Fig 1:
She: If you do all the things you promise, you may take me to the fair.
He: Impeach!
She: If you can carry out your program, you may guide me to the show.
He: Withdraw!
She: I do applaud your noble goals, now let us see if you achieve them.
(with apologies to Lerner & Loewe)
As a Mosaic character, Dennis Kucinich has little in common physically with Chuck Heston. But the power that emanates from that little guy could, or should part the Red Sea, for crying out loud.
I'm not going to run on about Dennis. Because, I don't really think it's appropriate to give him equal mockery or the playful time that I give others running for prez right now. It's because, when you examine the actual substance of DK's agenda, statements and causes, he emerges as not only sensible, but he is proof that we need someone with his depth of understanding to actually steer the country away from the corrupt lifestyles and agendas that have overwhelmed the corridors of power more than ever. He's so right-on that, as far as his rivals are concerned, he must and shall be portrayed as a kook and an oddball who is nothing more than a Don Quixote to chuckle at (if anyone knows who Don Q is or what he was trying to do...). Ever since the Reagan years, which were a backlash against the '60s, conventionality has been the comfort zone; fitting in is where it's at. Curiously, this runs counter to the Great American Tradition of Individualism. Enlightened individualism, combined with responsible independence, is where transcendent advancement is born. Not to elevate Dennis on too high a plane, but his progressive stance on many issues is true forward thinking. It's actual planning ahead, instead of gamboling in what I call Lunge Methodology, that is, getting all you can as fast as you can, and the hell with everybody else. American civilization was founded on E Pluribus Unum, not gimme, gimme, gimme. Dennis isn't the only one who seems interested in sticking to our needful guidelines, but boy, look at his record. He's hung right in there in all the right progressive issues. He makes Dubya's much-vaunted resolute factor look like the delusional cosmology of a goofus who can't even run a popcorn machine, let alone a massive ship of state.
Did anyone see Dennis give Donny Rumsfeld a very fine tongue lashing in one of many hearings last year? You had to go to C-SPAN and dig it out, but I tell ya, Rummy was rendered almost speechless by Dennis' pit bull interrogation, and he accomplished this excellent task without resorting to 'controlled drowning'.
Yes, he's got an impressive trophy wife, a lustily-elegant Renaissance fair of a lady (and a helluva lot sexier than all of, say, Ghouliani the Mug's grotesque seraglio plastered together). But the thing is, Elizabeth K. is really cool. Has anyone heard her talk about stuff? Her depth and quality of understanding issues and trends and overviews is a comfort and a joy. For example, given the opportunity, she could advise about India and Africa, health care, and North/South matters much more helpfully and coherently than any jackass 'specialist' now on the scene. She stands about three feet higher than Dennis the Squirt, and they were married in beautiful downtown Cleveland (plenty of pictures of that not unpleasant-looking event are viewable), but their non-conventionality refreshes more than it inspires jocularity. Boring they are not. Their dialogues, together or independently, are intelligent, well-researched, and reasonable. A joke they are not. DK has a twinkle in his eye though, and that's often why the media pigeonholes him as a curio. But we have the web, and we can leave behind the MainStream Media in about two shakes of a cyber-lamb's tail in order to check out Dennis more fully. I humbly suggest that more caring Americans get to work in doing so, rather than relying on the lazy-ass couch-hog's consumerist devouring of media drivel when it comes to sizing-up this here prezzy mule-race.
Don't brand me as a Dennis-oid. I just have an old fashioned wish for this nation to succeed, especially at this crucial juncture. As Joseph Cotton said in 'Duel in the Sun', 'I'd like to give back something to this country rather than just take from it'. The great Lionel Barrymore, who plays his ultra-conservative dad, explodes: 'Jesse? I don't know what you're talking about!!!'
We know that Dennis will not be president. But he could be, and yes, he should be.
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