Bullet Dodging
So far, a good convention, and props to Hillary Clinton for the right barn-burner at the right moment. Where was this Hillary years ago? Marks off only for the distinct whiff of personal movement maintenance.
But the sense of bullets missed continues.
Missed Bullet 1. A while back, Mark Warner was going to be the next big thing, but this speech was so tepid and cautious it became a caricature of everything the Democractic party has been doing wrong for three decades. You do not beat Rove's crypto-fascists by tossing raspberry twinkies at them. This is like tossing squirrel bits at Bears to attempt to mollify them. Running him would have been at best, Dukakisian.
Missed Bullet 2. John Edwards. I don't care if he slept with a goat on crack, instead of some chick who induced novels by both Jay McInerny AND Bret Easton Ellis. (Who is this woman, the General Sherman of Bennington chippies? ) But it was a genuine and deep character flaw to endanger our chances in November, and everything he spoke about.
Missed Bullet 3. Hillary. It was really only yesterday that Hillary Clinton put the full stop on the avoidable Democratic Party freakout, generated heavily from her camp. At most, all Obama really did in the primary was react in kind. This is wholly a self inflicted wound, stopped only in the nick of time. I am grateful it's over, but I feel vindicated in opposing her early.
posted by JAB at 10:53 AM
2 Comments:
Well said. And I'd like to offer a little advice to one particular Democratic delegate, who was quoted by the AP as follows:
Earlier in the day, Clinton formally released her delegates amid shouts of "no," by disappointed supporters. "She doesn't have the right to release us," said Massachusetts delegate Nancy Saboori. "We're not little kids to be told what to do in a half-hour."
Nancy, honey, listen up.
It shouldn't take half an hour. You shouldn't have to think about this for more than 30 seconds.
There are two people running for President. Hillary is not one of them.
You can work to elect Obama, a person whose positions are virtually identical to Hillary's. Obama, for reasons of his own, understands the diversity concept. He gets it.
Or you can vote for the other guy: an old white male who will appoint a Supreme Court that will, if you are lucky, allow a woman to venture outdoors, so long as she is accompanied by her husband or a male companion from her immediate family, provided she wears the burkha (but not a flashy-colored one).
And you remember that sex toy ban? A McCain court would revive it, uphold it and, given the combined ingenuity of Alito and Roberts, ejaculate it all over the landscape of American jurisprudence.
I'm sorry your candidate didn't win the nomination. Neither did mine (although he could have helped his cause by actually running).
I got over it, and I support the eventual nominee.
Of course, McCain winning wouldn't actually affect me that much. Sure, I'd like to see better education, decent health care for all, and some help for the working poor. But a white male president whose policies unfairly favor white male professionals is not exactly going to put a stake in my heart, if you know what I mean.
On the other hand, if you're a woman (or, as you will be called in the McCain administration, by Executive Order and Supreme Court fiat, a lady or gal), and you can't figure which of these guys is in your corner - well, enjoy the burkha.
Wake up and smell the coffee, sister. It's winning time.
One thing that bothers me about politics in this era is the idea that choosing a candidate is presented and conceived as an individual consumer decision, where everyone is encouraged to indulge every personal prejudice as if they were all equally valid.
Democracy is about acting in aggregate, not acting as an individual.
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