The Old Politics, Described and Acted
Why does she go on like this? Does Clinton privately believe that Obama is so incompetent that only she can deliver the policies they both support? Is she simply selfish, and willing to put her party through agony for the sake of her slender chance? Are leading Democrats so narcissistic that they would create bitter stagnation even if they were granted one-party rule?
The better answer is that Clinton’s long rear-guard action is the logical extension of her relentlessly political life.
Going on Fox is like going on pretend TV, but the problem is that Fox viewers seem to mistake Fox News for reality. This wouldn’t matter, except for the fact that Fox News and their cohorts on right wing talk radio and blogs manage to set the agenda for the rest of the news media. For instance, borrowing “facts” direct from the a right wing hate blog, Fox commentator William Kristol goofed in his NY Times column about Obama attending the infamous Rev. Wright church service — Obama had told the truth, he hadn’t been there — then Kristol had to take it all back when corrected by actual real live journalists. But of course by that time the lie had done the rounds and become another “fact.”
As the day goes on, you start to feel insane, if you keep MSNBC on. Bill Clinton inferred or didn’t infer that Obama was not a patriot. Discuss. Discuss some more. ( I think “who is getting paid for this debate?”) Because the same stuff is rehashed in a sisyphusian cacophony from dawn to midnight, with some breaks for shows about prisoners and their tattoos. On MSNBC I think the vice president of the United States just shrugged again about the dead children of America. You can see the blood slowing and thickening in his arteries, occluding and blocking all the impulses that are responsible for decency.
Media Matters – Fox News panel ponders significance of Richardson’s beard:
Summary: While discussing on Fox News’ The Live Desk New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson’s endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama, Philadelphia radio host Dom Giordano said of Richardson’s beard: “I don’t know if it’s playing into the ethnic card, or whatever.” Host Martha MacCallum stated, “[Richardson] said, you know, ‘It’s hard for me,’ he said to me once, ‘people don’t even know I’m Hispanic,’ ” and then asked, “So is that part of what he is … cultivating here?” Giordano replied, “I think so.”
Hannity #1, (Rule #6)
HANNITY: Reverend Lawson, with all that we’ve heard from Reverend Wright, do you support everything he has said?
LAWSON: Of course not. I don’t support everything anybody says, even members of my own family. But I do recognize him as a friend, as a prophetic preacher and as a person who has been extremely valuable, not only in Chicago but nationwide, almost globally. He is a good man.
HANNITY: He is a good man that says G.D. America, the U.S. KKK of America, all of these statements. Do you think that’s coming from a good man?
HANNITY: I’m sure you’re perfect in your life and that you’ve never made any mistakes.
HITCHENS: I’ve never committed treason like that. I don’t believe in the sincerity of his apology…
HANNITY: I knew Reverend Falwell, Christopher. I know the good work that this man has done.
HITCHENS: Tell me about it.
“I must say that this new strategy of denying and disempowering and disenfranchising the voters in Florida and Michigan is, I believe, a terrible mistake. Hillary believes their votes should be counted. And I don’t know how we’re gonna go to those people in the general election and say you gotta vote for us even though we dumped all over you in the primary,” Clinton told a crowd at the Westside Democratic Club in South Bend.
Technorati Tags: old politics, politics as usual, campaign 2008