Hillary’s favorite vacation

If Hillary Clinton was in a battle to save the nation from four years of George W. Bush lite or George W. Bush heavy or wherever Senator John McCain falls on that scale, I would urge her to fight to the bitter end. But the polls clearly show she isn’t. Barak Obama has as much chance of beating McCain as she does.

After a long hard winter working the gulag of the campaign trail, two blissful weeks on the beach at the Caribbean compound of one of her wealthy friends soaking up the sun sure would surely be preferable over the frantic life she’s been leading for the "normal" person she pretends to be.

Of course nobody aspiring to be president is "normal" in the usual sense of the word. But considering the slim to none chance she has of winning – slim meaning Obama is hit, literally, by lightening – with only her ambition at stake it seems to me that a "normal" person would be Googling to get the best deal on a dream vacation whether it’s Disney World, an African safari or Tahiti.

Thinking of what I would do in a similar position, I thought back to the summer I spent visiting my aunt who lived above a garage at the base of Diamond Head in Honolulu. I was fifteen. I learned to surf waves three or four feet taller than me. I spent every day at the beach totally unsupervised.

I thought about my next "big" vacation twenty years ago when my wife and I went to the then undeveloped Caribbean island of Nevis and stayed in a ramshackle hotel at the end of Pinney’s Beach, little changed from the 1950’s. We could climb over our balcony right onto the beach.

I thought of our only other far away vacation this August when we went to Scotland.

I thought of all the other places we could go if money was no object.

Then it occurred to me that perhaps Hillary isn’t at all tempted by the prospect of her and Bill getting away from it all because she just doesn’t have much of a life outside of politics. Putting aside her ambition to be the most powerful person in the world, what does she do for fun?

Sex? Drugs? Rock and roll?

I can see Bill with his saxophone, a joint, and a few groupies throwing their panties onto the stage and his loving every second of it.

But Hill? Despite the staged "whiskey and beer" free commercial, I can’t even work up a fantasy of her kicking loose in real life.

I can conjure up images of George W. Bush at his "beach", which happens to be the ranch in Crawford, engaging in all too ordinary fun (if somewhat disturbing) activities with trusted pals.

I can visualize Barak and Michelle Obama and even John and Cindy McCain escaping the Secret Service for intimate moments on whatever is the "beach" for them.

I’ve never been accused of a lack of imagination. But try as I can all I can see projected on the movie screen following the title "Hillary’s Favorite Vacation" is the bubbling picture of melting celluloid.