Obama & McCain: Fact, Fiction or Half-Truths?

Americans are down to the last two presidential nominees and are starting to feel like they're stuck between a rock and a hard place, those being Barack Obama and John McCain. Rumors and facts are getting mixed up in the political soup, making it harder to tell truth from lies or half-truths. They're being spit out into the media before any have been investigated for plausibility.

John McCain seemed to be the logical choice, considering his long political and military experience and quiet, dignified reserve and refusal to partake of Clinton and Obama's petty bickering and ill aimed insults to each other. When an insult was thrown his way he patiently replied without being biased toward either candidates. That won many Americans' comfort, if not complete trust. He was the calm before the storm. Unfortunately, one of those seemingly benign question put to him caused a break in our comfort level towards him. Earlier in the year, a journalist asked McCain what his plans for the economy was, and his response was something similar to, 'that's something I don't know too much about, maybe I need to go back to school for that.' Frightening isn't it. Although no one really picked up on that to make a big issue of it, (Everybody probably thought he was joking.) anything else he's talked about regarding economics has very little believability factor now. Aside from that issue, he's been coming out strong and steady in his beliefs and plans for the country and the Iraq war. Giving the impression of a man who knows what to do, whether the American people find it distasteful or not. The bald truth and reality of situations as they stand, no holds barred.

Barak Obama, initially, came out running strong with a very self-assured and competent demeanor. Then the race and gender war between himself and Ms. Clinton arose, keeping the nation's attention. The fight was on, Clinton started slinging mud at Obama and he, in turn, fired right back. Barak Obama won that fight, leaving Clinton in the dust. The later half of this struggle became intense when he was caught in a closed to the public meeting stating that all the blue collar workers knew was drugs and violence because that's what they grew up with. He got out of that seeming very pompous and self-important, with no concern for the peoples feelings. And it was doubly damning since he had portrayed himself as empathetic to the minorities in the U.S. That almost ended his reign, along with the picture of him dressed up as a Muslim attending a possible religious gathering.

After achieving the democratic presidential nomination he began waffling back and forth about important issues that he had earlier seemed quite firm about. The most obvious and widely discussed was a time frame for troop withdrawal from Iraq. He changed his time frame or rather said it was possible that the time frame stated originally, was going to have to be longer than he expected. That incident showed America that he is capable of making rash decisions before investigating the many different facets of an issue.

So there you have it. It's up to the public to determine what's fact or fiction. Usually, with the presidential nominations, we pick the lesser of two evils. But this time the election is even scarier because of the blatant ineptitude our chosen two are exhibiting. All we can hope for is that Barak Obama learns enough by his inexperienced blundering before he becomes president or if John McCain wins the presidency, that he is sufficiently competent individually so he doesn't become a puppet for others with less savory plans for us.