LIKE IT IS

This was a very tough election for me.

John McCain only became my candidate when he won the Republican nomination. I was not for him before Rush was not for him. I did not support him when he ran against George W. Bush four years ago and he was not my candidate during the runoff for this year’s primary.

My preference was Rudy Giuliani, followed by Mitt Romney. I even liked Fred Thompson better than McCain.

I cooled on Rudy when he took a telephone call from his wife while he was in the middle of giving a speech. That told me who wore the pants in his household. I have never liked political wives who were jealous of the admiration earned by their husbands and wanted to be on the same pedestal. We have a few in this state married to legislators.

No, I won’t name them. Most of the political wives I have known during my many years of covering politics are content to do what they can to promote their husbands. A few got dumped along the way when hubby discovered impressionable younger women are plentiful in Olympia.

Now, first off, I am a conservative, not a Republican. My conservative credentials: I am pro-choice and I was for returning Elian Gonzalez to his father in Cuba rather than trying to keep him here.

I read McCain’s book about his father and grandfather, both admirals, and found him to be amazingly honest about what a screwup he was. He got in trouble in school, in college, in the Navy and even in the prison camp. I do not hesitate to say he was a genuine hero for refusing to leave when he could have because the Navy code called for POWs to be released in order of their captivity and he hadn’t been there long when he was given the opportunity.

But he was unstable, something I have written about before. When the Vietnam War was about over and all that remained was for our side to come and get the POWs who were still in captivity, McCain constantly harassed the guards until his own commanding officer — the POW of the highest rank holds that position — ordered him to stop it because he was just causing problems for the other men. He tells about it himself.

The Republicans blew it right off the bat when their members of Congress practically out-porked the Democrats in the first budget they sent President Bush who was dumb enough to sign it. That was totally contrary to the reputation they pretended to uphold.

Bush only found his veto guts when it came to stem cell research, a subject most people didn’t know or care anything about.

I had faith in McCain that we would not sign porky budgets but I was concerned when it was being said he wanted Joe Lieberman for his running partner in the presidential race. Lieberman was an independent who supported McCain for president but voted with the Democrats. He would have enraged both R’s and D’s. Fortunately, McCain got talked out of it and came up with Sarah Palin.

She had flaws, but I’d take her any day as president over the likes of Jimmy Carter who was an ex-intelligence officer in the Navy who gave away the Panama Canal.

As for President-Elect Obama, it was strange to me that his top people would announce on the morning of his scheduled afternoon chat with President Bush that he was going to reverse some of the Bush actions by executive order as soon as he’s sworn in. I wonder if Congress noticed it somehow got left out of the loop. And is that how he plans to govern?

Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville, WA 98340.

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