.KEYWORD ppeditorial1000
.FLYINGHEAD FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
.TITLE Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow
.DEPT
.SUMMARY Deep down, Editor-in-Chief David Gewirtz would kinda like to be President of the United States because he wants his own naval fleet. However, since there’s little chance he’d survive the background check even if he could convince all of PalmPower’s readers to pencil him in, he’s decided to endorse a real candidate. Find out who and why in this month’s editorial.
.AUTHOR David Gewirtz
As many of you know, Al Gore uses a Palm device and even mentioned it during his nomination acceptance speech. For this reason alone, I figure he’d make a pretty cool President.
So here we were at our editorial meeting and my editors were telling me that I couldn’t get away with a one paragraph editorial about how we should elect the guy because of his Palm device. They suggested that I might show some awareness of the issues or at least act like I’m a concerned citizen. Ok, fine. I’ll write something that’s not the "Casper movie" of editorials (I like what my friend calls "Casper movies", fun movies with little substance and lots of explosions, rather than deep, moving, content-filled movies that’ll put you to sleep even with a fist-full of Vivarin in you).
Oh, yeah, I was also prohibited from mentioning cigars, anyone named Monica, or even thinking about how fun it’d be to see Hillary in the same room with Strom Thurmond. So, since this is an election issue and I’m supposed to do a "concerned citizen" editorial, here we go. Let me know if I seem concerned enough for you. I think I can sneak it by my editors.
What if 2002 were like 1992? What if we were in the deep hurt of another massive recession? Eight years ago, in case you forgot, our economy was in deep trouble. Ten million people were out of work. Interest rates were skyrocketing, and the budget deficit was $290 billion and rising. Things pretty much sucked.
When we, as a nation of citizens, choose a president, we’re choosing the direction the country will take for the next four to eight years.
I, for one, don’t want to go back to 1992.
There are other what-if questions that come to mind when choosing the right person for the job.
Here’s a tough one: what if women lost the right to choose? Regardless of how you feel about the abortion issue, what would our country be like if generations of women, raised with the constitutional right to own their own bodies, suddenly discovered their bodily functions were regulated by government fiat?
What about the environment? On one hand, you’ve got a guy who claims to be an environmental guru, and on the other, you’ve got two guys who grew up in oil companies. Can we really let oil cartels drill in the middle of our few remaining wildlife preserves?
And what about the Internet? Fortunately, at least in this area, both candidates have the right general idea. Gore wants to make the Internet a permanent "duty free" zone, and Bush wants to keep the ‘Net free of taxes for at least five years (though one wonders what the sixth year might bring).
It was with these questions thrashing around in my mind that I had to think: what are my obligations? What if it was 2002 and it really was like 1992–and I did nothing to prevent it?
Oh my gosh! What if it was 2002, and the man in the White House didn’t carry a Palm device on his belt?
.CALLOUT Clearly, the guy who wears a Palm device and mentions it in his speeches has got to be the one we support.
I know my priorities. As Editor-in-Chief of PalmPower Magazine, I have to look at the choice that best suits my readers. Clearly, the guy who wears a Palm device and mentions it in his speeches has got to be the one we support.
And so, PalmPower Magazine endorses Albert Gore, Jr. for President.
This was a tough decision. George W’s staff is made up of active Palm device users, as the article in Piloteer Magazine (at http://www.pmn.co.uk/public/piloteerxiii/vip.html) shows. But the candidate himself is not, by all accounts, a user of any handheld computing device, and so he’s disqualified from our weighty endorsement.
Sorry, George.
It’s also a tough decision because, frankly, neither of our candidates is what you’d call "best of show." I mean, Dubya’s not Ronald Reagan, and Al Gore’s no Bill Clinton. In my opinion, Reagan and Clinton were the two greatest presidents of the last thirty years. Reagan was an exceptional communicator, and his policies helped burn out the Soviets and end the cold war.
Clinton’s economic efforts helped transform our country, putting us in the middle of the longest economic expansion in history. With more than 22 million new jobs, the lowest unemployment in 30 years, the lowest female unemployment in 40 years, the lowest Hispanic and African American unemployment ever recorded, and the highest home ownership in history, you can almost forgive the guy his love of cigars.
The fact is, Bill Clinton was a flawed leader. But we have gone from the largest deficits in history to the largest surpluses in history. And if the country stays on course, we can make America debt-free for the first time since Andy Jackson was President in 1835. For all his faults, Bubba did get some things right. For the first time in decades, wages are rising at all income levels. We have the lowest child poverty in 20 years, the lowest poverty rate for single mothers ever recorded. The average family’s income has gone up more than $5,000, and, for African American families, its gone up even more. The number of families who own stock has grown by 40 percent.
Plus, the number of people who own Palm devices has climbed from zero to the millions. Of course, we can’t credit any politician with such an important gain. But did you notice that as the numbers of Palm devices went up, so did the economy? There’s got to be a connection. Maybe there’s still time to elect Jeff Hawkins.
Sadly, our two current candidates aren’t Reagan and Clinton. Bush and Gore are both good men, but they’re almost like second-rate knock-offs, in a way. Little George is certainly not "the real" George Bush. The senior Bush, for all his lack of vision, was a formidable man, someone really worthy of the title "President." But Dubya is not a former war hero, not a former ambassador, did not head up the CIA, was not chairman of the RNC during Watergate, and did not serve as Veep under the Great Communicator for eight years. All we really know is that George W. is a great fund-raiser and kicked some people out of their homes so he could build a baseball stadium.
And what of Gore? Here’s a guy with a "war record." Yeah, he was an army correspondent in Vietnam at just the right time for it to look good when his daddy was running for re-election in the Senate. It might have been for show, but Gore really was assigned to the 20th Engineer Brigade headquartered at Bien Hoa, an air base 20 miles northeast of Saigon. So at least he actually made it to Vietnam, and if not in the line of fire, at least had to eat the chow. OK, so rooming with Tommy Lee Jones gets him points, but it’s not like Al’s a real charmer in front of a podium.
Like I said, we’re not talking "best of show" here. We’ve got a policy lightweight up against a guy who makes a telephone pole look animated. And that’s why we looked beyond the issues, beyond the hype, beyond the men themselves to the only thing that really matteres: which one carries a Palm computer?
When the President of the United States takes out his Palm, we want to know he’s using a handheld computer and not… did we say that Al Gore is no Bill Clinton?
We thought about endorsing…well…me. I mean, I am a heck of a leader, look as cool in workout clothes as in black leather, and know exactly where I want the country to go. I already have delusions of grandeur and fantasies of having my own naval fleet. And if you want to talk about who carries more Palm devices, I’m definitely your man. But the whole kissing babies thing just doesn’t feel right to me. So, if elected, I will not serve. Well, that’s not strictly true. If you all somehow manage to elect me to that great office, I would feel obligated to serve, if only so I could get to dance with Annette Bening.
All kidding aside, this is a big choice. The president we choose now will affect us immensely over the next few years. We’ve had a great run economically, and as a country we’re more tolerant, more decent, more humane, and more united.
Make sure you get out and vote, and make sure you choose the right man.
And don’t stop thinking about tomorrow.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
For the article in The Piloteer Magazine on how Bush’s staff makes use of Palm devices, visit http://www.pmn.co.uk/public/piloteerxiii/vip.html.
.H1 Bulk reprints
Bulk reprints of this article (in quantities of 100 or more) are available for a fee from Reprint Services, a ZATZ business partner. Contact them at reprints@zatz.com or by calling 1-800-217-7874.
.END_SIDEBAR
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