Hillary & Donald at Al Smith Event

Al Smith Just Rolled Over in His Grave

The View from the Middle

The purpose of the Al Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner is to honor the memory of Al Smith, the first Catholic to run for President, and of course to raise money for needy children.  It is famous for the speakers’ use of self-deprecating humor to entertain the star-studded audience in that effort.  But, in the spirit of this year’s vicious Presidential campaign, Hillary and The Donald decided to continue the assault on each other and the sensibilities of the American people last night.

Neither of these two (insert your own expletive descriptor here) could find the “high road” with a GPS device and a searchlight signaling the entrance.  They each turned a few minutes of decency into vicious attacks on each other.   Both gave stumbling performances as they delivered insults vaguely disguised as jokes to an audience that actually responded properly with jeers and or silence.

The Donald received more catcalls than Hillary, but that was only because this was a friendlier crowd for her.  She slammed America’s Mayor in his own town, and you could tell neither the crowd nor Rudy Giuliani were amused.  She said the Donald sees a “4” when he looks at the Statue of Liberty, and no one understood what she was talking about, until she explained that he might give her a “5” if she changed her hair.  This helped explain the joke, but it didn’t make it any funnier.

The Donald was no better, suggesting that Hillary was just “pretending” to like Catholics during last evening’s event.  Both should have watched a video of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney as they successfully walked the line of self-deprecation and humorous jabs last year.

To me, this was the final evidence that neither one of these so-called candidates deserve our votes for the highest office in the land.  Mercifully, this manure-throwing contest disguised as a campaign will soon be over.  The only problem is, one of these two idiots will actually be the President of the United States.  Our only hope for the future is that the American people can be more mature and patriotic than either of these nominees and unite despite Washington’s attempts to divide us.

Seriously, we need to stop falling for the divisive rhetoric.  As you walk through the mall today or go to a ball game tomorrow or go to church this Sunday, realize that Washington wants you to hate half of the people you see.  There is much more that unites us than divides us like liberty and justice and equal opportunity.  Remember this and maybe our collective love for each other can overcome our corrupt, incompetent, divisive government.