Stay home Christine

By Don Klein

I try to steer my print comments away from local elections but Christine O’Donnell is too juicy to ignore. She s like a quirky kid sister who disrupts the normal family routine with just enough craziness that you want to hug her back to sanity.

In a strange way I actually like her. She’s not nearly as revolting as the screwball Tea Party candidate, Sharron Angle, running a moronic senate campaign in Nevada nor California’s gubernatorial hopeful, the offish Meg Whitman, who emits a snobbery that would dismay even Thurston Howell III, the pompous millionaire on Gilligan’s Island.

Christine, on the other hand, is a sweetheart, loopy maybe, but a sweetheart nonetheless. I feel sorry for her disastrous comments and her failing campaign. But somehow I think she would be a welcome guest at my dinner table any night I was in the mood for some eccentric conversation.

Who else would admit dabbling into being a witch these days? That would fire up any conversation. Further, she is the first person to say something funny about masturbation since I was a teen and rollicked over an adolescent claim having something to do with hairy palms.

With this (albeit muted) affection for her I watched with interest her televised debate with Democratic opponent, Chris Coons. Who else could get me to watch a debate between two candidates from Delaware? Even in the best days of Vice President Joe Biden, when he was their senator, no one could interest me in Delaware politics.

In today’s screwy environment here comes Christine, perky as she is kooky, with her chance to show the world the stuff she is made of. In the end we discovered that she is not the independent she likes to claim she is. She is a right wing Republican who endorses every harsh step back to the past. "That isn’t so," she protests saying she is beholden to neither major party.

As she continues to talk, however, she contradicts herself saying exactly the opposite. The only President Obama policy she backs is the inherited bad Bush war in Afghanistan that the president has tentatively embraced. She also likes the stepped up drone attacks.

Then there is the exchange over Coons’ bearded Communist statement and Christine’s witchcraft. She insists she has the right to call her opponent a "self-proclaimed Communist" as long as others refer to her being a witch. She said both occurred when the candidates were a lot younger and made strange public remarks.

Well, I am sorry to tell you dear Christine, but there is a difference. Coons explained that his comments were a college spoof that everyone at the time accepted as a goofy charade and that he has always been a "clean-shaven Capitalist." Further, his career actions have proven his political credentials.

As far as Christine being a witch? No one ever took that seriously. Even when she first made the straight forward admission, people laughed at the prospect. It is not on the same level as accusing an opponent of something that you know is untrue. No one called Christine a witch in this campaign. If she hadn’t gone on television with a commercial starting with "I am not a witch" no one would be thinking of it now.

There again we see the behavior of troubled kid sister lashing out without concern for facts or perspective. She speaks like a teenager without evaluating the impact of her words.

Christine also tells us that evolution is a myth. Most educated people throughout the world know that God did not create the galaxy in six days and rested on the seventh. That’s biblical myth and even the overwhelming majority of devout people know it. By rejecting creationism they are not diminishing their belief in deity. One does not rely on the other to be true.

The plain fact is only the intellectually blind believe in the Bible’s version of creation. Let me point out one fallacy in that belief. If God as so many believe is an omnificent, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient a force that could create this complicated world in less than a week, does he really need a day off to rest?

What does being all powerful, all knowing, being everywhere at once with the ability to create whatever is needed mean anyway? Does such a force really need union hours? And what would this force do on it’s day off anyway? Frolic in the park with angels, watch a football game, visit a museum, rest in a hammock eating cherries?

Nevertheless Christine rejects evolution in favor of creationism. Is that the kind of person you want in the US Senate deciding on the serious issues of the day? Then when she was asked during the debate about her Evangelical beliefs, she gave the most vague response, "What I believe is irrelevant."

Hi De Hi, Hi De Ho! That’s when all viewers should have discovered being cute and perky does not mean you are ready for political prime time. What Christine believes is very relevant since she would be voting on matters that concern the future of the nation.

Fortunately the latest polls indicate that Christine has little chance of winning, being behind her opponent by double digits. For the record, Angle and Whitman are both doing better in close races in their states.

Christine O’Donnell I like you. Come to dinner at my house sometime. But stay out of Congress. There are enough kooks there already. We need people like you back here in the civilian sector to give us things to laugh about.