A Pilgrim’s Digression

There is a conspiracy theory floating around the liberal blogs today that the Monday “spectacle” of Jeremiah Wright appearing before the National Press Club was a Clinton Dirty Trick.

The theory got its start at the New York Daily News with an op-ed by Errol Louis. Louis points out that the person who organized the Wright speech, Barbara Reynolds, is “an enthusiastic Clinton supporter.” Louis quotes from Reynolds’ public writings, in which she is critical of Obama and offers praise to the Clintons, as evidence that there might have been something underhanded at play on Monday.

The implication of Louis’ op-ed is that Obama has been set up, if not by the Clinton campaign, then by a die-hard Clinton supporter at the National Press Club. The timing of Wright’s remarks, coming just before the Indiana/North Carolina primary next week, has been so damaging that it must have been a coordinated knee-capping. Perhaps the Clintons even ordered the hit.

There are some holes in this theory, however, and I am going to try to widen those holes not just because I am a newly minted Clinton supporter. There is some basic illogic to the charge that the Clintons directly or indirectly prompted this hit on Obama by his former pastor.

The first discrepency in the conspiracy theory is provided by Louis himself. He quotes Reynolds, Wright’s supposed enabler, as writing on her blog that she actually likes the Reverend Wright, and much of her anger at Obama is directed at him because he has betrayed Reverend Wright.

The problem with conspiracy theories is that they always take the most complicated answer to a “mystery” as also the most reasonable answer, and this is rarely the case. In the Reynolds example, the most obvious answer as to why she would invite Jeremiah Wright to speak is that she likes him and feels that he has been maligned.

Quoting Reynolds, “It is a sad testimony that to protect his credentials as a unifier above the fray, the senator is fueling the media characterization that Rev. Dr. Wright is some retiring old uncle in the church basement.”

Reynolds has responded to the controversy, denying that she is “a Clinton surrogate.” The National Press Club has also responded, stating that the Wright speech was planned well before Wright became the gunshot wound to the head of the Obama campaign.

I would add to that, advising people to keep in mind that Monday wasn’t the first time Wright spoke. He was on a press junket for several days prior to the Monday event. Presumably he could have lit the fire that has torched Obama’s campaign bus at any one of the interviews or speeches he has given. Wright could have made his comments to Bill Moyers, or in front of the NAACP Sunday night.

It is mere coincidence he saved his most incendiary remarks for the National Press Club event on Monday, an event that coincidentally was organized by a Clinton supporter. Coincidence is both father and mother to conspiracy theories.

My personal opinion is that Wright was paying back a personal vendetta with his speeches. I make that judgment based on the damaging personal attacks he launched against Obama in his comments. Wright probably feels betrayed by the way in which Obama keeps distancing himself from the Reverend. He probably doesn’t like being characterized as the crazy Uncle. He probably thinks Obama has been patronizing and rude, considering all the help Wright has given Obama’s political career in Chicago. Thus Wright pays Obama in full by sabotaging his Presidential campaign. It’s sad that such a tragic end comes down to such a venal motive, but that may be all there is to it.

All that said, if the Clintons or a surrogate did provide the stage for Wright to perform his public knee-capping of Obama, it would not surprise me. That is how the Clintons roll. Reverend Wright himself said it, Bill Clinton “rides dirty.” John McCain can expect the same kind of treatment when Clinton is the nominee, and if he’s not scared, he ought to be. I think before it’s all over, we’re going to know all of Johnny’s dirty little secrets.

That kind of ruthlessness is one reason I am now supporting the Clintons. By virtue of her tenaciousness, and maybe some dirty politics, Clinton is the only one left standing who can beat John McCain in November.

Really, when you think about it, Obama got off easy. He will never be able to run for President again; his reputation is tarnished; his life and career are relegated to footnote status. But he’s alive. He’s lucky he has such a high profile, otherwise he might have ended up like Vince Foster instead of Nancy Kerrigan.

I have decided that it is imperative for me to endorse Senator Hillary Clinton for President. Not that my endorsement means much; I am not a power broker in the political arena.

I am, however, someone who has never supported a winning candidate in any of the four Presidential elections since I began voting in 1992.

What I have come to realize is that although previously I only joked about the “curse” that is placed on a candidate the moment I announce my support, I now believe that the curse is very real.

Clearly, the only thing I can do to help salvage the fading candidacy of Barack Obama is to endorse his rival and offer her all the rhetorical support that is within my power. I am henceforth instituting a moratorium on all pro-Obama posts on this site. From this day forth, mine is a 24-hour, 7-day a week “Clinton for President” propaganda blog.

Whether or not I will also censor pro-Obama comments, I have not yet decided.

The only question in my mind is whether my efforts will be too little, too late. It may be that by casting my vote for Obama in the Virginia primary, I sealed his unfortunate fate. Typically, in the past, the act of voting has been the determining factor in whether a candidate wins or loses.

If I am too late in my endorsement of Clinton, and she wins the nomination despite my support, then I am faced with the difficult task of choosing which of the two remaining candidates, McCain or Clinton, I most want to lose.

If I decide to support McCain, I assure a Clinton victory. If I support Clinton, we have another four years of status quo Republican rule to look forward to.

Because my wife is a die-hard Clinton supporter, I am more likely to throw my support to McCain in such a scenario, because I’d like to at least give my wife the pleasure of having her candidate win.

Even if my un-endorsement of Barack Obama succeeds, and he captures the nomination, I will be faced with a choice as to whether to re-endorse Obama, or to go all-out for McCain. Naturally, I want to ensure a McCain loss to Obama, therefore I must support McCain.

But for the nonce, let me set the new tone of this blog by offering a few encouraging words to Clinton.

I think she should stay in this race all the way to Denver in August. Why should she get out? Obama has lost the nomination. That is one irrefutable fact that has become clear in the past few days.

Obama has lost the nomination. For Clinton to leave the race now would be like a NASCAR driver who is behind by only one lap quitting the race just as the lead car has a four wheel blowout and goes spinning off into the wall.

The wheels have come off Obama’s campaign car. All Clinton has to do now is stay in the race long enough for the Super Delegates to realize that the Obama phenomenon is over. An Indiana win for Clinton would dig Obama’s grave, but a North Carolina win would put the headstone on his campaign.

The expected endorsement of the North Carlina governor, coupled with Obama’s self destruction, suddenly makes that North Carolina win seem very, very possible.

It’s pretty astonishing how quickly things can change in this election year. Just yesterday I wrote that I did not see the reappearance of Reverend Wright as a major blow to the Obama campaign. His speeches did not seem to supply the anti-Obama crowd with much ammunition, and in fact by virtue of him appearing calm, his speeches seemed to defuse much of the anger over his past incendiary rhetoric.

Then, almost at the same time as I was writing yesterday, he gave a speech (harmless in itself) to the National Press Club, followed by a question/answer period in which he essentially confirmed his belief in all the ignorant things he has preached from his pulpit, and added a few more to boot.

Throwing any pretense of intellectual rigor to the winds, now according to Wright, any attack on him is an attack on “the black church.” Louis Farrakhan is “one of the most important voices in the 20th and 21st century.” And, in a glaring non sequitur, because the U.S. Public Health Service conducted the Tuskegee Experiment from 1932 to 1970, therefore “our government is capable of doing anything” including purposefully injecting the HIV virus in American citizens.

I confess I feel ashamed of what I wrote about this man yesterday. If there was a case to be made that he was misunderstood, I think that case was irreparably broken at the National Press Club. No longer can we refer to his statements as “out of context” or refer to them having been said as many as six or seven years ago.

This man is single-handedly destroying the candidacy of Barack Obama. He is a living reflection of a political ideology based on racial resentment and ancient national sin that, in his mind, can never be expunged. He represents the kind of backwards-looking racial politics that has contributed to a multitude of black politicians being turned into a political sideshow–Marion Barry chief among them (Barry was at the National Press Club cheering on Wright, yesterday).

Obama needs to cut him loose. Now. Obama’s loyalty to Wright means nothing to the man. Wright goes before the media not once, but twice in about four days and says that Obama is merely a politician who “had to distance himself, because he’s a politician.”

Then yesterday, he threw Obama even further under the bus, stating: “And I said to Barack Obama, last year, “If you get elected, November the 5th, I’m coming after you, because you’ll be representing a government whose policies grind under people.”

That’s how Jeremiah Wright has repaid Obama’s loyalty. Then, Wright walks out of the press conference with a Nation Of Islam security detail at his back.

If Senator Obama has good people beside him, managing his campaign, they must be telling him that the time is ripe to cast off Jeremiah Wright. He is no friend of Barack Obama. In fact, there is a part of me that suspicions Wright wants to see him fail because Obama’s failure will become yet another “symptom” of black victimhood in this country.

I am also beginning to think there is almost a death wish within the Obama campaign itself. Obama seems to feel that there is nothing he can do about Wright, but that isn’t true at all. Disown the man. Tell the American people that Wright has repaid the Senator’s loyalty with a stab in the back. People will respond to that. My god, I heard Bill O’Reilly actually waxing sympathetic towards Obama and his troubles last night. If O’Reilly feels some measure of sympathy for the man, how much more sympathy will the American people feel if Obama calls Wright out for his betrayal?

Frankly, it’s the only thing he can do to salvage his chances. I am not even sure he can win the nomination, now. I have a bad feeling about Indiana. I am not even sure that the supposedly monolithic black vote in North Carolina is that much of a sure thing. The media likes to portray the black community as 100% behind Barack Obama, but I think that is only true when he is viewed as a post-partisan unifier. Viewed as the weak-willed puppet of Jeremiah Wright…no, I don’t think that is a net positive in the eyes of most Americans, regardless of color.

Obama’s campaign is hemorrhaging. The only thing that can staunch the steady bleeding of support is to thoroughly, once and for all denounce Jeremiah Wright and all that he stands for. If Obama can’t do that, I hate to say it but he may not deserve to be our President. How can he expect us to believe he is strong enough to make even tougher decisions as President, when he cannot even bring himself to completely denounce an ignorant fool such as the Reverend Wright?

The scales have fallen from my eyes, anyway. I hope Senator Obama has an equally inspiring moment of enlightenment in regards to his “friend.”

NOTE: I have come to the conclusion that the post I wrote yesterday about Jeremiah Wright was so embarrassingly wrong in its evaluation of his character and his rhetoric, I cannot stomach even having it available for friends to read.  I am removing it from the site.

I am feeling somewhat more optimistic today about Obama’s chances, both in the Democrat primary and in the November election. There is still much that can go wrong, but also much that can go right in the coming weeks. I think my biggest fear is of the Rev. Wright making a personal appearance on Oprah, but barring anything dramatic such as that, consensus seems to be that a one-two punch by Obama in Indiana and North Carolina in two weeks could effectively end Clinton’s hopes.

Whether Obama can pull it off is the big question. He has had other opportunities to score a knock out prior to this.

However, something not fully considered in speculation about the Indiana and North Carolina primary is the roll of money in the campaign. By all accounts, the Clinton campaign is deep in debt. She had to spend so much money in Pennsylvania, she is effectively broke compared to Obama. She may have raised as much as ten million in the 24 hour period after her victory on Tuesday, however at that moment in time, her campaign was also ten million dollars in debt. Meanwhile, her big donors are maxed out on their campaign contributions. She can’t rely on them anymore.

Thus, whereas Obama has campaign coffers well-stocked with something like 30 million for the next two campaigns (and no debts), Clinton is either going to have to continue going deeper into debt, or she will have to rely on the beneficence of small donors who give ten, twenty, or fifty dollars.

Obama has built much of his campaign funding on such small donors, but Clinton has built no such financial infrastructure for her campaign, instead relying on her wealthy supporters who can no longer contribute anything. Clinton likes to point out how Obama out-spent her in Pennsylvania, yet she still won. However, what she doesn’t mention is that she had a demographic cushion of voters there to negate his financial power. She has no such cushion in the majority of the upcoming states. Indiana may still be a tough win for Obama, but there are no more ten point margins of victory in Clinton’s future. If she wants to win at all, she will need at least another 20 million to be competitive.

Looked at in this way, Obama’s loss in Pennsylvania may have been a Pyrhhic victory for Clinton, leaving her bankrupt. Can she compete successfully in two states at once against a campaign that has no money worries? I don’t think so. She will probably have to forfeit North Carolina in order to compete in Indiana.

Still, Obama looks shaky right now. Clinton’s questions are good ones: why hasn’t he been able to shut her down? Why aren’t white, blue collar voters supporting him? However, I think in 60 days, with the primary season over and a glorious summer in full bloom, the challenges facing Obama will seem less daunting.

One sign of hope for November came from an unlikely source yesterday. John McCain called on the North Carolina Republican party to remove an ad attacking Obama for his association with Rev. Jeremiah Wright. In a letter to the NCRP, McCain scolded them, saying “The television advertisement you are planning to air degrades our civics and distracts us from the very real differences we have with the Democrats. In the strongest terms, I implore you to not run this advertisement.”

I was really pretty stunned by that move on the part of McCain. For one thing, I don’t understand why he did it. The Karl Rove Dummies Guide to Politics suggests that if surrogates such as the Swift Boat wankers or the North Carolina Republican Party want to run ad hominem advertisements against your opponent, you allow them to do so.

McCain’s unwillingness to attack Obama suggests a fundamental weakness in his own strategy going into the Fall. Either McCain is afraid of being accused of racist “Willie Horton” tactics, or he genuinely believes that Americans want a clean, respectful campaign. Either way, he loses. The Jeremiah Wright controversy was a major setback for Obama. McCain’s reluctance to use the weapon his opponent hands him suggests that he will not be able to land the kinds of crushing blows against Obama necessary for winning in the fall.

Moral superiority can become a kind of vanity, and therein lies the danger for McCain. In some ways, he and Obama are similar in that both men have tried to run a high-minded campaign that transcended Clintonian-style personal politics. The difference is that Obama, supposedly the “inexperienced” politician, has been personally schooled by the Clintons; whereas McCain has been able to sit back and enjoy the spectacle of Clinton the schoolmarm rapping Obama’s knuckles. Once school is out for Obama, McCain may not enjoy himself so much.

It costs nothing to turn the other cheek when it’s someone else’s face being slapped.

Hillary Clinton’s victory in Pennsylvania, last night, has all but assured that John McCain will be the next President. I see no other way to interpret the results. Maybe that has been her intention all along.

Assume, for a moment, that conventional wisdom is correct and she cannot win the nomination. Then what does Clinton gain, not just by continuing to pursue the nomination, but continuing to raise questions about Obama’s “electability?”

She made a potent argument yesterday, in a speech at a Pennsylvania polling place. She asked in that speech, “Why can’t he close the deal?” Obama outspent her; Obama has the lead in the popular vote, and the lead in the delegate count. Why can’t he knock her out?

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times called those remarks “unapologetically emasculating” in her opinion column, this morning. If voters did not already doubt Obama’s electability, this woman–supposedly from his own party, embracing many of the same ideals as him–has ensured that they will doubt him, now.

Winning a primary election in this way, by casting doubt on the electability of the likely nominee of your party, seems hardly like a victory at all. And it doesn’t even consider all the other charges she has thrown at him, over the course of the last couple weeks.

The negativity goes both ways, of course. Obama’s primary charge against Clinton is that she is a liar, but everyone already knew that. In the case of Clinton versus Obama, she is roughing up someone who had a pretty good sheen about him, prior to engaging in mortal kombat with her.

Over the course of the campaign, Clinton’s negatives have been driven deeper by her conduct, particularly in terms of voters’ evaluation of her honesty. She has lost the support of a huge segment of the liberal Democrat constituency that used to form a solid basis of Clinton support. It has been, frankly, breathtaking to read about people who supported the Clinton’s in the nineties who now consider them, using Michael Moore’s word, “disgusting.”

You can read almost any story on the Huffington Post to find an example of the scales falling from the eyes of another former “do or die” Clinton supporter, but here’s just one such story: Why Hillary Makes My Wife Scream, by former Senator Tom Hayden.

It’s hard to imagine how this turns out good for the Democrat party. Limbaugh and his minions are sitting back, gloating at the division within the party. Meanwhile, Democrat power brokers like Al Gore remain silent and do nothing to resolve the crisis. I’m not sure they could do anything to force Clinton out–she clearly won’t go until Obama is thoroughly destroyed–but endorsements by the likes of Gore, Edwards, and Carter could at least solidify Obama’s standing as the nominee and give him the leverage he needs to ignore Clinton and begin the assault on McCain.

I suppose the real question is whether disgruntled Obama supporters would support Hillary, if she became the nominee–and conversely whether Clinton supporters will come around to supporting Obama. Right now, I have my doubts. Another story I read today concerned a lonely Scranton, Pennsylvania Democrat who threw his support to Obama, in violation of some rule that everyone must vote for the “hometown girl.” Funny, I didn’t even know Clinton was from Scranton until she said so, in this campaign.

Anyway, check this article out if you think this primary battle is good for the Democrat party: Life Gets Ugly for Turncoat in Coal, er…Clinton Country. An interesting thing the article does not dwell on much is that the Obama supporter in question is young (34). I am really flummoxed as to why the media cannot write one story about an elderly supporter of Obama. Such supporters must exist…the continuing hammering of this bit of conventional wisdom suggesting that only young people support him contributes directly to the electability argument Clinton tries to make.

Somewhere, somehow, things went wrong for Obama, and I really have my doubts that he is going to be able to straighten things out by November. Clinton will fight him all the way to the nomination in August, and then what? He has two months to fix all the damage she has done.

I’m glad the Pennsylvania vote is over, though. It was too long a campaign between Obama’s victory in Mississippi and his loss last night. Clinton will have her day of “victory,” if she wants to call it that, but it will only be a day. The next primaries come fast and furious, and she really only stands a chance at winning maybe two of them.

In the meantime, I will try to look on the bright side. My wife says I am too negative, which I fully admit to. I am pessimistic, which is what endeared me to Obama from the beginning. He’s the opposite of me: he’s optimistic and hopeful.

So, I’ll end this on a positive note. Look at it this way, we don’t have to hear another damned story about how Clinton’s grandfather worked in a Scranton lace mill. Anyone taking odds she won’t even refer to her Pennsylvania “heritage” ever again?

After a rain-soaked weekend that extended over into Monday, the early morning air is chilly and damp enough to require a light jacket. Yet inside trains and buses and office buildings, the jacket becomes a clinging, sweaty straight jacket. Cool outside, stuffy and humid inside. How typical of an April day.

The bus is mucculent with humidity that steams the windows; the train reeks of warm staleness and fetid-smelling male cologne. Even when the train car delivers its passengers onto a platform, the over-bearing warmth of the underground station does not relieve the clamminess of the skin inside the clothing.

Yet at the top of the escalator, a cool, 58 degree breeze awaits.

A woman clopping confidently along in her black patent pumps stops, kicks off the shoe, and standing on one foot, bends over to pick up the shoe and shake a stone from the toe. She slips her foot back in, this urban princess, and strides on to her office.

Meanwhile, somewhere behind her, a cheaper shoe on another woman’s foot squeaks with every step.

On the grassy sward between the Library of Congress and 2nd Street, two Welsh Corgis bark and chase each other excitedly in circles, while the elderly wife of the Librarian claps for her beloved pups. Happily, age has not freed her from childishness.

The loud Examiner hawker that used to stand on the corner of 2nd and Pennsylvania has been replaced by a subdued woman who merely looks at the passersby entreatingly, instead of exhorting them to take a paper. She can go home, once her stack of free papers is given out, yet she seems unwilling to inconvenience people by thrusting a paper into their domain of personal space.

On the sidewalk outside a Bank of America, a young Hispanic male talks excitedly with a young woman of the same ethnicity. She is dressed in the uniform of the cleaning company hired to vacuum the cubicles and dust the shelves in government office buildings. He is dressed casually in jeans and a uniform polo, a delivery man.

They haven’t seen each other in awhile. To both of them, a future which may or may not come to pass is suddenly revealed. It could happen! They go on their separate ways with an exchanged promise to call as soon as possible. The beauty of youth is the ripeness of its possibilities. No future is closed off.

Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, polling places are opening for an important election.

I walked my usual path to work this morning, my head down, thinking. At least once, I stood at an intersection several seconds after the “Walk” sign lit, confusing drivers in turning automobiles, who expected me to step off immediately. Afterwards, repentant of my thoughtless folly, I imagined them cursing me when I woke up and stepped off, just as they gave up on me and started to turn.

I was thinking to myself that perhaps there is some transient beauty in the record of trivial details. Without the written word, the pebble which hurts the woman’s foot would go unrecorded, unremarked upon. Even now it lies on the sidewalk, forgotten by the person it momentarily caused discomfort.  Or perhaps it has already fallen into the gutter, making its way on a stream of watery refuse towards whatever oblivion exists outside of human knowledge or perception.

Why not the barking Corgis? The sound of their joyful play has already faded, but I recorded it here, however imperfectly.

My grandparents sent my son a birthday card. It arrived Friday, a day after his birthday (he turned seven on Thursday). My grandpa wrote in it, “Happy birthday Little Buddy.”

All weekend, it worried me. There was something off about it. Finally, on the walk to work this morning, I figured it out. My grandpa signed the card. In all the years I have received cards from my grandparents–in all the years my son has received cards from my grandparents–my grandma has always been the one to sign the card.

That signature was like a dash of cold water in the morning. Grandma can’t see anymore. She can’t see to sign the card. She has always had macular degeneration, but lately it seems that her chemotherapy has hastened the loss of her eyesight. I don’t think I ever realized just how bad it had gotten.

There is also a hint of preparation for her death in that card. I remember her saying at Christmas that she had to make sure that Grandpa knew everyone’s birthday, so he could send them a card after she is gone. I can imagine her reminding Grandpa of Brendan’s birthday last week, asking him to write a little note in a card and mail it.

There is a darkness that awaits us all, in the end. The only hope is that some small part of us remains, whether in written form, or in physical artifacts. I’m not sure that most people really try to make an effort at preservation, beyond the keeping of photographs. However, as I found out when my maternal grandmother died and we went through her boxes of photos, photographs without metadata and context are worthless. What value do they have if no one knows anything about what or who is depicted?

So, I record a few details, in an ethereal medium probably not ideal for preservation purposes. It’s just about all I can do for the (to me) nameless who cross my path, as well as loved ones who have played a more significant role in my life. Maybe someone will do the same for me, one day.

Yesterday, I had to see my family physician for a persistent head ache that has kept me eating Advil every few hours of the day for about two weeks. My doctor thought I might be grinding my teeth or clinching my jaw at night, since when I wake up in the morning, the whole right side of my face feels as if I have been lifting weights with my teeth. I said I would be surprised if this were the case, because I haven’t felt any particular stress in my life, of late.

Yet afterwards, when I started thinking about it, I realized there has been some stress in my life. This election is wearing me out, man. I find myself thinking about it and worrying about it throughout the day. In the most sado-masochistic gesture of all, I listen to Fox News on XM during my drive back to Washington, D.C., on Monday evenings.

I don’t know whether this is a direct contributor to my headaches and jaw pain–I don’t even know if I am actually clinching or grinding my teeth at night, yet, though the doctor seemed to believe this was probably the case. But I do know I am feeling quite a bit of stress and anxiety over the whole affair.

(more…)

I stopped enjoying this election weeks ago. I don’t know when, precisely. But at some point, it ceased being fun, in that way that intellectual, cultural, or social issues can be fun to debate and anticipate.

I think at some point the election became personal for me, and it was at that point I ceased finding any enjoyment in reading the stories about the latest salvos in the Obama/Clinton war. Still, I don’t think I realized how little enjoyment I was finding in this campaign until this morning, when I first began reading about and then watching on TV the reaction to Obama’s statement April 6th about people in small towns being “bitter” about job loss and “cling to” issues such as gun control, religion, and anti-immigrant sentiment.

Clinton has called the remarks “condescending,” as has just about every pundit to comment on Obama’s remarks. Personally, I can think of nothing more damaging to a Democrat than to be tagged with that particular epithet, which makes it all the more reprehensible that Clinton would turn this into an issue. If ever there were an argument to be made that she is hurting Obama’s chances in November, this would be it. If he loses because, like Kerry, he is viewed as just another latte drinking, Ivy League-educated liberal, Hillary Clinton must be held personally responsible for that loss.

Watching her in a press conference in Scranton, Pennsylvania, today, I felt this overwhelming anger towards her. Her smile, so smirky and superior, just grated on my every nerve, and then to hear her–the multi-millionaire–accuse Obama of condescension and feelings of superiority…my blood pressure went through the roof.

I can’t take this much longer. This election is leaving me depressed, stressed, and anxious. I believe Obama is the right candidate for our time, and yet all I see are people in his own party throwing road blocks in his way, at a time when he ought to be free to race ahead to November.

I do not believe Obama should have a free ride, now. Not at all. But he should be taking fire from McCain–not from his own party. Can Democrats not see what they are doing to themselves? They are single-handedly snatching defeat from the jaws of victory by letting this primary campaign stretch on. Where is Al Gore? Where is Jimmy Carter? Where are the remaining Super Delegates with the power to stop this and tell Clinton to go home?

If, as everyone seems to think, Obama is going to be the nominee, Clinton is destroying her party’s chances in November by pointlessly continuing to sow doubts about Obama’s electability. I say “pointless” because it seems unlikely that her barbs will achieve the desired end of thrusting her into the nomination. So what does she get out of it? I really think it has become personal for her. She feels that if she can’t have the nomination, then she will sabotage any chance Obama has of winning. That is the only explanation.

Of course, there is always the point of view that she is giving him his trial by fire now, so that he will be toughened to face McCain in November. But I really can’t subscribe to that point of view, not entirely. There comes a point where enough is enough. He’s been taking her punches for months now. It’s time to release him to face McCain.

As I said at the beginning, I just can’t take much more of this. I feel sick inside, thinking about it. I’ve never felt so strongly about a presidential candidate as I do about Obama, and to see him being hacked to death by the Clintons is like watching a loved one being assaulted and being able to do nothing.

In part, my anger and frustration is born of the fact that I really don’t see what was wrong with his statement in the first place, yet everyone seems in agreement that it was “condescending.” The harm I see in it is that, as he has done before, Obama over-generalized. No one likes to be lumped together into a group, whether it be “small town” folks or “typical white people.” Yet I hardly see this kind of faulty reasoning from an over-generalization to be a deal breaker, as far as his campaign goes. Yet I hear pundits on TV talking about how this might be the break Clinton has been looking for, the misstep that will signal to the Super Delegates that Obama is out of touch and can’t win the blue collar vote.

Honestly, there is a part of me that feels like if Clinton wants the nomination so badly that she would destroy this man if she can’t have it, I say let her have it. I hate her. I honestly hate her right now. I think she is a liar. I think she brings nothing to the political arena but the same old politics of personal destruction that she and her husband used to bemoan.

I will never vote for her. But if it comes down to it, I am so tired and sick that I would be willing just to let her have the nomination. I just won’t vote in November. That’s all.

About a month ago, my wife introduced me to something called Yahoo! Answers, a new site where Yahoo! users post questions to which they want answers. Other Yahoo! users respond, sometimes appropriately, sometimes inappropriately (or not at all).

I have found the site to be extremely addictive, but also a bit brain-numbing, in terms of some of the stupidity that abounds out there.

No, by “stupidity” I am not referring to simple ignorance–not knowing something. To me, “stupidity” refers to, 1. Asking a question which implies a desired answer, or 2. Asking a question merely meant to provoke.

As an example of the latter, take this “question” from the Military section of the Answers website:

“Why don’t more people desert the U.S. military?”

Following the question, the asker posted a more detailed explanation which made her point of view and desire for attention abundantly clear:

“I know, the numbers are rising in an incredible speed, giving that those deserters don’t want to fight for Bush’s personal interests anymore and have a problem with raping, murdering and torturing innocent people. Finally someone who listens to their conscience, instead of following blindly a fascist leader. God bless you all and I hope you know that all peaceloving people are supporting you!”

Ah yes, a very insightful question praising deserters from the U.S. military. A question that doesn’t really ask anything out of a desire to learn…a question that merely seeks to provoke.

Provocation can be a good thing, don’t get me wrong. But really, on a website such as this, what the heck does this person expect to “get” out of asking this stupid question? Well, I wrote a reply, despite my better judgment that it was a waste of time:

“I just love a rude question that implies the superior-acting person asking the question already knows the answer!

“They don’t desert because they volunteered for service, which implies a considerable degree of forethought. Soldiers are not mindless thugs. They volunteered because they believe in the ideals the military stands for, thus no need to desert. There may be cases where people join the military, not understanding the kind of commitment it demands, and thus those people end up deserting. But I think the case of deserters is very rare. More often, soldiers are discharged for their inability to cope with military life.

“The interesting thing is that often, these guys who are booted out of the military, like Jesse Mcbeth (the phony who worked with the Iraq Veterans Against the War group), end up exaggerating their military career in order to derive some measure of glory or fame from their dishonorable service!”

Since I consider myself a skeptic in regards to the Iraq War and the War on Terror generally, it may sound odd that I would take the above position with the OP (original post). However, I cannot bear morons, and to me there is nothing more moronic than asking a question to which you think you already know the answer (and really don’t want peoples’ opinions, anyway).

Furthermore, as my friends will attest, I’ve always had this kind of adulatory respect for the military and people who serve. I am the first to admit, I was a bit of a coward when I was of the right age to serve. I considered joining the Navy my senior year of High School, but decided I did not know if I was up to the challenge, and did not want to find out the hard way that the physical demands were too much. Yes, it was mostly the physical training that worried me, which seems kind of silly now.

The result has been that I am now always a little envious of those who do serve. A few weeks ago, President Bush was criticized for saying that he was “envious” of soldiers fighting in Afghanistan (Slate: Bush’s romantic notions about serving). The President commented to a group of soldiers, “It must be exciting for you…in some ways romantic, you know, confronting danger.”

I can’t criticize the man for that, because in some ways I feel the same way. I’ve read enough about war, including many, many first hand accounts of the boredom, drudgery, and filth (not to mention the occasional near death experience) that goes along with service in a war zone, to know that the romance dies quickly. Yet, like Bush, I like to think…if I were younger, braver, I’d be there, too.

There is great nobility in military service. You give several years of your life for minimal material reward, sometimes enduring long separation from family, friends, your casual, civilian lifestyle, all for goals that often seem more the pipe-dream of an idealistic politician than anything real and tangible. The least you can expect from those who don’t serve is respect for your choice.

I’ve always thought that if my son wanted to join the Navy, like my grandfather, or my wife’s father, I’d be the happiest Dad in the world. When we are in Washington, I make sure we visit the Air and Space Museum, not just because boys in general LOVE it, but because I’d like him to learn to have an early appreciation for the military.

And might I just say, thank God that most young men who sign up for military service don’t desert. Also, thank God they are not as ignorant as I was, thinking the physical challenges were the most difficult part of service. Most people actually do go into service knowing a little more about what to expect. There are always surprises–I know from friends who have joined that the Navy may promise you exotic locales for your service, but often as not you end up chipping paint off the side of a ship. Yet the vast majority of people adapt, and rise to meet those challenges.

Last night on Hannity and Colmes, Sean Hannity opened another line of attack on Barack Obama, devoting a considerable portion of his speaking time to denouncing the Senator for “surrounding himself” (Hannity’s phrase) with “terrorists” (note the plural).

Who are these terrorists with which Obama consorts? Are they anti-Israel muslim “Isalmo-fascists,” as the right likes to call them?

No. Apparently, at some point in the distant past, Obama had contact with a former operative in the sixties organization known as The Weathermen, William Ayers.

The Politico has a story about the relationship between Obama and Ayers, brief as it was. Obama Once Visited Sixties Radicals. Here is the relevant quote from the article, as I see it:

“Neither Ayers nor the Obama campaign would describe the relationship between the two men. Dr. Young described Obama and Ayers as “friends,” but there’s no evidence their relationship is more than the casual friendship of two men who occupy overlapping Chicago political circles and who served together on the board of a Chicago foundation.”

Hannity quoted an Obama supporter as saying Ayers and Obama were friends, but if he was referring to this quote from The Politico, Dr. Young was merely present at the event in question, back in 1996.

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