This is a grim time for those of us who would like to see Team America do well.  We are tied in Afghanistan, but we’ve been playing defense and have been pushed back to our own twenty-yard line since the start of the second half.  In Iraq we are two touchdowns behind at the start of the fourth quarter. We have no Peyton Manning, and the referees have been paid off by the home team. Only a miracle will save us from certain defeat.

The home front is no better. Next year’s elections are bound to be a disaster for patriotic conservatives like myself,  which means the neocons will have a fresh start to once again con the incoming crowd. Those running for president bring no relief to the gloomy weather report. Hillary Clinton—she’s dropped the Rodham now that it suits her to be simply Clinton—makes my skin crawl. If I have to look at that smug, bloated, power-crazed face for another 8 years nightly on the idiot box, I will seriously think of moving to Grozny. She was and remains a socialist, and if you believe what she says now trying to get elected you are the type that believed her hubby when he said he “never had sex with that woman.” (What he should have done is what JFK would have done. Told the same whopper but with a wink and a smile. End of story).

Barack Obama sounds very exotic but he is an unknown quantity with a 100 percent liberal voting record and whose only claim to instant fame is his skin color. What the hell is going on here? Just because a part-black man has obvious charisma and is soft-spoken and decent, is it enough to make him president?  Why not pick an even nicer guy like Colin Powell?

The third guy, the hard-left lawyer now posing as a centrist, John Edwards, was good in screwing money out of tobacco companies—not necessarily a bad thing—but is he any good in trying to run the vast bureaucracy that is the American government nowadays? I don’t think so.

Which brings me to the Republicans. I’ll start with the present leader in the polls, Rudy Giuliani. There’s something of the night about him, have no illusions. Yes, he did fix New York City, as he and his fans tell us at every opportunity and then some. Yes, he’s arrogant and a bully, but those things have never stopped one from being a good leader of men. But his undertaker’s looks bother me. He’s more Richard III than Henry V, and now we’re at a time where the latter is needed.

I also have somewhat of a personal problem with the mayor. About ten years ago I wrote a spoof column about the Puerto-Rico Day Parade which had some busybodies screaming for my head. Then Giuliani got involved. He told a press conference that he would look into it and have me deported. The fact that I am an American citizen never entered his mind—which was concentrated on getting some Puerto Rican votes. He then threatened to boycott Conrad Black’s newspapers unless he fired me. Imagine what a great defender of free speech Giuliani is when at the drop of a hat he demands the firing of a poor little Greek boy like yours truly. As someone wrote in an English paper at the time, anyone who is for bringing in more Puerto Ricans to go on welfare while deporting a non-welfare recipient like Taki has to be wrong.

Yep, things ain’t lookin well, folks. A thrice divorced Catholic who looks and smells of Savonarola may be the next president, but don’t bet on it. People who look like undertakers win in Rumania but in these here United States, I’m not so sure. Mind you, if a congenital liar like Clinton made it, why not his lying wife or Giuliani? But Clinton was a bubba, which appealed to folk down south. Giuliani is Inspector Javert, without the latter’s propensity to jump in the water out of guilt.

John McCain is obviously a very good man and a patriot but he no longer has the fire. Gone is the ebullience of the past. Iraq has ruined the Bush presidency and McCain’s candidacy. He appears farther away from the White House than ever. Too bad. A very worthy man has gone down Swanee, thanks to the neocons.

My favorite, of course, would be Mitt Romney if he wasn’t so obsequious to AIPAC. He is a Mormon, which I would be if I could choose my religion, but the Christian Right in cahoots with the neocon cabal will put the kibosh on his candidacy. Romney is no one’s gofer, and that spells trouble. Big corporations like their candidates to play ball. Alas, look for Romney to bow out early. Too bad.  There is only one Peyton Manning but he has not as yet made up his mind.

Chuck Hagel. Now there’s a man who could win one for old Uncle Sam. Just imagine the greatest Super Bowl of all time, Chuck Hagel vs. James Webb. But it won’t happen next year. Maybe in 2012. A gloomy time indeed.