well, duh

i remember one night several years ago--pre-obama--the subject of LA's illustrious mayor came up, and i went off, citing a litany of reasons to back up my contention that he was the dumbest, most clearly unfit major officeholder in america (an opinion which, btw, has only been reinforced over the ensuing years).  so caught up was i in my rant that i failed to pick up on the cues from my audience--in this case, a really smart latino with whom i was having an interesting conversation--to which i am usually so attuned, and was thus surprised when, all tight-faced and angry, he cut me off in mid-sentence with

"you know what? you may be right--villaraigosa may be a fool, but he's our fool, and i'm really not comfortable discussing him with your smug white ass, so i'd appreciate it if you'd just shut the fuck up."

oh.

it was a light-bulb moment for my smug, white ass, and i walked away from that little encounter resolved never to make that mistake again (oh, and thankful that i'd saved the talking until after the fucking).

when, a few years later, obama rose to prominence, i looked him over and dismissed him as a lightweight who'd ridden the affirmative-action bullet train straight from high-school slacker to presidential contender with very few stops in between (an opinion which, btw, has only been reinforced over the ensuing years); but, having learned my lesson, have wisely confined the airing of my views on the subject to those of my own kind.

because here's a little hard truth i learned the hard way, bitchez:  deny it as you might, we humans are a very tribal species--it's baked deep into our genes--and the emphasis on that particular human trait tends to rise in any given tribe in direct proportion to the degree of threat or sense of oppression it perceives at the hands of another.

this explains why, among so many blacks and latinos in this PC-benighted country, the emphasis on race first, last and always is seen not only as natural, but healthy--and also why any members of the perceived dominant tribe (i.e., me) who exhibit the same equally-natural impulses are condemned as racist.

or, as one of the sources quoted for the article from which the above headline derives puts it,

It goes both ways. There is racial bias amongst whites, and there is racial bias amongst blacks. But as far as the press is concerned, it only goes one way.

do i begrudge the black folk their fealty to their president?  hell, no--it's been a long time coming, and if i were black, i'd probably suspend my critical faculties and support him too.  objectivity may or may not come in time--or, as a black law professor so succinctly and honestly puts it in that same article,

There should not be this resistance to pride over the first black president. If we get to the fifth one, I'll be with you.

yeah?  we'll see.

so what happened to my guy? (concluded)

The great criticism of Mitt Romney, from both sides of the aisle, has always been that he doesn't stand for anything. He's a flip-flopper, they say, a lightweight, a cardboard opportunist who'll say anything to get elected. 

The critics couldn't be more wrong. His legendary flip-flops aren't the lies of a bumbling opportunist – they're the confident prevarications of a man untroubled by misleading the nonbeliever in pursuit of a single, all-consuming goal.  

Yet unlike other politicians, who at least recognize that saying completely contradictory things presents a political problem, Romney seems genuinely puzzled by the public's insistence that he be consistent.  It's an attitude that recalls the standard defense offered by Wall Street in the wake of some of its most recent and notorious crimes: Goldman Sachs excused its lying to clients, for example, by insisting that its customers are "sophisticated investors" who should expect to be lied to. 

i struggled with the second part of this post, because i couldn't for the life of me come up with a way to present my problems with this guy in a way that hadn't been done a thousand times before--and then matt taibbi came along and did it for me.  the above quotes from his recent, superb rolling stone piece (mashed together for my own purposes--sorry, matt) perfectly encapsulize and explain the great mitt romney conundrum with which i've wrestled for so long; namely, how a guy who is so seemingly principled in so many aspects of his life can justify, in his own mind, being such a hypocritical liar.

the answer:  he honestly doesn't think he's doing anything wrong.

and once you grasp the enormity of this truth about the man who would be king, i want you to read the referenced article--every word--and then send the link to everyone you know.  because if you think the mental disconnect which allows such breathtakingly complacent hypocrisy is limited to his policy positions, just wait'll you get a load of how this man who decries debt and promises america jobs actually did business.

*     *     *     *     *

i gotta admit, i watched with dark amusement as the ramp-up to the republican convention dovetailed perfectly with the formation of a hurricane that looked like it might turn out to be katrina's little brother. because i knew exactly what was gonna happen--hell, i could almost write the news copy in my head, accompanied by footage of white, fat-cat republicans partying in air-conditioned comfort in tampa juxtaposed with images of barack in shirtsleeves in louisiana, aiding and comforting the victims.

but, unbelievably, that didn't happen--turns out the obama campaign was so intent on chasing every last buck that it blew a golden opportunity, let mitt get there first, and ended up playing awkward catch-up after the fact.

you don't get do-overs often in life, but mr. taibbi has just handed the obama camp one on a silver platter--everything that is needed to completely destroy mitt romney in the eyes of the undecideds is contained within this article.  will they use it?  i dunno--they've played it pretty dumb so far, and they may not even need it--but i hope they do, because it's something every voting american needs to know before they step into that little booth in november.

so what happened to my guy?

[ok, enough obama-bashing for now; let's turn to the other side.]

so, even now, i get the questions all the time: "you think your guy's gonna get the nomination this time?", "you think paul ryan will help your guy?", "you think this todd akin thing will hurt your guy?", and, of course, the ever-popular, and usually said-with-a-sneer, "so whaddya think of your guy now?"

it doesn't seem to matter that i broke it off with mitt four years ago; the fact that i carried such a huge, flaming torch for him for so long sticks to me like stink on shit, and i can't shake it no matter what i say now.

*     *     *     *     *

i remember the first time i laid eyes on the guy; it happened back in 2002, shortly after the close of the salt lake city olympics.  he was giving a long, informal interview about his role in transforming those particular games from a massive too-many-cooks clusterfuck into the fine swiss watch they became under his leadership.  he was relaxed and loose under the camera's gaze, and spoke easily and articulately, outlining the process he undertook to turn the event around, and relying very little on the words "I" or "me" in the telling of the story.  i watched, spellbound as i always am when confronted with that rarest of human qualities--true competence.

as the interview ended, i turned to the guy i was watching it with and said, "holy shit, this guy's gonna be president one day."

and why not?  his dad had almost made it--hell, probably would have, had he not told an inconvenient truth before the american people were ready to hear it.  and mitt seemed to be his dad's son--an honorable, self-effacing guy who just happened to have a knack for fixing complex things that were broken.

i cheered when he became governor of massachusetts.  my admiration only grew when he and his team crafted a badly-needed healthcare fix for that state that not only received the full bipartisan support of its legislature, but even earned the endorsement of his arch-enemy, ted kennedy.

i admired his discipline and his character.  here was a self-made guy who hadn't relied on daddy's money to make his mark on the world, and had seemingly avoided all the temptations to which so many rich, powerful men are prone--there was no hint of scandal in either his personal or professional life, and he had managed to successfully adhere to the strictures of a demanding religion without rubbing it in everybody's goddam face.

when he threw his hat into the presidential ring in 2008, i cheered once more.  finally, my dream candidate--a fiscal conservative/social moderate, non-career politician who, unlike all the aforementioned assholes, had actually proven himself in the real world and knew how it worked.

and then he opened his big, fat i'd-sell-my-soul-to-be-president mouth, and it all went to shit.

[part 2 to come--excuse me while i go sob into my pillow.]

i'm almost ready to campaign for romney just to spite these assholes

i used to sleep at night secure in the knowledge that the george w. bush administration was and would forever be the most inept and incompetent of my lifetime--until these clowns came along.

the fact that this "transcendent", "post-racial" president and the loutish, race- and class-baiting buffoon pictured above are even in the running for a second shot at offices for which they have proven eminently unqualified speaks far more to the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the opposition party and the country at large than to anything they themselves might have accomplished.

and since they have nothing to run on in the way of accomplishments--hell, have in fact fucked up everything they've touched--they and their cronies have opted to descend to the sort of baseless smears against their opponents that make willie horton and swift-boating--you know, the sorta stuff that the left screamed about when it was turned on their guys--seem like child's play by comparison.

there are all sorts of reasons to oppose a romney presidency, but these guys can't fight on an honest, above-board level for fear of highlighting their own laughable record, so it's into the gutter instead--stir up the rabble, throw out libelous charges at random and incite race and class resentment

really, joe?  how many of the big donorsbanks has your justice department gone after?  how about zero?

in the desperate hope that something--anything--sticks, and to hell with the effect that such a campaign will have on the country they swore to preserve, protect and defend.

my advice to mitt:  fire your clueless advisors, take off the white gloves and go pull karl rove outta mothballs--and while you're at it, channel the ghost of lee atwater.  you're gonna need 'em both.

quote of the day

. . . some of this is also generational. You know, when I go to college campuses, sometimes I talk to college Republicans who think that I have terrible policies on the economy, on foreign policy, but are very clear that when it comes to same-sex equality or, you know, sexual orientation, that they believe in equality. They are much more comfortable with it.

while everyone else is either jumping for joy or rending their garments, depending on their own views, i'm looking at the political calculus that went into the president's decision to come out in favor of gay marriage at this point in time.

he's been holding this card for a long time, after flip-flopping on the issue more than once [a bit romneyesque, that, dontcha think, barry?] and i dunno whether it was because his hand was forced by his idiot VP or because he decided it was time to rally the base, but whatever motivated this move, it sure as hell wasn't conscience.

he had to know he'd piss off the black folk, who tend to be very conservative as regards the homos, but then he also knows he could leave michelle and marry rielle hunter and they'd still be behind him in 90%+ numbers, so he figures he's probably safe there.

and, of course, he's right about young people.  whether lliberal or conservative, they increasingly don't see gay marriage as an issue; and their elders--the ones who do--will be dead soon enough.

so this may win him a few votes from the young'uns, but those old folks?  for now, they're still with us.  and boy, do they vote.  and this may prove to be the lever his opponent has been looking for to pry the evangelicals away from their fear and loathing and into his camp.

so did he do the right thing or the wrong thing in taking this uncharacteristically bold and risky stand (politically speaking, of course, which is all that matters to this guy)?  i dunno, but of one thing i'm fairly certain.

i smell fear.

one team two team red team blue team

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as america breathlessly awaits the results of tomorrow's crucial election

will the red team take the house?  will the blue team hold the senate?

i just sit back, shake my head and take another swig of vodka.

it's sorta the same feeling i had back in august of 20002008 when i watched the redblue team jubilantly anoint its chosen one in philadelphiadenver and realized, "holy shit, this idiot's gonna be our next president."

and as america's deterioration continues under his watch, the current idiot is furiously traversing the country stumping for his team's candidates--when, if he asked me, i'd tell him what he should be doing is rooting for the red team's victory tomorrow, so that

when the shit really hits the fan over the next couple years, thanks to the combined incompetence, criminal malfeasance and neglect of both teams

he can conveniently blame the other team's obstruction of his policies for the coming catastrophe, thus assuring his team's re-ascendancy in 2012.

it's all so stupid, really. nobody in american politics ever thinks more than one move ahead--it's all about the next election.

right now, the red team's effectively doing everything it can to set itself up to be the fall-guy for the next leg down, and the blue team's doing everything it can to resist them.

they don't see it that way, of course; it's all about the moment.

tomorrow night the red team will exult in its victory, convinced that they've just saved the country--you know, just like the blue team did two years ago.

one of these days, the country's gonna wake up and realize that while we were squabbling over such red team-blue team distractions as abortion, gay marriage and the "war on terror," the bankers made off with all the money, and the chinese with all the oil.

*     *     *     *     *

look, folks, you can pull for whatever team you want--knock yourselves out.  i just wish more of you understood that the people who really pull the strings in america couldn't care less whether you wear a red shirt or a blue shirt

just so long as you keep the blinders on.

a guttermorality political endorsement

.

i just did something i swore i'd never do: i donated money to a political campaign.

mr. schiff has been featured on these pages before--i've been following him for a long time.

this is my kinda republican--he doesn't give a damn about such sideshows as abortion or gay marriage; he's got his eye on the only ball that matters right now: the financial future of the united states of america.

and speaking more broadly, he's also my kinda politician--a successful, self-made entrepreneur who came to politics only after having established his credibility out in the real world, and who is just as even-handedly critical of republican policies (and politicians) as he is of democrats'.

and the icing on the cake? he's going up against one of the chief architects of the financial catastrophe in which we we find ourselves today: that most bloated, corrupt and infinitely inept of all political hacks, christopher dodd.

schiff clearly saw--and has spent the last ten years warning the world about--everything that dodd was so obviously blind to. ridiculed for years as "dr. doom," schiff's critics have all pretty much shut up, as everything he predicted has pretty much come to pass.

and his followers? they're a passionate bunch, to say the least. from its humble beginnings as a grassroots "draft schiff" movement barely a year ago, his campaign has raised over $1.1 million, most of it from out-of-state donors--and far more than has the tainted mr. dodd.

how will this race play out? i think it's gonna be fascinating to watch. first, to see how he does against the various party hacks the republican establishment--who hate schiff and see him as a huge threat to their status quo--run against him in the primary; second, to see how the connecticut electorate take to his message; third, to see how his candidacy resonates nationally; and, finally, the reaction of the dodd camp to this, the most formidable threat they've seen in 30 years.

i, for one, will be following it closely.

if you'd like to get a sense of the man for yourself--or if you just want a quick primer on how we got to the sad, sorry place we are today, and where we're headed if things don't change--i urge you to watch the following clip featuring most of his very first campaign speech, given yesterday in hartford. trust me, there's no empty political rhetoric here:




[and now that he's gotten the stamp of approval from this bastion of respectability--seriously, what could possibly stop him?]

i know i promised to give him a month's grace, but that was before i knew it was gonna get so bad so fast

.
my job brings me into fairly regular contact with several movers and shakers in the political arena, most (ok, fine--all) of whom are insufferable, self-important windbags, but one of whom--a seasoned veteran of many political wars who in the course of his career has scaled the heights, been everywhere and met everybody, and whose last campaign was one of the slickest, shrewdest and most effective i've ever seen (hell, it almost got him elected)--i actually like; this is one of those guys, you put a nickel in, you always get a dollar back.

anyway, back during primary season last year i ran into him in the break room one night and said, "ok, so tell me--what's the deal with obama?"

he snorted and said, "obama? lemme tell you about obama--he's a punk."

"a punk?" i asked, amused. "do tell."

and, boy, did he. turns out a "punk," in political parlance, is a neophyte who expects to reach out and grab the brass ring without having any idea of what he's doing and/or paying his dues first.

"look," he says, animatedly [and i'm paraphrasing here, because it's been awhile], "i know barack obama; i met him years ago and yeah, i was impressed--he's a very glib, charming, book-smart guy. but so what? here you have a guy who comes outta nowhere and manages to parlay some success in local chicago neighborhoods into a state assembly seat--which doesn't amount to shit, trust me [and, since he's been there and done that, i do]. then, after one lame-ass term of voting 'present,' he decides he's now ready to run for congress. which is one thing if he'd been running against somebody ordinary, but he--this ivy-league outsider--goes up against fucking bobby rush--four-term incumbent, former black panther, chicago homeboy, everybody in the district loves him.

"and what happens? he gets his ass handed to him as he damn well should have--but does the loss humble him, give him some sense of perspective? hell, no--next thing you know, sumbitch is running for the goddam senate--the senate, can you believe it?! and then, fifteen minutes after he gets there, instead of thanking god for the lightning strike that got him there, he's running for the presidency of the united states like he actually deserves it?! give me a fucking break."

at which point he crumples his coffee cup, tosses it in the can and strides disgustedly from the room.

* * * * *

flash-forward several months later (i.e., three weeks ago). i run into the guy again--he's been outta the country and it's the first time i've seen him since before the election.

and i ask him, "so, obama--he still a punk?"

and he looks at me, his body language totally changes and he says [and again, i'm paraphrasing], "forget everything i ever said, mike--this guy's the real deal. i've never seen anybody run a campaign like he did; it was almost flawless. and even under pressure, he never cracked--unlike any politician i've ever known, he's the same in private as he is in public: always cool, calm and collected. i'm tellin' ya, this guy's gonna be our generation's roosevelt." [this last said without any trace of irony]

as he walked away, i tried to keep in mind that of course he had to say this shit--like all the other early hillary supporters in our government department, he'd had to do a quick, backpedaling reverse-field and change allegiences once the tide had turned.

but i hadn't seen any reluctance in his eyes (and trust me, i looked for it); on the contrary, i'd seen a cynical, hard-bitten politician turn to mush at the mere mention of our new president-elect's name.

"holy shit," i remember thinking then, "when a punk can fool even the pros, we're really in trouble."

like i have something to say that's different from everybody else's blatherings on the subject

.
but has that ever stopped me before? of course not, so let's begin.

1. first, i'm a little surprised that several very bright people have taken my initial assessment of sarah palin as some kind of endorsement. all i ever said was, she is who she is, and always has been, in a way that her opponent can't even begin to approach. i stand by that assessment.

2. and yeah, i said "her opponent," because in case you haven't yet realized this, her opponent is not joe biden [hell, if russia hadn't invaded georgia the week before the light-on-foreign-policy (among other things) democratic nominee had to make his vp pick, mr. blowhard bank-owned senate-foreign-relations-committee-chairman with his bad hair plugs, capped teeth and prior dismissal of the head of the ticket wouldn't have even been in the running]--make no mistake: this race is palin v. obama.

3. the other thing i said back then was, she's not gonna be taken down by scandals, and i stand by that one too. troopergate? so she fires people who cross her--everybody in power does, and nobody gives a rat's ass. she was for pork before she was against it? again, nobody but the liberals cares. she shoots wolves from helicopters? wow, guns and helicopters--sounds manly to me; can you imagine the effete obama nutting up enough to do something like that?

4. and now for the family crap--and this is what really slays me: watching the liberal shitstorm of holier-than-thou condemnation because palin's public family-values stance doesn't jibe with the private train-wreck reality of her actual family life. and understand: these are the same people who ten years ago just as shrilly admonished us that whatever shambles bill clinton made of his private life should be between him and his family, and had absolutely nothing to do with his ability to run the country. fuckin' two-faced hypocritical assholes, all of you!

5. but what really chaps me about this is, the reason this woman's family is a mess is because she did exactly what the liberal feminists who are today so loudly denouncing her fuckin' told her to do: she said, "fuck stay-at-home motherhood--i'm gonna go out and fulfill my professional destiny as a woman and let my kids fend for themselves." and now, big surprise--her son's a drug addict, her daughter's a pregnant slut and she has a troubled marriage.

6. the thing is--and the reason this is not only not gonna hurt her with the electorate, but probably help her--is that her family is pretty much just like every other fucked-up family in america today, and for pretty much the same reasons; hell, the only thing missing is the divorce and remarriages.

7. but what really, really kills me is, all of the foregoing is sideshow stuff, and has absolutely nothing to do with the substance of why this woman is so totally, completely and disastrously wrong for the job she may well be called upon to do.

8. why is it that my countrymen--both left and right--are these days so easily willing to cast the fate of their country into the hands of telegenic, charismatic people whose primary career accomplishment is glib mastery of the teleprompter?

whoever said it was right--we get the government we deserve.

[h/t to april for the above image]

why adultery matters when you're an american politician

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commenter noblesavage had the following to say in response to my previous post about the despicable philanderer edwards:

IMHO, I have never been much of a fan of Edwards, but I guess the question is, so what? He cheats on his wife and had a love child. As Bill Clinton or Jack Kennedy so ably demonstrated, personal foibles are not particularly well related to professional ability.

You are implicitly making such a connection without stating it outright. I'm not sure that is true.

you're goddam right i'm making such a connection, noblesavage, and i guess after ten years it's high time i put my thoughts about this issue into writing.

see, throughout the whole monica lewinsky debacle, i found myself having to rebut a never-ending stream of idiotic commentary from a lot of otherwise very intelligent people along the lines of, "yeah, so he lied? big deal--of course he lied; what married man wouldn't? whatever bill did or didn't do with monica/paula/gennifer/[your name here] should be between him and hillary."

and you know what? if we were in france, that would be true; it wouldn't make a goddam bit of difference--hell, it sure hasn't hurt sarkozy.

problem is, we're not in france; we're in provincial, puritanical america. and if you're an american politician and you cheat on your spouse--and knowing that nothing will alienate an american voter quicker than hypocrisy--you have to lie about it. and as soon as you start down that road, two things happen: (1) you become vulnerable to forces beyond your control; and (2) you become a chronic liar, conspirator, obstructor and coverer-upper--it becomes second nature.

and if you really don't think that combination doesn't have any bearing on an elected official's effectiveness, allow me to tell you the following story (widely documented everywhere--google it):

los angeles, august 1962: two fbi agents, watching the apartment of judith campbell (former lover of mob boss sam giancana and current lover of president john kennedy) observe a break-in into her apartment by two brothers whose getaway car, it later turns out, had been rented by their father, the chief of security of a little second-tier defense contractor by the name of general dynamics (maybe you've heard of 'em).

the fbi agents do not interfere; they merely file a report (which, thanks to the freedom of information act, is available to us today).

three months later, the pentagon just happens to pick general dynamics for an unexpected outta-the-blue multibillion-dollar defense contract. wow--lucky, huh?

later that same year, defense secretary robert mcnamara overrules strenuous recommendations by both the air force and the navy and, instead, orders the experimental tsx fighter plane (later named the f-111) to be built by--guess who? well, if you guessed boeing, mcdonnell-douglas or hughes, you'd be wrong. nope, it went to our old friends general dynamics--a huge coup of almost incalculable profitability for a company with relatively little aircraft experience that few thought was even in the running.

after a disastrous start-up of the tsx program by a company which was clearly in over its head and resultant outrage at billions of wasted dollars (yeah, we used to get outraged about shit like that), a congressional investigation is ordered for early 1964--which resultant scandal might well have torpedoed any chance at a kennedy second term (had he lived long enough for the investigation to occur, of course).

and all this blackmail, intrigue and wasted billions of taxpayer dollars simply because the president couldn't keep it in his pants.

it mattered in 1962--and it matters now.

as for clinton, if you really wanna try and convince me that the last two-and-a-half years of his second term weren't totally dictated by the fact that he--the most powerful man on earth--not only was fucking around, but was fucking around with whatever young, stupid, emotionally unstable little twits he could get his hands on, then you're gonna have to tap-dance pretty hard (and god only knows how he sold the interests of his country down the river in order to keep other scandals quiet that we'll never know about).

and that, noblesavage, pretty much sums up the problem i have with promiscuous-yet-pious family-values-type politicians--of whichever party.

you wanna rebut? be my fucking guest.

sober update: jeez, i worked myself up into a fine, drunken froth over that one, didn't i?