Interrogating Presidential Candidates
A dishonest man who deals in half-truths and whose true plans and motivations aren’t known is about to get his hands on nuclear weapons. I’m speaking, of course, of the scenario for every U.S. presidential election for the past several decades.
Why are we okay with politicians lying to us? Like with Obama’s claim that his “you didn’t build that” speech was actually pro-business and Romney’s switch from the left to the right on many issues, we know they’re not being honest with us, but all we do is shrug our shoulders. Lying is so expected that the politicians don’t even try to hide it very well, because they know our reaction to being lied to will be to simply roll our eyes and say, “Oh, you rascally, untrustworthy politicians; here’s the national checkbook and some nuclear launch codes.”
This is insanity. We need to take a much more adversarial approach with our politicians. During presidential elections, there’s always a poll about which candidate people would rather have a beer with, but I wouldn’t drink with either of them out of fear that as soon as I turned my head, they’d put something in my drink. You’ve seen what these people do to our money; they’re certainly not above giving us a roofie and doing weird stuff to us while we’re unconscious. These people constantly try to trick us and are not our friends, and we need to treat them appropriately. Friends don’t lie to you, boss you around, and then spend trillions of dollars they don’t have and expect your kids to pay for their spending. Most enemies won’t even do that.
So how should we treat politicians? Well, let’s think about this logically. If you had a terrorist in custody and knew he was lying to you, would you just throw up your hands and say, “That’s just how terrorists are, God bless ‘em!”? No, you would hand that terrorist over to the CIA, and, using techniques that a man who shot his friend in the face with a shotgun thought were legally justifiable, they would get the truth out of him. Well, presidential candidates will potentially have even more destructive power than any terrorist, and we also know they are lying to us. Thus we should be determined to get the truth from them by any means necessary.
At some point during every presidential campaign, each candidate should be kidnapped in the night by the CIA and subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques. This is just common sense. Then we can finally get the full truth out of those politicians, as we’ll completely break them down and make them admit everything. No more pap about what their first one hundred days will be like — we’re going to make them tell us everything they actually will do so we can put a stop to their nefarious plans (or a start to, if we happen to agree with them politically). And a candidate will no longer be able to dance around an issue, because if he wants to stop being doused with cold water, he’d better offer more substantial answers than talking points.
And then on Election Day we’ll get to do what we have never gotten to do before: vote knowing the full truth about our candidates. Won’t we have much more confidence in a candidate’s promise not to raise taxes on the middle class if he was still singing that tune after a week of sleep deprivation? But if he instead broke and cried, “Okay! I admit it! I want to raise all their taxes! Rich, poor, middle class, children, dogs, cats, sea mammals if that’s possible — I want to tax them all!” that’s probably good to know, too. And do the candidates really support our Second Amendment rights, or are they just saying that for now because they think it’s politically necessary? Some good, old-fashioned belly slaps will help us know for sure.
Now, some people will say we shouldn’t subject presidential candidates to harsh interrogation methods like waterboarding. These people are called “politician sympathizers” and are no better than the politicians themselves. They should probably also be waterboarded to make sure they’re not hiding any politician’s secrets. Because the fact is if politicians don’t want to be slapped and put in stress positions for hours at a time, they shouldn’t lie to our faces. And if we make it clear we won’t stand for being lied to, candidates might just go ahead and tell us the truth from the start so that we might not whisk them away to Gitmo. Or they’ll at least put more effort into lying so they’re not quite so blatantly obvious about it. Really, you just suddenly “evolved” on an issue? Don’t treat us like idiots, and we won’t treat you like terrorists.
The only problem is that even if they confessed, the entire media establishment would also have to be waterboarded in order to get them to report it in the case of a Democrat. And I’m fine with that.
A better plan would be to videotape the interrogations and sell pay-per-view subscriptions with 100% of proceeds used to pay off the national debt.
“…videotape the interrogations and sell pay-per-view subscriptions with 100% of proceeds used to pay off the national debt.”
You could probably pay off the national debt with only 10% of the proceeds. Only one way to find out, I suppose
Frank,
They’re doing weird stuff to us now without even the courtesy of the roofie first. At least with the roofie, we could claim we were taken advantage of while mentally incapacitated.
I also disagree with your “kidnapped in the middle of the night” idea. How about “arrested in broad daylight and interrogated on C-Span”
PS. The MSM are all “politician sympathizers”, so let’s torture them too.
Frank,
You forgot to add summery execution if caught lying or backing out of a promise after being elected.
The American psyche has a dark side to it, and that is their affection for the outlaw. There is a place of endearment for the con man, the grifter,the anti-hero, and the first place liar’s club award. Without the villain there is no hero, and the underdog who can beat the odds through whatever projection is cheered.
That being said, a popular venue for our anti-hero to be exposed is the ever prominent and witless reality tv show. Waterboarding on C-Span wouldn’t have the ratings compared to street hucksters competing for prizes by ripping off ordinary citizens. Which used car salesmen could most sincerely sell the nastiest lemon? The exposure of which politician could sell himself in picking the most pockets would make tagging the siver tongued devil easier to recognize.
Better yet, there was the old Greek method of having the politicians swear to drink hemlock after their term in office. That would do away with presidential libraries and vagrant insincerities.
Hmmm. While the thought of Mittens or Obama being waterboarded is tempting….
I think I’d happily settle for a REAL debate, with REAL questions put to ALL candidates (not just the D&R Big Boys), with a panel watching whose sole job it is to score the answers.
NOT on whether or not they agree, but simply on the answers completeness and honesty. In other words, did the candidate answer the question, or did he duck and dodge.
Can you picture this? Obama answers a question, and 5 guys sitting up front lift up scorecards. 2, 3, 1, 4, 1
Well, actually, we wouldn’t show the scores until after the debate. Let ‘em stew!
Don’t know about doing this to candidates. On the other hand, in the interest of transparency, when an office holder is debfiefed (snicker) at the end of elected term, enhanced techniques should be fuly depoloyed to get to the bottom of some unanswered questions. (Please note this might take longer for some politicians than others.)
What a fantasy sequence: A windowless room lit by a single 40-watt bulb, with Obama immovably strapped to a steel chair and, as the interrogator’s argot goes, fully “wired for sound.” A sample of the introductory dialogue:
Waterboarding? Belly slaps? BAH!
The big problem I envision is that ALL our candidates are lying.
Unfortunately, people holding political office are a necessity. We can’t have NO office holders just because everyone who wants an office is a liar.
Still, I’d pay good money to see the interrogations. Maybe $5 for a presidental candidate, four bits for local school board people.
Sounds entertaining and all, but unfortunately the only truth that will come out of a politician is when he breaks and cries out, “What do you want me to say?”
Politicians have lied to us ever since there WERE politicians. I’m sure Cicero or Cato the Elder embellished the truth a little to defend their political arguments. Still, I wonder if ex-military men and women make the best politicians.
Throughout their careers they were taught a strict code of ethics of duty, honor, country. Pity more civilians don’t follow those same beliefs. We have had some outstanding ex-military presidents, such as Washington and Eisenhower. Then again, you had U.S. Grant, who presided over possibly the most corrupt administration there ever was. However, I don’t think Grant lied for personal gain. If he did, he would have been a lot wealthier than he was, especially in those days when politicians were incredibly corrupt. And then there was ex-Navy fighter ace Duke Cunningham, who went to jail for corruption.
Still, I think ex-military politicians at least have some ethical code of conduct and at least TRY to tell the truth. Whereas you have the Bill Clinton’s of the world who make lying an art form. On balance, I’ll stick with the military. Just another reason to vote for Allen West when he runs for president.
Eisenhower did not defend Hungary after he gave every indication that he would. At the end of WWII, Eisenhower carried out the Presidential order to return the refugees — the women and children — who were fleeing from the Baltic countries that had just been taken over by Communist Russia. General Mark Clark refused to obey that egregious order. Those actions alone disqualify him as a great President — or even a good man.
What irritates me is the fact that Congress just spent untold millions TRYING to convict Roger Clemmins of lying, and like most of ya’ll said…Congress, especially the current Administration, lies to us on a daily basis!!
Grant’s alledged corruption is overated. Certainly it has been superceeded by
Clinton and Obama.What is needed is a Corruption Index so we can make accurate
comparisons. Should we use percentage of Federal Budget,or dollar ammount in fixed dollars? HINT: The Talmud states; “The more fat, the moe worms,”
As if running for office wasn’t unpleasant enough already.
Lying? Haha. Let’s talk about drogs! Cocaine, meth, speed, painkillers. A few of them, who took drugs: Chamberlain, Hitler, Kennedy.
I wouldn’t let anybody to drive my car under drugs. Please. And they led the armys, the missles. I think, it’s a big problem too.
Sorry: drugs, and armies.
You know, way back when, employers were allowed to give employees lie-detector tests when a situation arised to call for one. Especially in embezzlement cases, a lie-detector test was given to the supsected person or parties involved which usually turned out the guilty party. But alas, the labor dept. stopped all that and the only way we can prosecute and embezzler is to catch them red handed, litterally. If we just let the general public ask the questions of our candidates on live television, I think they would eventually give up trying to be a candidate. Those stupid and ignorant folk sure have a way to put one over on you when you actually let one ask a question…
We make some “flip flops” necessary with the political system in which a politician has to please the Party’s base in order to get elected. It’s up to you to judge the seriousness of the issues. If Romney changed positions on abortion, he’s not going to change back when(hopefully) he becomes President. That’s what matters. As far as the present occupant of the White House is concerned, the information was out there as to what he really was if only people had chosen to look at it instead of listening to what they wanted to believe. Bill Ayers, Reverend Wright were enough to give a good indication of who he really was. If people choose to be ignorant, don’t blame the politicians. Furthermore, I do not for one minute believe Romney would put anything untoward in anyone’s drink — but I wouldn’t say the same for Obama. Just look at their histories.
FOX News Interviews Polish Ron Paul Supporter At Romney Event
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xiXFwalMQjc
The debates are going to be nothing but empty rhetoric and meaningless accusations thrown at each other. I propose that we move to a slap fight debate style. The candidates just stand there and trade slaps to each other in the face. The first one to cry loses.