A Few Shiny Pebbles

Okay, I was all set for today and Super Tuesday, popcorn all ready for the microwave, statistics, probability, and permutations buzzing through my mind, when one of my brothers came in laughing, and said, in passing, “Do you know, someone on the radio just said Obama should take Al Gore as his vice-president!”

My mind boggled.

My first clear thought was that it was ridiculous to believe that Gore would ever accept anything below the presidency, and I was surprised someone had even suggested it as a possibility. My second thought was the realization that they would actually be the perfect pair, two of a kind—much like the tailors in Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, who pretended to make a lavish wardrobe.

Of course, both Obama and Gore went to Harvard, among other universities, and therefore we should expect that as a team they would move beyond the petty creation of pretense attire and go directly to a rich verbal tapestry of Utopian Splendor in the Best of All Possible Climates.

They would be far luckier than the tailors in the Emperor’s story, because in that Once Upon A Time Kingdom, people saw that there were no clothes but were afraid to admit it, having been told that anyone who couldn’t see the clothes was a fool and a rogue. It took an innocent child to open their fairy tale eyes. But Obama and Gore could be sure that they didn’t need to find a way to keep those who saw the truth silent—“Change”, “Hope”, and “Carbon Credits”, being abstractions themselves, have the flim-flam value of being invisible to begin with. No number of children—or adults, for that matter—pointing out that “there is nothing there!” would have any effect at all, as, indeed, it hasn’t.

The tailors, who merely wanted gold, would have run off and spent their ill-gotten gains on the usual wine, women, and song, and the Kingdom’s people could have gone back to their daily lives embarrassed, a little wiser, and no worse off. But Obama and Gore are after power as well as riches, and I seriously believe that Obama’s unspoken plans and Gore’s unspoken intentions would both leave people a great deal worse off. That’s why their plans and intentions are, and will remain, unspoken. That’s why they rely on the unseen and un-see-able in their current campaigns for the nomination and for Global Warming.

And I am equally certain that there could be no actual Obama/Gore ticket. They would both insist on top billing, and that’s not the way it works in elections.

Be glad.

Trackposted to Rosemary's Thoughts, Woman Honor Thyself, Right Truth, DragonLady's World, The Pink Flamingo, Big Dog's Weblog, Gulf Coast Hurricane Tracker, Right Voices, and Stageleft, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.