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Old Timer Chronicle
On The Obamathon Perch
by Cloyd Campfire
September 2008
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It was around midnight when Davy Crockett Reincarnated finished writing another editorial for the mysterious Old Timer Chronicle.
He’d written this latest masterpiece under the full moon, the light of which was awesome outside the old Anasazi Indian cliff-dwelling in which he was presently living. This crumbly abode of Davy’s was located up a rocky secret passage of the Mogollon Rim, not too far from the little city of Prescott, which we all know is in Arizona. Davy had, days earlier, re-Christened this ledge, The Obamathon Perch.
It was a chilly, but not too chilly, September night. Hordes of happy crickets sang all around the weary editor. He sighed and stood up, obnoxiously cleared his throat, and to his many little cricket friends, which quieted down by and by, he recited his latest pontification thusly:
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…..“I, poor little bum, don’t want to talk foul of John McCain, a serious man, a senator, perhaps the next president of this heaving, shifting, rolling-over nation of ours. But under McCain’s calm veneer is a madman areek with vengeance induced by five & a half embittered years in a North Vietnam POW camp. His yearning for vengeance knows no bounds ~ a vengeance against his own fate, his fate being ~
“Loser.
“Too insanely eager to prove that he can win wars, he’ll most likely start World War III and lose it, if he’s allowed inside the White House. In trying to win the unwinnable, he’ll restart the military draft, and for the likes of yours truly, he’s likely to open detention centers. And, of course, admittidly knowing little about economics, he’ll wipe-out the economy if his Republican co-heart, Bush, hasn’t already done so.
“Meanwhile, a younger man, just as serious and more profound, also a senator, Barrack Obama ~ he taught the American Constitution for the same amount of time McCain spent in a POW prison camp. Obama believes in us, all of us, and not just as wage-earners for the rich. And he believes in the American Constitution, as a living document not to be shredded, inside of which smolders the Bill Of Rights, which in turn embraces the right to assemble, to not suffer unreasonable searches, and to bear guns. With logic and reason, trained and refined ~ with an impeccable sense of judgement and uncanny fairness ~ he will seek, not to expand war or wage more war, but to avoid it, and search for, instead, via diplomacy and more diplomacy, peaceful solutions. Not that he’ll back down when a bomb must be lobbed or troops must be sent, but he will chase down peace with strength, without embittered vengeance in his heart or embittered madness in his brain like Old McCain!
“Obama also represents the next generation, not to mention a new direction. If you want to energize America, get the younger folks back into the fold & back them with whatever wisdom you can muster. Is an old fart like McCain going to inspire anybody with his war lust? All he’ll inspire is bringing back a military draft. Then we can have young draft-dodgers again. Won’t that be fun!
“And when McCain & his money-bloated fat-cat Republican backers & their brainless minions tell you Obama will raise taxes ~ remember they’re only telling you half the truth. The other half of the truth is, yes, Obama will raise taxes for the obscenely rich ~ and for nobody else. That’s the whole truth.
“Finally, one more thought, please. What happens if 72-year-old McCain gets into the White House and dies? He’s pretty old, stumbling around, stuttering, a mysterious baseball stuck in his cheek. What if he dies? Think about it. Think real hard about it. Or don’t think about it at all. Just send the young folks off to an expanded war led by his vice-presidential nominee ~ Sarah Barracuda.
“I can’t stop thinking about it. Lord help me. Are John McCain & Sarah Palin really going to bring ~ change? This is the current ~ slogan? Well, I’m laughing now. McCain & Palin might bring change ~ if the American people are beguiled enough to let them sneek into the White House. But the change these two bring won’t be very pretty. Nobody will be laughing then ~ except the defense-industry CEOs on their way to the bank ~ if the bank is still there.
“On the other hand, I don’t want to coddle Mr. McCain because of his long agonizing & fruitless Vietnam War experience. I presume he is as much a “victim” of war as well as a “hero.” This is one reason why I fear that, if elected president, his immediate reaction to every foriegn policy crises will be, ‘This is World War III. Send in the troops.’
“I just don’t want him at the helm of my nation, leading us into quagmire after quagmire across the globe, wiping-out our economy, blowing-up & charring the babies in other nations because he wants to prove America can win wars that nobody wins.
“What I would like to see is another surplus like we saw at the end of the Clinton/Gore Democratic administration back in the 90s. But I suppose the sleepwalking people of this embattled democracy of ours will elect McCain, another Republican, as U.S. President because, Good Lord, we don’t want a black man in the White House! After all, Good Lord, the black folks might be uplifted by such an occurance. We don’t want them running away with opportunities to serve their country, proving their metal over and over again, adding to our historical botique of heroes. And they will ~ if allowed.
“Shed thy bigotry like dried-up lizard skin ~ vote for Obama. Uplift thyself & the black folks too. Give back to the poor folks what the rich folks have been stealing from them for the last 8 years ~ real wages, real jobs, reasonable rent, real milk for their babies ~ and New Orleans! Make Obama the man ~ and boot the Republican ass out the White House door!”
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When the eternal settler & cranky old editor finished reciting his story under the blazing full moon (quite a reading lamp out thar) ~ one cricket suprizingly yelled forth, “That’s all poppycock. I’m voting for McCain!”
“What the…” muttered Davy Crockett Reincarnated.
And then that unreasonable cricket leaped off the earthin ledge into the gaping darkness below. And, what’s worse, all the other crickets, damn bugs, swarmed after him, screaming & hollering, “Me too! Me too!”
And then, and then, quiet reigned.
“Nobody’s going to believe this,” muttered Davy. He carefully stepped over next to the edge of the Obamathon Perch ~ peered over ~ saw nothing but, that’s right, gaping darkness ~ the end of all his little cricket friends.
Except one.
One lone little female. Later that night, Colonel Crockett could hear her small sorrowful lament as he drifted in and out of sleep & tossed & turned.
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Old Timer Chronicle I 