Meanwhile, the other man has been slyly hyped as a potential assassination victim. This bit of melodrama casts Obama as an MLK or a JFK or Gandhi or Malcolm X. This is nonsense, of course; American politicians aren’t killed for supporting an agenda. Still, it’s a useful fiction and one that serves his candidacy.

So let’s play the silly game. If we must choose between McCain and Obama, where does this lead? Without the lens of emotion and the additional filter of prejudice, McCain and Obama are the same tired possibility. Assuming the election is legitimate, choosing either still leaves us where we are, and that’s not a good place to linger any further.

Neither man talks about restoring the basic liberties thrown out in the past decade like so many recyclables. Neither will end the enduring shame of Guantanamo. Neither will do a solitary thing to curtail, let alone end, our war economy or our surveillance industry. And neither will ever address that biggest elephant in the room, the curious events of September 11, 2001.

Neither will and neither promised to and, sadly, neither needed to. So, if someone were to ask the famous question "What is to be done?" I wouldn’t know where to begin. But if you asked this simple question: which of these make-believe choices should we endorse? The answer is contained in the question. Neither. Rather than support this obvious farce, why not vote for something else?