Our Wish List For 2008

Here are some of the things that we would like to see happen in 2008:

We would like to see the other 47 United States get together and administer a collective beating to the states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. Every four years, it's always the same: these three states take it upon themselves to decide for the rest of us who gets to be the nominee for both the Republican and Democrat parties. The perennial arrogance of these three states which always insist on caucusing/voting first in order to indulge their desire for "retail politics" (Ever notice how it's never another set of smaller so-called "retail" states such as Nebraska, Delaware, or even Mississippi?) at the expense of the rest of the American people is simply astonishing...

It would be good if the national leadership of the Democrat and Republican parties would get some backbone and stand up to Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina and allow the 95% of the American People who don't live within the confines of those three states to actually have some meaningful say in the determination of the national parties' standard-bearers for the presidential elections of 2012.

We should make the complete destruction of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban a priority. At a minimum, Osama Bin-Laden needs to be caught, (or killed) tried, and hanged for his crimes against humanity. (Preferably without the decades-long rounds of redundant appeals.)

Andy Rooney of 60 Minutes-fame should go into well-deserved retirement...

The TV show called Lost should do just that. It jumped the shark long ago...

Hillary Rodham-Clinton should take a few acting lessons. That fake laugh cackle of hers is so painfully obvious...

We would like to see a reporter (any reporter) at long-last actually call the Countess of Chappaqua Hillary Rodham-Clinton on that above-mentioned fake laugh cackle and the way she uses it whenever a reporter does ask her a difficult question.

Should she be successful in her presidential bid, Hillary Rodham-Clinton's office will mandate the use of that hyphenated "Rodham" within two weeks of the election, as was the case when her morally-bankrupt husband won was elected president back in '92. (We really don't want to see this, but if she wins becomes the president-elect, we think it's a "sure-thing." We've made a sure-fire bet that she'll add that politikally-korrekt hyphenated Rodham to her husband's consort's name faster than you can say "no-longer-closeted-feminista.") Should The Worst happen, at least we'll make some easy money out of the disaster...

If we must watch television commercials, then let them be of the same caliber as those that are used during broadcasts of the Super Bowl.

It would be good if Katie Couric were fired from her job sinecure over at the Tiffany Network's CBS evening news so that we could at long last see her wipe that perky smug little smirk off her over-paid and over-rated face once-and-for-all.

On a related note, we would like to see CBS take the millions of dollars that was saved by Couric's well-deserved dismissal and invest it by hiring some competent reporters and re-opening several overseas bureaus.

We think that it would be nice if our cable television bill didn't go up this year like it has for each of the last five years.

We think that it would be even nicer if our take-home pay actually kept up with inflation instead of being frozen at 2002 levels...

It would be nice if Nancy Pelosi and the rest of her congressional colleagues accomplices had to put in a five-day workweek like the rest of us.

It would be really nice if the Bush Twins did something for the war effort rather than simply running amok attending social events at venues around the world. We would like to see one or both of the First Daughters in uniform, but if that 's not possible, maybe these young ladies could put in a little volunteer time down at Walter Reed Hospital. Historically (and morally) speaking, it's the thing to do in "a time of war."

Come to think of it, Jenna Bush's fiance, former White House aide Henry Hager, is a fine, strapping young man of military age. Why isn't he in uniform? Might be a good idea if one is marrying a presidential daughter during wartime while so many of our nation's other fine, strapping young men and women of military age are spending time away from their loved ones over there in Iraq, Afghanistan, and A Hundred Other Countries. (The nation's future leaders preparing to lead by setting examples: sadly, this seems to be a novel concept nowadays..)

When it comes to major-league baseball, we're old-school purists. We would like to see the designated hitter consigned to the dugout of discredited ideas where he/she/it belongs. Come to think of it, we might as well go for the double-play and get rid of inter-league regular season play while we're at it. Inter-league play is what the Founding Fathers of Baseball created the World Series for.

As for college football, enough of bowl games that have the sponsor's name taking the place of the bowl's traditional name. I mean, really, the "Chick-Fil-A Bowl" in place of the Peach Bowl? Attention Chick-Fil-A executives: how 'bout if you change the Peach "Chick-Fil-A Bowl" to the "Gimme-A-Break Bowl" instead???