As passersby go about their business, a dark figure stands in the shadow of the alley. Dressed in a nice suit and groomed well, the man is standing over a small folding table, sliding plastic cups around on the table top. People stop, hear his spiel, and put their money down to play his game.
At the time of play, the dark figure removes each cup, one at a time. Under each cup, are balls with questions written on them. The person places a bet, that he or she can pick his or her chosen question after the dark figure shuffles them around the table. If the person can pick the right cup after the shuffle, the question can be asked and an honest answer will be given.
An old man walks up, looks over the questions, then lays his money down. "That one", he says. "I want the one that says, "Did you lie on your application for Occidental College"?
The dark figure then turns over the cups, covering up the balls and questions, and starts sliding the them all around the table. All the while, the old man watches intendly to keep track of the one he chose. Then, the cups are stopped, all in a line. The old man is then asked, "Where is your question?"
The old man, confident he has watched the right cup, chooses his cup. The cup is lifted and the ball, is revealed. "Where are Romney's tax returns?" Hey, that wasn't in there!", the old man protests.
"Sorry fella, but you lose. ....Next!"
After watching carefully people come and go at the table, a young man steps up. "I'll have a go. Let me see the questions!"
Each cup is lifted up, revealing five questions in all, such as, "What are you and Holder really hiding about Fast and Furious?"; "You say you support the 2nd amendment, so why are you quietly supporting the United Nations attempt to circumvent that?"; "You said you wanted to "fundamentally change America", so isn't your real plan to make America a Marxist type society?"; "You said the constitution sometimes gets in the way of you doing what you'd like to do, so isn't it true that you hate the Constitution?"; and "Did you lie on your application for Occidental College?"
The young man slaps down his money and says, "I'll take that one!", pointing to the ball with his choice of questions. He notices that none of the balls shown, had any mention of Romney on them, so he knew to watch the shuffle closely.
All the balls are covered, and the sliding of the cups are fast and erratic, before coming to a stop in a neat line. The young man smirks, as he folds his arms in a confident pose, and tells the man, "It's that one! That one in the middle."
The middle cup is lifted up, and the ball with the question is revealed. "Why does Romney want tax breaks for the very rich?"
"Hey! That's not right. That's not the one I choose, and isn't even one of the questions! Let's see the other ones."
"No sir, you only paid for the one, and you can't see the rest of them", says the dark figure.
Someone else in the crowd spoke up, "I'm with him. You didn't have that in there. Where's his question?"
The dark figure started collecting his cups and folding his table, as he says to the on-lookers, "Sorry people, but this is the only game I play, and you played and lost."
Under the head-scratching and moans of the on-lookers, the dark figure moves on. Soon, he's in another alley, unfolding his table and setting up his cups.
"Come one ... come all ... See if you can beat me at my game....." And so it went, with more people betting their futures with the Shell Game.
The future of America is too important to let it ride on a shell game of truth. We need to not play such games, with ANY politician, and make ALL of them show their real hands.
Just one man's view,
Dan
