Published: November 07, 2007 05:51 pm      

Randy Sheridan: If I were president — for a day

The presidential political season is in full swing. You can’t turn on the television or the radio without hearing about who won the latest debates or who’s ahead in the polls. Late-night comedians make a living off of bad photo ops and speech miss-speaks.

States have been jockeying for prime time influence by moving their primaries around on the political calendar. War chests are being flexed like the biceps on Mr. Olympia Jay Cutler’s arms.

Candidates are being asked their position on every imaginable issue: global warming, abortion, the war on terror and beyond. Reporters sometimes can get a little too creative in the questions they ask or the way they ask them, sometimes in a thinly veiled attempt to trap an interviewee.

The contenders are beginning to separate themselves from the pretenders. Or are they? It all depends on which polls you believe or which television network you watch. Most of the networks aren’t satisfied with simply reporting the news anymore; the producers pretty well have their own political agendas. Especially the hard-core, liberal left wingers.

Nevertheless, presidential politics are alive and well. For Thanksgiving you will have turkey, dressing and White House marmalade. Around the Christmas tree will be gifts beautifully wrapped with colorful ribbons and bows and the latest candidate ornament tidbit trying to dress up his or her campaign.

Candidates are honing their message, realizing that certain issues aren’t getting any traction or are not as important to their constituency as the campaign strategist thought it would be. One of the questions being asked of the potential presidents is, “What would you do your first day in office?”

What if you could be president for 24 hours, for one day; what’s the first thing you would do?

I’m not exactly sure how presidential executive orders work, but I would assume it would be a real workout for most of you. But hey — you’ve only got 24 hours in the Oval Office, and you have got to do more than change the color of the most visible office in the world.

Would you make homosexuality acceptable in the military as Bill Clinton famously did his first day, which was a political disaster? Would you stop the killing of babies by ruling that abortions are cruel and inhumane?

I think the first thing I would say is, “Wow! What big shoes you wear Mr. President!” I would have already found out how many executive orders I could execute in 24 hours and would be prepared to max that out!

Having previously had aids combine a list of potential judicial nominees, I would remove the liberal activist judges and appoint those who would act upon the laws rather than trying to push their bias positions off on the public.

This is an area that has probably hurt our country as much as anywhere: liberal activist judges who failed to properly carry out their responsibilities. Instead, they had subscribed to an agenda that has helped escalate the moral carnage and criminal behavior throughout the land.

Of course I would stop the abortion train in its tracks. Millions of babies have been murdered in the name of convenience. We don’t even blush any more about the terrible plight of the unborn. God have mercy upon us!

As president, I would recognize — in a really big way — all of the couples who have been married for 25 years or more. I would bring in Paul Harvey and Angel, have him moderate a celebration of the sanctity of marriage.

I would declare an “Amazing Marriage” holiday to be celebrated annually, have a parade in Washington D.C. and give special honor to all the couples across the United States who had been married for at least 50 years.

This would help raise up a generation of young people who would have a new respect for the tradition of marriage. Why all the big to-do about marriage, you ask? Because what you praise you tend to produce.

Well, I’ve had a busy first couple of hours in the White House, causing some folk to have a coronary but moving us slightly closer to normal. We have caved in to the abnormal squeaky wheels long enough. A little bit of sanity please.

I’ve hardly got the presidential chair warm and the liberal wackos (as Rush calls them) are already calling for my impeachment. Leave me alone clone, I’m going nonstop as president for 24 hours. Besides, I haven’t gotten to ride on Air Force One yet!



Randy Sheridan resides in Burleson.

He is a speaker,

counselor and mediator.

He can be reached at

drsheridan@aol.com