By Joe Honick
America not only deserves a more realistic contest for the presidency from both parties, it is imperative that the contestants be seen as competent, aware and reasonably credible.
From the Republican side so far, none of those requirements have been met, and the evidence around the world seem quite clear in that hardly any nation has registered much in the way of interest, this at a time of massively critical issues all over the globe.
This is a kind of situation in which America would typically be consulted either to help negotiate differences among key nations or at least function as a major participant.
Now, with a presidential election less than a year away, we only know the occupant of the White House. What we cannot assess is what the Republicans are bringing to the table for Americans to consider.
At the moment, if we are to believe anything the contenders for the Republican nomination are saying about each other, why would any sane voter support any of them?
Worse, not one of the touring debaters has indicated even a modest understanding of foreign affairs, much less a concern for such matters in any measurable degree. Not one of the contenders seems to have a credible set of proposals if he or she were to be elected. Certainly none of these people has indicated how we can bring an unwinnable conflict in Afghanistan to some acceptable conclusion.
All any of them seems to know for sure is that they do not think much of each other, and they are unsurprisingly unanimous in attacking President Obama.
It might be comical were it not shocking that at least two of the contestants have personal histories that would have brought conservatives into the field of battle to demand these people withdraw.
Newt Gingrich not only remains the leader of the pack, but no one seems to care about his misadventures with staff and others while he was a key leader of the House of Representatives or how he is using the campaign to promote his consulting business and the sale of his books. It’s called ‘gaming the system.’
Beyond this, the party that boasts of its concern for deficits and fraud has offered not one word about the $7.7T pumped into financial institutions, industrial bailouts and other squandering of taxpayer money, not one candidate has offered any thoughts about the revelations recently of major defense contractor fraud for which relatively modest penalties have been imposed. Names like Boeing, Grumman and Lockheed have been disclosed in a recent report by Vermont Independent Senator Bernie Sanders.
With the Middle East in turmoil, the Eurozone in a state of virtual collapse, millions unemployed in our own country and other crises demanding attention, all that the GOP candidates seem to agree on, as noted earlier, is that none of them believes any of the others to be qualified and all of them don’t like the current resident of the White House.
All of this may be wonderful grist for the daily commentators in the media, but it makes a laughingstock of America.
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Joseph J. Honick is
president of GMA International in Bainbridge Island, Wash. |