Primitives, unblemished by contact with the modern world, discovered in Amazon rain forest. Plane flies over tribe's tiny village of thatched huts snapping pictures - we can see savages violently brandish spears and with wild gestures invoke whatever gods they worship against dark avatar of the unknown. Mystery of human ordeal laid bare. Something of a farce about it. Sad too I think.

On Hillary's RFK remark: some have rightly noticed that in elevating a non story into a big story the press revealed its bias for Obama and sadly demonstrated just how fraught with abject foolishness politics under the spell of modern media has become - but none as far as I know made mention of the fact that the remark served Obama's interests, not by making Clinton look bad, but by solemnly linking him with RFK. It was the Obama camp that was being cynical, not Clinton - and I guess that no one seeing fit to comment on that is further evidence of a media bias. I mean it's pretty obvious - anything that links Obama with RFK or with the Kennedys in general and the lost dreams of Camelot the assassinations evoke is going to be welcomed by him - hell, his speeches are virtually ripped from Bobby's '68 campaign. So why did no one point this out? Why was it ok to suggest, wrongly, that Hillary was up to no good by associating RFK's assassination and Obama's campaign yet apparently wasn't ok to suggest, rightly, that Obama campaign probably welcomed such an association?

Obama at Mt Rushmore looking up at big stone heads wonders how Hitchcock managed to film scene from North by Northwest oh so way up there. Tour guide shyly informs him scene actually filmed on sound stage. Obama marvels.

Why does this strike one as very odd? Silly, tenuous at least to draw conclusion from it that Obama is an idiot. Is it because he always tries to come off as so suavely astute and effortlessly bright that this small moment rings so harshly? Possible. Or because sounds like he was prepped to say something like this by a handler thus giving one a brief glimpse through the phony veneer? Hmmn.

Maybe cause you don't like the guy. No - have actually been warming to him a bit - not that I've changed my mind viz what a horrible president he'd be or what a dangerous lot of lefty wackos roiling in his wake would flood the Oval office were he to get in - no, it's just that I can see why a naive voter would be attracted to the style of the man.

"... no, it's not so much that I'm anti-gay... although neither am I pro-gay... I'm not one or the other in particular. You see? This is the problem - I don't want to have to think about it either way, I don't want to care and I don't particularly want to be made to feel like a lout for not caring. Sure, I guess as a civilized human I should in some sense indulge their concerns... but... there are bigger issues, no? More important things to worry about for the ninety-five percent of the species that ain't so inclined. Do I really want to stop them from getting married? No, not much interested in that. On the other hand, do I think they should be allowed to marry? No, it's stupid, and especially stupid given that civil unions afford them all the purported rights and privileges thereof. Marriage is a heterosexual artifice, it's specifically hetero - all its meaning is derived from the harrowing reality and resulting mysticism surrounding sexual congress between a guy and a gal - namely, on the way up the hill, randy Jack may get pretty little Jill pregnant. A Jack and a Jack or a Jill and a Jill can't have that experience and that experience is what marriage is and has been all about for the few thousand years men and women have been climbing up hills and tumbling down them. Gays want to make it about love, in fact their arguments only make sense in that context - but love per se is not what it's about at its core for us. If they wanna think it's all about love good for them, let them go off and do what they do to their hearts content - I don't care, and for that matter, neither should it be the government's province in general to care who loves what and why. But don't expect me to buy into this sentimental view of marriage - more importantly, don't try and force me to buy into it. I should have the right to reject the supposed enlightenment of others if there's no compelling reason why I should be denied the freedom of that right. The contention that denial of traditional marriage vows supposedly somehow encumbers the true expression of love within a gay relationship is decidedly not a compelling reason..."

company he keeps

Tom Hayden, 60's lefty radical, Marxist, thinks Obama is the one they've been waiting for to make all their old dreams new again. Sort of like being endorsed by death himself.

In same vein - lefty blog I was kicked off of for being too insensitive ran some anti-war drivel from Twain on Memorial Day. I commandeered the computer at work so I could sneak on their comments page and muse: it's 1588, the Armada is on its way, who do you want on the throne: Elizabeth with cunning bastard Walsingham at her side - or Edmund Spenser? Lefties didn't seem to get the point of the question. Some, wearing proudly the mantle of idiocy common to their ilk, actually tried to define what a sensitive, thoughtful man like Spenser would bring to the executive office. One clever whelp nominated Marlowe over Sir Edmund - had to allow that that indeed might have been interesting to see.

"... did I support the surge? I don't remember. Don't think so. Or was it that I said its political objectives could never be realized? Think that's it. But I wasn't really wrong, just as the people who are right really aren't right: it's not so much that the surge seems to have worked but that it played a somewhat unexpected or unanticipated part in an evolving dynamic that seems to be working. Lesson to be learned there, I suppose. I did say, however, a long time ago, that McCain was betting his candidacy on Iraq turning around before the election, a bet he took on when prospects there appeared much bleaker than they do today. Now how's it gonna look come October when McCain gets to go before the people and say if Obama had been president America would have 'cut and run' a year ago, leaving behind a failed state that was unraveling and stirring up such security concerns that it looked like we were gonna have to go back in? Won't look good, I reckon. Careful what ya wish for, eh? The left wing loves Obama and have carried him to the nomination - all because ostensibly he opposed the war. I say ostensibly because he represented a very liberal district in the state legislature of Illinois and so would have been expected to oppose the war - still, oppose it he did and the left loves him for it. But their animus is all emotional in nature, merely reactive: it's clear none of them have really thought about the war in a broader, more involved context - or if they have it's been with such adulterated bias that their thoughts count for little in the greater scheme of things..."

"... oh, Obama's wife clarified her remark alright - by changing its meaning. Similarly, when I said I hate the French and the French complained I clarified the remark by saying what I actually meant was that I love the French, it's Germans I can't stand. This clarification seemed to mollify the French, who apparently have a healthy dislike of so many people..."

"... you know, little remarked on is troubling likelihood that, just as if the war had gone well it would have been exploited to promote a conservative agenda and rationalize a specifically conservative view of the world, so to a failed war now works the same questionable magic for democrats and their agenda... liberal blogs and policy portals now wax all wroth about the debacle as if military affairs had all along been their favourite topic of discussion... seems like it's impossible to publicly analyze the war outside the constraints of a rather narrow political context... hard to see how that's a good thing... although it may be people are not capable of better..."

Released, reams of documents detailing Pentagon's attempt to 'spin' the war - phrases to use, narratives to sell etc etc - and of course lefties get all apoplectic about it - we were mislead, tricked, fooled!! Question is, should this be surprising? Hasn't this always been the case? Certainly, I believe every significant war America has marched into has been spun, it's just that in the 'popular' ones people don't seem to mind so much. Civil War really about freeing slaves? Undoubtedly a wide majority of Americans believe it was but truth is it was about a lot of things, most of which had not so much to do with mules and forty acres going to displaced Africans. Point is, of course wars are gonna get spun by the powers that be - given the unpleasantness of their natures [what subject being modified here?] hard to imagine it being otherwise. Not that one shouldn't train a somewhat jaundiced eye on the actors - but probably more important to watch out that in the process of running the show those actors don't end up fooling themselves, which certainly seems to have been the case in Iraq.

"... why does Hillary trudge on even though winning is virtually impossible? Because she thinks Obama doesn't deserve to be president and will make a bad job of it? There's that. Because she'd prefer McCain if it can't be her? That follows, absolutely. But more than anything I'm guessing is fact she can't really stand the guy as a person or as the irrational force that robbed her of a prized place in history, she can't stand him and knows that as soon as she drops out she's going to have to bury her pride and hurt feelings and extreme enmity towards him and campaign for the son of a bitch, has to campaign for him or ruin her credibility as a democrat. I think she genuinely loathes the coming of that concession and is trying to put it off as long as possible. Still, come that day you best watch your back, Obama and apostles of hope - ya know what I mean... hell hath no fury..."

... again claims that racism will hurt Obama. This is a storyline his campaign wants to sell - it serves their purposes perfectly by binding the radical, hand-wringing left and sycophantic idealistic youth even more closely to him and by both shielding him from attacks from critics who fear charges of racism and paradoxically diverting attention from the ultra left wing support that feeds him and is entrenched thereof by complaints of racism. A farce, pure and simple - not to mention that it seems clear, it is clear, that for every vote he loses because he's black he's picking up one if not more votes for the same reason. This is obvious, it's inherent in everything his supporters say when defending or defining that support: they believe that, through some magical process it seems, America, by electing a black president, will be transformed. It's absurd, it's irrational, it verges on fanaticism - and it's a conclusion that is almost impossible to escape. His opposition to the war plays a part as do his pretty speeches but ultimately only insomuch as they feed into the vaunted transformative nature of his candidacy - in other words, he's a black guy running for president. Nice story I guess - but the country is involved in two wars at the moment not to mention a variety of other shit storms just waiting to have a dump somewhere: call me crazy but not sure this is the right time to do the Disney version of world history.

... well, suppose have no choice but to admit my support for Hillary was misplaced - suggestions that she was the better candidate are certainly undermined by the horrible campaign she ran. She had final say on people and tactics so blame must go to her. Just read that her former campaign manager, Penn, as recently as a year ago didn't even know that delegates in California would be apportioned according to proportional allocation - that's bad. It would seem that the irrationality of Obama's rise, which certainly troubles me, troubled them to the point of becoming irrational themselves. To me, while she was the front runner, she looked to have the best skill set for the job as it stands now; whereas Obama seems entirely in over his head. But the left really dislikes the Clintons, and given their confused and at times surely response to the Barack challenge it's hard to completely fault them for that enmity. Although I fault them all the same - Obama won't lose as badly as McGovern did but this election should have been a slam dunk for the democrats so a loss here would no doubt seem as bad. [and if he doesn't lose?] If he wins it will be even worse.

- ... really, I don't understand why you dislike the guy so much.
- possibly I don't either. Could just be the company he keeps, could be the blind way liberals fawn over him. I mean, any unbiased judgment has to conclude that this guy's resume vis a vis the job he's seeking is disturbingly thin. But of course, that just means his supporters are naive or foolish or delusional: it doesn't necessarily mean that he'd do a lousy job. In the days of royalty, of divine rule, there were many sovereigns lacking formal qualifications who through fortuitous reasons came to the throne and managed well enough. It's odd though that America, defined by its rebellion against such a thing, now runs to it like a giddy lover. Very odd.

Gas tax 2: on the other hand....

Given the infantile needs of the electorate it's possible Obama's opposing the gas tax could be viewed as authentic in a 'politics not as usual' kind of way and therefore earn him credits with the whole 'oh, god we need a change' type of voter. And if his campaign calculated the politics of it in just such a way? Guess I'd have to praise him for that - but where would that leave me? Seems much of my dislike of the guy stems from belief that he wouldn't calculate it in such a way, that he'd view such a thing as beneath him. If underneath the anodyne gibberish that lards his speeches there lurked a cunning manipulator I'm not sure what I'd make of that.

To me he's a posturing liberal whose chief ambition seems to be not power per se but rather the trappings - he wants to be thought well of and wants to be seen doing good things - but if power is the lure and if he's willing to play a certain liberal type in order to acquire it, well, hard to know what that means. There's so little to go on with this guy, it's quite startling actually - still, I tend to think the reasonable arrogance of his style is borne out of a weakness that certain fetishistic liberals, and he himself, mistake for a strength. He's prospered from this - whether he deliberately manipulated the game, I don't know - but he's prospered and now he's perched on the edge of some awfully damn serious responsibility - hard not to see that the dots just don't connect here: something's missing. Wonder what happens when he figures out that he can't fake his way through being president of the United States the way he faked his way through being president of the Harvard Law Review.

Something definitely does not add up here, a vital piece of the puzzle waits to be revealed. My guess remains that when it finally shows up a lot of people are going to be rather unpleasantly surprised by what they see.

Gas Tax

Do we see crucial difference here between Hillary and Obama? Following McCain's gambit on gas tax summer holiday she offers her own summer plan - but with plans to have oil companies cough up dough to cover lost revenues which would be used to upgrade roads etc, she thereby appeals to working class concerns over rising gas prices and manages to look more thorough in her managing of the plan than McCain. Obama opposes tax relief - for all the right, sensible reasons: the cut will offer but token relief and possibly send the wrong signal viz consumption. But isn't it kind of naive to think Hillary doesn't realise the tax holiday is a bit silly? Isn't it more accurate to believe she guessed or reasoned that the more important thing was to counter McCain's gambit viz working class sympathies and not get bogged down with ostensibly intelligent declamations against the folly of it? Don't we see Hillary as the shrewd one here and Obama as the smooth talking academic out of his element in the real world of harsh and sometimes crass machinations? I don't know - I think yes. It's this stain of idealism evident in the way Obama approached the seemingly innocuous issue that troubles me: he's an academic, and not a particularly interesting one at that. Academics may have some utility in describing things, as they were, are and maybe should be - but running things is a different job altogether.

Update: Hillary campaign pushing heavily the elitist tag against those opposing the tax break - pretty clear evidence to me that they made a calculated decision that the politics of the issue was much more important at this point than sound policy considerations. You could certainly argue that this is a bad thing - but to me it suggests that in the high stakes game of being world's only super power she'd be a much better poker player than Obama.

Vote like it's 2012

If democrats are foolish enough to nominate Obama [and let's face it, they wouldn't be democrats if they weren't that foolish] how long will it take them to figure out that the best case scenario for them is to lose to McCain and then run Jim Webb [who? what?] in 2012? Obama will be a horrible president - the country is caught between very hard hard place and very rock like rock so the next president even if he/she is brilliant will have a tough go ergo a guy with zero relevant experience who is all talk and no walk and is just jam packed with all kinds of extremely dubious progressive ideals is flat out doomed - in short, he'll set the party back further than that idiot Jimmy Carter did. At some point they're gonna have to figure out that continuing to nominate thoughtful [Mr Soprano might prefer a less refined sobriquet] candidates is just not smart - ironically enough. America wants for a Caesar, not a Cicero. [Cicero? Really? At very least you're giving Obama way too much credit] E Brute? Hmmmn. [everything I know about Rome, republic and imperium, I learned from HBO - god bless the dumbing down] Embrace the suck![?] [&] [$]

... and speaking of bias, rabid bias - when is someone going to take John Stewart and Colbert to task for their blatant cheer leading of Obama? It's almost embarrassing, and certainly unwatchable, their fawning over the guy. When is someone going to point out that engaging in such unbridled boosterism removes their shows from the realm of sometimes trenchant satire and sets them firmly down in the dirty domain of biased news chatter - in short, makes them somewhat more entertaining but no less culpable than Fox News? I mean, what are they planning to do if Obama actually wins? Worshiping at the feet of your master doesn't make for the funny - witty barbs don't exactly pour from the lips when they're occupied kissing ass. Please, someone slam these guys for this crap - it's pissing me off! Satire cannot be biased, its venom has to be poison to all: it gives up it's validity and then eventually it's effectiveness, its humour, if it considers certain topics and ideas and people to be out of bounds, untouchable, or if its seen to be promoting a special interest - then it becomes just propaganda with jokes.

Of course a perfectly unbiased view point does not exist - everything is compromised - but that doesn't mean there isn't a great difference between naked boosterism and flawed attempts at objectivity. Perhaps the more relevant aspect of this is: how much longer can the Daily Show and Colbert advocate for certain causes while excusing themselves from charges of bias by claiming they're not legitimate news sources? I think by taking up Obama's cause so thoroughly they've crossed a line and it is now incumbent upon them to attempt to behave like the legitimate press - either that or be lumped in with the charlatans they've so ruthlessly pilloried. In other words, no cake and eating it too: they wanna be taken seriously when, albeit with humour, they advocate for Obama or attempt to defend their boy viz the Wright scandal but they can't be taken seriously if their reporting isn't seen to be objective. Like I said, they've crossed a line - if they're lucky Obama will lose and they'll be saved from themselves.