gr's whinging (original) (raw)

| | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | -------------------------- | | A momentary tidbit of political bullshit. | | Thu, Jan 03, 2008 at 23:44 | | So, those who know me personally may also know that I have, since I've been voting, been a registered Libertarian (let's please not even talk about Ron Paul, mkay?), although that'll be changing shortly, given that I now live in the city of Philadelphia and the only way to have a meaningful vote here is to vote in the Democratic primaries.Against my desire to be happier, and largely because I've been up too late for a couple of nights, I stayed home this evening listening to the radio rather than going out to drink and participate in a pub quiz, which means I've been listening to NPR's (precisely, WHYY, also known as the way I offset taxes on work outside of my day job) coverage of the Iowa caucus results.In the course of that, speaking in her Appropriate Turn (really, there's an Appropriate Order in which candidates in each party are supposed to speak publicly after the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries, from lowest finisher to highest, within each party), Hillary Clinton said this, as introduction to her spiel (the rest of which runs just like you'd figure, so it's worth tuning out):"I hope that Democrats... [APPLAUSE]and like-minded Independents... [EXTRA BONUS APPLAUSE]and Republicans who have seen the light... [RAUCOUS FUCKING APPLAUSE]"Emphasis mine.Yes, because what we, the US citizens, definitely need right now is to elect another enormously divisive president. Good move. Would you like some ketchup with that foot? Maybe some upstate New York wine to swill it down? Maybe some Arkansas "bourbon"? Or are you just going to go ahead and spit it in your monogrammed handkerchief and figure we won't notice? You can probably do the last. Most of us haven't noticed yet, so we're not likely to any time soon.The bonus points on the idiocy scale for the US when we (and, mark my words, "we" will) elect Hillary Clinton president in November 2008 come because we'll add the next frame to the alternating dynasty quilt of presidents. I don't expect that Jeb Bush will bother to run in 2012, but look for him to be the Republican nominee in 2016. I, for one, can't fucking wait. Depending on Jeb's term count, we should then be looking for either Roger or Chelsea Clinton. I mean, I hope not, but it's frighteningly easy to imagine...Just for the record (and probably as no shocker), I don't like any of the believable candidates for the 2008 election. I want to like Barack Obama, and, hey, he's doin' okay after tonight's Iowa caucuses, even though there are plenty of planks from the D party's platform on which he's standing that revolt me (cf, Libertarian; again, let's please not get into it)... but the real problem with the man is that he is insufficiently experienced in national politics. I like many of the positions he holds, especially regarding US foreign policy and internal social policy, but he's not spent near long enough in the Machine for me to know whether his convictions will stand up to those machinations. Think Huey Long here. Not that Mr. Obama's any sort of Hick, nor that he's that far from the System, but that story's a parable, perhaps more easily applicable through Robert Penn Warren's abstraction of the same. | | | | | link comment(7 comments) | | |