It’s summer of 2008 and I’m at a party talking to a couple of people who plan to vote Democratic. We’re commiserating on the war and all the other disasters of the Bush administration while discussing the Democratic candidates. The party goers are older people, partisans of Hillary Clinton, who had recently debated Barack Obama. Here’s what they said:

‘That Osama guy, he’s too inexperienced.’

‘Yeah, and during the debate Osama made some remark about Hillary Clinton’s cleavage.’

I should have said something, but my mouth was hanging open.

It’s scary that even Democrats are making this Freudian slip — Osama instead of Obama. And the actual cutting remark that Sen. Obama made was a question to Sen. Clinton as to what distinguished her policy on Iraq from Dick Cheney’s.

The cleavage hysteria came from a writer for the Washington Post, who should be ashamed that trees were killed to print such nonsense.

It all reminds me of a passage from the dystopian novel, Farenheit 451:

‘Sounds fine,’ said Mrs. Bowles. ‘I voted last election, same as everyone, and I laid it on the line for President Noble. I think he’s one of the nicest looking men ever became president.’

‘Oh, but the man they ran against him!’

‘He wasn’t much, was he? Kind of small and homely and didn’t shave too close or comb his hair very well.’

‘What possessed the ‘Outs’ to run him? You just don’t go running a little short man like that against a tall man. Besides, he mumbled. Half of the time I couldn’t hear a word he said. And the words I did hear I didn’t understand’

‘Fat, too, and didn’t dress to hide it. No wonder the landslide was for Winston Noble. Even their names helped. Compare Winston Noble to Hubert Hoag for ten seconds and you can almost figure the results.’

I read this in high school, and it was an invaluable lesson in how political distraction can lead people so far away from the issues that they forget to take their brains into the voting booth.

Be prepared for lots of smoke and slime. Check this out from Republican candidate Mitt Romney.

“Actually, just look at what Osam– Barack Obama –” said just yesterday. Barack Obama, calling on radicals, jihadists of all different types, to come together in Iraq. That is the battlefield. … It’s almost as if the Democratic contenders for president are living in fantasyland. Their idea for jihad is to retreat, and their idea for the economy is to also retreat. And in my view, both efforts are wrongheaded.”

Romney apparently was referring to an audiotape aired Monday in which a speaker believed to be terrorist Osama bin Laden called for insurgents in Iraq to unite and avoid divisions. The authenticity of the tape aired on Al-Jazeera television could not be immediately confirmed.

This is not a slip of the tongue, he has Sen. Obama calling on jihadists. Is Romney suffering from early dementia, or was this not a mistake at all? Is he appealing to the part of the base that keeps a six-pack by the TV? Is he taking a cue from President Bush, who continues to link Iraq to the 9/11 hijackers and uses confusion and misdirection so successfully?

I have to say that while I am immensely proud that Hillary Clinton is a serious candidate for President, I am leaning to Obama. He keeps saying things that I like. She keeps saying things that I don’t like. I’m really trying to focus on the issues, but I’m expecting lots of lies, rumors and dirty tricks. We need to grow up, people. This election is our future.