Dennis and the U.F.O

Sorry for dredging up old news here, but I carry a Dennis Kucinich button on my manpurse. Today as I was leaving Barnes & Noble the lady behind me on the escalator said "Did you know your Mr. Kucinich thinks he saw a U.F.O.?"

My response was "yes, but most of the other candidates think they hear the voice of God in their head, so what's the difference?"

She didn't have an answer.

Ha! No kidding. And I doubt the space travelers in the UFO would direct his foreign policy decision making either.

Speaking as someone who has lived in the Cleveland area all my life, I think Dennis is a space alien.

I'm not arguing that he's different. Sometimes in his speeches he sort of shifts into 'wild-eyed preacher' mode. Nonetheless I agree with his views more than the other candidates. He comes off as much less corprate than any of the big name liberal guys.

The whole U.F.O. angle has ticked me off from the beginning. Just because he saw an flying object that he could not identify doesn't mean he's claiming the the grays abduct people for anal probes.

And at least U.F.O.s have some credibility. Not alien ships, I mean people see stuff in the sky all the time they can't identify. Ball lightning, Earth lights, an unidentified (or misidentified) aircraft, whatever.

But the media got this snide attitude. As if that claim trumped what he stands for. Yet nobody would take Mit or George or any other candidate to task for believing a voice in his head is the Creator.

Religion is just as crazy a belief as U.F.O.s or Atlantis. Just more people have religious beliefs. And as Dodger said, at least the grays wouldn't inform his decision about whether to invade a foreign country, unlike those 'voices in the head'.

I'm totally with you on the religion thing, jseger9000. And when I take those silly online tests, my political beliefs actually match up most closely with Dennis'. But I have been following his political career since he was the "boy wonder" mayor of Cleveland, and there is something about him that I deeply dislike and distrust.

I supported Kucinich in the primaries in '04, and while he was the Democrat who matched up most closely with my politics, I wasn't comfortable with what seemed to me his aggressive and confrontational personality.

I also wasn't comfortable joining the Democratic Party, as I had to in order to vote for Kucinich in the primary. It was actually this that led me to join the Socialist Party, which had its own presidential candidate.

In fact, for historical reasons, the SP holds its presidential nominating convention in the fall of the year before the election, which means that we have already nominated our 2008 presidential ticket -- Brian Moore of Florida and Stewart Alexander of California. Kucinich supporters out there may want to keep Moore and Alexander in the back of your minds for when Dennis loses in the primaries -- our politics are probably closer to his than will be those of whoever the Democrats end up nominating.

The UFO thing doesn't really bother me, as long as Kucinich doesn't claim the thing was an alien spacecraft (as I imagine many commentators assume any "UFO" must be). There's a nice story in Voodoo Science about the time the author, physicist Robert L. Park, saw a UFO in 1954 while stationed at Walker Air Force base in Roswell, New Mexico -- it turned out to be his car headlights reflecting off of a power line at the side of the road. It's a cute story, and only a couple of pages long, so if you want to read it (even after I gave away the punchline), you can just search for "Roswell" inside the book at Amazon.com.

What I want to know is what what moderator Tim Russert was thinking when he decided to ask the question in the first place. It's like... "Diamonds or pearls?" Do we really need to know?

The most pathetic thing about this slew of Democrats vying it out for the lead is that not one of them even comes close to matching my convictions as Dennis Kucinich does.

I am so sick and tired of the front-runners who don't really have any objective except to win.

Lunar,

That's exactly what I was thinking! It was like Tim Russert was just trying to kill his candidacy once and for all by bringing up the U.F.O. story.

It's a shame the way our government has let media companies grow so powerful that for all intents and purposes those companies now choose our candidates.

An outsider like Kucinich will almost never have a ghost of a chance anymore.

And thank goodness Kucinich doesn't have a chance. He's just a leftist Dubya - he is no more willing to listen to other points of view, or engage in constructive discussion and negotiation, than is Bush. They are both "true believers" who do not understand the art of governance when it conflicts with their rigid ideologies.

Oh, I don't know about that. Kucinich might be relatively rigid on other points of view (show me a politician who really isn't...) but he doesn't have a whole army of "neo-libs" whispering in his ear like Bush does and the neo-cons.

Yet.

Wait till he's close to being elected. And then guess whether its a new army of neo-libs or the same army of neo-cons who does the whispering in his (or whoever's) ear.

might be relatively rigid on other points of view (show me a politician who really isn't...)

Dems:
Bill Clinton
Barack Obama
Lyndon B. Johnson

Dose: (I mean Reps!)
Arlen Spector
Orrin Hatch
John McCain

To name a few.

Politics is the art of compromise, and most politicians who have been in legislative leadership positions know that, and act accordingly. Granted, there are some, such as Newt Gingrich, who don't, but they are the minority.

McCain lost me (not that he ever had me) by spending so much time pandering to the Christian Right a year or so ago.

I see Newt says people are sick of the partisanship that is tearing us apart. I find that interesting since he is the father of most of the techniques that have driven us apart.

I see Newt says people are sick of the partisanship that is tearing us apart. I find that interesting since he is the father of most of the techniques that have driven us apart. Here, here!

How sad is it that I can wax nostalgic about the days when Republicans were like Newt?