habitat for inhumanity

Random associations...

Mitt Romney on the road map to Republican victory:

"But we're in a house that Reagan built. It's important that we, as Republicans, stay in the house that Reagan built."

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Gail Collins commenting on the future plans of two former presidential candidates:

"Farewell to John Edwards and Rudy Giuliani. Guess which one is planning to devote his life to helping the poor? No fair looking it up."

adieu american populism

John Edwards is out and his populist message is also out of fashion. Pundits will say his demise was a result of the presence of two "historic" candidates, or that his doubtful "electability" caused likely supporters to cast their votes and opinions for Mme. Clinton. However, his message also seems out of touch with the Zeitgeist. Eight years of Reaganism and eight years of Clintonian centrism have made the classic populist message "history." The dispute between the Progressive School of historical interpretation  (e.g., Charles Beard) and the Consensus School (e.g., Hofstadter, Hartz, et al.) has been resolved by empirical, political events, which have reshaped political psychology. Big Business needs tax incentives not regulation to serve the public interest (this is the Clintonian and Democratic Leadership Council mantra). The redistribution of wealth requires personal responsibility not more government social programs (the Clintonian welfare reform). Establishment Democrats and segments of Big Labour lined up with Clintonism, not the erstwhile inheritor of William Bryan Jennings (sans the monkey business). Fighting poverty and chronic under- and unemployment are no longer salable as political needs; and trial lawyers are as despised as environmental polluters, hucksterish pharmaceuticals, mal-practicing physicians, and scamming mortgage loan officers.

rudy can fail

Rudy is out, which shows that bad guys do finish last (or 4th). But what lies ahead for the Republican party? Republican punditry and the Tancredo-Minutemen-Dobbsified party base seems to be most interested in finding the candidate who would kill the most jihadists, expel the most illegal immigrants, and waterboard the most "enemy combatants"; the one who would establish a 100 year viceroyship in Iraq, and the one who would wage total war on taxes. It takes a tough guy to do this: hence, the monotone and monogender tableaux on the stages of the Republican debates. "Compassionate Conservatism" is simply no longer in vogue. Whereas G. W. Bush claimed the Republican party was inclusive (remember the carnival of multicultural togetherness that was staged at the 2000 Republican convention), republicanism/conservatism today seems to have explicitly embraced exclusion/exclusiveness. This is apparent in the hand-wringing over which candidate is a "true conservative" (Governor Huckabee, you need not apply). Ironically, the race for the nomination has boiled down to two candidates, Romney and McCain, who score low on the Sanford-Binet Conservative Intelligence Scale. However, as long as these candidates serve up a testosterone charged political vision,  a 40th percentile conservative might yet satisfy the base instincts of the base.

eternal flame

The media says Ted Kennedy handed the passkey to Camelot over to Barack Obama. Which made me wonder, why it wasn't passed to another Kennedy. I remembered today why this didn't happen: the lineage had to go through JFK. Caroline Kennedy never positioned herself as heir. However, her brother sort of, maybe, did. But John, with the striking initials (JFK, Jr.), died in 1999. He would have turned 48 in this year, would be older than Obama and lacking none of the charisma. Would he have been a presidential candidate this year? Probably not, unless he had sought some "office." Heading the now defunct George magazine would not have been sufficient to answer Hillary Clinton's mantra of 30+ years of "experience." But then, perhaps he would have run for the Senate (in New York state) in 2000 and Hillary and Bill would have moved to New Jersey to launch her carpet-bagging political career. However, this was not to be. Hence, yesterday Ted Kennedy outsourced the Kennedy legacy.

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Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton again affirmed the wisdom of Ted Kennedy's choice by indicating she will attempt to seat delegates from primaries in Michigan and Florida that she, Obama, and Edwards promised not to contest. This is a classic example of trying to win ugly. It is clear that for the Clintons, winning is everything. Obama should take note of this. The Clinton legacy should be put into play; he should attempt to divide the family by questioning her support for things that are not popular with the liberal base: NAFTA, "welfare reform," No Child Left Behind, The Defense of Marriage Act. If Bill can "Jesse Jackson" Obama, Obama can certainly raise the spectre of another Clinton presidency full of expediency and a rightward tilt (thereby masking Obama's own fairly centrist positions). In other words, if the former president is running against Obama, Obama should run against that president as hard as possible. 

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photo credit: Corbis (Washington Post); Ted Kennedy and John Jr. in 1964

father figure

The NY Times is reporting that Senator Edward Kennedy will endorse Barack Obama tomorrow. This news follows in the wake of Caroline Kennedy's endorsement of Obama in a NY Times Op-Ed, in which she writes: "I have found the man who could be that president" who inspires people as did her father, JFK. This is certainly a major coup for the Obama campaign, to have the last surviving member of Camelot bestow the Kennedy imprimatur on his pursuit of the Presidency. Any evocation of her father tugs at the heartstrings of Democrats old enough to remember anything about 22 November 1963, perhaps the most significant date in American political memory until 9/11. Strategically, the double dip of Caroline Kennedy and Senator Ted may put into play such Clinton "safe states" as New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts on 5 February. It will also not be easy for the Clintonistas to spin these endorsements, from the daughter and the brother, especially Bill, the self-represented legatee of the Kennedy tradition. Additionally, the logic of ethnic politics can be drawn out of Ted Kennedy's endorsement. Ted co-sponsored (with McCain) the defeated immigration reform legislation that had less draconian paths to legalization for millions of illegal immigrants. In the Lou Dobbsified American imagination, illegal immigrant equals "Mexican." Hence, the message can be delivered: Obama is good for "Latinos." Obama should play this "ethnic card" to the hilt.

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A question remains: why invoke the Father at all? If, as some pundits write, Americans may not want alternating political dynasties (Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton), what recommends the symbolic capital of the Ur-Dynasty in American politics? Is this a unconscious hankering for the long lost aristocratic beginnings of the nation? For now, I'll propose that politics is about identity and the projection of identity. Unburdened by the responsibility of historical memory, there is a tendency in American politics to traffic in imagery. This is not necessarily a criticism. But what it means is that the political unconscious of the nation tends towards a search for the most positive image as the anchor of identity. The optimistic and naive self-conception of Americans about their place in the world order is mirrored by the desire to find "likable" people to have exclusive access to the launch code of the U. S. nuclear arsenal. In recent memory, the two parties have two fail-safe images: the "Happy days are here again" Reagan and the photogenic JFK (and Jackie), who asked the nation to do something for the greater good. If this is true, the photogenic Barack Obama, with the immigrant's name, will stand a good chance against the fidgety persona of Hillary Clinton, and the clenched jaw militarism of the aged McCain. Neither Clinton nor McCain emit the sort of light that enveloped JFK and now Obama. Caroline Kennedy has simply reminded Americans of the Democratic stripe: Father was best.

holding on to yesterday

Someone, whose opinion I trust, asked me, after seeing Bill Clinton speak in the wake of Obama's rout of Hillary Clinton in South Carolina, "Does Bill Clinton have Alzheimers?" This is a good question. Where is the guy who usually raised the level of intelligence in political discussions? Has the so-called Great Triangulator lost his political instincts? Has he lost his mind? Or is he stuck so entirely in the past that he can't see the present reality? The present reality is that Obama represents the future, whereas the Clinton name represents the past.

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What is the past anyway, the good times of the Clinton 90s? What is the nature of the Clinton "mystique" among Democrats and is there really a mystique? My memory is that Clinton might not have won the Presidency in 1992 if Ross Perot had not siphoned Republican votes from Bush I. For Democrats, however, he was that knight in shining armor, whose election ended the dark times of the Reagan/Bush I era. The immediate and persistent effort of Conservatives to undermine the results of the 1992 election (and the subsequent one in 1996), caused Democrats to rally around Clinton I, even if his actual policies were not fully supported. To be sure, Clinton was rational, lucid, in control of the facts and nuances of the interpretation of facts, which made a stark contrast with Reagan. The economy eventually boomed and Clinton (in comparison to Bush II) did not enter into ill-advised military adventures. And he was well-liked abroad. But on the whole, I think the mystique is not so much the product of actual policy outcomes as the result of negatives: Clinton was not Reagan, he was not one of the self-righteous Republicans who waved the stained dress in public, and, most importantly, he was not Bush II. Unlike the Kennedy mystique, which is also short on substance, the Clinton mystique lacks any inspirational qualities. It is true that the Kennedy mystique might have been a post-assassination production (the Camelot imagery), but the Kennedy name inspires hope, the Clinton name does not.

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Hence, for Bill Clinton it must have been a painful thing indeed, as BBC commentator Katty Kay pointed out on a Sunday morning talk show, that Obama called Reagan the Great Transformer rather than Clinton. This single statement, not uttered in anger or spite by Obama, must have been the bee sting that roused the hibernating bear. Whatever it was, Bill Clinton has engaged in the type of personality destruction that has mostly characterized the demagoguery of Republican political operatives. Obama, in a typically understated way, had called the Clinton mystique into question. Bill Clinton has responded, and the response to the mere "fairytale" has diminished the former President.

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To be sure, there are enough Establishment Democrats left who benefited from the Clinton mystique to keep the upstart Obama off-balance. The party apparatus doesn't really want change, and the Hill/Bill Team is a comfortable old shoe in which to slip the party's hopes. Obama, unlike Carol Moseley Braun, the first black woman senator (also from Illinois), did not work his way up the ranks of the Democratic party apparatus. Hence, the message of change that is compatible to the Establishment is a change to the past of Clinton I. Certainly, Bill Clinton has the sort of rock star effect on crowds that Obama has. But the difference is that whereas people want to be near Bill Clinton, they want to follow Obama. Hillary Clinton does not and never has had the effect that her husband and her competitor have on Democratic voters. Thus is remains important for her campaign to unleash Bill Clinton, for as much as he reminds people of Monica-Gate, he also reminds them of the good olds days, the twelve years between Reagan/Bush I and the eight years of Bush II. 

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Should Obama directly challenge the Clinton mystique? Probably not, since the Establishment Democrats would also be threatened. But he can sharpen his criticism of style. And he could simply name this style as a type that will not regain the White House for the Democrats. The Clintonistas are banking on the fact that no matter how "Republican" she runs her primary campaign, Democrats will still rally to her if she wins the nomination. This, rather than Obama's campaign, is the actual roll of the dice. Just remember John Kerry.

political panhandling

The Race is On! according to my mail:

We are in the midst of a hard-fought and tight race. Super Tuesday awaits us, and we must work even harder than before! Presidential campaigns are about strength from supporters and leadership from the candidate. With your support, I know we can win the nomination and go one to win the White House. 

Ascona, securing the nomination depends on results on February 5th. We're weeks away, and we must have the resources to fight anything that is thrown at us. Your contribution of $100 will help us build on our momentum and deliver the votes to win New York on Super Tuesday. Can I count on your contribution today?

The stakes couldn't be higher. Events couldn't be moving faster. With everything on the line, let's show them what we're made of. Please send your contribution today or go to www.HillaryClinton.com/ now to make an immediate impact. 

Thank you for your continued support.

Hillary

n.b. Ascona tithed once to Senator Clinton's first senatorial race, but continues to receive requests for additional funding.

the days of whine and roses

Barack Obama announced today that he'll take on Bill Clinton.

"I have to say just broadly, you know, the former president -- who I think all of us have a lot of regard for -- has taken his advocacy on behalf of his wife to a level that I think is pretty troubling," he told Good Morning America.

You know, he continues to make statements that aren't supported by the facts, whether it's about my record of opposition to the war in Iraq, or our approach to organising in Las Vegas. You know, this has become a habit.

President Clinton went in front of a large group, said that I had claimed that only Republicans had any good ideas since 1980 ... He was making it up and completely mischaracterizing my statement.

One of the things that I think we're going to have to do is to directly confront Bill Clinton when he's not making statements that are factually accurate," Obama continued.

Message to Mr. Obama: you're in a political campaign, your words will be "mischaracterized". What Bill Clinton has done is nothing compared to what the Republicans would do in the fall campaign. I find it almost laughable that you've chosen to tell the world that you'll now start taking on the former president. That is exactly what you should be doing. Telling us you're going to do it before you do it is just silly. You should already have been doing it. 

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It is this sort of thing that makes me wonder whether Obama actually has the will for the job of President, especially a Democratic President confronting a Republican Senatorial filibuster machine. The Clintonistas won't play nice. Bill Clinton has been through much tougher challenges than the one Obama might present. Hillary has been a punching bag for Republicans since 1992.  In the face of this, does Obama think the talk of changing the tone of American politics will matter? Democratic party hacks like Charlie Rangel will hack away at Obama. Is this a surprise? 

*

As I have opined before, the Clintonistas are fully at home in the trenches and there is a risk for Obama if he enters the battle on their terms (namely, he becomes just another politician rather than being the Chosen One). However, I do wonder about Obama's political style. It is often reported that Obama was a community organizer. His background is in Alinsky style organizing, which basically involves going into a community, listening to the complaints of community members, defining a common enemy in populist terms (i.e., the city versus the people; the landlord versus the tenants), picking a winnable battle (i.e., one that is likely to succeed and therefore build confidence in the community), making 'hits' on offices of public officials or engaging in "rent strikes", etc. It is also especially important for the Alinsky style to avoid "divisions", especially racial and ethnic divisions that might exist within the community that is targeted for organizing. I can see aspects of this organizing style in Obama's political style, most notably the populist appeal to "the people" rather than specific groups and the emphasis on "we" rather than "I" in his rhetoric. What is missing, of course, is the direct, confrontational style of Alinskyist community organizing. Ironically, Hillary Clinton's suppressed B.A. thesis is supposed to be on Alinsky; she, on the other hand, does engage in confrontation, seems to relish it, has a knack for it, and a will to succeed in it. 

*

Hillary Clinton is running on her "experience" in the White House; hence, much of her campaign is bound up with the good times of the Clinton 90s. Why wouldn't Obama have made this a central point of attack? Bill Clinton was a creature of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), the group of centrist Democrats who mapped out a strategy that would bypass the traditional, progressive, activist roots of the Democratic party, the inheritance of the 1960s. Clinton ran in 1992 with a theme of "ending welfare as we know it." And he did. His tactical strategy, nurtured in the DLC, was to steal Republican issues and make them over into moderate Democratic positions. Reagan ran for the Presidency by attacking the Red Soviets and the Welfare Queens. Clinton also ran against these queens, but did so in a truly kinder and gentler way. So when Bill Clinton criticizes Obama for trumpeting Reagan, Obama could point out that Clinton accomplished what Reagan could not; Bill Clinton put Reagan's idea into action ("It takes a President" in the eloquent formulation of Hillary Clinton). Moreover, Clinton launched the research into the policy that became the No Child Left Behind legislation of the first Bush term, which prescribes a method of educational testing that produces statistically unreliable results. Perhaps Obama is unaware of this, but, again, an Alinsky political style would make this a point of confrontation.

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Why mention Reagan? Obama surely knew he was stepping into deep sh*t when he flatly stated that Reagan "changed the trajectory of America" in a way "Bill Clinton did not." There's no need to recite the litany of Reagan's sins here. But it is, in fact, true that Reagan transformed the field of American politics in a way that no Democratic President has since FDR. Reagan co-opted FDR's themes and gave them a supply-side, neo-conservative spin (e.g., FDR's "Four Freedoms for the Fourth" speech*). Bill Clinton's domestic policies grew out of the soil of the Reaganite vision (leaving aside the national health care debacle). Obama could elaborate on this situation and tie Hillary Clinton to her closet Reaganite President-Husband. He could point to the language of Clinton's welfare reform law and show that it is directly hostile to poor, single mothers; that it is morally paternalistic; that it binds these women to men in an unfeminist way. Or Obama could point out that Bill Clinton set a Federal level firewall against "gay marriage" by signing the "Defense of Marriage Act," which stipulates that "the word 'marriage' means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word 'spouse' refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or wife." Surely, Obama could point out these features of the Clinton Presidency, in which Hillary Clinton claims an important role. But then, he, like Hillary, would have to find his voice.

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* See the excellent analysis of Reagan and FDR in the dissertation of Jayson Harsin, "A Tale of Two Citizenships: The Economic Rights Discourse of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan" (2005).

when the party's over

The outcome of the Republican primaries so far portends disaster for the party in the fall election. Among the leading candidates, two are largely unacceptable to the majority of republican voters (Huckabee and Romney); a third has no vision beyond what happened between 8:48 am and 11:59 pm on 9/11/01; a fourth does his best politicking on reruns of Law & Order, and a fifth is anathema to the Tancredo-Dobbs-Minutemen set because of his support for "immigration reform."

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A speculative view: the 1960s (the Vietnam war and Civil Rights activism) shattered the Democrats' "New Deal Coalition." The Republican party benefited from the flight of southern whites and blue collar Democrats (so-called Reagan Democrats) during the 20 years of Reagan/Bush/Bush. Now the Reagan Coalition is fragmented, and again an unpopular war is one factor. I've never understood how the Republicans could hold together a coalition of corporate conservatives, free market conservatives, big and small business, so-called independents, and social conservatives for so long without splintering. Maybe it required exogenous events: the Iraq war and the incompetence of G. W. Bush

no dice

Hillary Clinton's roll of the racial dice has come up snake eyes. Barack Obama has taken the "high road," again refusing to wallow in the muck:

Obama: "I think that I may disagree with Senator Clinton or Senator Edwards on how to get there, but we share the same goals. We're all Democrats....We all believe in civil rights. We all believe  in equal rights. We all believe that regardless of race or gender that people should have equal opportunities....They are good people, they are patriots. They are running because they think they can move this country to a better place." 

The contrast in styles is real and has substantive consequences. The Clinton campaign is more comfortable with slash and burn politics; it thrives on attack and counter-attack. But this style requires someone to play the role of adversary. In the 1990s, the adversary was the Republican party and a vast conservative "conspiracy." Such existential foes made for existential battles, culminating in the impeachment of Bill Clinton. The problem the Clintonistas face now is that Obama refuses (more or less) to play the adversarial role. He tends to deflect the blow rather than responding in kind. Hence, the Clinton campaign is force to fight a phantom and here the strategy flounders. My sense is that Clinton would be a formidable and relentless candidate in face of a Republican in the fall election, in particular because Republicans can be expected to fire all their remaining ammunition at her. This is the preferred terrain for Clinton; two military formations meeting on a single field of battle, face to face. As the presidential nominee, Obama would have to remain above it all without appearing aloof; the goal would be to demonstrate the desperation of the Republicans by refusing to answer every volley; political honour would then hopefully prevail over an extravagant display of arms; in the end, the beefy class ruffians would succumb to the compelling nobility of skinny class president. I am not sure this style would prevail, but clearly Obama has no desire to engage in gladiator politics.

it's all about the 'he said, she said' bullshit

Finally, the Democratic presidential campaign has gone back to basics: identity. Whereas Republican identity politics center on claims to the Reaganite inheritance, to god, small taxes, and big weapons, Democrats are more inclined to obsess over gender and race. At the moment, the Clinton and Obama campaigns are fixated on the latter. There are historical reasons for this: southern whites abandoned the Democratic party over the pro-civil rights legislation of the mid-60s (more on that later); hence, the black vote is an essential component of any Democratic "southern strategy." But the reason today is that South Carolina (in which the majority of registered Democrats are black) is the next primary battleground.

Rather than rehash the terms of the current clash over the proper way to speak about Martin Luther King Jr., I'll wander over other topics. On King, this much can be said: he is one of the three saints of Democratic party politics: Martin, John (Kennedy), and Bobby (Kennedy)  (more on John later). Hence it is important for both campaigns to commemorate King in an effort to align with his "legacy." One might ask why Clinton would keep the dispute over King alive, when there are clearly risks of committing a racial "offense." I have no idea what is the real intention in this, but clearly it has had this positive effect (from the standpoint of the take-no-prisoners Clintonistas): it drags Obama into the muck of political trench warfare which he so far has assiduously avoided, and it raises the racial stakes for Obama. What are these stakes? They are two-fold. First, Obama's own "racial authenticity" can become a political issue in a highly racialist black community and, second, it may force Obama to engage more directly in racial politics, an engagement that would jeopardize his ability to claim the standpoint of the national universal as the candidate of "unity." Hence, the risks are actually more significant for Obama than for Clinton, who already has a solid bloc of black supporters.

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What is of more interest to me is the continued invocation of one of the three saints, JFK. Bill Clinton claimed his entry into politics came through meeting JFK. Obama has situated his candidacy in relation to JFK as well, and the media has made inevitable comparisons of the two youthful, optimistic Senators. JFK is useful since the memory of the murdered prince of Camelot evokes the memory of tragedy and of promise. The tragedy of his assassination cut short the promise of his presidency. And, of course, JFK was a Democrat (the other "great" Democratic president of the 20th century, FDR, has receded from public memory). However, this "social memory" of JFK should not, following Halbwachs, be confused with history. JFK initiated a more significant involvement of U. S. troops in Vietnam during his brief presidency; Lyndon Johnson (LBJ) escalated this involvement and consequently doomed his own legacy. JFK is the light and LBJ the dark in Democrats' social memory of the 1960s. However, another "memory" is possible: under Johnson, a striking shift in a long-standing policy of over 300 years occurred in the signing of the Civil Rights Act (by LBJ). Fearing the desertion of Jim Crow southern Dixiecrats in the 1964 election, JFK equivocated on civil rights. Under LBJ and the pressure of the moral persuasion of Civil Rights activism (led by saint Martin), the historical mess of legally sanctioned institutional exclusion was cleared up in two years. In the terms of realpolitik, if there were "beneficiaries" of the Kennedy assassination, one set would be southern blacks.

*

The association of JFK in particular with the mainstream liberal vision is not an act of nature. Depending on one's position in the political hierarchy, it could appear confusing that JFK, remembered more as geist than as mensch, is so closely identified with the political liberalism of the Democratic party. LBJ, whose sole, decidedly negative political value has come to be identified with Vietnam, was the sponsor of the Great Society, the most comprehensive liberal policy agenda in American history (Ok maybe the New Deal was more comprehensive). In particular, the domestic legacy of the Johnson years is the "second" welfare state, whose "needs-based" criterion and "new subjects" (the chronically un- and underemployed, single mothers, children, and students) share an uneasy coexistence with the "first" welfare state, whose "contribution-based" criterion and "old subjects" (ethnic, working-class men) continue to be more politically defensible (it is probably not a coincidence that Bill Clinton carried through his campaign promise to "end welfare as we know it" in 1996). JFK's New Frontier looks decidedly complacent in comparison to the Great Society. However, it is the symbolic reappropriation of JFK that is the foundation of liberal Democratic politics rather than Johnson and the Great Society, which is burdened with the spectacle of Vietnam and the anti-war movement, as well as political crimes of the neo-conservative imagination -- i.e., big government, welfare corruption, reverse discrimination, crime, the erosion of values, etc. Because LBJ's record is decidedly mixed ("right" militarily, "left" socially), the Texan is unfit to function as the spiritual source of the politics of the liberal Democratic mainstream. The fact that the exclusive access to the Kennedy aura remains a point of honor to a generation of liberals and Democrats whose political well-being is based on hoarding the memory of the fallen JFK could be seen in the exchange between Democratic Senator Lloyd Bentsen and Republican Senator Dan Quayle during the 1988 Vice-Presidential debate (Bentsen to Quayle: "Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy").

*

Hillary Clinton's "error" was to invoke LBJ  in seeming opposition to saint Martin. Her rhetoric tread upon the sacred, and the critical response was predictable. In the fine tradition of the debauched American public sphere, she has turned the tables on the critics and Obama by claiming the criticism has introduced "race" (obviously "divisive" and obviously inconsistent with the communitarian imagery of Obama's speeches) into the campaign. Which is exactly what Clinton wants.

1968 reloaded

This is the first in a series of remembrances of 1968. In that year, my parents moved to a new home, I changed schools and was the first kid in class to wear wide bell bottoms.

Also....

On January 30th 1968, the Tet Offensive was launched by the North Vietnamese. The Offensive, which lasted until September 1968, set the stage for the eventual withdrawal of U. S. forces.

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1968 was also the year that Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin met on the set of Slogan.

how many jihadists have you killed today?

The Republicans are competing for the title of  the Fastest and Most Efficient Gun in the West. The last time I saw this many old men in suits discussing killing and maiming was in The Godfather I. One exception: Ron Paul doesn't do this, and so he's irrelevant. Even the President of 9/11 is struggling to keep pace with the disciple of Joseph Smith, Jr., who would double the size of Gitmo, presumably to be run by a private hotel chain. Torture and turndown service. McCain is surging ahead 100 years: that's how long he'll keep U. S. troops in Iraq. And it was nice to see Fred Thompson come out of his writer's strike induced coma during the last debate. 

*

In a perfect world, politics would imitate art. What if the Republican debates could be filtered through dialogue from Starship Troopers? What if...

Giuliani: We must meet this threat with our courage, our valor, indeed with our very lives to ensure that human civilization, not insect, dominates this galaxy NOW AND ALWAYS!

McCain: We will find those who did it, we'll smoke them out of their holes. We'll get them running and we'll bring them to justice.

Thompson: Shoot a nuke down a bug hole, you got a lot of dead bugs.

Romney: You see a bug hole, YOU NUKE IT!

Huckabee: Man did not evolve from insect. Do I look like insect you work with or the one who laid you off?

cry me a river

Big girls don't cry. Or maybe they do. And when they do, their sins (and ours) are washed away. It appears that an emotional "moment" has derailed the Obama Express to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Or has it? Pull up a tissue and let's figure it out.

*

There are two views (because I say there are!) of the Great Meltdown of 2008. One, which will necessarily find association with the Royal Society of Hillary Haters (the RSHH), sees these bitter tears as just more manipulation,  an orchestrated bit of classical Clintonian triangulation (or cryangulation), a brand of glassy-eyed political strategy. As the two chaps in the Guinness beer commercial say: Brilliant! And the RSHH says: How Dare They! A few drops of water cascading from the eyes of the Ice Queen of American politics does not make her human, nor should we be duped into thinking otherwise. The other view, which seems to coalesce a non-existing coalescence of Oprah (who supports Obama) and Gloria Steinem (representing resurgent 2nd wave feminism), holds that it's OK to cry and, gosh darn it, there's wisdom in those soggy eyes. "It's My Turn" is the unofficial theme song of the Emotionistas, the "Girlfriend Mafia", the BFFs in their global sisterhood. Confronted by these opposed viewpoints, what are we to believe? What exactly happened in New Hampshire and will weeping be the factor that decides the Democratic Party nomination contest?

*

From our stiff upper lipped perspective, one thing is clear: the pollsters got it wrong when it came to Clinton. From now on, it would be better to consult a poison oracle than to believe the predictions of quantitative research. Also, our post-election hermeneutics are likely to only reveal partial aspects of an irrational reality. All we know for certain about Clinton is the following: veni, weepy, vici. It could be that the gender gap swung in favor of Clinton in New Hampshire (unlike in Iowa) because women saw the video of The Moment. Or maybe they heard about it. Or maybe they were on Clinton's side already. Who knows and who bloody cares! Get over it.

*

In reality, we must focus on the sorrows of the young Obama himself, which can be traced to his campaign strategy. He needs to talk to Democrats about the things Democrats care about. We (i.e., we Amerikuns) are not in a "crisis" on the order of the 1860s that calls for Lincolnesque eloquence and a lofty vision of America the Beautiful. There are things like foreclosures, health care, and the state of public education on the minds of the Democratic voters. Clinton, the Yoda of Wonk, has mastered the art of talking about these things in detail. Tedious, yes. Effective, yes. If the theme of "change" can be co-opted by Clinton, so can the wizardry of wonkism be mastered by the Harvard J.D. 

*

So let's pen no more sonnets about the Deluge in the Diner. Pull yourself together and get on with it!

all the pundits fit to post

A sampling of the best and the brightest of the NY Times Op-Ed page reveals that conservative David Brooks is optimistic about Obamamania, while it is left to Gail Collins to introduce notes of caution and realism.

"This is a huge moment. It's one of those times when a movement that seemed ethereal and idealistic became a reality and took on political substance.

And Americans are not going to want to see this stopped. When an African-American man is leading a juggernaut to the White House, do you want to be the one to stand up and say No?

Obama is changing the tone of American liberalism, and maybe American politics, too."

"If Clinton wants to be Franklin (and Eleanor) Roosevelt in this campaign, and John Edwards is channeling Williams Jennings Bryan, Obama is, for all his early opposition to Iraq, the most conservative visionary in the group. Big change is hardly ever accomplished without political warfare. When the red and blue states join together and all Americans of good will march hand-in-hand to a mutually agreed upon destiny, the place they're going to end up would probably look pretty much like now with more health insurance."

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The truth lies somewhere in-between. Obama has shown some ability to "change the topic" of discussion on the Democratic side. His vision is inspirational. On the other hand, his policy positions are not very different from those of his competitors. And the question remains of how he would pursue the trench warfare that would be needed to move a Senate that is still dominated -- through arcane rules -- by Republicans. Does he have the desire and instincts to succeed in this endeavor? ( for example, would he use Executive Orders to bypass legislative stalemates?). Or, does Obama expect Republican Senators to be swept up in his lofty rhetoric, or compelled by their constituents to follow his siren song?

These questions remain unanswered.

illustrators against war

128 East 63rd Street, New York, NY.

american exceptionalism

The victory of "hope" in Iowa is being hailed as a transcendent, feel good moment. And perhaps Obamamania will carry the day against the Clinton apparatus. I can only give two cheers to Mssr. Obama at this point. As an member of the entitled, liberal intelligentsia, I appreciate his brain power, eloquence, and ability to articulate a coherent vision of what America might be. We Americans like to have our cherished ideal-self mirrored back to us. And, as of today, Obama is that mirror. This is cheer #1.

Cheer #2: I like the way Obama navigates the insistent racialist vision. He usually leaves his identity unstated, which forces others to project their racial meanings upon him and his candidacy for president. 

The missing cheer #3: The high blown talk of "uniting". I don't want to "unite" with neocons and bible-thumpers. I share no common cause with these types. Moreover, I have enough Marxist DNA left in me to find that something should be said about "binding" capital to even the weakest notion of the "public good." While Edwards is serving a warmed over, nativist anti-capitalist spiel, there is something in it that is valuable. Populism, preferably the type that doesn't turn into poujadisme, is about all one can expect as a substitute for 'socialism'. Populism is the US equivalent of socialism, framed in the typically petit-bourgeois form of the little guy versus the big bosses. Obama has cast this frame into the dustbin of history, perhaps prematurely. But maybe he is in touch with the Zeitgeist: the "little guy" is fucked no matter what, but compensation can be found in the warm-fuzziness of Being-Together (Dasein-Miteinander for Heideggerians). My third cheer is reserved for the time when Obama reveals some edge, intellectual or rhetorical, that draws a few lines around what can be included in the America that might be.

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Finally, let's cut through the crap of "experience." Like it or not, there's nothing in the U.S. Constitution prescribing that only the most "experienced" (in what?) candidate is "qualified" to be President. Hypothetically, anyone (meeting citizenship requirements) who decides to run for President can become President if s/he gains the most electoral votes. Of course, this lack of substantive criteria has lead to problems (see G. W. Bush). But short of administering a take-home exam, I'm not sure that any candidate has a monopoly on "qualification." Each might claim this, but each one still must convince "the people" that their "qualifications" matter.

hucklebuck

When I first saw Huckabee on Charlie Rose a few years ago, I found him to be -- in comparison to Bush -- articulate, funny, practical (it probably helped that Rose fawned over him, much as he had over Judith Miller...but that's another story). I also thought: "finally, a thinking republican." I had no idea he thought the theory of evolution was bunk or that he would identify himself as a "christian leader." So I think part of his appeal might be that he doesn't shove the "god talk" on people on the order of a Robertson or Falwell. As a partisan of the culture wars, he seems to be throwing water balloons rather than firing missiles.

However, in this election cycle, he's a flash in the pan. The herd of establishment republicans will reassert themselves.

Pakistan calls in Scotland Yard to investigate

resolutions

trouble avoidance. it's hard to be bad. 

try harder.