Kissing Cousins....

Hope everyone had a jolly and not scowly Christmas feast, with talk of presidential politics kept to a minimum around the groaning board. We managed here in New Jersey to pull this off, with one significant exception, which was a little tiff which exploded into brief bang-up of an argument over whether or not Obama really had enough experience to be president, something I think will be the main thing tossed his way should he get the Democratic nod.
But a few deep breaths and some inhalations of turkey and mashed potatoes calmed this one down.
A few days before Christmas I spoke on the air with WAOK radio jock Shelly Wynters down in Atlanta and took some phone calls about possible dirty tricks coming up. To my surprise, one caller was quite worked-up about the fact that Rudy Giuliani's first marriage had been to his second cousin, something that hadn't even concerned me. When I said Rudy's enemies had much more to throw at poor Rudy than the "cousin thing"--both the caller and Shelly broke out laughing. It was like they were saying, "Dude, you don't know how people really think!" Another caller quizzed me closely to see if I shared his concern that George Bush would not let elections occur next November--some excuse would be made (a faked terrorist attack) to shut down the gov and keep Bush in office under martial law. Rumors like this have surfaced at different times in American history and have always been dismissed as the doggerel of far-far-far out fringe groups. However, I talked with a few friends about this later and found that there are a number of people who really believe in this as a scenario. Despite my credentials as a dirty tricksologist, it never even occurred to me, but then again, it wouldn't occur to me to marry my cousin, either.