Sore Losers

Say what you will about Democrats, but I don’t recall them behaving anywhere near this badly after a loss.  Maybe they just have more practice.

McCain’s people, who spent the past couple of months implying that anyone who thought Sarah Palin wasn’t qualified to be VP was just an elitist, are now describing her as an out-of-control hillbilly shopoholic who didn’t know that Africa is a continent.   Nice.  And now she is finally going on TV and doing interviews.  Better late than never, I guess, but doesn’t she have a day job?

Blowout

The election is looking more like a blowout.  Both candidates are in red states on the final day of campaigning, with McCain even making a stop in Arizona.  And reports are that McCain has had to gut his get-out-the-vote efforts in order to remain competitive in advertising in the final days.

To further illustrate McCain’s dire condition, the WaPost yesterday noted that of 159 national polls taken over the past six weeks, McCain has failed to lead in a single one of them.

I’m upping my prediction to Obama by 10 points nationally, and a margin of 130 electoral votes.

Deranged Narcissism

Obama clinched the nomination tonight and Hillary’s speech, which was not a concession, seemed ungracious to some. After someone in the Clinton camp, by way of explanation, emailed CNN that tonight — the night when a major party finally nominated an African-American — “had to be Hillary’s night,” commentator Jeffry Toobin accused the Clintons of “deranged narcissism.” I’m not sure about the deranged part, but the case for narcissism is airtight.

I’ve always had the subjective impression that Hillary talks mainly about herself, whereas Obama speaks very inclusively. To quantify that, I looked at transcripts of both their speeches tonight and counted the use of the word “I.” Results for Obama: 25 “I”’s in 2472 words. Clinton: 65 “I”’s in 2237.

Random Thoughts on a Monday Morning

Over the weekend I read somewhere (The Economist, I think) that Bob Barr displayed a hint of a libertarian streak, long ago. Prior to 9/11 he sponsored a bill to prohibit the government from designating foreign organizations as terrorist groups and denying them entry visas. Way to go Bob!

An interesting thing about Bob’s candidacy is that he may put the state of Georgia in play for Obama, drawing votes from McCain due to his name recognition in the state, and his appeal to social conservatives (despite his now being a phoney-baloney libertarian). Therefore, I have a strategy. Starting in September some time I will flood the Atlanta paper, and other papers in the state, with letters to the editor. They’ll be full of outrage that any libertarian could think of voting for such a staunch social conservative. I’ll point out his conservative positions and his anti-immigrant positions, and how much more socially conservative he really is than John McCain. Somehow I’ll work in McCain’s leniency on immigration, and the fact that Barr still runs a GOP PAC. The target of course will be the not-so-bright right-wingnuts who are tempted to abandon McCain anyway.

Eh, I have to do something to keep myself amused.

Filled up the Jeep this morning at a record price: $3.969 at the station on North Avenue across from the Varsity. Sixty two dollars and change, which was not a personal record (which still stands at $64.32) because it only took 15.7 gallons.

The search for new wheels continues, with increasing emphasis on fuel economy.

Memorial Day

The usual chattering imbeciles are currently going on about a verbal mistake Obama made that confused Memorial Day with Veteran’s Day, in that he (sort of) implied that the former was to honor all veterans, not just war dead. Or something.

What I found a lot more interesting was the official Memorial Day concert on the Mall, which I caught some of on PBS. (Update: it turns out to have been a rerun from a couple years ago). It had Joe Montagna as emcee, one of the guys from Dukes of Hazzard singing, and some other GOP celebs, like the ever-more-bugeyed Gary Sinise. It was every bit as grotesque as it sounds, and that’s not even counting Sinise’s eyeballs. I just had to watch some of it, though. I also slow down for serious traffic accidents.

It turns out that they, too, at the official Memorial Day Concert on the Mall, seemed to talk a lot about veterans and not a lot about the dead. Oh, death was mentioned, but as just of the many sacrifices veterans make. It might as well have been Veteran’s Day. You can’t really blame them; it’s very difficult to put on a rah-rah show on the National Mall that properly conflates patriotism with militarism when the bodies are stacking up right across the Potomac after all.

Iraq War Cost vs Marshall Plan

The local public TV station is running a documentary on Harry Truman (one of my three favorite Presidents, along with Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt). The discussion of the Marshall Plan led me to think of the parallels with Iraq. The Marshall Plan rebuilt Europe so it wouldn’t fall into Communist hands, as our efforts in Iraq are to rebuild it so it doesn’t fall into Islamic extremist hands. So I started wondering about relative costs.

The Marshall Plan cost $13 billion in 1947. Adjusting to today’s dollars (based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics calculator) gives $125 billion. Estimates for the cost of the Iraq War are at least ten times that amount, and some more recent estimates are much higher still.

Of course the Marshall Plan didn’t involve getting shot at. On the other hand, the Marshall Plan rebuilt sixteen countries, including several of the largest and most important nations on earth, rather than one middle-eastern backwater. It’s an imperfect comparison, but the old platinum standard for spending on geopolitical re-engineering is way out the window.

Bob Barr Wins

Bob Barr won the Libertarian nomination, as expected. Hilarious. Coming in second was a woman named Mary Ruwart, whose chief claim to claim is her support for legalizing child pornography.

“Children who willingly participate in sexual acts have the right to make that decision as well, even if it’s distasteful to us personally. Some children will make poor choices just as some adults do in smoking and drinking to excess. When we outlaw child pornography, the prices paid for child performers rise, increasing the incentives for parents to use children against their will.”

– Mary Ruwart, runner-up for the Libertarian Party presidential nomination.

Normally I’d try to make some clever, trenchant observation, but some things speak for themselves.

Hillary Clinton = Rush Limbaugh?

I’ve been amazed and appalled to see the extent to which the Clintons have copped their strategy and their language directly from the vast right-wing conspiracy she has always (rightfully in my view) complained about. From painting Obama as an effete elitist to the phony populist posing to James Carville’s questioning of Obama’s masculinity, Hillary Clinton has finally found her voice, and it’s Rush Limbaugh’s.

I hope she’s proud of herself.

“I mean, where are the real men in the Democratic Party? Where are the real men? Hillary Clinton’s one of them, but where are the others?” – Rush Limbaugh

“If she gave him one of her cojones, they’d both have two.” — Clinton consigliere James Carville.

Barack Obama = Jimmy Carter?

Facing the GOP heir to one of the most unpopular presidents in history, a president associated with an endless, needless war who abused his power and brought confidence in government to an all-time low, the Democrats nominate a light-on-experience Washington outsider who promises to bring a different way of doing business to Washington.

Barack Obama? Try Jimmy Carter.

Real Hardworking (white) Americans™

There’s one thing I really need to get off my chest: I am really tired of this working-class hero bullshit.

Let me start by saying that I realize there are many intelligent people who didn’t get the chance to go to college for financial reasons.  I know there are many people who chose not to go to college who are nonetheless well-educated. 

On the other hand, I also remember high school.  In particular, I remember who did and who did not go to college.  There were exceptions, but the ones who went to college were the ones who put some effort into their schooling.  The ones that did not were the slackers, the druggies, the dummies, and the borderline (or not-so-borderline) criminals.

I don’t bear any particular ill will towards any of these people.   Most of them eventually grew up and and turned out OK. But I draw the line when I start hearing about how these people are the Real Hardworking (white) Americans.™

Apparently in Hillaryland (which oddly resembles Red America in this respect), people who did what they were told — get an education and build a successful career — are suckers.  Only sissified dorks think for a living.  Real Hardworking (white) Americans™ haul things around, nail shit together and dig holes in the ground all day.  They deliver stuff in trucks and operate heavy machinery.  And they’re the only ones whose votes should actually count, because they’re Real Hardworking (white) Americans.™

Give me a break.