World War Z

If you have never read World War Z by Max Brooks, I recommend it. It is an oral history of the Zombie war with an underlying political tone. There were two passages in the book that struck close to all the political blather of the two presidential candidates I dislike.

The first passage is on page 113 when Max Brooks interviews a man from Texas who is the former white House chief of staff. The man responds to a question like so:

"Can you ever 'solve' poverty? Can you ever 'solve' crime? Can you ever 'solve' disease, unemployment, war, or any other type of societal herpes? Hell no. All you can hope for is to make them manageable enough to allow people to get on with their lives. That's not cynicism, that's maturity. You can't stop the rain. All you can do is just build a roof that you hope wont leak."

In a recent interview with Bill Moyers, Obama said that people "want a president that can solve their problems." Gag me. You can keep throwing money at people but as the old saying goes, "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink" so money is good but that doesn't mean they'll invest it in their education or lives. They might just go buy a new TV to replace their "old" TV of two years.

On page 300, Max interviews a somewhat famous man in California who says this:

"...scratch and scrape and fight for their lives because someone is telling them that they're going to be okay. There's a word for that kind of lie. Hope."

Hmm, I believe that is Barry Hussein's selling word. Hope. Try a new word, Hussein. Try accountability.