Fables are funny things. Very often they tell us truths simple facts and stats cannot fully convey. Consider some of the big ones: Eden...The Red Sea...King Arthur...Valley Forge...the Kardashians. Ahhh, but this is an American election year. Thus the fables tumble out like political Topsy's.
How to find this year's grandest political fable...? As Lewis Carroll put it: "If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there." So shall we take the nearest yellow brick road on the way to our nation's White House. As great economic and social issues lie in wait, each of the eager political seekers are wrapped in all kinds of phantasmagoric public images via the media.
Some images self-created; some created by their paid minions; still others by their worst rivals. Usually, though, not a single image represents the true man. Or his true agenda. Which, dear voter, makes for a colorful fable, but one helluva of lousy way to pick a president.
Newt...? either rolly-polly visionary or backroom viper! Romney...? business magician or mannequin from Massachusetts! Santorum...? noble Christian knight or crazy corpse-in-the-living-room zealot! Ron Paul...? Kris Kringle of our old American ways or nutty uncle from the attic! Then there's that complex otherness already in the White House...? either obstructed Messiah or Kenyan Muslim trying to make us another failed European socialist state!
Tally these phantasmagoric election year images, and the score comes out: WHAT...?? That's right, dear voter, we're traveling this yellow brick road toward an Emerald City whose Wizard we are being asked to choose from among candidates who have each been spun out of hyped cotton candy.
Will the real candidates please stand up...? Wherever you're hiding....!
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