Mary Pitt: The World's Greatest Living Con Man

This would make a good movie, if only it were make-believe. A son of privilege, reared in New England and educated at Andover and Harvard moves to Texas to make his fortune in the oil patch. Not quite having what it takes to succeed, he turns to his wealthy father for help. Daddy calls in a few chits and plants him firmly on the stairway to success.

The young man, after successive business failures with other people's money, decides that politics is meant to be his field since Daddy was having some success with it. He donned his cowboy boots and his western-cut shirts, learned to drop his G's and talk sloppy just like the boys in the bar. Soon he sprang forth as a bona fide Texan, a real-life "good ole boy". The folks down in Texas bought it, hook, line, and sinker, and soon they elected him to be Governor. He was on his way!

What the young man lacked in stick-to-it-iveness, he made up in ambition. Being a Governor was small potatoes when Daddy was on the national stage. After Daddy was defeated for re-election as President of the United States, he saw no reason why he shouldn't occupy the same seat. Again, Daddy's friends came into play, a whole bunch of them who had been cooling their heels in Republican think-tanks, being paid to think and to plot how to again seize control of the government. They even thought up a plan to use that control of the government to corner the market on world oil! It involved a little lying and a whole lot of conceit, and they knew just the man who would be willing to do it.

This was a match made in Heaven, (or elsewhere), and the plan was afoot. Multi-national corporations with money in oil and many other things were approached and solicited for funds to launch this plan and the young phoney was brought forth as a candidate for President. He played his part well, convincing the common people that he was one of them and understood their hopes and their fears. He played upon their pride and their prejudices. He proclaimed his acceptance of their moral values and religious faith while maintaining his facade of Texas macho. He promised them good education for their children, inexpensive heath care, and a secure retirement while paying reduced taxes. A rosier future had not been proposed since they were promised "a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage".

The poor and middle-class folks poured out to support him and he almost won a majority of the votes, but the electoral college gave him one last chance. Again his daddy's influential friends were called in and their powerhouse layers and mouthpieces went to Florida and so confused the situation that the Supreme Court had to be brought in. After a little argument and a brief deliberation, they decreed that he should be the President of the United States. Appointing many of his father's friends and cohorts to positions of responsibilyt, he was ready to take control of the lives of all Americans.

Now, the first thing on their agenda, of course, was oil and Iraq had two strikes against it. They not only were the hub of the Middle East oil area with some of the finest oil to be found anywhere, but they were old enemies, led by a really bad guy who had his own ambitions to shape the wrold to his liking. Yes, it was to be Iraq and the sooner, the better!

However, as they were laying these plans and cutting taxes for their "base", the leading corporations and wealthy businesses that had been of such support in attaining this opportunity and were planning to remove the social programs which had supported many of the poor, a real opportunity arose. The bunch of Arabs that had been needling us for years, blowing up embassies, trying to sink ships, and otherwise being a total nuisance to us all over the world, finally got their stuff together and flew a couple of airplanes into a couple of huge business buildings in New York City and one into the Pentagon.

Now, this really ticked a lot of people off and they had to take a detour in order to convince people that they were really going to get even for that. But Osama bin Laden, the leader of this group of Saudi Arabians, was then living in Afghanistan and it was necessary to go there to get him. However, the Afghanis didn't want to give him up and we had to whip them, too. This got to be too hard and cost too much, distracting them from their main objective, Middle East oil. Osama and his boys went into the mountains and hid out, so they pulled out most of the soldiers and a lot of the money and started for Iraq.

This is not to say that everybody bought into his stories of an invasion of Iraq being a necessity. The United Nations opposed it and people all over the world marched in the streets by way of protest, but this guy had his mind made up. He told folks that this was his "mission from God" and many believed it. He said it would be over very quickly and that democracy would spread from Iraq all over Asia as the [ep[le there turned to freedom and Christianity

The war is not yet over as the people who live there consider us not as liberators but as occupiers, and they want us gone. They are fighting with every resource they can muster, including suicide bombers, kidnapping, and beheading. Our young men are dying at the rate of three or four a day, the taxpayers' money, (the poor and middle-class at least), is pouring out into the pockets of the civilian contractors and there is no end in sight.However, this man is not deterred. In the manner of the old-time faith healers and snake oil salesmen, he is still spouting the old platitudes and the standard appeal of the pitch man, "Trust me. I am one of you, and I will not let you down."

Well, listen closely, children. He is not one of you. He isn't even really a Texan. He is the profligate scion of a privileged family and probably has never known anyone in your economic class who didn't work for him. He has no idea of what your problems are because he has never wanted for anything in his life nor has he ever had to work for his living. His claims of Christian morality are as phoney as his Texas accent which he tosses out when he mumbles through a campaign speech. He is trying to sell you the same snake oil that you bought in 2000 and it really hasn't done you a bit of good, has it?

Nobody wants to admit that they fell for a con man's speil but, eventually, it is necessary to shout "Enough!" and run the scoundrel out of town. Now is the time!

Mary Pitt is a septuagenarian Kansan who is self-employed and active in the political arena. Her concerns are her four-generation family and the continuance of the United States as a democracy with a government "of the poeple, by the people, and for the people".

© Scoop Media