When the American system collapses it won’t be God or the country’s fault. It will be the President. The guy (or perhaps someday gal) who happens to be sitting in an oval office on 1600 Pennsylvania as the rioters are slaughtered by semi-automatic guns as secret executive directives are being desperately conveyed to the Bilderberger in charge that day. This can be the only real reason why popular entertainer and professed libertarian Penn Jillette is not seeking the Presidency via the Libertarian Party. The danger of winning and the repercussions of imminent collapse after the duo-poly is shattered would be too much for that type of free spirit. Why risk it? Why do it? Why let their failures be pinned on us?
My worldwide sources reveal for the first time the secret memo drafted by David Weigel to be reviewed by Glenn Beck, on a possible Jillette ticket being crafted for 2012. It reveals the three reasons why it simply can’t be done. We expect to release to WikiLeaks after the full results in Zambia are known with certainty. But here’s a summary of the soon to be released meme.
- Not Cool: Risking your otherwise prosperous and satisfying career to be the placator in Chief is simply not worthy (see below). Why subject yourself to the continual abuse of party members, the general public and a dismissive media elite? For a guy like Jillette who gets his kicks from the Keenniacs of New Hampshire’s Free State Project, the risk of losing Ian Bernard’s respect would too great.
- Not Practical: While the LPUS might not be the only true practical spot for a third party POTUS ticket full of vim and Liberty, it’s still only a million dollar operation at best. While a consistent half a million sales is good for some investors who really like the product, everybody else likes Coke or Pepsi. Still not bad for half a buck a vote. Really. But again, not enough for a guy like Jillette who can pack ‘em in on the strip and get paid for it. Carting around to state conventions and trying to build delegate support is for the cranky boomer, former bartender types who really hate war. Penn’s book is doing fine without all that trouble.
- Not Worthy: Is the party who nominated Bob Barr really worth it? After all, the spirited debate for liberty is thriving on the Internet and other media. Penn ‘s publicist can pick up the phone and be on most shows. The best the LP can usually do is some hackneyed guest appearance on Fox that Barr’s running mate can scam because he can hawk the fiscal responsibility wares that wasteful Republicans can’t anymore because they’ve lost all credibility.
The erstwhile and internationally sophisticated Julian Assange wanted to respond to all this, but doesn’t have the whole band back yet and it was subsequently lost. It was recreated by the staff of Eric Sundwall dot com.
- It is Cool: The rest of the world would be rooting for the robust, plain and dead on speaking Jillette. If ballot access reform, proportional representation and lack of media coverage is to blame for the imminent collapse, let’s hear it straight up. The world is tired of the hegemony of American exceptionalists. Driving the collapse of the entire world community and risking a shock not known since the second world is not cool. Jillette could make this reasonable to a lot more people without spiraling into weird troofer circles or taking up real time saying what he would in fact do. The moral and ideological passion needs a magic trick or even a slight of hand, more than ever.
- Kinda Practical: Not many people know it, but the last minute bit about Tucker Carlson running for the LP nomination was initiated by GOP slime-operative Roger Stone. The stir it created proved that a last minute perceived popular personality could descend on the delegation and maybe pull it off. Certainly even the ‘chamber commerce libertarians’ who conceived the ill-fated barr campaign would recognize that Jillette’s celebrity status would eclipse the guy punked by Sasha Cohen in Borat. Thus running around to state conventions or equally strained events after the nomination might not have the associated burden a celebrity might not want to do. Stick with key and focused media opportunities and the poetry of the effort will be all that is remembered in the end.
- Note Worthy: Building the party or throwing the faithful some bones as always been the stuff of dreams for political libertarians. Wayne Allyn Root would like nothing better than to stand on a stage with Roman columns and have eighty thousand cheer and millions donate to the new Sarah Palin. A small quality niche in the otherwise ridiculous pursuit of ultimate American power might make a decent historical footnote if there is anything left after the rapture. Hopefully some device that the aliens or mutants can struggle to revive will show that there were people who recognized and condemned the madness of collective human disaster.
Unfortunately Penn Jillette won’t be that particular voice in that particular place for all the reasons above. I was the 64th person to join the ‘old’ Facebook group urging him to run.
