One of my cadets asked me how I felt about the presidential election coming up. I don’t like to talk about politics in class, because it’s too easy for the class to get derailed into an unrecoverable tail spin, so I ducked the question.  But later on it came back to me so I decided to think about how I DID feel about it.

And I wasn’t happy. Honestly, I feel like I’m standing on a used car lot, I MUST buy a car, and I have the following choices:

1. A blue car that’s a lot like what I’ve been driving, and may work out okay. However it doesn’t have the most reputable reputation, its condition is suspect, and I don’t really trust that I can believe in it.
2. A red car that is flashy, way too fast, way too loud, completely unpredictable, and could quite possibly end in an apocalyptic fireball with me trapped inside. (But man what a ride!)
3. A green car that is environmentally friendly at the expense of virtually all other measures of performance, and which is a brand with so little exposure that it really isn’t an option.
4. Two or three other equally unknown, untested, potentially unreliable options that few educated and virtually no lesser-educated Americans have ever heard or would recognize.

Wow, talk about a bunch of crappy choices. The United States of America, at one time the greatest country in the world (and in some respects maybe still), could come up with only THESE choices?

Sad, but unless something really crazy happens, true. So now what?

Well, I still need a car. So I will buy one, and then probably spend the next four years bitching and moaning about the gas prices, the insurance, the dings, scrapes, funny noises, and mysterious noxious fumes.  Until the next time I must buy a car, at which time I will hope that my country, for all its faults, has produced a few less offensive models from which to pick.