Anyone that listens to the goings on in Washington these days, really listens that is, comes away amazed at how everyone is so convinced of the rightness of his or her position. Every political persuasion, regardless of the time in our history, has been able to count within its ranks a significant percentage of bobble-headed personalities who have been able to master what I affectionately call the senatorial two step.

What is the senatorial two step you ask? It is a unique form of political tap dancing that allows an individual to handle any issue, but especially important issues requiring decisiveness and conviction, in such a way as to always appear in the right. Whether one is actually right will depend on who is the judge. Everything today seems a politically correct grey. Nobody believes in doing what is right for rights sake regardless of the consequences, unless there is enough time between elections to straighten out the record.

I think the toy manufacturers have missed a tremendous opportunity to serve our youth by teaching them the realities of modern government. I propose that someone manufacture bobble-head likenesses of all of our sitting senators and provide a set for all our schools to properly educate our children in the art of political longevity.

The bobble-head politician will bob, weave, and nod in concert with the biggest blowhard in the room or whoever can pound the table the hardest. Both activities will stimulate the tender neck spring in the doll to move the head in an unpredictable and meaningless way, giving the impression that the individual is actually engaged in reality. It is the main reason it is next to impossible for a senator to ever be elected president. To maintain their seat in the senate, they have had to become the masters of the two-step bobble-necked performance demonstrating they believe in nothing and everything at the same time.

Why do voters put up with it? Because the majority of voters, who actually bother to vote, are both too busy and preoccupied to be well read on the issues, or are so entrenched in a particular ideology that they have given up thinking for themselves and rely on columnists to think for them. I choose to believe most people suffer from a lack of factual information, which is different from information alone. We have more than enough of that.

I was called this week by a pollster who asked me a whole series of questions designed to illicit specific answers from me regardless of how I actually felt about things. How do they do it you say? By asking for yes or no answers to questions that are incomplete and should not be answered by a yes or no answer, but you answer anyway just to get it over. Then, in the news they refer to these poll numbers that are skewered and manipulated but nobody can figure out how and the busy people of the world who do not know the facts look to the bobble heads in the Senate and go with the flow. It must be true because the polls agree with bobble head number 33 from the state of confusion who may end up being the original author of the question.

I hope most people today have figured out that for bobble heads, it is about keeping your job. They never really care about you except in an election year when they hire their bobble headed pollsters to manipulate the bobble headed public into believing what you were manipulated into telling them. People love someone who agrees with them, so they send more bobble heads to Washington to play the same game. We elected George Bush because he said he would not play the game, but when it is the only game in town, you eventually play or get your spring stretched and your head falls over making you look indecisive and confused, not to mention defeated.

This is why a senator is almost never elected president and why second term presidents always look so inept. They have had their heads ripped off and their spring installed by the fifth year. A failure to allow for the spring transplant (otherwise known as becoming a centrist) most certainly leads to eventual ethics charges supported by bobble-head polls. Check the history of second terms.

Once the election year campaign begins, it soon becomes obvious that the dear senator has been on every side of every issue known to man, and may have created original issues designed to confound even the New York Times. If they stay in long enough, they become masters of double-talk and we lose the ability to analyze their qualifications, except when it comes to wanting them as president. So far we have been too smart for that, but I am afraid our day is coming. Just ask the Times.

The only possible conclusion is only senators should run for re-election and never presidents, unless of course presidents choose to become senators, which is a much more fun job. Presidential hair goes very white in second terms while senators get hair plugs, bright new teeth, and rich second wives, all paid for by us. Man, I want that job. Except for the wife of course. I have one. No she isn't rich. Hmmmm.

Anyway, this is my unmistakable view on the topic, but I reserve the right to change my mind as often as I want depending on who likes me today.

Al LeBlanc