Politics

The monster years

Last night wasn’t just a victory for tolerance; it wasn’t just a mandate for progressive change; it was also, I hope, the end of the monster years.

What I mean by that is that for the past 14 years America’s political life has been largely dominated by, well, monsters. Monsters like Tom DeLay, who suggested that the shootings at Columbine happened because schools teach students the theory of evolution. Monsters like Karl Rove, who declared that liberals wanted to offer “therapy and understanding” to terrorists. Monsters like Dick Cheney, who saw 9/11 as an opportunity to start torturing people.

And in our national discourse, we pretended that these monsters were reasonable, respectable people. To point out that the monsters were, in fact, monsters, was “shrill.”

Four years ago it seemed as if the monsters would dominate American politics for a long time to come. But for now, at least, they’ve been banished to the wilderness.

Seven More Days

I’ve been wondering why Obama in particular and Democrats running for President generally can’t seem to get 50% of the white vote.  Turns out it is still our Southern bretheren:

Obama is outperforming any Democrat back to Jimmy Carter among white voters, getting 45 percent to McCain’s 52 percent. But in the South, it is a very different story. Obama fares worse among Southern whites than any Democrat since George McGovern in 1972.

Whites in the East and West tilt narrowly toward Obama (he’s up 8 and 7 points, respectively), and the two run about evenly among those in the Midwest. By contrast, Southern whites break more than 2 to 1 for McCain, 65 percent to 32 percent.

A blogger on Daily Kos takes us down Party  history highway and asks the question, “is this the beginning of the end of the Republican Party?”  I certainly don’t think so, but the party is now being controlled by the “belligerent delusional ignoramus faction”.  That has resulted in defections by people with brains such as George Will, David Brooks and Christopher Buckley, Lincoln Chaffee, Chuck Hagel and Susan Eisenhower.  Since two party systems are necessarily coalitions, is there too much centrifical force now that it is becoming the party of Palin?

Interesting read:

Ode to Sean Hannity

by John Cleese
Aping urbanity
Oozing with vanity
Plump as a manatee
Faking humanity
Journalistic calamity
Intellectual inanity
Fox Noise insanity
You’re a profanity
Hannity

John Cleese, Poet

The sphere is exploding today after the beginning of the Palin interview.  God save our republic.  James Fallows from the Atlantic has a different take here.  Upshot if you liked Bush, this one is looking very similar:

The truly toxic combination of traits GW Bush brought to decision making was:

1) Ignorance
2) Lack of curiosity
3) “Decisiveness”

That is, he was not broadly informed to begin with (point 1). He did not seek out new information (#2); but he nonetheless prided himself (#3) on making broad, bold decisions quickly, and then sticking to them to show resoluteness.

We don’t know for sure about #2 for Palin yet — she could be a sponge-like absorber of information. But we know about #1 and we can guess, from her demeanor about #3.   Most of all we know something about the person who put her in this untenable role.

Now this is the Red Meat I like. 

Politics is visceral.  It has got to be served with some anger appealing to the limbic system.  Republicans understand that.  Before I voted for Obama in the California primary, I strongly considered Hillary because I didn’t think Obama would fight back against the Republican slime machine.  With Biden, Obama can stay above the fight except when necessary.

My favorite liberal hawk, George Packer, has a  blog in the New Yorker which fits with my observation of the Republican Convention.  The Republican establishment wouldn’t allow John to make his own VP selection. 

John McCain became a P.O.W. this week, at the hands of his own Party. It was Sarah Palin’s Convention, not McCain’s. His speech last night was so out of sync with the vituperative tone and stale, hard-right cultural populism of the Convention’s other headliners—above all, Palin—that he sounded less like a Presidential nominee than one of those token speakers given a spot on the program just to prove that the Party welcomes diversity.

Levi Johnston, the Bristol’s baby daddy says he is “in a relationship,” but states, “I don’t want kids.”

Oops. The self proclaimed “fuckin’ redneck” doesn’t know My Space is public. No the real question doesn’t McCain and his crack team of vetters? Married with Children family values must appeal to a segment of the Republican base.

And just now McCain is sending 20 vetters to Alaska. Decision making America can be confident in.