Bob: Well, Loretta, it seems that your party has survived the blood bath in Nevada.
Loretta: Don’t you think your rhetoric is little strong, Bob? A, “blood bath?”
Bob: No, I don’t, and yes, a I can say it again—a blood bath. You know that battle of the labor unions that went on over the caucas on Saturday, past. The Culinary Workers Union came out for Barak Obama, and the Teacher’s Union tried to stop the Culinary Worker’s Union, having the caucus at the casinos where the majority of the Culinary Workers are employed.
Loretta: Be that as it may, Bob, Hillary Clinton carried the day. Barak Obama received more delegates, so the news pundits declare, but they do not state that he received more delegates than Hillary Clinton. Some how I get the impression that there is a lack of clarity in the language, and I thought you might explain this lack to me.
Bob: Why should I? I’m a farmer. I’m not schooled in the use of language.
Loretta: Now, Bob, I seem to remember that when I met you, all those years ago, you were working on an advanced degree in Latin, and I seem to remember you, “schooling,” as you put it, our eight children on the Greek and Latin rehetoricians, or perhaps I was mistaken?
Bob: You weren’t mistaken. I did teach our children the uses of rhetoric, but I wasn’t the English teacher in this family. You were, Loretta. I’m surprised that you wouldn’t tackle this lapse of clarity, as you put it, but want to put it at my feet when it isn’t even my party.
Loretta: It is precisely because it isn’t your party that I asked for your explanation.
Bob: Honey, are you going to take up all our time with this?
Loretta: It is important, dear. If you wouldn’t mind.
Bob: Well, I do mind. I’ll be doggoned if I know what the rules, surrounding the Nevada caucuses happens to be, and I’m not about to stick my neck out, clarity or no clarity.
Loretta: Thank you, dear.
Bob: Don’t mention it. Anything else I can help you with?
Loretta: I don’t want to trouble you.
Bob: No trouble at all. Shoot.
Loretta: Well, if you are sure it won’t be a bother to you I wanted to ask you about the interview Barak Obama gave to the editorial board of the Reno Gazette Journal, regarding President Reagan. In it, Senator Obama praises Ronald Reagan and the way he corrected the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s, saying that Ronald Reagan. Precisely, he states:
“I think that Ronald Reagan changed the trajectoryof America in a way that, you know, Richard Nixon did not, in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like, you know, with all the excesses of the ‘60s and ‘70s, and, you know government had grown and grown, but there wasn’t much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating, and I think that people just tapped in…he tapped into what people were already feeling, which is we want clarity; we want optimism; we want, you know, a return to that sense of dynamism, and…uh…you know, entrepreneurship.”
What can say to clarify this, Bob?
Bob: Say? Nothing.
Loretta: Nothing, Bob?
Bob: Well, I can say this, Loretta. Clarity isn’t this candidates’ strong suit. I mean, since you asked me, let me illustrate from the junior Senator’s own mouth:
“…[W]e just had the tape. You just said that I complimented the Republican ideas. That is not true. What I said—and I will provide you with a quote {not the quote, but, ‘a’ quote}—what I said is that Ronald Reagan was a transformative political figure because he was able to get Democrats to vote against their economic interests to form a majority to push through their {isn’t that what you call a “reference error,” Loretta?}, an agenda that I objected to. Because while I was working on those streets, watching those folks see their jobs shift overseas, you were a corporate lawyer, sitting on the board at Wal-Mart.”
Senator Obama, sort of, begs the question on double speak. I can’t say fairer than that.
Loretta: I see, dear. Thank you for your trouble.
Bob: Think nothing of it, honey. By the way, do you want to clarify the Republican primary in South Carolina?
Loretta: …It was a foregone conclusion.
Bob: I see. Pretty much like Senator Obama. You know I have to say that just because a black man runs for President, does that mean he’s the right person at the right time, or the wrong person at the right time. Take the Reverend Mike Huckabee—
Loretta: Please!
Bob: Thank you, Hennietta. As I was saying, the Reverend Huckabee puts in an appearance at Ebenezer Baptist Church, the church where Reverend King pastured. Now, a white man shows up at an all black church with a significant history, in this country, on the day that this country celebrates his birth, his achievements, but the black man does not. How’s my clarity?
Loretta: I see your point. By the way, Bob, just whom are you supporting?
Bob: The sanctity of the ballot—
Loretta: Yes dear, but are you voting with your heart or your head?
Bob: Have you ever known me to vote with anything other than my head? You’re the resident bleeding heart liberal in this household, not me. What about you?
Loretta: I want to vote my heart.
Bob: That would be Dennis Kucinich, then, honey?
Loretta: The sanctity of the ballot, dear.
Bob: I suppose—
Together: See you soon.
