Eloquence and Priorities

Starting with a quote from the comments / replies at a friend's blog. It was a comment by some dude named Hoainam that I've probably never met:

"my favorite Bill Clinton story is from former counter-terrorism adviser Richard Clarke’s (admittedly partisan) book “Against All Enemies”. Clarke recounts how he and Clinton had to speak at a convention on national security and, due to scheduling issues, he wasn’t able to give Clinton a full briefing on the topic. Clarke tries to give Clinton a rundown during the ten minute limo ride to the convention center but Clinton keeps steering the conversation back to personal chit-chat. They arrive and Clarke makes his speech first but notices that Clinton isn’t listening during it, and instead is busy scribbling in the margins of the speech prepared for him. When Clinton’s turn comes, he tosses the canned speech out the window and gives a very impassioned and convincing talk about the pressing national security issues of the day, winning the crowd of legislators and lobbyists to give Clarke all the requested funding. Clarke noted that Clinton did this impromptu stuff all the time with varying degrees of success.

Sigh, how the times have changed. How on earth did our standards get so low that we pine for a commander-in-chief who is eloquent?"

I just pine for a commander-in-chief who got some. Often enough, in fact, that he didn't really feel the need to murder foreigners as a way to prove his manliness.

That's one reason I'm considering voting for Jake: given equal opportunities for Fucking and Killing, I know which way the ratio will tip. I'm a lot less certain with the other candidates.