ok, back to politics

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faithful readers of this blog will have noticed that ever since the candidate of each respective party was chosen, i've pretty much held my tongue, choosing instead to wait and see if my initial impressions of each might be altered by subsequent events.

and the result of all this careful due diligence? let's begin with

1. isn't he lovely?



click on the above picture--it enlarges nicely--and give it a minute of your attention before you continue with this post, because it's one of the most captivating political images you, i or anybody else will ever see (h/t).

and my god, that speech last night--is he not a silver-tongued devil? he had oprah crying, he had kanye crying--hell, he had everybody crying.

and as i sat there last night and looked at this picture--and i looked at it for a long time--all i could think was, if this guy looked like al roker (or john mccain, for that matter), nobody in america today would even know who the fuck he is.

and understand: i thought this very same thing at the beginning of barack obama's campaign--and lo these many months later, nothing he has done or said since has done anything but strengthen my original impression.

yeah, he beat hillary, but that was more about her flaws than his strengths; what that came down to for most democrats--and i'll argue this to the death--was a choice between a warm bath and a cold shower. the final result of that little match-up didn't surprise this country boy in the least.

but in his response to every other situation he's encountered--his past, criticism (by anybody), the new yorker cover, the saddleback church forum--he's struck me as nothing but whiny, race-baiting (fuck all this pansy-ass "divisive" nonsense, barack--go ahead and work up the cojones to fuckin' say "racist" if you really mean it) and weak.

[and i guess we can only hope that the likes of vladimir putin or kim jong il will also be moved by such whining--but i digress, right?]

and the more i find out about his activities and associations during the '90s--jeremiah wright, william ayers, the gamaliel group, the chicago annenberg fiasco--the more convinced i become that his views aren't merely left-wing, they're radically left-wing, and i cringe when i think of the policies he would craft and the judicial appointments he would make should he be elected president.

but even with all that, the thing that scares me the most about this guy is his naked arrogance.

think about it: even though he has the skimpiest of resumes, it's obvious--from the "president" he's had embroidered on the headrest on his throne on his private jet to the unabashed coronation he ordered up in denver--that barack believes that (a) he is the anointed, (b) he knows everything, and (c) once in office, he'll be able to fix everything that's wrong with the world.

god save us all from someone who's drunk his own kool-aid.

2. what was he thinking?



so i get up this morning, flip open the computer and head to drudge to see who mccain picked--and good god, is it uglier than i could've ever imagined: a young mother of five who until two years ago could count as her biggest political accomplishment serving as mayor of mayberry, alaska may be our next vice president.

i knew who sarah palin was, but only barely; after a quick look at her resume when her name first came up as a possible, i had dismissed her almost as quickly. and who could blame me--i mean, who in his right mind would pick this woman as his running-mate?

yeah she's female, but she's a pro-life creationist for god's sake--do mccain's people really think he's gonna get disaffected hillary-loving feminists to defect to his side for this broad?

and talk about inexperience--he's just destroyed the barack-as-inexperienced argument, which was the strongest arrow in his quiver (up until today). and while the gop faithful may say it's not about barack vs. sarah, everybody knows that, unlike the young and vigorous barack, mccain is seventy-goddam-fucking-two years old and could drop dead the day after the election--and then we'd be stuck with a self-described "hockey mom" as leader of the free fuckin' world.

and later when i calmed down, i thought, "ok fine--maybe johnny boy knows more than me; i mean, if he's picked her for such a crucial role not only in his campaign but potentially on the world stage, he must know her well, right?"

and i clung to that comforting illusion until i found out that he met her for the first time on the day he picked her.

and that's when i realized that this was a choice he allowed his campaign consultants to make--a bunch of highly-paid political hacks who ran a computer analysis and picked the candidate who checked off the most electability boxes on their list: young, dynamic, female, pro-choice, nra member, christian/creationist--without any regard to how qualified she might actually be to run the goddam country.

which tells me the following:

(a) john mccain is just as stupid and unreflective as i've always thought he was; and

(b) even (hell, especially) if this strategem wins him the white house, then god damn him to hell for rolling the dice in such a way as to potentially put his country's long-term interests secondary to his desire to be president.

* * * * *

all of the foregoing, of course, leads me inexorably back to the conclusion i came to (and stated here) way back when i realized what our choices in this election were gonna be: either way it ends up going,

3. we're so fucked in november.