How The New Yorker is different from The New York Post

Since the IJG dabbles in musical satire and potentially offensive comedic bits from time to time, I try to cut other similarly-inclined artists a lot of slack. Many of my own cultural heroes have pissed somebody off at some point, and I get how that's an occupational hazard for anyone interested in playing around on the fringes.

That's why I didn't say much about the New Yorker cover that caused such controversy during the last presidential election. I mean, on the one hand, I could understand why people were so offended by it.

But I also understand that while politics is a field that calls out for clarity, good art, alas, is often ambiguous. I don't know if the New Yorker cartoon was good art, but it was certainly ambiguous, in that multiple interpretations could be credibly attributed to it. One of those interpretations -- that Obama was a terrorist looking to destroy the US -- was indeed offensive and racist. And the last thing anyone needed at that moment in the campaign was another instance of a fundamentally stupid assumption recklessly tossed into an already volatile discourse. The fact that there was an alternate interpretation of the same cartoon -- a Cleavon-Little-in-Blazing-Saddles interpretation, in which Obama, looking directly at the viewer, seemed to be saying "excuse me while I whip out, and taunt you with, every ridiculous preconception you have about me" -- was less important than the fact that the very people who didn't understand that Obama wasn't a terrorist in the first place would probably never understand that take on the cartoon.



In any case, the bigger point is that with the New Yorker cartoon, at least there was a credible alternative to the racist interpretation. Which is more than can be said for this travesty published by the New York Post.

When pressed about the possible comparison of Obama to a dead chimpanzee, Post editor, Col Allen, provided this rationalization:

The cartoon is a clear parody of a current news event, to wit the shooting of a violent chimpanzee in Connecticut. It broadly mocks Washington's efforts to revive the economy.

Allen is right that sometimes the juxtaposition of seemingly unlike things can lead to witty social commentary. I seem to remember a political cartoon from the 1980 presidential campaign, in which Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and Walter Mondale were pictured as the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion, singing, respectively, "If I only had a brain," "a heart," and "the nerve." But that cartoon worked because there was a connection -- a surprising, funny connection -- between the three candidates and their three unexpected doppelgangers from the Wizard of Oz. In the end, the illustration eloquently and elegantly summed up some of the political criticism that was floating around at the time.

The Post cartoon also makes a connection between two seemingly unlike things, but it is not the connection the paper so disingenuously claims -- that both stories merely happened to be in the news at the same time. Any idiot could create a cartoon using that technique -- and, say what you like, the cartoonist in this case, Sean Delonas, doesn't seem to be an idiot. (He does, however, seem to be a bit of an asshole.)

No, the specific juxtaposition speaks volumes. I mean, shit. Instead of a dead chimp, why not choose other topical and current images of demise? Why not the geese that flew into the engines of the Hudson plane, for instance? Why not the latest kid to get booted off American Idol? Why not the (unfairly) disgraced Michael Phelps? Couldn't the caption "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill" have worked equally well in any of those scenarios?

No, there was a particular reason Delonas chose to link the chimp story with the story about Obama's stimulus package -- which was, incidentally, how the bill was described ad nauseum in the weeks leading up to its passage, so no claiming that the unnamed author of the stim is actually Pelosi (as if murdering a different politician would somehow be more palatable). The idea of a "police shooting" comes ready-made with certain associations. The idea of using a chimpanzee as a stand-in for a human being comes ready-made with certain associations. We may not want to admit those associations to ourselves. We may want to pretend that they refer to ancient history. But pretending and denying are not viable (or sane) responses to pathological phenomena.

And don't kid yourself: if we still have this sort of thing floating around in our national psyche, then "pathological" is really the right word.

Political creativity

More tour tales soon, I swear. In the meantime, John Cole at Balloon Juice posted this, and I grinned:



The question is: what's the genre? Is it a "negative ad"? An "anti-negative" ad? I'm not sure I'd describe it as "sarcastic," as Cole does -- to me, it's comical and satirical, but in a winking and, yes, "hopeful" way. The subtext seems to be: "C'mon, you're smarter than this." It never wades into the self-defeatism of full-on snark. Unlike some other ads I've seen.

In the wake of the first prez debate, there are calls for Obama to get meaner. (That McCain will get meaner is pretty much a given.) But I think injecting a little creativity into the communications process can go a long way. We -- or most of us -- are better than the bullshit.

Turning it around

So I stayed up half the night nursing a meniscal tear (knee: meet handlebars), "typesetting" charts for the upcoming IJG tour, and distractedly getting a kick out of the wee-hour coverage of the Biden VP pick announcement.

First things first: at one point one of the pundits (it may have been David Shuster, though again, I was distracted) tried to make something of the fact that the media scooped the promised text message (as if that wasn't inevitable). Good golly. If said scooping really causes discontent with Obama supporters, then I am truly out of the loop.

Anyway, I have been thinking all week that Biden was a strong, even masterful choice for VP, but as usual, it took Ezra Klein to articulate exactly why:

There was a hope in the early days of the Obama campaign that different would be enough. Different in aesthetics and experience and age and ideas. Different would assert change. Kathleen Sebelius would have represented change. Visually, her and Obama on a stage together would have been the most powerful image of political transformation in decades. But a choice like her presupposed belief. Otherwise, you'd be adorning a cathedral that had no promise of parishioners.

Turned out not to be true. So they needed an arguer. Someone able to make the case that the other guy is wrong, and Obama is right. That's, fundamentally, what Biden represents. Biden doesn't presuppose belief. He's a persuader. Sometimes at great length, sometimes to the point of virtual self parody, but fundamentally, his political style has always been to argue until everyone else agrees.

For progressives, this is encouraging pick. More encouraging than Bayh, or Kaine, or even, in a way, Sebelius. More encouraging than picks who might have been more progressive, but less pugnacious. Elevating Biden suggests that the Obama campaign has decided to have an argument. Not try to win on momentum and inspiration and GOTV, but to engage, and win, an argument about which set of ideas is better for the future of the country. And in Biden, they've engaged at the point of greatest vulnerability and opportunity for Democrats: National security.

Consider this in tandem with the strong "7 Houses" ad, which also came out this week, and in which McCain is taken to task not only for his inability to remember how many houses he has, but for his inability to remember, period. (The announcer subtly reminds voters that McCain is old -- "he lost track, he couldn't remember" is intoned over a backdrop of images / music that could have been lifted out of an ad for a nursing home -- a subject that would be off limits if it were approached more directly.)

I suspect that, taken together, the events of the past few days bear out Randi Rhodes' theory that Obama has been developing a Rope-a-Dope strategy. At the very least, they remind me of one of Obama's great strengths: his ability to respond in the moment to the circumstances that surround him. (Kind of like an expert improviser.)

We'll see where it goes from here.

Barack Obama wrote on your funwall

And 365 other things.

Here's the website.

(I doubt that I'd survive this political season if I didn't have my beloved Wonkette.)

More on Obama 2.0

"Regular blogging" (whatever that is) will recommence soon (or whenever my other brain gets back from the shop). In the meantime, please read this quick piece by David Sirota. It's about the election, and stuff.

Aw hell, let me just quote Sirota quoting Sirota:

"[Obama]'s like any politician. He's cautious," Sirota said. "He's a potential vehicle for change, and I think he is a good vehicle, but he is just a vehicle."

His presidency may represent fundamental change, but that doesn't mean he will initiate such sweeping changes if he's elected.

"Politicians, even the best-intentioned ones, are weather vanes," Sirota said. "If the wind isn't blowing in the right direction, they will perpetuate the status quo."

It will take more than a presidential candidate to change the status quo; it'll take a movement, Sirota says.

"My concern is that people will think that by simply electing Obama, change will come, whether it's on race or economic justice issues," he said.

"If people believe that, then real change will not happen."

Righteous.

As I was reading through the angry responses to Obama's statement on FISA yesterday -- many of which were explicit rejections of the Obama candidacy by disaffected former supporters -- it occurred to me that, combined with the fact that (even after the last week) McCain is not getting laughed off the national stage for some of the idiotic things he's saying, Democrats may actually manage to lose this fucking election.

Wouldn't that be something? I would have thought that we had witnessed the full monty of stupidity in this country by electing Bush twice (I know, I know, he wasn't really elected, but it still astonishes me that those elections were even close). But if McCain hangs in there and pulls this shit off, well, we ain't seen nothin' yet.

One of the comments on the FISA thing (don't remember exactly where I read it, alas) said something to the effect that: "Damn! If Russ Feingold were our nominee, all this moving-to-the-center stuff wouldn't be happening!"

Bullshit. I love Russ Feingold as much as the next progressive, but come on! First of all, we did have a candidate who had a Feingoldian cut to his jib. His name was Dennis Kucinich. He didn't make it. Why didn't he make it? Because this is not a progressive country.

Would that it were. And would that it were a country in which more than 2% of the population actually had a love for jazz (or anything beyond the pablum peddled by the major labels). Maybe someday it will be both of those things (hurray, activism! hurray, advocacy! hurray, education!). But right now it ain't.

Secondly, Ghandi himself could not negotiate his way through our broken election system without having to occasionally talk out of both sides of his mouth. Sure, the problem is exacerbated by the politicians themselves, and sure, systems are made of people, and people have free will and can act differently if they so choose. But there are simultaneously other forces at work too: big, bad forces. Inertia forces. Id forces. Zeitgeist forces. Irrational, cultural forces. Technological forces (I'm looking at you, media!).

That system needs to be fixed, and those forces need to be altered, but such things are not going to happen simply by electing a certain president -- though of course it does matter who we elect to that job. (Complicated, eh?)

I repeat and paraphrase: if we screw this one up, the horror has just begun. Please, fellow lefties, I beg of you:

"Friday" Muxtape no. 10 (belated as hell); Obama 2.0

Yup, this shoulda woulda coulda gone up on Friday. [Insert the usual excuses here, tour planning, life intruding, blah blah blah.]

Mea culpa. But don't hold it against me: the mux is still worth a listen!

Paticularly: track two features Kris Tiner's splendid lil' ensemble, referenced in a previous post o' mine. The album (and the band) are highly recommended, of course.

The Sonics: "Have Love Will Travel"
Empty Cage Quartet: "Old Ladies"
Lee Wiley: "A Hundred Years From Today"
Pink Martini: "Lilly"
Jerseyband: "Lord Magnificent"
James Brown: "Down and Out in NY City"
The Louvin Brothers: "The Great Atomic Power"
James Kochalka Superstar: "Monkey vs. Robot"
Angelic Gospel Singers: "Back to the Dust"
Johnny Otis: "Castin' My Spell on You"
Lee Hazlewood: "I Move Around"
Spoon: "The Underdog"

Hotcha!

* * * * *

[Oh, boy, here he goes shooting his mouth off on the subject of politics again. Goddamn, but I thought he was done with that -- Ed.]

Okay, I can't resist any longer. How about that Barack Obama, eh? It's been a busy few weeks.

Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while know that I have been an Obama supporter for a long time -- well before the primaries, in fact.

But honestly, I have never felt swayed by the "rockstar" thing, the in-the-tank mentality, or the halo-allegations that seem to have attracted many of his supporters. I didn't get the Obama girl concept, I thought the man came off as a bit of a buffoon on the Ellen Degeneres show, I thought the will.i.am video was about 35% too precious, and although I liked most of the speeches, I know full well that we can not live by rhetoric alone. (And, incidentally, I don't get Barry's tendency to use prompters planted on diametrically opposed sides of the room -- it usually gives the impression that he's watching a very slow-motion tennis match while speech-ifying. Awkward!)

So the more extreme, ethereal, emotional form of Obama-mania always frightened me, at least partly because it was inevitable that the bubble was going to burst at some point. Predictably, for some folks it has been bursting practically every day since the primaries ended.

The mainstream media, in their infinite wisdom, have a phrase for this burstification. They call it "moving to the center." Maybe that's what it is, maybe it isn't. (I'd like to believe 'em, really I would, but it's hard to know how to process information given to you by people who seriously entertain the notion that getting shot down in Vietnam may actually be a qualification for being president).

Look: I can hardly blame leftward-oriented folks for feeling more than a little on-edge in the wake of post-primary developments (FISA, Supreme Court decisions, Muslim photo ops, faith-based initiatives, etc.), or in anticipation of this election. After 7 years of Bush (not to mention the brave new world of the Internets), whaddya expect? Plus, when it comes to the future of this country, there's so much that has all the texture and aroma of Armageddon that the late great George Carlin may have been right when he declared that "this country is finished."

But shit, people -- now is not a time for purism, either. I mean, we don't want to lose, do we?! Here's someone named Sara opining on the brouhaha over Obama's FISA stance:

I don't understand what all the fuss is about Obama's statement. To me it seems like a pretty typical case of working within the system to rise up through the system in order to change the system. Is patience such a rare quality in a politician that we don't recognize it anymore and misperceive it as cowardice?

Prioritizing the present and the future over the past--with an end date in mind for this prioritization--is hardly a glaring warning sign of ethical fluidity or weakness. It's basic triage.

He doesn't want to try to fix everything from the floor of the Senate. That's why he's running for President. I'm OK with that approach.

Indeed. And here's insightful MandyW (same post):

In a democracy, unelected activists are free to take extreme, uncompromising positions. They succeed insofar as their arguments convince the majority of the people of the correctness and importance of their views (e.g. abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison). Thus, they can transform unrealistic ideals into practical possibilities.

Elected politicians, otoh, MUST compromise to reflect the mainstream of public opinion. (What's the point of democracy if elected leaders pay NO attention to the "will of the people"?) That means the reforms they can accomplish are by definition less sweeping than what outside activists would prefer, but at least they can actually accomplish something (e.g. Presidents like Abraham Lincoln).

For democracy to work, we need BOTH outside activists AND elected politicians. It's silly for activists to denounce ANY deviation by a politician from their view of what's "perfect" as a sellout. It's equally silly for politicians to dismiss ANY deviation by an activist from their view of what's "practical" as not worth considering.

Yes, I'm disappointed at the stance that the Dems, including Obama, are taking on the FISA Act. I assume it's because they fear that a stronger stand would encourage 527's to pop up to attack them, citing FISA as proof that they're "soft on terrorism".

Sadly, imho, such 527 attacks would probably be effective. It could make it a lot harder for Obama to get elected and/or for the Dems to get a large enough majority in Congress to actually accomplish anything on things like Health Care after the election.

These ladies have it exactly right. How much stupider could Obama be than to get hamstrung by the "PETA syndrome" -- political stances that may draw attention and engender a certain degree of moral satisfaction (for those who grasp and sympathize with their meaning), but that ultimately fail to break through the deadlock. It would be like, oh, I don't know, a jazz composer declaring that there was no redeeming value in pop music, thereby shoring up the quaint but useless notion of "high art."

When I taught writing in college, the primary criterion for evaluating student work was cogency. All freshman writing assignments presented students with a basic debate into which they were supposed to position themselves effectively. The idea was to write an argument that had the potential to actually convince someone on the other side, rather than taking up the rhetorical bludgeon and simply attempting to insist and assert the reader into submission. Students had to start by trying to find some common ground with their opposition, giving whatever counterarguments existed a fair shake (without, of course, weakening their own position).

That's not an easy thing to do, but Obama would have aced that class. I just hope his supporters can figure it out too.

* * * * *

And besides. Specifically:

I learned long ago, when working as an organizer on the South Side of Chicago, that when citizens join their voices together, they can hold their leaders accountable. I’m not exempt from that. I’m certainly not perfect, and expect to be held accountable too.

I'd like to see John McCain say that without choking.

* * * * *

By the way, phenomenal PDX-based saxophonist Lee Elderton -- who will most likely be joining the IJG for our Pacific Northwest tour this September (fingers crossed!) -- has a blog. It features much better Obama rally pix than the ones I posted here.

Now that's what I call grass roots activism...

Further fodder for my ongoing love-affair with Portland: somebody took the liberty of mowing the word "Obama" into this field (a few hundred yards from our house). I know it's hard to see -- sorry, I didn't have access to a helicopter.

I'll probably have a lot more to say about the events of this week when I can catch my breath (I've been fairly busy planning the next IJG adventure, which will hopefully come together in September).

Until then, then...

My hero

Robert Wexler kicked major ass today in Florida.

Here, at about 7.5 minutes in, Harold Ickes gets his comeuppance:



Here, at about 1.5 minutes in, Alice Huffman gets her comeuppance.



It. Is. Time. To. Move. On.

Undeniable

Ezra Klein cites a portion of Obama's Wesleyan commencement address (which I here re-cite for those of you who don't read Ezra Klein):

Each of you will have the chance to make your own discovery in the years to come. And I say “chance” because you won’t have to take it. There’s no community service requirement in the real world; no one forcing you to care. You can take your diploma, walk off this stage, and chase only after the big house and the nice suits and all the other things that our money culture says you should by. You can choose to narrow your concerns and live your life in a way that tries to keep your story separate from America’s.

But I hope you don’t. Not because you have an obligation to those who are less fortunate, though you do have that obligation. Not because you have a debt to all those who helped you get here, though you do have that debt.

It’s because you have an obligation to yourself. Because our individual salvation depends on collective salvation. Because thinking only about yourself, fulfilling your immediate wants and needs, betrays a poverty of ambition. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential and discover the role you’ll play in writing the next great chapter in America’s story.

[...]

You know, Ted Kennedy often tells a story about the fifth anniversary celebration of the Peace Corps. He was there, and he asked one of the young Americans why he had chosen to volunteer. And the man replied, “Because it was the first time someone asked me to do something for my country.”

I don’t know how many of you have been asked that question, but after today, you have no excuses. I am asking you.

When was the last time a politician asked you to grow up and give a damn?

Do you think John McCain wants you to grow up and give a damn?

Unconscionable

There is dirty politics, and there is scumbag politics.

I've been laying off the politically argumentative posts, but I feel a rant coming on...

The gloss is more entertaining

If, like me, you are simultaneously sick of / addicted to the nonsense that passes for primary coverage at this late stage in the game (Pat Buchanan, will you please go away), you might find a bit of respite over at Wonkette, home to the most irreverent, spontaneous, and hilarious primary liveblogging (is that a genre?) I have ever read.

Did I mention that it's irreverent? Do not indulge if you are a delicate flower.

Yes, we did

I'm not generally a "rally" guy, even when it comes to a phenomenal candidate like Obama. But when our adopted campaign worker got us some "VIP" tickets to today's Portland extravaganza (with opening act, the Decemberists), something compelled us to go check it out.

("VIP," we later learned, merely refers to the difference between being sorta far away from the candidate and being extremely far away from the candidate.)

Turns out this was the biggest rally the campaign has had -- 75,000 people is the estimate -- and there was more than a little of what I could only call "historical electricity" in the air. Here's how the Washington Post described the scene:

The sea of heads stretches for half a mile along the grassy embankment, while others watch from kayaks and power boats bobbing on the Willamette River. More hug the rails of the steel bridge that stretches across the water and crowds are even watching from jetties on the opposite shore.

The weather cooperated with the underlying theme of "change" -- shifting in recent days from a dismal cool cloudiness to full-on summer heat.

Daphne and I tried to snap pics from every phase of the three or so hours that we spent on the waterfront. They follow below, in chronological order, and are pretty much self-explanatory. (Click any pic to enlarge.)

What William Blake wrought

More thoughts on my petulant outburst later (and thanks to everyone who weighed in).

In the meantime, I hope what follows here will be accepted (by the Clinton campaign) in the spirit in which it is offered (a spirit of gentle ribbing and healing levity, I swear):



It's over, folks. Let's kiss and make up, and set our sights on November.

(BTW, we've had an Obama campaign worker living with us for a few weeks now, gearing up for the Oregon primary -- which, it turns out, may become the "official" finish line for this thing. Man, I thought I worked hard -- this lady hardly sleeps. It's quite impressive, and it backs up the refrain that has been coming up in Obama speeches of late -- that this campaign is not about him, but a movement of people who are truly committed to taking the country in a new direction. Halle-fucking-lujah.)

Ugly details

This becomes even more annoying in the cold hard light of sobriety.

A depressing possibility, from Ezra Klein:

I've yet to hear a plausible scenario in which Clinton wins the superdelegates. Just about every serious path to the presidency requires Obama to utterly implode, to be rendered non-competitive for the nomination. In that scenario, the fact that Clinton remained in the race might make her a likelier nominee than Gore, but her continued campaigning doesn't have much of an impact. What she is doing by a mounting a basically hopeless but still quite furious campaign is exposing Obama's weaknesses. McCain's folks might have suspected that they target states like Pennsylvania and Ohio and Florida, but now they have a precinct-by-precinct map of where he underperforms, ready narratives to activate in their negative campaigning (they don't have to grope around to create a line of attack), and a media that's now convinced of his vulnerabilities.

A spot-on complaint from Hunter, at Daily (and nightly) Kos:

Listening to Clinton campaign surrogates on television, before the PA votes ever started to trickle in, was truly painful. Suddenly one state was the only state that mattered. All those other states were merely prelude: if Clinton could eke out a victory in this state, trailing in the delegate count would no longer be significant, and it would be a brand new race, and Obama would be on the ropes, and Clinton would suddenly win a billion dollars, a pony, and the moon; attention must be paid. It is not enough for Obama to simply be winning the nomination according to the rules laid out in advance: no, he must win the "right" way, according to the Clinton campaign and surrogates, or it doesn't count. He has to win the "right" states. And he has to win primaries, not caucuses. And he has to "close the deal", shutting Clinton out of remaining wins entirely, or it proves something ominous (the fact that Clinton has not been able to "close the deal" against him, and is instead trailing him badly and irreparably, barring superdelegate do-over, somehow does not count against her own merits.) And he not only has to win the "popular vote", but he has to win that, too, the right way, which is to say by counting only certain states and not counting others. And he has to win small towns, not just big population centers, because winning big population centers is elitist. Except that if he wins small towns in the West and Midwest, that doesn't count, because it's more important to win the big population centers. And all of this somehow proves that Clinton is a better candidate against McCain than Obama is, even though the polls to date have consistently shown Obama is a better candidate against McCain than Clinton is.

[...]

More irritating is that the negative attacks presented are, well, stupid, and seem increasingly to be predicated on the notion that voters, the press, the pundits, and we political hangers-on are all idiots seeking to cling to the most shallow of accusations. The press and the pundits? OK, I'll give you that one. The rest of us, however, weren't born yesterday.

An explanation from Sara Smith at Wonkette:

This morning, millions of sad, youthful Obama voters are waking up and wondering what the hell happened in Pennsylvania. Here's the scoop, little ones: Pennsylvania's elderly are so old that they make John McCain look young, and they're so numerous that you'd think they were still capable of reproduction. In fact, the only state with more elderly residents is Florida, and at least those old people moved there. They want to be in Florida. Meanwhile, old people in Pennsylvania resemble the humble sea cucumber: sessile, rooted, a prisoner of the very earth that nourishes them. Naturally, these people vote for Hillary Clinton.

Dick Morris, former Clinton advisor and current Clinton foe, puts it this way:

"Pennsylvania Democrats, in other words, suffer from future shock. They welcome old, established ways and embrace dynasties happily because they are so familiar. (Look at the Bob Caseys - dad was governor, the son is senator.) [...] But don't expect the open primaries of Indiana and North Carolina to behave like Pennsylvania's geriatrics. Both states are younger, especially North Carolina, and independents can vote in each primary. (North Carolina is where a lot of the young people who fled Pennsylvania winters and job losses ended up)."

Poor, poor Pennsylvania. Even when it wins, it loses. We look forward to youthful, vibrant Indiana and North Carolina finding a new and different reason to avoid voting for Obama.

Well, that last one made me laugh, anyway. Thanks, Sara!

Oh, bloody hell

Screw Mellencamp. The above should've been the theme song in Indiana tonight. "Torn all apart / All in the name of democracy," indeed.

I actually spent the evening at an Obama fundraiser here in Portland. Watched the election coverage on the big screen, amidst good beer, decent music, interesting people, and lovely, heavy rain. And I still had a shitty time. (MSNBC and CNN are even more surreal in a public context like that.)

While at Aura, I spent some time holed up in my own head (as is my wont at such gatherings), attempting to understand the turn of events from the point of view of a Clinton supporter. I have to keep remembering: to them, I'm the idiot who just doesn't get it. To them, I'm the one who is being lulled into blind faith.

Funny, that. Especially given that I've never been comfortable with "movements." And that I'm not a particularly religious person. And that I have a hard time with ritual. And that, like Noam Chomsky, I'm not "a joiner."

But I can get past all these (admittedly paranoid) tendencies, and still be compelled by the idea of a government that is (finally) transparent and accountable. And by a political style that eschews bullshit. And by a sense of openness to reason, and rationality, and the sort of intelligent coalition-building that we are going to need to, well, survive.

And I don't see those things in Clinton. At all.

Though some might disagree, I side with Publius on this: it's a political Bataan Death March we're engaged in here. It doesn't bode well. We need to end it, and soon.

Just when you thought it couldn't get dumber

This might not have time to evolve into another pseudo-story before Tuesday, but here's the latest taste of idjit from our ever-more idiotic press corps.

Item:

Democrat Barack Obama, who often argues that John McCain is the same as President Bush, said Sunday that the Republican presidential candidate would be an improvement over Bush's eight-year reign.

"You have a real choice in this election. Either Democrat would be better than John McCain. And all three of us would be better than George Bush," Obama said.

This via the AP.

The headline? "Obama says McCain would be better president than Bush."

Thing is, a cup of 3-day old moldy lime jello would be a better president than Bush.

So what the fuck is the story here?

Does anybody really think Barack Obama wants you to vote for John McCain?

Why yes, of course someone does. According to the same story, HRC quickly responded:

"We need a nominee who will take on John McCain, not cheer on John McCain."

Oh, that's rich.

UPDATE.

Maybe we're in luck: it looks like this story was more or less DOA.