A new politics
By Ned | May 10, 2008
I swear to god - I voted for Obama once already and I’m planning on doing so again in November, but sometimes it seems like his new politics is just like the old politics except even dumber.
After the event, an Obama spokesperson indicated that that the senator’s campaign had no intention of pushing the Keating Five scandal.
“There is more than enough space between Barack Obama and John McCain on the issues, whether it is tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans or a timeline for bringing our troops home, and that is where we will focus our campaign,” Psaki said.
Except one of the big issues McCain has claimed for his own is battling corruption - so it doesn’t matter a teensy bit that he is, in fact, pretty damn corrupt? This isn’t like going around saying that your opponent was endorsed by Hamas (which, incidentally, McCain himself isn’t above doing) - it’s a public corruption scandal. He was chastised by a Senate committee, for Chrissake!
Look, it’s admirable to keep your opponent’s private life off limits when campaigning. But the best way to predict how good someone’s judgment will be in a leadership position is to look at what they’ve done with their previous leadership positions. If we start deciding that it’s not longer acceptable to make that into a campaign issue, then pretty soon we’re going to run out of things to declare off limits.
Topics: Dem Presidential Primary | No Comments »
Nixonlandland
By Ned | May 10, 2008
I haven’t read Rick Perlstein’s Nixonland - I really want to, but it’s one book in a very, very long list of books to read - but George Will’s negative review makes me want to read it more. I’m willing to admit that part of that is immaturity on my part - if Will doesn’t like a book, then hey, it might just very well be worth reading. The other part is that Will’s refutation of what he says is the book’s central thesis is extremely unpersuasive. I bolded the dumb parts.
Today a woman and an African-American are competing relatively civilly for the right to run for president against the center-right — more center than right — senator who occupies the seat once held by Goldwater.
“Relatively civilly”: Relative to what? Last time I checked, blatant race-baiting wasn’t the civil thing to do.
“More center than right”: ARGH IT BURNS. Seriously, by now this statement should be below refutation.
The Lost season finale is approaching, and so I can’t resist offering up a strained analogy. You know how some fans theorize that the Island actually exists in an alternate reality? That people on the Island can observe things that happen on Earth, but they’re actually on a completely different plane of existence and their perception of our reality is severely distorted? Well, the DC insider’s club is the Island. And we’re all here on planet Earth wondering what the fuck is up with that goddamn smoke monster.
Topics: Books, Dem Presidential Primary, Elections, History, Television, The Media | No Comments »
Bah humbug
By Ned | May 8, 2008
If anyone was wondering what the proper way to commemorate Israel’s 60th birthday is, apparently it involves taking over Washington Square Park and blasting godawful 80’s pop so that it becomes very difficult to study in neighboring buildings. Leave strained analogies to Middle Eastern politics in the comments.
Topics: International Politics | 1 Comment »
The most charitable possible interpretation
By Ned | May 8, 2008
Hillary Clinton and Terry McAuliffe stared at the TV screen, dismayed. The numbers had just come in for Indiana, and it wasn’t looking good.
“Well,” Hillary sighed, “I guess that’s it, then.”
Terry slumped back down into his seat and ran a hand through his hair. He couldn’t believe that it was finally coming to a close.
“Terry,” Hillary said, “get the staff working on my concession speech. We should get this over with as quickly as possible, so that Barack can start going after McCain in the general.”
“But what about your promise?” Terry asked, his eyes wide and watery. “You said you this was a fight to the finish. You said you weren’t going to drop out, no matter what. To go back on that now …”
Hillary’s jaw tightened as she stared at the screen. “You’re right, ” she said. “I’m a woman of my word. I said I wasn’t going to drop out, and I won’t drop out. But there has to be some other way …”
Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: Bigotry, Dem Presidential Primary | 1 Comment »
Putin in charge
By Ned | May 8, 2008
Vladimir Putin resigns as president, becomes prime minister. But he’s totally gonna be a hands-off kind of prime minister. Right, guys?
Topics: Corruption, International Politics | No Comments »
Finals Week PSA
By Ned | May 8, 2008
My morning today was a pretty good object lesson in how not to take AM finals.
I had this brilliant plan, you see. Shitty scheduling had left me with a four-hour finals double feature starting at 8 AM this morning, so to deal with it my plan was to set my iPod alarm to 6 AM, shower, dress, eat a leisurely breakfast and do a little bit of last-minute review. Just in case, my failsafe was a cell phone alarm set to go off at 6:30 so that I’d be sure to wake up with plenty of time.
Genius, right? The only way it could possibly go wrong is if some retard sets the second alarm to go off at 6:30 PM instead of AM.
At 6 AM I wake up to “Guns of Brixton,” turn off the alarm and think to myself, “I’ll just rest my eyes for a little bit, since I’ve got another alarm going off in a half hour.” And, of course, my cell phone alarm fails to go off at the appropriate time. I blame malevolent cell phone gremlins sneaking into my dorm at night and changing the time. Either way, I wake up again at around 7:30, yell a few things that should never be printed in a family blog, throw on some pants and run out the door. Of course, I had to stop on the way to pick up coffee.
So, to whoever at the ConWest and Politics finals who had to sit next to the unbathed, overcaffeinated guy with the crazy eyes: my apologies.
The bright side, I suppose, is that I’m pretty sure I still did well on both of those finals. And if I didn’t, I have a totally awesome excuse. Damn gremlins.
Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Unfortunately for Giuliani, Starbucks wasn’t hiring
By Ned | May 8, 2008
So what’s Rudy Giuliani been up to now that his presidential campaign is over? As a former frontrunning presidential candidate, he must be awash in job offers, right?
Well, no. Not really. Apparently, Rudy’s been advising a mayoral election in the Ukraine. Well, at least he’s getting out some.
From the article:
Who would have guessed that the next chapter in Rudolph W. Giuliani’s life would involve political consulting for an election in Eastern Europe?
I guess anyone who successfully guessed that his crypto-fascist routine would damage his credibility so badly that he would never be able to find political work in this country again.
Topics: GOP Presidential Primary | No Comments »
Sexual assault at UCONN
By Ned | May 7, 2008
Via Ezra Klein, this story was absolutely chilling. The gist of it is that the editor in chief of UCONN’s school paper was sexually assaulted during Spring Weekend and successfully fended off the attacker in front of a crowd of people who - and this is the really disgusting part - instead of helping her decided to further sexually humiliate her for having the temerity to defend herself.
Seriously, what the fuck? It boggles the mind that, in this day and age, a whole crowd of supposedly enlightened, educated university students could cheer this sort of behavior on. What makes this even more disturbing for me personally is that a lot of people that I care about - many of them female - go to that school. I seriously don’t like the thought of them sharing a campus with the kind of people who are capable of this shit. But as one commenter points out, this is a problem that’s not just specific to one school.
Kudos to Melissa Bruen for successfully defending herself from a group of raging assholes, and having the courage to make her story heard.
Topics: Bigotry | 1 Comment »
“It’s just a flesh wound.”
By Ned | May 7, 2008
Last night, despite Obama having a basically insurmountable delegate lead, the Democratic primary was being ruled a tie. Then Clinton performed slightly below expectations, and now the whole goddamn thing is apparently over. So in other words, the punditry went from grossly overestimated Clinton’s chances to sharply dropping off and declaring her dead in the water the next time she stumbled even a little bit.
The weird thing about this is that they’ve managed to be both stupid, and kind of right - the current dialogue about the race has become a little more realistic, but only because it doesn’t follow any sort of logical progression from the previous conventional wisdom. And while at this point it should be clear to pretty much everyone that Clinton isn’t going to be the nominee, if you think that means a speedy and gracious withdrawal from the race, then obviously you haven’t yet figured out that this contest was extended past march due to the machinations of Nyarlathotep, the Lovecraftian dark god whose soul source of joy is causing humanity to descend further into madness and pushing me to more and more obscure and hyperbolic metaphors.
Here’s the thing: Hillary Clinton will drop out of the race the day that Scarlett Johanssen releases a decent Tom Waits cover. She’s the black knight, fighting on even though all of her limbs are gone - hell, she just dumped several more million dollars into her campaign. Clearly nobody told her that when George McGovern is telling you the writing’s on the wall, it’s probably time to throw in the towel.
Topics: Dem Presidential Primary, The Media | No Comments »
Campaign Purgatory
By Ned | May 7, 2008
Well, the first polls are coming in and it looks like … ah, to hell with this. We all know what’s going to happen. And I’ve got finals to study for.
This thing is never going to end. So let’s all just take a moment, grit our teeth, and think very, very soothing thoughts.
Topics: Dem Presidential Primary | No Comments »
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