Tom Eagleton Is Dead

As politicians go, Tom Eagleton was a good man.

For those of you too young to remember, Tom Eagleton was a Missouri Senator and George McGovern's Democratic Vice Presidential running mate against Richard Nixon in 1972.

During the campaign it was "revealed" (i.e. venomously leaked by the Nixon camp) that Eagleton had previously suffered from mental depression (OMG!!) and in the barbaric, prehistoric days of 1960's "mental therapy", had twice been subjected to electroshock therapy. Oh no!!!

After several awkward days of cowardly indecision, McGovern announced Eagleton's "departure" from the ticket and appointed Arnold Schwarzenegger's future father in law, Sargent Shriver, as Eagleton's replacement.

George McGovern was a cowardly chickenshit. Eagleton was destroyed. Nixon won.

We got Watergate.

But in a lame attempt at McGovern's defense, this was back in the day where any hint of mental or emotional instability was an automatic exclusion from political office.

We are talking about an environment where being a rich, spoiled, coke-snorting, alcoholic, draft-dodging, college frat boy who had the verbal communication skills of an illiterate, stoned-out Dead Head would never have a shot at any elected office.

But that was a long time ago.

Times have changed.

Thirty five years later, I would advocate emotional counseling and mandatory electroshock treatments for anyone campaigning for the presidency just to weed out any wackos who would be willing to send over 3000 of the bravest and most courageous Americans to a grisly death just to satisfy their own bizarre and twisted religious-political convictions without even a scrap of rational evidence to support them.

But that's just me! What do I know?

R.I.P. Senator Eagleton. You would have been a good VP.