Take a seat, folks. I'll be back with smelling salts in a sec.
You know, there are a lot of bloody holes on people's faces where their noses used to be today. I mean, I'm sure they were mad at their own faces, and they showed them! But really, it's time to chill.
I'm relax today, punch in a donation to the Democratic Nominee for President (remember that the vote won't happen until NOVEMBER, and the winner won't take office until JANUARY) and have me a beer.
And I'm going to take a break from the Netroots for about a week. Here's why:
So, the accusation has been floated that Barack Obama is viewing the world with a September 10th mindset?
John McCain, with his clear commitment to carry on in the steps of the Bush Administration, has a much more serious "mindset" issue. One that ought to be obvious to anyone who's thought about it for ten seconds.
It's not a "September 10th" mindset at all that's the problem. With assaults on Habeus Corpus, no-bid contracts, illegal wars, a complete disdain for the needs or wishes of the public, an utter lack of foreward thinking, it's clear that McCain wishes to perpetuate the 1775 mindset of George W. Bush.
I'm responding to a diary by DEVO9SAM. The diary was titled "Jay Leno is an Idiot," but the words are not Jay Leno's. They're the work of some glurgemonger who is trying to polish the turd of Conservative Ideology. I'm here to paint it black, people. Line-by-line deconstruction follows:
The nation is currently at National Inflection Level Gray. Somber solemnity is required of all individuals regardless of their level of concern or even knowledge regarding recently deceased news anchors.
There can be no laughing or joking in any public forum. Life CANNOT just go on. A celebrity has passed away, and he was not in the midst of any notable circus freakshow that anyone is currently aware of. Therefore, all other topics of discussion are verboten.
That's right: YOU, posting that diary about the flooding in Iowa. Stop right now. A celebrity has passed away! YOU, making a good point about McCain's slipshod campaign -- stop that immediately and instead post a reflective, somber diary. And YOU! pointing and laughing at stupid conservatives! Get back to work, posting diaries of which I APPROVE!!!
I've just read on Balloon Juice that the newest talking point appears to be that Barack Obama does not display humility. But it's really an old piece of trash shined up to look like it's new, and it's been part of the Bully Party's playbook for a long time. As long as I can remember.
It seems to have started not long after the Fairness Doctrine was flushed, though you could say it started with the Imperial Presidency of Nixon and has been gradually refined from one maladroit fuckwit President to the next. Nixon was positively slimy as a human being. Listening to him and watching him talk now it's amazing that anyone bought his schtick. His entire Administration seemed to be built around the premise of "Shut Up, you Damn Hippies!" Gradually however the entire country was told, in less and less subtle terms, that when the (Republican) President, or one of his proxies was speakin' people were to
It never ends. As soon as we get our Magical Unity Pony, and on the very day that the Senator from LaMancha is about to concede, I start reading quips that Obama isn't far left enough, and that far lefties may stay home or vote 3rd Party in November.
First, Obama goes to the Senate and confronts Joe Lieberman. It's not clear what he said, but it is clear that someone has walked up to that two-faced quisling for the first time since he ignored the will of the party and ran as a fake Democrat, and said something to the effect that, "Joe, you're fucking fake Democrat."
Then, he informs the party that there will be no more lobbyist money for the DNC.
Then he says, "Howard Dean is doing a great job and will continue!"
Somebody help me! It's like I went to sleep and woke up in an alternate universe!
My mother lives a thousand miles away. She and my father are both Republicans. My father became a "fan" when he started listening to the obscene filth of Rush Limbaugh and for some reason disengaged his critical thinking skills. I had a screaming fight with him when I was about 23. I had done some research about his claims, actually read his bullshit book, and I had refuted him in every way possible in my mind. The man is an obscene liar and a piece of garbage, and I told my father so.
Now, gotta keep in mind that I was considered a prodigy growing up. I started reading at age 4. By age 6 I was regularly reading adult science fiction books. At 9 I read "The Shining." At 10 I received the Lord of the Rings trilogy as a gift and promptly burned through it in about 3 days. I read 900 wpm. I was at college level by age 8. I was the first person in my family to actually attend college, and I finished with a 3.78 gpa.
My father's response to my criticism of Limbaugh was to tell me that I couldn't read.
I am ready, believe me, I am so ready, for the nomination contest to be over. For the full-on assault of an aggrieved populace against a miserable ideology to roll over that ideology and its adherents like a tank.
But there is the question first of who shall lead the charge. Per all the rules and regulations of the party that is going to do the steamrolling, the candidate with the most delegates is that leader. We all know the dynamics of how we got here, we all know that in some respects this drawn-out primary has gotten more people invested in the political process than ever before. But there's a crucial thing that has to happen before it continues. People keep telling us, here on Kos, that the Obama movement needs to embrace the Hillary partisans and wrap us all in a glowing fog of lovin' before we can continue on with the charge.
Lost yesterday in the frenzy over Scott McClellan's new book was McCain's blistering attack on Obama over the fact that the Illinois senator hasn’t been to Iraq since 2006. Indeed, the RNC even released an online clock counting the days since Obama last visited the Middle East country.
The item goes on to report that the Obama Campaign is reportedly (by the NYT) considering a visit to Iraq. I certainly hope, not on account of this infantile bullshit from the RNC. I would like to trust that the Obama campaign is not letting these poo-flinging buttmonkeys set goalposts for them.
I know others are doing this. With the Hillary campaign now in a tailspin, the GE looms large.
And it's too early to relax, but nonetheless I am confident that the sea-change of American politics that I've waited for my whole adult life is finally here, and in January of 2009 a whole other kind of conversation will start to take place in our public places. That's what politics is ultimately about: the conversation of what we think we're doing as a nation. For 28 years, that conversation has been set in tone and direction by a bunch of simpering imbeciles. We had a brief interregnum from 1992 to 1994, but otherwise it's been, in my opinion, vapid idiocy for almost a whole generation.
I've often let stand the statement, during this primary season, that we had "two OUTSTANDING candidates."
It's time to face some facts here. Hillary was a lousy politician from the get-go. I'm not talking about starting in January. I'm not talking about her Senate career. No. This has been the pattern since . . . as long as she's been on the national stage. Hillary's talents, such as they were, had nothing to do with political savvy.
As I'm putting the finishing touches on this diary, Hillary has jammed her foot in her mouth big-time. The RFK comment has been the icing on top of a zinger of a political career. A turd-flavored zinger, that is.
In yesterday's diary I opined that it was time to laugh Hillary off the national stage. Now, I often personalize my titles and what I observed in the body of the diary (which not all people read carefully) was that in reality the laughter had already begun. From the news media to Saturday Night Live to the voters, the gales of derisive laughter were beginning to pursue this doomed, self-entitled campaign from the national stage. One commenter mentioned that Hillary was seeking a graceful exit. To which I replied that that option had already long since passed.
Several commenters, however, retorted that I should not be so cruel as to laugh, since that would alienate Hillary voters who would then rush out and vote for McCain.
The absurdity of the Clinton campaign has become so loud it's giving me a headache. Caught in what is now an inexorable countdown to her delegate-count defeat, Clinton's campaign and supporters continue to claim, as shrill as ever, that she's "leading the popular vote."
The Buckle of the Bible Belt, it's sometimes called. Our megachurch is referred to by the locals as "Six Flags over Jesus." Tobacco country. And GUN country. That's Kentucky. Louisville sits at the northern border of the state, and it's where North and South meet. Louisville fought with the Union and joined the Confederacy after they lost.
So it goes. The NRA convention was here Friday. 60,000 gun enthusiasts showed up to jaw about their second amendment rights. Mike Huckabee made a terrible joke that probably finished his political career. And John McCain showed up to do a campaign stop to one of the last remaining wedges of his base -- gun owners who still have enough money to travel to a convention.
My Kwanjanim used to say "Empty can rattle." He would point to his head as he said this. Everyone in class knew the converse of this was that a full can was quiet. Or a full head.
Yesterday I was driving to work and Bush came on the radio. I actually broke the volume knob of my car stereo switching him off. That's how much I can't stand hearing his voice. So I missed hearing the emptiest can that's ever occupied the White House emit what I sincerely hope is one of his last major rattles. He's been lambasted on the Daily Show and in all manner of lefty blogs regarding his remarks about Obama and appeasement. Right wing nutjobs have come screaming out of the woodwork to pounce on this latest pinheaded talking point. Some of them even got served by another mostly empty can, Chris Matthews.
Eighteen months ago, I relieved myself in Karl Rove's Cheerios on the morning of a resounding Democratic victory in Congress. It was a great relief because a lot of pent up distress was finally done. The conversation of "what is America doing?" finally got away from topics chosen by George W. Bush and his no-talent assclown friends. But it was a short-lived relief. Soon I was being disapointed in ways I had only previously dreamed of as Nancy "Offtabler" Pelosi quickly cleared her workspace of any instruments that might be seen as a threat to the minority party whose asses her constituencies had just kicked out of power.
Today I come before you after a steady evening's drinking of vinegar and asparagus, bladder once again swollen and tender, to relieve myself in a different way as we contemplate the REAL closing of a sordid chapter in American Politics. And how things have changed in that time. The price of oil, for example. The value of the dollar. Sure, there's hope. And it's a good thing, or I would be beside myself right now at what's become of our nation.
