THE REAL FACT OF THE MATTER IS THAT NEITHER SENATOR OBAMA NOR SENATOR EDWARDS HAS WHAT IT TAKES TO BE PRESIDENT.

I had a wonderful Sociology professor in college named Dr. Stanley Greenberg.  To prove exactly how great he was, one only needs to understand that I was in his class for two semesters during the 1964-5 academic year, and, yet today I am referring back to the lessons he taught me all those years ago as the basis of this column. 

Dr. Greenberg had two life theories which I still hold near and dear to my heart over forty years after I first heard him enunciate them.  Let me share them with you.

The first was his Bologna Theory.  Simply put, the theory is that no matter how you slice it, in the end, it all turns out to be bologna.  His second was the “Vas You Dere Cholly?” Theory.  That related to the erroneous reports we receive constantly in our lives on virtually every subject from people who never actually witnessed what happened.

The combination of Dr. Greenberg’s theories has made me realize how truly tired I have become about the news I receive daily regarding the world in which we live.  Let me explain.

I have become very tired of presidential debates.  They are too long.  There are too many of them.  They seem to be highly disorganized, and they have begun far too early to have any true impact on the outcome of the 2008 election.  They are, to say the least, a big pile of bologna.

But I have also become particularly tired of the pontifications of Senator Barak Obama (D-IL) in those debates.  I am tired of his statements that he never supported the war in Iraq.  When those statements come from Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), they have some validity.  Kucinich was a member of Congress when the vote to go to war was taken, and he voted against that resolution.  He felt that the information being given to him was either spotty or inaccurate, and he didn’t bite the bait.  Obama, on the other hand, was a State Senator in Illinois.  His support or lack of support for the war back then was about as meaningful as mine.  Neither of us was presented with the intelligence information given to members of Congress, and, consequently, neither of us was in the position to make an informed decision.  Senator Obama’s genuine lack of experience shows through every time he offers opinions on things that occurred when he vasn’t dere.

Additionally, he has demonstrated a certain naiveté in the way he discusses his desire to meet with dictators who pose a threat to our security or in the way he has telegraphed his positions on attacking al Qaeda in Pakistan.  Senator Clinton (D-NY) got it exactly right; there is a certain responsibility one has when running for President to not drop your pants so the entire world to sees your exposed hind quarters.  Senator Obama doesn’t seem to get that point.  When you slice up what he has to say, it seems that all that you are left with is a big slab of bologna.

And speaking of bologna, we mustn’t forget former Senator John Edwards’ (D-NC) slice of lunch meat.  Frankly, Senator, I don’t care about the number of labor picket lines in which you’ve marched.  Over the years, I have marched for this cause or that, for labor, against various wars and for civil rights.  That participation certainly doesn’t qualify me to be President.  It doesn’t qualify Senator Edwards either, particularly when one takes into consideration the recent revelations that many of those marches were short lived photo ops, from which the Senator left right after his picture was taken.  That would count as at least a pound or two of bologna in my book.  How about yours?

The real fact of the matter is that neither Senator Obama nor Senator Edwards has what it takes to be President.  Edwards served only one term in the Senate before Senator Kerry (D-MA) picked him as his running mate, and Senator Obama is in his first term as a United States Senator, right now.  Obama may lay on a stack of bologna telling us that he represents real change, but change isn’t the only thing we need today.  We need someone with meaningful experience to dig us out of the morass created during the Bush Cheney years, and the gentleman from Illinois simply hasn’t been involved in the federal government long enough to have gained any.

But life is much broader than just politics, and that broadness takes me to the amazing feat accomplished by Barry Bonds, who surpassed Hank Aaron’s all time major league home run record on Tusesday.  There are some claiming that Bonds’ record is tainted by the suspicion that he used banned anabolic steroids to build the strength needed to hit all of those dingers, and he very well may have.  But I vasn’t dere, and neither were you.  Bonds claims that if he received any steroids, they were applied by the team trainer and that he had no knowledge that they were being used. 

Now, over the years, I have had a number of professional massages, and I would be at a real loss if I were asked to tell you the chemical make-up of the gels applied by the massage therapists.  For all I know, some of them could have contained banned substances, and that leads me to think that Barry Bonds might very well be telling the truth.

As a guy who grew up watching Hank Aaron play, I remember him as a truly class act.  I don’t believe that Bonds will ever reach Aaron’s level of personal respect.  But his accomplishment is just that, an amazing feat, and that is the way it should be regarded.

And for those who claim that Bonds’ critics are racists, cut the bologna.  Your comments are really making me tired.  Most of those who are concerned about the validity of Bonds’ record are baseball purists who don’t really give a fig about his race.  When we always assign racism as the causal reason for criticism of African Americans, we trivialize true racism, and that is something we should never do.  Racism does exist today, as it has always existed, but it is not the reason some folks are criticizing Barry Bonds.  It is more or less like the little boy who cried wolf once too often.  When there really was a wolf, nobody believed him.  When racism does rear its ugly head, will we be willing to give any veracity to the pronouncements of those who cried racism once too often?  We must learn to choose our battles wisely.  That is something those who are crying racism aren’t doing.

And for those who think racism is the root cause of the criticism of Barry Bonds, or those who think that either Senator Obama or Senator Edwards is ready to be an effective President at one of the most critical moments in our country’s history, can I give you some mustard for your bologna?

HENRY A. HONIG – THE PUNDIT