It shouldn’t be that much of an embarrassment to lose a U.S. presidential election. After all, you made it to the top of the ticket in one of the two major parties in the most powerful country on Earth (at least for now).
Yet, if you judge by the post-defeat activities of Al Gore and John Kerry, you wold think their losses were a personal disaster of untold proportions that had to be made up for in some monumental manner that would cement their (positive) reputations into posterity. Call it Extreme Narcissism Deficit Disorder (ENDD). And the closer the election, the more severe the symptoms.
These days, both men’s compulsive need to make their mark against all odds are highly on display — and very much to all of our detriments.
The more ludicrous example — when the wind chill factor is approaching record lows of minus fifty and a group of so-called climate scientists have been stuck in Antarctic ice for weeks with much of the MSM trying desperately to hide that they were there to investigate global warming in the first place — is Mr. Gore’s determination to insist that anthropogenic global warming is settled science, that the the world must stop everything it’s doing and devote its scant economic resources to preventing this looming catastrophe (not to mention filling Mr. Gore’s bank account). Only an imbecile, a corrupt UN diplomat, a New York Times or Guardian reporter, or a scientist on the dole could believe that.
Scratch that. A number of members of Congress plus our president seem to sort of believe it too. Actually, I think they’re pretending. Most of them don’t have the scientific background to have an opinion anyway. (It would be amusing to stand up in Congress and ask how many could define the Second Law of Thermodynamics — high school physics. Would anyone bet the number of correct answers would top ten percent?) Nevertheless, they have “considered” opinions on global warming or climate change or whatever term is au courant (stormy weather?). Many say it’s perilous and pay lip service to its gravity to appease the likes of pothead environmentalists in Humboldt County who flunked seventh grade math. They’re voters, aren’t they? It really is as ridiculous as that.
Fortunately, fewer people are taking Gore seriously now. He didn’t even have the courage of his own convictions to make a small bet on his blowhard pronouncements.
The bigger problem is the other presidential loser who, also at this moment in time, is wielding a much greater influence in the world, thanks to our president — John Kerry. The nonsensical and actually inscrutable Obama foreign policy from Clinton through Kerry has taken our country — and the world — from bad to worse. But an announcement from Mr. Kerry today trumped all.
Today our secretary of State informed us that one of the countries at the table at the Syria peace talks this month might be… Iran.
Yes, you read that correctly, the Islamic Republic of Iran, not Israel, that happens to be a neighbor of Syria and our ally. The Jewish state, although it has saved numerous wounded Syrians, is not to be trusted in such a situation. That’s the same Iran that has been upgrading their nuclear enrichment facilities nonstop since the supposed agreement and that is now enjoying an, albeit minor, economic boom because of the loosening of sanctions.
Talk about dismissing your friends while rewarding your enemies. Neville Chamberlain had nothing on John Kerry. In fact, when Chamberlain appeased Hitler at least Germany had a more powerful war machine than England. These days the U.S. is still by far the strongest military on the planet and yet Kerry behaves as he does. Go figure.
That’s leaving aside all the other foreign policy botches too numerous to mention. (Has there been a success?) So I have a suggestion. Next time we have a presidential election, let’s give the loser an immediate prize so he doesn’t feel bad. It’s unfortunate we can’t give him the Nobel, but something else. We can make something up, but it has to be grand, like an Oscar but two or three times as large. Coronate him if we have to. Do anything for the loser, just so he doesn’t feel bad and leaves us alone. That way we don’t have to deal with the fruits of his ENDD.
By the way, it’s worth noting one presidential loser who has broken this rule and behaved most graciously in the case of Melissa Harris-Perry: Mitt Romney. (Maybe what we’re seeing is he shouldn’t have been a loser. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of America is feeling that way right now.)
UPDATE: Evidently the Iranians have said “no” to Kerry regarding their participation in Syrian peace talks.
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