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By Julian Jinjur

WHO WANTS TO BE PRESIDENT?

Posted 10:38 a.m., June 3, 2008

Not me. Oh, I might like the salary and the perks, but not the awesome responsibility. I could squeak by on $400,000. a year plus the $50,000 non taxable expense account. I was musing about this situation when a friend of mine asked a simple and cogent question: why do we have so few qualified candidates for president? Why doesn’t the position attract more qualified talent? As the greatest nation on earth, we are about to elect a person who has minimal qualifications for the most important position in our government. Hillary, Obama and John? Is this the BEST we can find for our country? Even if we extracted the best qualities from all three and melded them into a single individual, we would come up short.

Take a group of six of the best recruiters or headhunters in the US. Provide them with a list of the qualifications and duties necessary to be president of the United States. Now picture all six recruiters in a group, interviewing each of our presidential candidates separately and at great length. Who would they choose? The answer is simple:

Not one of them!

Not one of the three candidates would even come close to fulfilling the requirements for the job.

I suppose there are many reasons why qualified candidates might excuse themselves from being considered. Topping that list would be the excruciating campaign schedules our candidates have to maintain. The process is ludicrous, laborious, time consuming, and totally unnecessary. It is entirely possible that one or more of our three candidates might now harbor second thoughts realizing that the process of running for president is just not worth the time and effort. Morning, noon and night they have meetings, speeches, fund raisers, debates, interviews, etc. The process is endless. Every movement is being scrutinized by a video camera or cell phone. While it could be argued that nearly everyone enjoy an opportunity to meet all the candidates in person, that option is neither practical nor necessary. Yet the candidates feel compelled to make themselves available to the common folk. I saw Barack Obama sitting around a table in the backyard of a family enjoying a conversation while sipping tea. While that family was no doubt thrilled to meet the candidate in person, this type of activity becomes unnecessary when the candidates should spend their time speaking to groups or town hall meetings. As it is, I doubt they rarely get eight hours sleep. They are candidates for Ambien, Sonata, Lunesta, Melatonin…. hopefully not all at once.

If that isn’t enough of a deterrent, then there are the faux pas, goofs, memory miscalculations, snide remarks about their opponents, tasteless jokes, misinformation and outright lies that spring from the lips of the candidates. Because we live in an age of 24/7 news coverage, every miscalculation or inadvertent word or gesture will be captured on a cell phone, video camera or other recording device. These tidbits are then fed to the media who will pounce on each little morsel of information like vultures on carrion. They will dissect each clip, play it endlessly, analyze it by calling upon selected experts to debate its impact upon the success or failure of the candidate.

What a demeaning endurance contest this is for the candidates, spending months defending themselves while being advised how to hoist their opponents on their own petard.

We are long overdue for a significant change in the rules for electing our presidents. The period of nomination to election should be shortened to 60 days. That is more than sufficient time to learn all we need to know to make a half way intelligent choice for our leader. By streamlining the process and condensing the time frame, we might entice more qualified candidates.

In a lighter vein:

An emperor of Persia had just started ruling his country. He was very kind and lenient. He loved wild animals and let them run loose throughout his domain. The people got so annoyed, the revolted and overthrew their leader. That was the first time in history that the reign was called on account of game.

● The man who fell into an upholstery machine is fully recovered.

● Dancing cheek-to-cheek is really a form of floor play.

● Santas helpers are subordinate clauses

● When I was a kid we were so poor, we would go to KFC and lick other people’s fingers.

The air raid had just started and the air raid warden was trying to get everyone in the shelter. One old woman refused to go saying, “I’m not going anywhere until I find my teeth.” The warden replied, “Lady, let’s go…they’re dropping bombs, not sandwiches.”

“You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.”

Kahlil Gibran

‘Till next time.

Julian Jinjur