David Seaton's News Links"David, are you endorsing John McCain?"
No, not really.
I thought that the best possible candidate for president this year was Al Gore.... and I still think so.
First, because I consider him the "President in Exile". He won and we were all robbed.
Gore was against the war in Iraq and probably he would have paid attention to the CIA report on Bin-Laden that Condi and Dubya ignored. Much of what has been bad in these eight years, including stiffing Kyoto and torturing prisoners, would surely have been avoided had Gore been installed in the White House in January 2001.
To top it off, Gore is now a Nobel Prize winner. He is universally recognized as a person of "vision" with real live, clearly stated, well known, credible, unflipfloppable positions on some of the most important issues of our time.
Electing him president this year would have been the closest thing to rewinding history I can think of and a true, unmistakable message to the world of the repudiation of George W. Bush and all his works.
Al Gore shouldn't have had to even run for the nomination this year. He should have been drafted at the convention in an act of acclamation with everybody applauding everybody like the sort of thing that the Bulgarian Communist Party used to be famous for.
I understand that some people find Al Gore dull. To those people I suggest they buy a video game and press the buttons till they grow hair on their palms.
As to Barack Obama.
When the Democratic field was narrowed down to Hillary and Obama I had trouble believing how decadent it all was. A "dynastic wife", like Sonia Gandhi or Cristina Kirchner running against a fairy tale. The winner to run against a semi-crippled, septuagenarian of questionable temperament.
This is not to deny Barack Obama's talent. Not since Ferdinand Waldo Demara has anyone gone farther with less reality to back him up.
If he had ever been the successful governor of an important state or even the mayor of a big town or done something difficult and dangerous in his short time in the Senate I could buy this. But no.
Who knows, Obama might have made a good Veep on Gore's ticket and after eight years in that office, he would have had an easy, natural shot at the presidency. As it is, if he loses this year simply because people don't want to vote for a "question mark", it is going to set back race relations in the USA by decades. There won't be a black person in America that will ever believe that Obama lost for any other reason than because he was black.
But, that is still no reason to put the atomic bomb in the hands of a "question mark".
So, no, I am not a big fan of McCain's, but he seems real to me.. "The last man left standing". I don't think Dennis Kucinich is going to get elected in a write-in campaign, so I guess that leaves John McCain. DS
8 comments:
Had anyone been able to construct a coherent argument in opposition to yours, I might not have to spend my circling-the-drain years in gloom and despair. Being approximately of McCain's age, I can't conceive of anything that might tempt me into any presidency except the possibility of repudiating everything Republican since at least 1980. To be plainer than that, it must be that the man's insane, and that double-down, take it or leave it is all he's got. Given that you're probably right, it's despair for me.
Sheesh, David, we get it already. You don't like Obama. You've made some good points, but maybe it's time to get over it already.
There's an obsessive quality to this that doesn't fit in (at least to my fevered brain) with your otherwise well-sculpted reasonings.
Perhaps it may be time for n inward glance?
David - your stuff is good. I'm not American, but I do have to give a shit about what happens in this election because when America farts, everyone else on this small planet gets the stink, and a small proportion (in the left hand neglected back corner of the elevator) die.
I've never understood American elections, but the obvious fact is that 50% of American voters have below average IQs, which explains a lot.
See TomDispatch at:
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174961/ira_chernus_will_culture_war_overshadow_real_war_in_2008_
for a good view of what's happening on the 'culture vs reason' front.
Also, I think you might like Michael Balter's Blog:
http://michael-balter.blogspot.com
He likes yours.
So, McCain seems real meaning I guess that Obama seems fake. And on that basis, a vote is cast. Well, there's no accounting for gut feelings and you're as entitled to yours as I am to mine. Time will tell. I wonder what Al Gore's gut tells him. Or Chuck Hagel's.
If wondering about Obama qualifies as an unhealthy obsession than I confess to sharing it. The phenomenon of Obama is worth closer and harder examination, which it’s not really getting.
(I read an article in the London Review of Books recently that was simply astounding in its credulity. No wonder the Europeans are so nuts about him.)
Stephanie,
I think the phenomenon of Obama (in more generic sense) has been examined thoroughly by people who analyzed the rise of totalitarian regimes in 20-th century Europe (who was that who called Obama Mussolini macchiato?) It is just that we don't make rather obvious parallels, being stopped by various taboos, or shouted down by the crowd looking for racists under every bed.
This will all end in tears however this coming election without a good choice will end.
P.S. BTW David, the fact that Hillary Clinton is Bill's wife doesn't IMHO mean that she is not a good politician, and a much better choice for President than either of the two remaining contenders.
--Anatol
I Confess that 'twas I that coined the "Mussolini macchiato" bit, but I prefer my other version, "The Nerd's Mussolini".
It's sad to see otherwise intelligent people falling under the wheels of McCain's Rovian smear machine. So you support the man who voted with Bush on Iraq every step of the way, was wrong on every single talking point, wants to continue to wage war indefinitely, and apparently wants to reignite the Cold War. He's the arms makers' wet dream.
It will give you something to complain about for the next four years, I guess.
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