Americans, in particular, and humans, in general, are silly animals. Close examination of their habits - be it mating, politics, sports, child-rearing or their professed (but conditional) love of "freedom" - cannot but bring a grin to anyone who takes the time to analyze these pursuits with an unclouded eye. We bring more hypocrisy, prejudice, half-hearted enthusiasm to any of our favorites activities than Hugh Hefner brings Viagra to a party at the Playboy mansion.

We are, hands down, the most dishonest, two-faced, back-stabbing and self-centered animals to ever walk the surface of this planet. I put celestial limits to this statement only because I have not met any actual aliens or visited any other planets. Were I ever to do so, I am confident I could be more expansive in my assertion.

We chose mates based on their bra or paycheck size, political candidates based on how convincingly they can lie, sports teams by their win-loss records and raise children with the same attention and diligence that we order a "café latte venti soy decaf skinny" at our local Starbucks. We are a nation of Teflon®-coated Homo sapiens: whatever happens to us or is caused by us is never our fault. Any suggestion of blame or personal responsibility slides off our non-stick coating like fried eggs off Pam® or water off a duck’s back.

And in a nation beset with ADD, we don’t really like to think too much either. It gives us headaches or, at the very least, a bad case of hives. So we vote on Presidents based on the simplest criterion our attention-deficit brains can find: which is to say, whichever candidate looks best on TV and whichever smuck can make it through the 2 year gauntlet called "the campaign process" without tripping over his own Doublespeak. The current candidate for President that is the darling of the media and the naive (and I’ll let you decide who I am referring to) has no more qualification to be "the Leader of the Free World" than I have to do commercials for the "Hair Club for Men". But it doesn’t matter, since the rival candidate has the bad luck of following a terribly unpopular President onto his party’s stage and, even if he had an engaging personality (which he does not) or had served his country faithfully for over 40 years (which he has), the media and the gliteratti would hate him and the horse he rode in on regardless. Since we Americans are consummate lemmings just looking for a high enough cliff, we will not decide this election on anything approaching such qualities as experience, dedication to country and its principles or personal character. We will opt, instead, to vote for a very attractively packaged and well-spoken balloon of unlimited hot air.

To propose a ridiculously simplistic metaphor ("dumbed down" so that most Americans might possibly understand it), we chose political candidates the same way 6 year olds decide which Christmas package to open first on that cherished morning. As we toddle toward November 4^th, we see two (five, if you are politically-correct enough to include Cynthia "We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!" McKinney (Green Party), Ralph "Unsafe In Any Election" Nader (Independent) and Bob "We Couldn’t Get Ron Paul, so..." Barr (Libertarian)) packages under the tree, beckoning us to tear into them and enjoy their delights. On one side of the tree is a glittering package, wrapped in exquisite paper and tied up in a beautiful velvet bow. It has flashing lights and emits the pleasing smell of frankincense and myrrh. On the other side of the tree is a package wrapped plainly in tattered plain brown shipping paper and bound up with twine. There are no flashing lights and there is only the distinct smell of Ben Gay and spent gunpowder. I’ll let you decide: which package does the 6 year old choose to open first?

Political candidates are like spouses, grab-bags at Halloween festivals and, yes, Forest, boxes of chocolates: Which is to say, you never know what you will get until you have made your choice. And, sadly, as Andrew Johnson and Billy Clinton proved to American, getting rid of a bad apple is as difficult as returning that lime green tie Aunt Rosie gave you last Christmas. So, once you have opened your package, put the batteries in and turned your shiny new toy in motion, quite often you are quickly and, often, embarrassingly surprised. What looked like the Golden Child, often enough, turns out to be a pig-in-a-poke. Most tragically of all, after January 20, 2009, we will be smacked upside the head with the harsh reality that the "no refund, no return" policy has just taken effect.

So, with the most important day in U.S. history since, well, December 7, 1941, a week away it would do us all well to ponder, at least for as long as the typical American mind can hold onto a single thought (let’s be generous and say 30 seconds), just who we are voting for as the next President of the United States. What used to be "The Most Powerful Position in the World" is still pretty damned important, at least to those of us who still actually live here.

Are we going to elect the Chosen One who has been heralded as the next Jack Kennedy (and one hastens to ask" Exactly what was so great about JFK?") or a wizened, old-fashioned "American Hero (remember those?) who has prepared for this job his entire life? Are we going to vote for novelty for the mere sake of novelty or are we going to choose old leather instead of new lace? Oscar Wilde once said: "Experience is one thing you cannot get for nothing."

And, if nothing I have said so far can cause you to think (at least in the available 30 second window) about the monumental and critically important election just a week away, always remember Albright’s Law which states that if the United Nations clearly supports one candidate, any sane American should run - not walk - to vote for the opposition candidate. Do not question why, do not pass go, do not collect $200. And one of the immediate corollaries of Albright’s Law states that if one candidate clearly and repeatedly supports a "redistribution of wealth" (known in economic terms as "socialism"), should quickly and unreservedly favor the opposition.

I might still get excited about Christmas and I like presents just as well as the next guy but, at my age, I really don’t give one whit about the pretty paper and the bows. What’s inside is what really is important. And that applies equally well to political candidates as well.