is my personal realization that there is a part of me that finds Laura Bush attractive.