The puzzle.

A 13-year-old girl, raised in a Liberal household, asked her Conservative grandmother why she disliked President Obama. Not having been privy to the conversation, I don't know the grandmother's answer.

But, hearing of the conversation, caused me to think: How would one explain something so complex to a 13-year-old? Puzzling!

I think I would first try to explain that, while you vote to elect only one person, you are actually choosing thousands of persons to run the executive branch of our government.

Yes, the name of the Vice-President is on the ballot, but that person was personally chosen by the presidential candidate. Once elected, the President gets to choose the people to run the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, Health and Human Services, Justice, and more. The President also chooses the Secretary of State, who oversees our relations with all foreign nations, the Secretary of Defense, who oversees our entire military force, and others.

So, when you speak of the policies or the actions of "President Obama", you are actually describing the policies and actions of tens of thousands of people.

Many of these people, like Barack Obama himself, have little experience to qualify them for such important jobs. Many are well-meaning people who propose rules and regulations which sound plausible, but in practice are burdensome, costly and restrict the freedoms of law-abiding citizens.

As a Conservative, I believe the government has grown too large and unweildy. I believe there is much waste of taxpayers money. Because the government has grown so large, I believe it is impossible to keep track of everything that is happening, and that leads to fraud and abuse.

In the past, many new government programs were created. If they were later proven to be ineffective, those programs were discontinued. Today, however, failing government programs are never ended.

For example, in the 1970s, it became apparent that America was too dependent on foreign nations for our supply of oil. If those nations were to cut off shipments of oil to America, we could no longer operate our cars, planes, ships or trains. We could no longer make many of the plastics we use in everyday products.

The Department of Energy was formed to solve that problem and end our dependence on foreign oil. The D.O.E. has clearly not solved the problem, yet we continue to spend billions of dollars each year to run the D.O.E.

We Conservatives would like to abolish the D.O.E., but President Obama does not agree.

So, when we say we dislike Obama, we are really saying we disagree with the way the government is operating.

Is my young teen listener still awake?