The Old Prof Thinks Out Loud

Don't hold your breath to hear these:
"... and the Oscar goes to ... Keanu Reeves!"
"... and the Emmy goes to ... David Caruso!"
"... and the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to George W. Bush!"
"... Chief Justice Alberto Gonzalez!"
"... the next president of the United States, Dennis Kucinich!"
"... the world's most dynamic motivational speaker, Sen. John Kerry!"
"... born to poor black sharecroppers, Hillary Rodham Clinton, pulled herself up by her own bootstraps ... " (an adaptation of this one was uttered in Steve Martin's movie "The Jerk")
"... Hi, I'm Willie Nelson. Just say no to drugs?"
"... I now pronounce you husband and husband." (in Indiana or several other states)
"... which way to the egress?" (except in Indiana and several other backward states)
"... please welcome our newest Mensa member, Bill O'Reilly!"
"... are you going to eat your dessert, Mr. Gore?"
"... which way to the Imus?"

Let me see if I have this right. Barack Obama isn't "black enough" for a large portion of American blacks, but Hillary Clinton is?
On the other hand, Hillary Clinton is "female enough" for female Democrats, despite her infamous "Stand By Your Cheatin' Bubba" performance some years back? I have to admit I am dazed and confused by the early "returns" on the 2008 presidential race.
It is more than a year until the first primaries, but the candidates -- Democrat and Republican, declared and undeclared -- are staking out their claims on the various special-interest groups that consistitute the American electorate. And, as indicated above, some of those stakes are going where you least expect them.
I think I have a good excuse for being bewildered, and undecided, at this stage of the political game. As best that I can figure it, here is how the "claims" are shaping up (and, if you can explain the most bewildering ones of them to me, I'd be very appreciative):
Blacks: Hillary Clinton
Women: Barack Obama (they smile in Hillary's direction, but you know they'll vote for the good-looking young guy with tons of charisma and none of Ms. Clinton's political baggage -- like being unelectable, even among women, especially those red-state Stepford wives who think, as Mort Sahl once satirically observed, a woman's place is in the stove)
Veterans: John McCain
Homeland securityists: Rudy Giuliani
Border secruityists: Tom Tancredo
Hispanics: Bill Richardson (or is he not "Hispanic enough"?)
Moderate Republicans: Mitt Romney (or is he "too Mormon"?)
Immoderate Republicans: Sam Brownback (or is he "too bat-crap crazy"?)
Moderately immoderate Republicans: Chuck Hagel
Environmentalists: Al Gore (even if they can't accept the inconvenient truth that he isn't going to run and doesn't have a chance even if he does, regardless of what Rolling Stone says)
Immoderate Democrats: Dennis Kucinich (who won them over with his rendition of "Sixteen Tons" on Martin Luther King Day)
Foot-In-Mouth Democrats: Joe Biden (turns out he was better off plagiarizing his speeches)
Law and Orderists: Fred Dalton Thompson
Newt Gingrich: Newt Gingrich (only one man, only one vote)
Undecided (which would include the Old Prof): John Edwards is looking better and better all the time (just as he did in '04). Those four hundred dollar haircuts must be working.

My first real editor always said that, someday, he wanted to start a publication called "True Lies." He never did, but there are plenty of true lies out there to fill a newspaper or magazine now.
The biggest ones are about the effects of second-hand smoke, put forth by anti-smoking true believers like WhiteLies.tv. You've seen the ads, I'm sure, that make second-hand smoke look like the greatest, most gruesome hazard to your health since Adolph Hitler.
And they make it appear that they have the science behind them to make their claims. Problem is, they don't. All they have are those cursed true lies (ironic, coming from a Web site that calls itself "WhiteLies").
It turns out that the WhiteLiars are bigger liars than the tobacco companies. Their "scientific" claims presumably are based on the EPA "study" of the effects of second-hand smoke, which concluded that it was the Second Coming of the black plague.
Trouble is, the EPA "research" has been thoroughly debunked and declared scienticially invalid by no less than a federal court, which found that the EPA had reached its conclusion before actually doing its research. Hardly scientific or truthful, I'd say.
The fact is that the most comprehensive -- and scientifically valid -- studies have reached very different conclusions. They -- the one from the American Cancer Society, another from a scientific group in Germany, one more in California -- all concluded that there is no significant health hazard from second-hand smoke.
So, how the hell did that happen? Easy. It's just like the sides in the global warming debate. They don't go into their wars of words with the science that is truthful, just with the science that is convenient to their argument. The convenient untruths, if you will.
So that is the basis on which states like mine, Indiana, come up with terrible legislation like raising the tax on cigarettes by fifty cents a pack and banning smoking in public places. The legislators swear they are looking out for our welfare and trying to beat back this beast of the modern day. Their basis for all this is bogus science, plus the misguided idea that they can somehow "encourage" smokers to quit smoking this way. Obviously, they don't know very much about addictions and addicts.
So what do they know? Only True Lies.
Somewhere, if there truly is an after-life (the science isn't in on that one), my old editor must be smiling from ear-to-ear.