I am not a whore

I have never run for political office. I am not sure why, because I have often thought that I would like to give back to my community and as a journalist I have covered public meetings and interviewed many politicians and for the most part, I have always walked away thinking they seemed like nice enough people.

While working in New York I interviewed former governor Mario Cuomo a few times and every time I left thinking he was a pretty smart man. I did not always agree with him, but then again, I do not always agree with anyone, so that should have been expected. I interviewed senator Al Gore before he became Vice President, I believe he was running for president at the time. He was earnest and kind of sweet, but also, especially back then, stiff and uncomfortable. I interviewed many politicians who hated me just because I had a microphone, which was something I never understood. See, I did not take sides, I did not have an agenda, I was always just looking for an interview.

For one candidate running for senator in Alaska, before we started, I tried to give him some interview tips, because he was young and inexperienced, I thought I could help him come across better. I told him how Governor Cuomo would intently listen to the question and take his time, in silence, to think of a proper response, and then he would answer the question, even if the silence had lasted 30 seconds. He knew the media would edit out the dead air. I told this senate candidate that story to calm him down and let him know that I would edit out the time he would take to think, so as not to let him sound like someone who does not have answers. He seemed to get it.

Then the interview started, not live, but recorded, so I could repair it if he was awkward. He was far worse that awkward. First, he did not take my advice at all. After every question, he would race to answer, without thinking, pausing or contemplating anything. His answers were jumbled and sometimes he would veer off the topic, going back to a previous question to clear up something, then trying to get back to the question at hand, and then saying the word "ah" or "um" as if that was some sort of intellectual qualifier.

The interview in raw form was a complete disaster. So I spent hours editing it. This was pre-digital editing, so every part of the interview had to be hand edited on tape, cut and spliced. I decided I would remove all the ums and uhs and try to make him come across like he did not sound like a bumbling idiot. He was, by the way, not a bumbling idiot. He was a right wing, republican. He was also a fisherman, a family man and a very nice guy. I liked him, as I liked most of the politicians I met in Alaska.

In the end, his interview sounded a lot better on the air than it did in person. I sent him a copy of it along with a small baggy of pieces of tape, a lot of pieces of tape. In fact, there were hundreds of ums and uhs that I had edited and saved and sent to him, as a reminder that if he wanted to run for public office and be interviewed by journalists, he would need to learn how to speak in a public setting. He sent me a wonderful note of thanks. I interviewed him a couple of more times during that election cycle and every time he seemed to understand the process and sounded much more prepared. I interviewed him the night he won his senate seat. That is how it goes in Alaska.

Which is why this debt ceiling debate going on in Washington DC right now is driving me crazy. It is not an us versus them debate, as the liberal democrats or the right ing conservatives would have us believe. Nor is it that after 8 to 10 years of republicans rubber stamping massive deficit spending for two completely useless wars, they have now seen the light of wasteful spending and thus would like to put the screws to grandpas social security. No, these politicians, unlike my friend the fishing senator, these are whores who have been bought and paid for by big business and special interests and they are pretending like they care about anything other than whomever it was who paid for their last election.

See, the fisherman in Alaska had to take time off his real job to run for office. He had to spend his own money to fly from small hamlet to even smaller fishing village to meet voters. He had to shake hands with people who actually worked with their hands. He was far from perfect, but he could look people in the eye and explain who he was and what he actually believed in. I do not think there are many politicians in Washington who could do that. They are too busy sloshing around on their knees, begging for more campaign money and licking the boots of their over lords.

I am not being cynical. I too have whored myself out and I felt like shit when I have done it. I did it because I needed something and I needed money to do that something. Politicians are the same, they may have started with good intentions, but when you get to the big leagues of politics, you are a whore of a scale rarely seen in this world. These whores in cheap suits are not fighting for lower taxes, higher taxes, better anything, worse anything, they are just whores fighting for the richest people in our country, because those are the people who pay them.

I'm sorry, I really am. I too was told the lie that the voters elect our politicians and those people represent us, the voters, the people, the real Americans. That is just not the case. The whores of DC represent big business, non-tax paying corporations and the super wealthy, who fly their owned and paid for politicians around in private jets, to private golf courses, to play golf and talk about important things that only the politicians and super wealthy really need to know about. In the end, in this country, on almost every level, you get what you pay for. You buy a cheap car and it breaks down, the guy in the Mercedes will honk as he passes you on the side of the road and say, "you get what you pay for." When you, with you degree from Boise State College can not get into law school because the guy from Harvard gets the last placement, he will look at you and think to himself, "you get what you pay for." When Bill Gates, having earned billions of dollars last year and paid about 17 dollars in taxes calls up any of the politicians he owns, he smiles at one of his wives and says, "I get what I pay for."

There was a time when I lived in Washington State that I gave running for office some serious thought, but even then, the skeletons in my closet would rattle with delight. Today, while I believe I could bring a lot to the political table, those skeletons have been breeding and my closet runneth over. It is sad, because really, it's not just that the congress is overrun with good for nothing, idiotic, scummy whores, but they almost seem proud. These people are not patriots.

There is a prostitute who works under a bridge not more than 3 blocks from my house. I walked down there yesterday and asked her how much for a blow job. 10 Bucks she said. How much for the full deal? 20. How much to raise the debt ceiling, I asked. "Look, I'm a whore, I ain't no politician, some things are below me."