These Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days

Last night I penned a column on whether or not Duncan Hunter wants to shoot wildebeests. Earlier I posted a picture of my basset hound. This morning I began my morning ritual of screening the headlines of Google Political News and the hot topics on Memeorandum, while flipping back and forth between Morning Joe, CNN Headline News and Fox News, and found myself totally uninspired to write about anything I saw. What happened? It’s the summer political doldrums when we plunge to the lowest depths of the silly season.

We know who the candidates are. We’ve heard them speak on virtually every subject imaginable by this point. There is still over a month until the conventions (where we will be treated to the most highly groomed, predictable speeches of the year in front of pre-positioned and carefully screened audiences) and there’s nothing coming up except the process of selecting the person who will attend weddings, funerals and bridge openings. In our desperation to have something - anything - to talk about, we begin to obsess over and attempt to build outrage in response to the most tedious of things. Every word by each candidate and their army of surrogates is parsed to the n’th degree. The smallest slip-up by Obama becomes part of the gaffe machine. Should McCain misfire on some Trivial Pursuit question from the 90’s, it is clear evidence of his failing mental faculties.

We should all be thankful that we don’t have legions of reporters and bloggers following us around 24/7 checking on every single thing we do and say, or even the look on our faces. Who among us doesn’t forget something or get a fact wrong here and there? What venue was chosen for Obama’s speech in Germany, and what can we draw from the “symbolism” of the site to infer that he’s too inexperienced, unqualified or just plain stupid to lead the nation? McCain said something about Czechoslovakia. This is obvious proof that he’s in the final stages of dementia and shouldn’t be allowed to run a lawn mower, say nothing of a nation! Let’s Google every utterance, and should a candidate say anything different from a previously held opinion or position… Flip Flopper! McCain was against the Bush tax cuts before he was for them. Obama opposed the D.C. gun ban but now he supports the second amendment? STOP THE PRESSES!

Here’s a thought for you to consider. It’s the middle of July. Let’s go outside and see if the lawn needs mowing. Have any of you gone to see The Dark Knight yet? Is it really as good as all the hype led us to expect? A hurricane is drenching Texas right now. I wonder if everybody is ok? For that matter, a big earthquake just rocked Japan. Wow, those plate tectonics can be cruel, can’t they?

I’ll drag myself back to the political minutia soon enough, good readers, fear not. But for the moment I just needed to step back and get some perspective. So many of these stories are simply not stories. But look on the bright side! On Nov. 6 of this year we can all start working on the 2012 presidential election.