The Word of the Day is ...

"Assembly."

OK, so this morning, the stupid new morning show DJ decided to focus on this bill pending in the California Legislature.  The idea of the bill is that teenagers should be able to vote, too.  The bill would allow anyone 14 or older to vote -- but voters aged 14 and 15 would only get 1/4 of a vote, and voters 16 and 17 would only get 1/2 of a vote.  The sponsoring Senator called it "training wheels for citizenship."

I don't think it's a completely ludicrous idea.  At least the bit about 16- and 17-year-olds.  I remember being 16 during an election year and getting all riled up about it.  I pored over my mother's sample ballot and decided how I would have voted if I'd had the opportunity.  By the time I was actually able to vote in a Presidential election, I was 20 and the whole thing seemed sort of anti-climactic.  The idea of getting kids in the voting booth when they're still excited about taking part in the political process is a good one to me.

Not so for New Morning DJ and his callers.  One after another, they called in and said that 14-year-olds are too young and stupid to be able to vote.  One woman called in and said she worked with 14- to 18-year-olds and none of them have the brains to justify giving them the vote.  (Um, newsflash for you, ma'am: the 18-year-olds can vote already.)  And then she went on to say, "They don't even know the first thing about California government.  They don't know the difference between the Senators and the ... " and there's this uncomfortable pause, during which the entire radio audience realizes that this bozo (who gets a full vote, same as the rest of us) doesn't know the other chamber of the state legislature is the Assembly.