Pardon me if I don’t give a damn about John Edwards’ affair. Imagine the press back in the 1930s and 1940s obsessing about FDR’s sex life — and he set a saucy inspiration for all disabled people. What Great Depression? What New Deal? What Second World War? Let’s write about Lucy, Daisy and Missy! All I’ll say about Edwards is that as a political leader he never wanted to regulate our sex lives or put in place a puritanical theocracy — that separates him from the Vitters, Craigs, Gingriches, etc. on the right. Meanwhile, it’s yet another media-driven distraction from lies that matter.
As we confront real challenges as great at this nation has ever faced, it’s becoming an open question whether the Democratic Party can gain the power to address them. We already know the Republicans won’t — these problems are too profitable for the corporate oligarchy that has come to power over the past few decades. So what are we to make of the rumblings about Hillary’s continued snit? Word that her surrogates are trying to put her name in nomination in Denver. Her failure to be aggressively campaigning for Obama. And Bill Clinton, asked if Obama was qualified to be president. He replied to the reporter: "The Constitution sets qualifications for the president, and then
the people decide who they think would be the better president. I think we have
two choices. I think he [Obama] should win, and I
think he will win." A tepid endorsement if there ever was one.
If Obama loses in November — after all the nation has been put through for eight years, and what McCain promises to continue — what will it mean? Will it mean that enough of America couldn’t vote for a black man with a funny name — better he be white and named Barry O’Bama? Could enough Americans really be so bigoted and stupid — especially choosing a candidate as flawed and dangerous as John McCain (see Amy Silverman’s excellent piece to your left, and The McCain File)? Or that the Clintons, in their megalomania, wrecked the party?
But again, consider the crimes, incompetence and utter bankruptcy of "conservatism." If the Democrats can’t win against that, maybe the party should die there. Major American political parties do: the federalists, the whigs. If Hillary imagines she will rescue the country, finally, in 2012, she should think again. She will be a pariah, and her husband’s legacy will be little better than that of James Buchanan.
The Silverman piece is making some ripples in the lefty blogosphere, which means it will probably die there. It’s a shame since it might stir the MSM to some re-examination of their devotion to him.
One area I wish Silverman had touched on was McCain’s attempted micromanagement of Arizona’s Republican Party. When you’re actually worried about precinct committeemen, you’re a control freak. The Captain Queeg elements do come through in the rest of the article, however.
Maureen Dowd, who can be insightful but is usually maddening, made the point about Clinton – and McCain as well – that Obama’s out-of-turn ascension is what fuels their rage. Clinton was THE rock star of the party up until last year. Now, he’s doing Golden Oldies tours to half-empty houses.
McCain still sees himself as a daredevil rogue who mocks the normal constraints of ordinary mortals. Sure, he’ll pretend to be a Baptist and disarm us with stories of personal lapses. But the tone of the man is, and has been, an angry assertion of entitlement. He bristles with rage that others might thwart him. When he’s in charge and the center of attention, the narcissism can seem fun and enlivening. I suppose that’s why the barbecue media love him so much.
McCain won’t age gracefully or humbly. His presidency would be less a matter of bipartisan bonhomie than Tales from the Bunker. Palace intrigues, rumors, and hilarity ensue.
To watch McCain doing his Grandpa Simpson routine in Sturgis, SD the other day was a good reminder why voters will probably decide he’s a better candidate for Aricept than office. By contrast, Obama looks more like the calm administrator of the nursing home where McCain ought to be.