Candidates full of hollow promises

Richard Rychtarik, Las Vegas

Thursday, Jan. 5, 2012 | 2:01 a.m.

As forecast, the winners in the Iowa Republican caucus were dumb and dumber. As much as I try to evade these candidates running for illusionist of the year and king of America, it’s next to impossible to avoid the hoopla. How many times have we seen the current Republican front-runner of the hour chant, “I will lower taxes, cut government spending and eliminate the departments of (fill in the blank)”?

For a party that professes to be strict constitutionalists, they seem not to have grasped a major concept of our Constitution: three separate branches of government. The Constitution is a great 220-year-old document, but it seems the gang of dwarfs has forgotten how it works. Congress makes the laws, the Supreme Court oversees their constitutionality, and the president, absent the power of a king, simply has veto authority. But why deal in fact when one is running not to advance the interest of all Americans but only to defeat President Barack Obama?

Listen to the content of the Republican rhetoric. It’s as if the candidates will not only defeat the president, but also, by proclamation, make all these hollow promises happen, despite what our Constitution clearly says is not lawful. For the real scary part, a significant number of voters actually believes what these candidates say is true. Not me, I’m voting for the candidate who says he will require the Education Department to make civics a required subject for elementary and high school graduation. It’s all perfectly legal.