jeffvrabel.com

GateHouse - As a 32-year-old American male, I am obliged by peer pressure, social trends and Scarlett Johansson to vote for Barack Obama, D-Coolsville.

Normally, I would do this willingly and with great enthusiasm, as throughout my history of presidential voting, which thanks to irregularities in Illinois’ voter rolls dates back to 1856, I have based my vote almost exclusively on Awesomeness of Teeth. And listen, John McCain, you seem like a nice guy, a nice old guy, a nice guy who wants to talk to me for like an hour, but my God man, have you seen Obama’s teeth? They’re like what I imagine the gates of heaven look like, if they were made of teeth, which they may be, though I was kind of hoping for, like, really shiny gold.

Yet I’m afraid that this year will be different. I cannot cast my vote for Obama because though I find myself moved by his words, mobilized by his message and inspired to action in a way I didn’t think possible by a presidential candidate, I just can’t feel good about voting for the antichrist.

Oh sure, you’re saying, there in your glass house, “Jeff, you flip-flopping nimrod, get off of your fluffy Whiny Couch, vote for the damn antichrist, and stop whining.” Listen, maybe voting for the antichrist doesn’t mean anything to you, but back where I come from, which is a small town in Indiana somewhere (I’d have to look at the birth certificate) that’s just not how we did things.

No, back in my Indiana hometown of Shelbyville (or maybe Logansport - I was very small, and the signs were way up off the ground), we weren’t spiffy folk. We didn’t use flowery language or know how to do much but nail backboards to things. But I reckon if my parents taught me anything, it was never use my valuable American vote to accelerate the spread of evil throughout our great, corn-fed land. (Well, that’s not entirely true. They also taught me the state capitals.)

In case you’re still confused - and you may be, as Satan works in mysterious ways, although apparently a lot more via the Internet than he used to, which seems lazy - a great many e-mails have been circulating in recent weeks. They proclaim, and I’m quoting e-mail here, which will explain the uncontrolled capitalization and seventh-grade spelling errors: “According to the Book of Revelations the anti-christ … will be a man, in his 40s, of MUSLIM descent, who will deceive the nations with persuassive language, and have a MASSIVE Christ-like appeal … the prophecy says that people will flock to him and he will promise false hope and world peace, and when he is in power, will destory everything. Is it OBAMA??”

Now, listen, it has taken a lot to destory my faith in Obama. I can get over his use of the “fist-bump” (or “fist-jab,” depending on which farcical media outlet is trying to hilariously write about it), which was adopted by terrorists recently after, apparently, the NBA and every rapper alive got done with it. I can get over his attempting to hide his MUSLIMness by attending Christian churches his whole life. I can forgive his middle name of Hitler, or that his name rhymes with “Osama,” which makes people wonder if they’re brothers. Although if one were attempting to surreptitiously mask his nefarious ties to one of the planet’s most reprehensible characters, one would probably aspire to something more clever than changing a “B” to an “S.” I can put up with the fact that he was born in Kenya, or possibly Hawaii, to alien radical Muslim clerics who sent him to boarding school in Guantanamo Bay before teaching him that the way to crush down entire societies is by doing trendy greetings with your wife on national television.

But the antichrist thing, I’m just not comfortable with. So until you can prove to me, sir, that you are not the walking personification of the most foul form of evil, then I must … um, hang on. OK, see, there’s a Google hit here that just came up that says, “George W. Bush is the antichrist.” Wait, so, um, this is confusing. Two antichrists? From opposing idelogical viewpoints? Help me, Internet! HELP ME! TEACH ME!