So, late to the blog-reaction party, being out and about this morning, in my some-time employer’s high-off-the-ground bright yellow jeep with the ranch advertising etched on the windows, collecting my paycheck from the Large Corporate Entity and buying groceries. I had the classical music station on, which didn’t go to a newsbreak that I heard for most of the morning… eh, it was the same with 9-11. I wasn’t aware for hours.

But upon returning to the house… and wow! Talk about getting inside the Obamanation’s decision loop. Or as they say in chess parlance, ‘check’. That strange whistling sound must be that of the air rushing out of whatever room that the Obama-Biden campaign is strategizing in. Tell me, who the hell made speeches last night? There were some speeches last night at the Democratic convention, weren’t there? This is such a true maverick move. I can’t stop chortling. Somewhere, Hilary Clinton must be shredding that orange pantsuit, snarling “Mine! It should have been mine!” and making life hell for whoever is with her. In a truly just world, that would be Mr. Bill, ex-prez and aficionado of young interns.

Picking Sarah Palin for the VP slot – youngish, sharp, attractive, female, with administrative experience as a mayor and governor, mother of children, blue-collar husband, soldier son, another political maverick – oh, a Veep candidate who is proof against the arrows and slings of the hard-core Kossacks. They can’t chuck stones at her without having them rebound on them tenfold! Honestly, the only way she could be made more critic-proof would be if she were black or mixed race, spoke Spanish as her first language and was a lesbian – admittedly that last would be hard to square with the marriage and five children.

Oh, man – this campaign has just all of a sudden gotten fun. Break out the popcorn, now we are all paying attention. To loosely quote J.P Rourke, “Old age and treachery beat out youth, speed and a bad haircut.”

Proof…proof I tell you that the DNC is un-American!

Here’s the list of items that won’t be allowed into Invesco Field for Barack Obama’s acceptance speech:

From the Rocky Mountain News:

Outside food and beverage of any kind, including alcoholic beverages, coolers and bottled water

Umbrellas

Large bags, suitcases or backpacks

Noisemakers, air horns, whistles, cowbells (???!!!), horns, bull horns or other voice enhancement devices.

Signs, banners, flags or any other items that would either obstruct the view of a patron or serve as a security risk

Any and all unauthorized merchandise, including unapproved pamphlets, handouts, advertisements, etc.

Knives of any size, razor blades or sharp or pointed objects like scissors and knitting needles

Mace, pepper spray or aerosol containers

Fireworks

Weapons of any kind, including toy weapons, or any article that might be used as a weapon or compromise public safety.

Canes that aren’t used for medical reasons, chains, or sticks of any length

Screwdrivers or Leatherman brand or similar tools

Dangerous or hazardous items or materials including chemical, biological, radiological agents

Animals (except service dogs and guide dogs)

Folding chairs

Laser devices

Tripods

Bikes, inline skates, skateboards, scooters, shoes with wheels

Illegal drugs and any other illegal substances

Frisbees or inflated balls of any kind.

Do you see that?  NO COWBELLS.  Proof that they’re a bunch of commies!

Which just goes to show that Chris Muir is actually more topical than I thought…actually, I’m wondering if he’s more topical than HE thought.

On a side note, did you SEE the stage.  Designed, and I shit you not, by the same guy who designed Britney Spears’ stage for her last tour.  You can’t make this shit up.  I swear this guy wants to give it away.

I’m kinda wishing Joe Biden had done better against Senators Clinton and Obama.

But I’m a sucker for Irishmen and blarney.

If Hillary just lost it tonight and said, “F*** this for the good of the party s***, let’s rumble!”

Some sort of bomb has to fall soon, this political season is getting boring.  I thoroughly expected some sort of stink would have blown into the mix by now.

Of course there’s the ad that Obama’s folks are getting all Chicago Old School about.  It’s all over the right wing blogs, but I can’t believe that it’s not getting more mainstream coverage.

Really?!!  I don’t think I could be LESS excited.  Okay, I could have been less excited.  He could have picked some nobody that no one had ever heard of outside of their state.

I don’t know much about Biden other than a bit about how he plagiarized something back in 87, and then again in law school…which, when you look back on the news of an Obama speech last winter, kind of makes sense.  On the other hand, I know I’ve heard a lot about how Biden is strong on foreign affairs so that’s going to help fill in some of Obamas gaps.  Sort of like how Dick Cheney filled in Presidents Bush’s gaps on…oh I can’t type a list that long, you know what I mean, and you know how well THAT worked out.

Well, that makes November easier.  Even if McCain picks Lieberman, which I think personally think is a great ticket, I believe McCain is going to just keep on crawling up and up and up the polls.  Not because anyone really wants him as President, just because he’s “mostly harmless” in a Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy sort of way.

The latest right wing bruhaha is that Obama didn’t visit the wounded troops at Landstuhl and Ramstein while in Germany.  It didn’t bother me a bit.  It would be completely inappropriate for any candidate to visit any military installation and use it as a backdrop as part of their campaign.

BUT!  -the right cries-  Obama insists this isn’t a campaign trip.

Riggghhhhttt.

Here’s some news for you geniuses, if you see either Senator Obama or Senator McCain anytime in the next three months or so, they’re campaigning.   You know it, they know it, even my dog Max knows it and he doesn’t have a reputation as a particularly smart dog.

I think he’s given his opponent enough fodder without  tagging him with this one.

And seriously, do you really think the wounded troops appreciate ANYONE in politics coming to visit them when they’re on the mend?  Think about it, the hospital is going to change all the linen, even if it’s clean, they’re going to make you put on a fresh hospital gown.  The floors are all going to be mopped and buffed to a gleam causing that wonderful smell of simple green, amonia and wax, and no one’s going to be allowed NEAR the cafeteria until it’s clear the politico isn’t hungry.

Okay, look.  I’m still out of work, so before, during and after I’m done surfing around the net and looking at the paper for opportunities, I catch a good portion of the news.  I watch an hour or so of Foxnews (SWOOSH) and then an hour or so of CNN (now with some James Earl Jones soundalike doing their “Black in America” promos) and if I remember what channel it’s on, I’ll catch the BBC just to see what the Brits are saying about us.  I got into that habit when we were in Germany.  It can be very…educational and it makes me feel better about being American instead of some elitist wanker.

I gotta tell ya that I’m getting scared here.  The two men running for office are freaking idiots!

Every time you turn around Obama is either making shit up as he goes along, or he’s spouting stuff that’s so ridiculous my mouth literally drops open like I’m one of my Father’s relatives who moved to Southern Missouri because it made them feel smarter.  When I listen to him I feel dumber than I did before he started.  I mean he sounds better than most politicos, but when he’s done talking I’m just thinking, “What?!  That made absolutely NO sense.”  No…I can’t give you specifics, it happens EVERY time.  And he’s starting to make John effing Kerry sound absolutely decisive.

And McCain?  I haven’t seen that dynamic a speaker since Bob Dole ran against Clinton.  And that insipid grin he gets when he’s “scoring points” on Obama?  I’m sorry but it’s just plain creepy.  I’m waiting for the 1930s monster movie music to come up.  And seriously, the clip of him cruising around with Bush I in the golf cart?  Dude…the age thing isn’t helping your case and nothing says, “I’m too old to be President.” like a golf cart…unless it’s one of those scooters from Walmart with the basket in front.

Obama, stop making shit up.  Here’s an idea, when you don’t know what you’re talking about, shut the hell up.

McCain.  Stop pointing out what’s wrong with Obama, you’re sounding even MORE like a democrat when you do that.

Both of you, start talking about what you’re going to DO about the economy, gas prices, and the four years you’re presumably going to be President.

From: Sgt Mom
To: B. Obama
CC: Mainstream Media, Lefty Blogosphere
Re: The Sound of Skewered Sacred Cows in the Morning

1. I haven’t read the New Yorker in a while; somehow all that New York trendoid media’s almost incestuous fixation with its own navel kind of wore thin after a couple of decades. They will also persist in paying great wads-o-cash for Seymour Hersh to dribble all kinds of disinformation from his handlers – er, his oh-so-secret gummint sources into the world at large – apparently on the off chance that the law of averages will catch up to him someday and he will actually make an accurate prediction. So here they go, making a huge splash with a cover that has managed to become the blogosphere’s “S**tstorm of The Day” by skewering both the anointed of the lefty blogosphere, the Obaminator himself and his missus… and the so-called follies of the righty blogosphere.

2. I presume that the editors of the New Yorker are chortling all the way to the bank, having created more interest in this particular issue than in practically anything else since the cover that featured a Hasidim in a torrid embrace with a black woman. Still, if they really had a pair, I can’t help thinking that they’d have used one of the dreaded Danish Motoons of Doom on the cover. Ah, well, say what you will, I don’t think Moveon.org or the Huff-Post will slap a fatwa on their asses or break out the exploding vests at this act of les-majestie against the Chosen One, the Fresh Prince of Chicago.

3. It has not gone without notice that other political figures have been savaged in caricature and cartoons in recent times, occasionally by this very same publication, with scarce a resulting peep. In fact, sitting presidents and aspirants to that office have been savagely caricatured for simply decades, nay for the two centuries plus that this nation has been a going concern. There were early politicians of hot temper and thin skin who were moved to fight duels, and a senator of Southern sympathies who took a cane and whaled the tar out of a senator with abolitionist leanings on the very floor of the Senate in the lead-up to our Civil War… but in the main, they manned up and developed a hide of the approximate thickness of a rhinoceros’s. The very best of them managed to pass it off with a quip and a chuckle – a course of action I would suggest to Mr. Obama.

4. It is being said – with an increasingly defensive tone of voice – that no, no, no, the cover is supposed to represent the those fears and rumors being whipped up by those running-dogs of the Right, the Minions of the Dreaded Lord Rove, all those gun-hugging, God-clinging white racist lumpen-proles who are not falling to their knees and instantly worshipping the Anointed One, all those ignorant Jesusland freaks who would just redeem their horrible selves if they would only accept the changyness and obey the commands of the anointed… and if they don’t it only proves that they’re “teh racists!” Oh, yeah. Whatever. Go pull the other leg, sport, that one has jingly bells on it. Being one who actually hangs out on some of the dreaded “Right Wing Blogosphere Weblogs o’ Death, I must observe that the objections to his proposed tenancy in the White House mostly center upon a resume as thin as his skin, his choice of friends, his propensity for using and then throwing the embarrassing and/or inconvenient ones under the bus, his background as a product of Chicago Machine politics, and the whole “tomorrow belongs to me” * ambiance about his followers. I won’t even get into his search for a father figure except to note that these ‘seed and leave’ men (such as Obama, Senior) do tend to leave a lot of damage in their wake.

5. Eh, well – this is what makes an election season so interesting. It makes amusing sport, so pass the popcorn. At this rate, it may be a very interesting summer.

6. Sincerely though, Mr. Obama – develop a thicker skin. You are only a politician. Man up and take your lumps like all the rest. You are not special, and you are not allowed to float graciously above the fray. The color of your skin does not give you a pass. As MLK so cogently observed, one should be judged upon the content of ones’ character.

Sincerely,

Sgt. Mom

* For those who need reminding, here is the best “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” sequence that I could locate. It’s from “Cabaret”, and pretty well illustrates some of the creepiness that some critics see in elements of the Obama campaign:

There are a few news anchors who I honestly enjoyed watching and who I actually trusted.  On the top of that list was Tony Snow.

I don’t think I enjoyed Presidential press conferences more than when he was the Press Secretary.  When he gave his previous colleagues the look, I’d just giggle my butt off.

Rest well sir.  Well done.

Sorry, I knew I promised way back when not to indulge in juvenile name-calling when it came to this years election campaign, but that was just too rich to pass up, too much like a dense and fudgy slab of Mississippi Mud chocolate tart with pecans, whipped cream and a whole real maraschino cherry, on top, the kind with a stem and a real seed pit in the center… temptation, I can resist anything but temptation.

I will say this for Mr. Hopey-Changey-Chicago-Machine-Pol… he is at least a bit more personally charming than John Kerry, who alas, came off as an unfortunate cross between Lurch and Eddie Haskell. I still wish I could reach out and give the mother of all dope-slaps to whichever of his strategist-minions suggested that he make his military service the centerpiece of his campaign, lo these four years ago. I am still cringing at that awful salute that he rendered… God, the Air Force gets all kinds of stick for sloppy salutes, but that one of his took the absolute cake. And as for reminding everyone of how he made his first political bones… Way to go, people. I couldn’t find a single Vietnam-era military vet in San Antonio who didn’t despise him so much for his part in Winter Soldier and other anti-war follies that they could hardly say his name without adding some serious bad language. Or at least, making a face like they had just bitten into a breakfast taco and discovered a palmetto but into it. However… water under the bridge, people, water under the bridge. Now we are faced with a gorgeous, well spoken well-connected and charming… empty suit. It doesn’t help that his most prominent military affairs advisors appear to be Wesley Clark (better known as Weasely and worse to those who served with and under him) and Merrill McPeak… the very mention of whose name still makes NCOs who served during his tenure spit nails, not the least for his pet project – the new Air Force Uniform (ta-dah! – god, what a dog, and we would have had to buy it, too!) To steal a phrase; of all the possible advisors on matters military, I think that the Obama campaign has hit upon the two most likely former general officers to make military veterans run screaming. That takes a kind of genius, really. A warped genius… and has anyone seen Karl Rove, recently!!!???

Obama is an empty suit, albeit a beautifully tailored one. As long as the suit is reading off the teleprompter, and dazzling with it’s considerable charm and piquancy, distracting attention from the fact that it’s resume is as slender as Callista Flockhart’s thighs… no, I do not care for Mr. Obama. Or his friends, his resume, his pathetic father-abandonment issues, his irritatingly resentful wife, his propensity for throwing friends, family, staff and allies underneath the metaphoric bus… there are so many people under it now, it must be jacked up like one of those pick-up trucks that you need a tall ladder to climb into. I am allergic to demagoguery, to charming people who say whatever they need to say to one audience – mostly airy promises - and something else to the next audience, and then get their well-tailored knickers in a bunch when asked searching questions about whatever it is that they have said.

Still, there are more lawn-signs and bumper stickers out for him than there ever were in my neighborhood for M. Kerry, four years ago. It’s going to be a long summer…

…Because I’m really curious to see some thoughts on this.

In Peggy Noonan’s column today (Friday), she compares the Old America and the New America. She’s talking about the election, of course, but I found her thoughts interesting.

… 2008 will also prove in part to be a decisive political contest between the Old America and the New America. Between the thing we were, and the thing we have been becoming for 40 years or so. (I’m not referring here to age. Some young Americans have Old America heads and souls; some old people are all for the New.)

Mr. McCain is the Old America, of course; Mr. Obama the New.

* * *

Roughly, broadly:

In the Old America, love of country was natural. You breathed it in. You either loved it or knew you should.

In the New America, love of country is a decision. It’s one you make after weighing the pros and cons. What you breathe in is skepticism and a heightened appreciation of the global view.

Old America: Tradition is a guide in human affairs. New America: Tradition is a challenge, a barrier, or a lovely antique.

The Old America had big families. You married and had children. Life happened to you. You didn’t decide, it decided. Now it’s all on you. Old America, when life didn’t work out: “Luck of the draw!” New America when life doesn’t work: “I made bad choices!” Old America: “I had faith, and trust.” New America: “You had limited autonomy!”

Old America: “We’ve been here three generations.” New America: “You’re still here?”

Old America: We have to have a government, but that doesn’t mean I have to love it. New America: We have to have a government and I am desperate to love it. Old America: Politics is a duty. New America: Politics is life.

The Old America: Religion is good. The New America: Religion is problematic. The Old: Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em. The New: I’ll sue.

Mr. McCain is the old world of concepts like “personal honor,” of a manliness that was a style of being, of an attachment to the fact of higher principles.

Mr. Obama is the new world, which is marked in part by doubt as to the excellence of the old. It prizes ambivalence as proof of thoughtfulness, as evidence of a textured seriousness.

Both Old and New America honor sacrifice, but in the Old America it was more essential, more needed for survival both personally (don’t buy today, save for tomorrow) and in larger ways.

The Old and New define sacrifice differently. An Old America opinion: Abjuring a life as a corporate lawyer and choosing instead community organizing, a job that does not pay you in money but will, if you have political ambitions, provide a base and help you win office, is not precisely a sacrifice. Political office will pay you in power and fame, which will be followed in time by money (see Clinton, Bill). This has more to do with timing than sacrifice. In fact, it’s less a sacrifice than a strategy.

A New America answer: He didn’t become a rich lawyer like everyone else—and that was a sacrifice! Old America: Five years in a cage—that’s a sacrifice!

In the Old America, high value was put on education, but character trumped it. That’s how Lincoln got elected: Honest Abe had no formal schooling. In Mr. McCain’s world, a Harvard Ph.D. is a very good thing, but it won’t help you endure five years in Vietnam. It may be a comfort or an inspiration, but it won’t see you through. Only character, and faith, can do that. And they are very Old America.

Old America: candidates for office wear ties. New America: Not if they’re women. Old America: There’s a place for formality, even the Beatles wore jackets!

What do y’all think?

And while you’re at it, what do you think about the classified documents that were found on a British commuter train? (oops)

This is something I learned in Mr. Bryer’s U.S. History/Civics class in 1977-78.

THE 545 PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE FOR AMERICA’S WOES
BY CHARLEY REESE

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, we have deficits? Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The president does. You and I don’t have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does. You and I don’t write the tax code. Congress does. You and I don’t set fiscal policy.

Go read the whole thing.

It’s 12:40 Eastern Time. We’ve had the TV on news for the past 45 minutes or so…waiting for Hillary’s concession speech…which was scheduled for 12:00 Eastern. Ya know, if it wasn’t so typical, I might be insulted. If I was one of her supporters, I would be insulted. Pardon the title, but it’s true. I think this may be the end of the Clinton’s.

12:44…her name is announced.

12:45, she takes the podium.

12:46 she finally starts talking.

She’s grateful…yadda yadda yadda. Young people…big young cheer. Old people…cough, wheeze, get off my lawn.

18 Million…big cheer.

Endorsing Barak…smaller cheer, lots of boooooos.

Socialist agenda…lots of cheers.

Bill…lots of cheers.

We need a Democrat…lots of cheers.

YES WE CAN!!! Some cheers, less booooos.

Talking points as to why we need to help Barak Obama get elected President. Some of her supporters are definitely not buying it.

All in all one of the best speeches I’ve heard her give, and remember, I’m not a fan. I’m with the analysts though, I don’t think she’s convinced all of her supporters. I give her props for not mentioning the Vice Presidency and for laying out that the dems need to unify if they’re going to win.

Congrats to Senator Barack Obama. That was one of the more interesting primaries in a decade or two.  I truly hope that Trinity was the worst that we’ll have to say about you.  Hoewever,…

Just a prediction, based on nothing but my own cynical outlook on life and my low opinion of Chicago politics and politicians:

Before November, more likely before August, information will be made public about Senator Obama’s “shocking” ties to the Chicago Democratic Machine in an even more “disappointing in that it’s so typical” corruption scandal.

Senator McCain’s Campaign will have nothing to do with releasing the information…there will be no ties on the release back to the Clinton Campaign.

Senator Clinton will “gracefully” step in to accept the Democratic nomination.

Oh, but to have the popcorn concession, as we observe the latest developments in this 2008 political season, as the elementals of ebony and ovary collide. Really, it’s like the clash between the gingham cat and the calico dog – they’ll be nothing but little shreds left. Or might it be like matter and anti-matter – nothing left but a little smoking hole in the ground. How the various partisan factions of the Democrat party will ever be able to work together after all the free-flowing animus is beyond me. And I’ll have my popcorn with a teensy bit of salt, please.

What to say about Her Perhaps Not Quite So Inevitableness? Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. There will be a female President of this US of A in the near future, but I never invested any of my faith that she would be the one. It has annoyed me no end over the last couple of years, the blanket assumption that because she is a woman of certain age, as I am, that of course I would vote for her, strike a blow against the patriarchy, and for equal rights and anyway aren’t we entitled to have one of our own elected to the highest office in the land? Er… no.

I might have, once. Say, if she had divorced that two-timer she was married to, as soon as they moved out of the White House, and build a political career on her own, and on her own accomplishments. And if I had a lobotomy, or spent the last thirty years in a patchouli scented haze, re-living the glory days of the 60s. But I didn’t. I don’t do entitlement politics. I do accomplishments; Real accomplishments, not something jiggered up in an attempt to meet some vague ideological component or for a crowd to cheer at.

About the one positive thing you can say about Her Perhaps Maybe Inevitableness is that just about all the dirt ever on her has been out there for decades, and pretty carefully sifted through. If she is to be the Democratic nominee, AKA The Last One Standing after the convention, we can be pretty certain of there being no startling new developments. All the existing well-known dirt would be pretty well sifted again over the next five months, but I can’t visualize anything new and startling emerging.

This cannot be said of The Fresh Prince of Illinois. B. Obama, he of the middle name which can’t be mentioned, he of the thin resume and even thinner skin, nourished and groomed by the Chicago political machine and led before us, the Chosen One himself, hailed by the hosannas of the elite, the trendy, the daring… and also the Europeans. (Note to Euro political thinkers – umm, many of us have ancestors who left Europe to get away from people like you. Your recommendation in this respect is kind of a kiss of death. It’s like that letter-writing campaign during the last election, where Guardian readers were encouraged to write personal letters to American voters encouraging them to vote for John Kerry. )

As of this weekend, Sen. Obama has done a U-turn and departed his church of twenty years; that very trendy, large Chicago church with the charismatic and very popular black liberation theologist pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright… whose fulminations from the pulpit (handily recorded and originally distributed by the church itself !) did not strike quite the same note with the larger public. Observers of the current election scene had wondered for weeks if Obama really believed various of the Reverend Wrights’s racist fantasies – in which case he is belying his own words about racial healing - or did he just go along with it all because it was politically useful – in which case he is just another cynical, grubby politician, whoring after votes and influence. Guess that question has been answered.

Considering all the people who have now been thrown under the bus by the Obama campaign – the Fresh Prince’s white grandmother, various staff members, the Reverend Wright and now his church – one hopes that sucker has wheels on it like a monster truck. I am sure there will be more, even without the rumored recording of Mrs. Obama saying quite unfortunate and impolitic things. I have the impression that the Obamas and their circle live very circumscribed lives, an echo chamber of their own making. They appear to have no notion of how appalling, ham-fisted or just dim-witted some of their off-the-cuff remarks sound to the larger world outside their little bubble.

I rather miss Teresa Kerry, as the campaign season gets into full swing! I despised her husband, but at least she seemed to be a quirky, intelligent, interesting woman and a fairly experienced political wife. Michelle Obama just appears as a seething pit of resentment in spite of two high-end degrees, a large income and a mansion; a BAP with a limitless sense of entitlement. I can imagine her behaving appallingly and when called on it, blaming it all on teh racism! Straw-person argument, I know. But I have run into women like that in real life. In interviews and speeches she comes off as just that sort of woman.

Oh, yeah – interesting convention coming up. Interesting election season too. Pass the popcorn.

(Later - Additional thoughts from Cassandra at Villanous Company)

Robert Ferrigno on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  Usually I hope that Robert is just kidding.  In this case, I hope he’s not.

Senator McCain showed up on SNL this weekend, dropping by Weekend Update and spoofing a political ad. Apparently, some on the far right have determined that “it’s beneath the dignity of the office he aspires to.” He’s pissed off Ingraham? Point John McCain.

This is just me, and I don’t claim to be a conservative, other than I’m more conservative than most in the “mainstream” left, but I think that appearance can’t do anything but help and I’ll tell you why.

Back in the fall of 1996, AFTER the general election, Bob Dole appeared on SNL. I remember looking over at Beautiful Wife and asking, “Where the HELL was THAT guy when the election was going on?” Bob Dole on the campaign trail, wooden and lifeless. Bob Dole on SNL, relaxed, smiling, having a good time, with a vibrant personality. McCain on the Campaign trail; not able to tell the difference between Iraq and Iran, kind of stuffy, taking shots at Obama’s war policy, not paying a lot of attention to Clinton. McCain on SNL; Giving “advice” to the democrats, urging them to not pick a nominee until the last possible second, relatively good timing, sporting something resembling a genuine grin.

Like it or not, the Presidential race is mostly a personality contest. And yes, I hate agreeing with Bill O’Reilly but even a broken clock etc.. How else do you explain eight years of Bill Clinton? How do you begin to explain Jimmy Carter? How did George W. Bush defeat Al Gore? Actually, Al Gore defeated himself by being such a condescending shmuck during the debates…as spoofed by…you guessed it…Saturday Night Live. John Kerry? Well, he’s John Kerry and I think I would have voted for Bill Clinton again before I voted for John Kerry, but that just proves my point.

Once the dems finally get around to picking their candidate, which I’m assuming will be Senator Obama once Senator Clinton gets dragged away kicking and screaming and trying to gnaw through her leather straps, Senator McCain is going to need all the personal goodwill he can get. Senator Obama is like-able, he’s a superior speaker, he looks young and relaxed on television, and I’m guessing he’s going to slaughter Senator McCain in any debates. Senator Obama may very well be wrong on every important issue that this country is facing, and I don’t concede that sweeping of a statement but he’s going to look and sound magnificent. Senator McCain needs to have something in his personality account. Is SNL enough? Nope. Is it a good start? Yep. Do I think he’s going to be our next President? I don’t know…which makes this all the more fun.

Well, really, isn’t that what it is turning into, what with Her Inevitableness and The Fresh Prince of Chicago locked in a knock-down, drag-out grudge-match to the death. I can hardly wait for the showdown at the convention – this is going to get really interesting, in the sense of ‘slow down and look at the carnage on the highway’ sort of interesting.

There is so much to dislike about both of them – who would have thought that a young and doe-eyed political neophyte, fresh from the mills of the Chicago political-machine could exhibit a collection of such embarrassing associates, unfortunate missteps and evidence of obvious wheeling and dealing. It’s a fascinating - in the forensic sense - collection of soiled laundry. And Her (perhaps) Inevitableness has been assembling her own vast collection for twenty years, so all hail the ambitious newcomer! Each has a spouse which may prove to be just as much of a millstone – the serial sexual harasser against the BAP with a limitless sense of entitlement and injury. Yep, the convention is going to be a cage match. I predict blood, inside and out, before and especially after – the fans of whoever doesn’t get The Big Nod will be extremely resentful.

It’s too much to hope for, that the delegates wander in the way of a ration of sense and nominate a compromise third candidate. Nope, never happen, although it’s been suggested – laughingly I am sure – that the Goricle himself would nobly put himself in the way of such an effort…

All kidding aside, I don’t think that Obama himself had any idea of how swiftly and how completely the Reverend Wrights’ inflammatory sermons would percolate through the national media and the body politic, or how absolutely offensive that ordinary people outside the holy environs of his immediate circle would find them. And they are offensive – I don’t care how many ways you slice and dice it. I am a fairly devout and intermittently observant mainstream Christian; any white minister preaching the Reverend Wrights’ line from the pulpit would have been disowned from a mainstream church so fast his clerical collar would have spun around his neck like a horseshoe flung towards a stake. There’s a lot to be said for the ‘flip’ theory – that is, reverse the colors (or the genders) involved in any controversy and see if it still seems fair to you. The Fresh Prince worshipped for twenty years and took as his mentor a racist and demagogic nut-case. Deal, ‘kay? So we’re started a dialogue about race in America in the 21st century – not quite the one expected, but as I said – deal.

I’m not even getting into the question of Obama’s association with former Weatherman Bill Ayers, except to note that damn-it, won’t the Sixties ever die? What do we have to do, bury that low dishonest decade at the crossroads with an ash stake through its heart? This picture says about all that you have to know about Bill Ayers, except to note that the advance publicity about his memoir – from which this local story derives - got lost in all the news coverage about 9-11. Bet he cried into his Chablis for months – how dare a bunch of Islamic fundies ruin his carefully laid publicity campaign about the golden days of ‘fighting the power’?!

Yep, it’s going to be an interesting couple of months. I’m going to need a couple of hundred pounds of popcorn just to be able to deal with it all.

(Link courtesy of Rantburg, my source for all that is sarky and cynical)

An essay from Gerard Vanderleun, for the first day of May. “The Banality of Sedition”. (Link courtesy of da Blogfaddah)

In all of my life, I only met people who had run away from communism and I met them by the score, starting in kindergarden. I never met anyone who packed up their bags and their copy of ‘Das Kapital’ and ran deliberatly towards it. And that counts the handful of college Marxists that I knew.

(Part one is here)
As was noted by a number of other bloggers and commenters, one doesn’t usually have a choice about your relations. Parents, cousins, grandparents and all; you’re stuck with them, as embarrassing as they are. Friends or spouses, business partners or clergy – those we choose – and we are known for good or ill by the company that we keep. Barack Obama’s chosen clergyman and mentor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, has been shouting pernicious and venomous nonsense from the pulpit, apparently to great applause, every Sunday for twenty years. From this distance, he sounds too much like a black version of Fred Phelps for my taste. Black racism ought to be just as much the political kiss of death as white racism.

And perhaps it is – since well-meaning people of pallor seem to be fed to their back teeth with having ‘you racist!’ screamed at them, every time they voice a mild criticism of controversial mayors like Ray Nagin and Marion Barry, or buffoons like Al Sharpton - or any one of those other race-card playing luminaries, who seem to have no more qualifications for the position they hold other than a whip-lash inducing swiftness in accusing critics of racism. Here we are in this year 2008; at least forty years since casual social racism was acceptable in most circles, more than that since racial segregation was the law of the land, sixty years since it was the common practice of the military, a hundred and forty since chattel slavery was outlawed utterly… well, really, what better time to have a conversation about race and racism in American society? Even if it is a rather academic discussion; most of the people who are not paid to care about racial relations simply don’t care all that much. They just get on with living and working.

So here’s the ultimate bottom line: give or take a couple of points either way, the percentage of Americans identified as ‘black’ lingers somewhere about in the low teens. A politician who has made a career about being ‘black’ and being the ‘great black hope’ just is not going to get much traction nationally, even if he or she can get all of that ‘black’ block to vote for them. They have to appeal to everyone else in the body politic, and a great many of them, too. Kicking a white, or Hispanic or Asian voter in the teeth in order to make points with the black constituency on Sunday, and then turning around and asking those white, or Hispanic or Asian voters to vote for you on Monday isn’t going to work all that well. It’s why Jesse Jackson never got vary far with any of his bids for national office. Considering his established track record, one really couldn’t picture him kissing Anglo babies or eating breakfast tacos on the South Side with much enthusiasm.

A serious candidate for higher office has to be able to do that – just like a woman seeking higher political office cannot be too closely identified as a radical feminist. You can’t make your initial appeal to the angry fringe, and then move smoothly on in appealing to the majority, not after spending months or years bashing the very people you are asking to vote for you. It just will not work, as Senator Obama probably already realized. His initial appeal was precisely because he appeared to be a skilled and polished mainstream politician who just happened to have the year-round permanent dark tan. Alas, the association with the Reverend Wright (not to mention his apprenticeship in Chicago machine politics) has revealed him as just another race-card player like Sharpton or Jackson, only with nicer suits and a more polished manner. Pity that. We will have a black president in the near future, but he or she won’t be one of those whose identity and appeal has been built exclusively as a ‘black’ candidate. They will be a candidate whose color is incidental to who they are and what their qualifications are; someone from the mainstream, someone like Colin Powell, or like the late mayor of Los Angeles, Ed Bradley.

(Later: amusing video from Conservativeintelligencer.com, “>here )