Irony

There is such wonderful irony inherent in the McCain ascendancy in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. The talk radio wing nut faction of the Republican Party hates McCain, as do the evangelicals. They view him as a liberal. Big business Republicans have disliked him as well over his stance on campaign finance and taxes.

The right wing of the Republican Party will be apoplectic tomorrow when Rudy (9/11) Giuliani endorses McCain on the sacred holy ground of the Reagan Library. Then, Nancy Reagan will endorse her friend McCain and all will be lost. The Reagan conservative extension of Goldwater will be finally cast asunder.

It was only eight years ago in South Carolina that Rovian swift-boating killed McCain's chances for the 2000 nomination with the charges that he had fathered a “black baby." The Rovians (they sound so alien) must be beside themselves. It is hard to imagine how far we have come. Eight years later, the claim is made that Obama has fathered not one, but two “black babies” and he wins the South Carolina election. Although, the actions of former President Clinton have been Rovian in their mean spirited and manipulative intent, it appears the voters are not taking the bait.

Hillary Clinton’s cynical claim of victory in Florida this evening was pathetic. When you peel back the facts you find that Obama won more votes than Hillary among those voting by absentee within the past thirty days and voting in person today. She won among those voting more than thirty days ago. Whoopee!! In the face of the recent Obama surge and increasing momentum I believe there is a chance that Obama can claim a victory in a majority of the Super Tuesday states next week.

Obviously the Clintonites are running scared. I found it interesting yesterday and today that a couple of Clinton spinmeisters referred to their candidate as variously, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Hillary Rodham. After very consciously dumping her maiden name some time ago, it was clearly an orchestrated and not too subtle move to use language to distance her from her husband.

A friend of mine said today that he had been in a room of 200 with Obama in San Francisco recently and had never seen anything like it. He called him “Barackstar.”
The Clinton’s haven’t seen anything like it either, and they most assuredly don’t like what they see.

Obama Buzz

The Obama victory in South Carolina this past Saturday was stunning. Regardless of the Billary spin it was a significant victory that, on Obama’s part, made no appeal to race or gender. His victory speech was electrifying. Watching MSNBC it was fascinating to see former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough say, “My blackberry has been going crazy with messages from Republicans and Independents saying this guy is amazing.”

For some reason I don’t think his Blackberry was crackling tonight after the President’s State of the Union address. That speech was thin, short on substance and, in many respects, years too late (the threats of budgetary vetoes for example).

The country needs to dream again. The New York Times op-ed yesterday by Caroline Kennedy and the announcement today of the endorsement by Senator Ted Kennedy add weight to what many of us have felt recently. We have not been so excited about a candidate for President since the 1960’s.

The fact that so many rank and file old line Democrats are supporting Obama must be driving Billary crackers. Today I received a call from one of my dear friends who fits the category of old line Democrat. He has been an ardent supporter of Democratic causes for over seven decades. He said he was putting Obama signs on his front yard. That is happening with many Democrats I know.

The road ahead is a perilous one. Billary will do anything to win. I am convinced of that. What is most disturbing is my fear that Billary will mount an attack which is designed to undermine the fledgling sense of hope that Obama engenders. Put another way, Billary will kill the hope that Obama exemplifies, and in so doing, kill the Democrats' opportunity to regain the White House

Billary Blows!

Billary’s campaign is hitting new lows in the run up to the South Carolina primary. The Obama attacks have a hint of desperation to them. Billary sounds strident and pleading.

I am so enraged by Billary that sarcasm is my only outlet:

Can’t the voters understand that Billary knows best and does better than anyone?

And, if you want hope, Billary can give better hope than anyone else. In fact, Billary has been giving hope longer and more fervently than all the other candidates combined.

And change. You want change. Billary has been a life long agent of change.

Racist? Billary isn’t racist. Billary was the first Black President.

And, Obama is just a kid. Billary has experience. Billary knows better. Billary knows the issues. Billary has a plan.

Watching Billary respond to media inquiries on the Obama attack I am repelled. Watching his slack jawed, opened mouthed, Elvis impersonation aw shucks, slippery moves I am convinced I don’t want Billary back. Watching her language, her superior stance and body language and sense of entitlement I am convinced I don’t want Billary back.

With the 10^th anniversary of the Oval Office blow job, we have the opportunity to consider, once again, that Billary gave us eight years of Bush. And, Billary is undoing eight years of building a thoughtful image as a global philanthropist. Billary blew the promise.

Obama needs to hold to his message of hope, of a new vision, and of consensus politics. The country is starved for that. Billary is so yesterday.

It is heretical, but, if Billary wins the nomination, a long term Democratic friend of mine said, this afternoon, that he would give serious consideration to voting for McCain.

FYI, See earlier post, "Bubba is Back."

Martin Luther King

Today is Martin Luther King Day. This morning I listened to the speech Dr. King gave at The Riverside Church in New York City on April 4, 1967. The speech was given one year to the day before his assassination in Memphis.

The speech is an eloquent compelling overview of the history of the War in Vietnam, the ineptitude of US policy leading up to the war, and the irrationality of the then contemporary US position. Dr. King made a plea for listening to the views of our enemies in an effort to better understand ourselves. He asked for an introspection and abandonment of the Western arrogance that caused us to hold views we deemed superior to our black and brown brothers around the world.

In his speech King quoted John F. Kennedy who said, “Those who suppress peaceful revolutions will sow the seeds of violent revolution.” Kennedy said that five years before the King speech.

So, we have a fast forward of more than 40 years. I cannot help but juxtapose the clear thinking and eloquence of Dr. King with the xenophobic, bombastic, and jingoistic language of some of today’s candidates for the Presidency.

I listened to the speech of Fred Thompson this past Saturday after the South Carolina Republican primary. It was a classic Thompson speech, signifying little more than his buffoonish stupidity. He said, “We live in the country that has sacrificed more blood for the freedom of other people than all the other countries in the world combined.” Fred has trouble with math. In WW II we had 416K military deaths while England had 382K, France had 212K and Canada 45K. In WW I the gap is even larger with 50K US military deaths and 700K military deaths in England alone. As a disciple of Reagan, Fred must be including Grenada. That will surely tip the scale.

Fred Thompson’s statement is typical of the self-absorbed, ill-informed, flag waving narcissistic rhetoric that comes from the talk radio wing of the Republican Party.

And so, welcome to the dumbing down of America. And, thank you Dr. King, for a moment this morning to cherish the soaring clarity of your Riverside speech.

Boxers or Briefs

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Irreverence Is My Only Sacred Cow

Coming of age in the 1960s I often say that irreverence is my only sacred cow. That mantra remains a central theme for me. It was the masthead manifesto for a small broadsheet, The Realist, published in that time. In some respects, my glee for the irreverence of The Realist was a natural evolution from my more youthful excitement over Mad magazine. I sometimes wonder if many of us, aging 1960s activists and hippies, received our formative push from Mad magazine.

Earlier, I talked about the cultural divide that cleaves the boomer generation that came of age during the 60s. I can see it clearly framed as uptight, irrational fear on the one side juxtaposed to Alfred E. Neumann’s “What, me worry?”

I thought of that again, watching the Republicans debate in South Carolina. The audience was overwhelmingly white bread. There were lots of young Republicans in the audience. The clean cut young men were all wearing ties and the girls were well scrubbed and put me in mind of the Breck girls of the 1960s.

If those white bread kids are devotees of Alfred E. Neumann they are clearly in the Mad magazine closet. When they become leaders in the party, maybe, like Larry Craig, Mark Foley and a host of other Republicans, they will remain in the closet.

"Bleep"

What the “bleep.” I cannot “bleeping” believe the “bleep” that comes out of Huck-a-Buck’s mouth. Polls now have Huck-a-Buck running neck and neck (Is that redneck?) with McCain in South Carolina. What is all this “bleep” about the New South? This is the Old South and old “bleep!”

Huck-a-Buck wonders aloud whether of not Mormons believe that Jesus and the Devil are brothers. He is a creationist who believes in intelligent design and is a literal believer in the Bible who says that the earth was created 6000 years ago. He equates homosexuality with bestiality. He wants the Constitution amended to represent the teachings of the Bible.

For reasons I cannot discern, the mainstream media is paying to little attention to the details of what this “pitchfork populist” says. They give it passing notice on the news pages, but for some reason I am unable to find anything in the Comics section of the paper on the man.

I mean, “bleep.” Huck-a-Buck is a “bleeping “idiot. I have known forever that Bible thumpers or Jesus Freaks, as we used to call them, were “bleeped” and came from the shallow end of the gene pool. He guy sounds like a “bleeping” alien. I am wondering why people don’t call him out for the completely inane “bleeping” fool he is. Are we afraid of offending the 20% of the “bleeping” population that has their “bleeping” heads up their “bleep?”

Thank God for South Park.