Tuesday Politics & Tax Stuff

Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2008 - 12:25 a.m.

Yesterday, John sent our tax paperwork to the Really Spiffy Tax Guy. RSTG called John with the news that yes, we'd taken quite a beating in our stock selloff because of the bloodbath John's company faced a few years back, courtesy of the tactics of a fellow named Eliot Spitzer, who really really deserves to get a boil on his maple bar, but that's a post in and of itself for another time. I keep thinking he's not the person he pretends to be; as if somewhere out there, he has a hidden boyfriend or a studio apartment full of bondage gear.

Anyway -- Really Spiffy Tax Guy gave John some figures that I thought I'd dreamed John had texted me. I actually asked John if he'd sent that ping, and he told me to go and look -- and there it was.

We've never actually had a third party do the Eagle Squeeze for us before, so to have a return coming to us that will be approximately double what we usually see is really stunning.

But in the nicest way.

Thanks, John, for having Spiff do it.

And thanks to Spiff. Un Blooping Believable.

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Now then. On a rare non primary Tuesday, I'm going to get political on you.

Turn away now, if you don't want to have to be exposed to it today.

Okay -- if you're still with me -- here goes.

I have decided to vote for Barack Obama and I made this decision many weeks before Hillary really began playing dirty.

Let me tell you why. (And yes, this is adapted from a post I made in my MySpace blog about a week or so ago, so it might look a little familiar to the double-dippers.)

I have no idea if the man will get into office, but I'm going to stay the course anyway, because between the two democratic candidates, I sat down and thought about who was going to be the best leader as far as the rest of the world was concerned. As you know too well, most Americans just don't know or care about the fact that there's a 'rest of the world' out there to be considered, but this time around, I'm doing my best to do that very thing.

My thinking on a world level is thus: There are two choices we're faced with.

Will the USA have a bigger advantage worldwide if we elect a woman who tends to develop amnesia while under oath, and whom a significant portion of the world's Middle Eastern leadership thinks it's a sin to touch or even interact with because of her gender?

Or would we be better off with an African-American man in office who has an intimate knowledge of Islam? (Yes, I know he's Christian; nobody send me the spam, please. But he did receive an education in the teachings.)

I'm up a bit of an estuary as far as domestic interests go; my assumption as far as that goes is that if Dubya has managed to surround himself with enough of the right 'people' to pull off this job for eight years, I think either Clinton or Obama will be able to as well. I think there's enough of a system of checks and balances existing in our government already and that whoever does take office won't get in over their head too deeply.

There's another factor here that's been an elephant sitting on the table, but I'm going to go ahead and bring it up -- and that's the fact that Obama is African-American. If this makes me a racist or a sexist, deliberately wanting an African-American man in office, fine, what EV ah, but here's my thinking on this: If an African-American man who came from a divided household and messed around with drugs in his youth can make the conscious decision to get his shit together and eventually become President, won't that be something of an inspiration and epiphany for the disenfranchised African-American young men of this country who might come from similar circumstances?

The alternative choice for inspiring the youth of America, especially the young women, is to elect a woman whose husband chose to have one of the most self-destructive personal lives in the history of the White House -- a man whom this woman chose to stay with in spite of everything.

If Hillary Clinton is so utterly focused on her career that she's willing to trade it for her integrity?

Sorry. That doesn't wash with me if she's going to be an example for tomorrow's women.

And what the fuck is this with the pettiness and crying? "There's no CRYING in POLITICS!"

Jesus jumped up fiddling, I'd rather not have somebody in office who is going to have a snivelling breakdown every time she chips a nail.

Anyway, that's what I'm gonna do, and why. Make of this what you will.

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Okay, done. Have a good Tuesday.

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