Nothing to laugh about

I want to ask you a question, gentle readers. It’s going to sound like the opening to a joke, and from a certain point of view I suppose it is, but I don’t find it that funny, personally.
What’s the difference between George W. Bush and Mike Huckabee?
Sets your mind awhirl, doesn’t it?
Perhaps we’d better start with the similarities before we press on into the differences. Both are avowed political conservatives and members of the Republican party. Both have expressed theological views that would have to be considered in the conservative stratum, although the president’s religious side most likely is best left unexplored. Undeniably, however, neither Bush nor Huckabee have been shy about playing religious conservatism to their political advantage.
In the private sector, neither man was what you could call a rousing financial success. Our dear governor, of course, was and is an ordained Baptist minister, not a calling normally associated with outstanding financial achievements, although he has demonstrated a remarkable gift for getting wealthy people to give him money, apparently without any strings attached.
Wow, sure wish I could get away with that. Just walk up to some guy with the kind of scorch marks on his pockets that can only be produced by the spontaneous combustion of large wads of money, and say, “hi there. I’m the governor. How about giving me a big, juicy campaign contribution.” And nine times out of ten, Rev. Huckabee can leave out the part about being governor.
The president, before entering the political arena, was involved in numerous private sector business deals, including ownership of a major league professional baseball team, the Texas Rangers. That team’s record over the years under Bush ownership should be sufficient commentary on his skill in that arena.
The president’s business ventures have one thing in common; in all of them somebody lost a substantial amount of money, although usually not George W. Bush. Every venture he made into the oil business ended up a financial catastrophe for investors, but Dubya had already taken his money and run by the time the investors discovered the reality of the situation. Not that he did anything illegal or even unethical, at least not according to a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation performed while his daddy was president.
The only thing that really bothers me about the president’s private business deals is the frequency with which he used his family name and social standing to weasel his way into other people’s bank accounts, recommend some very questionable investments, then take his candy out of the bowl and run for the hills. But that’s just the nature of big business - you’ve got to know when to hold ‘em and know when to fold ‘em. Suffice it to say, based on the track record, I would be very hesitant about taking investment advice from our boy Dubya.
Now, about those differences. George W. seems to have figured out some time ago that he’s not the sharpest tool in the shed and has made adjustments in his various strategies to take that into account. The business deals in which he lost money, invariably, were the ones in which he took his own advice. So he quit doing that. He even makes jokes about it.
Both in his political and private lives, he has surrounded himself with folks of proven intellectual and tactical abilities and listened to them attentively. He did it while he was governor of Texas and is doing it now as President of the United States. Apparently, at some point along the road, somebody he trusted convinced Dubya that the only way he would get into trouble is by doing something rash. like trying to think on his own.
Unfortunately for us here in the Natural State, our chief executive is yet to reach this level of enlightenment. I very much fear that, while our president listened to someone who had his best interests in mind (probably his mom, Barbara) when she told him he was not as clever as he might be, our governor has listened to those graduates of Sycophant State University who majored in brown nosing, who told him how smart he is and how every idea he ever had, no matter how lame, was evidence of pure genius, and how, when things went down the tubes, it was always either God’s will or somebody else’s fault.
Harry Truman had a sign on his desk that read, “The buck stops here,” meaning that, as President, he was ultimately responsible for what any member of his administration did. From the look of things, the metaphorical sign on the desk of the Governor of Arkansas reads, “Buck? What buck? I didn’t see any buck.”