The Spanish Presidential Elections are/were today, and it looks like Zapatero and his PSOE Party have won. In other words, Dumb has just beat Dumber. Normally I would care — I do enjoy elections — but it has simply been an incredibly boring campaign with almost no interesting options or political arguments. Just look at the basic facts: Continue reading
Filed under Essays, Living la vida española
Don’t call it a comeback because it ain’t one. Since Super Tuesday, everyone had predicted that Obama would win a bunch of states up until March 4th, and then Hillary would win Texas and Ohio. And guess what? She did exactly what everyone thought she would do all along. While there was obviously no “comeback” and Obama continues to maintain the same pre-March 4th delegate lead, why is the press talking about little else? The press needs a close race and controversy to keep people tuned in.
But the worse thing about it all is that the Hillary team has not only played to the lowest denominator again, but it probably even thinks that being sleazy is what helped her fictitious “comeback”. The Clinton camp continues to think that we’re stuck in the Kenneth Starr 1990s whereby anything goes (including Hillary’s more than tacit endorsement of John McCain as being a better commander-in-chief than Obama — who harms their party that way?) and even the slightest critique is met with the “hey, that’s from the Republican play book” defense.
The fact of the matter is that Hillary’s attacks on Obama are not only baseless — especially those about character — but that few people are asking her the hard follow-up questions. She may have cried that the press hasn’t been nice to her, but they let her get away with her phony “comeback” and sham experience. Continue reading
One of my favorite non-Jazz albums is For the Beauty of Wynona by Daniel Lanois, and one of my favorite songs from that album is “Rocky World”. While driving through Lanzarote’s lava stained terrain, I kept thinking of that particular Daniel Lanois song. As is often so often the case, I went ahead and made another one of my low budget videos.
Filed under Digressions
I am taking a short break from WiFi and the Elections, and I am spending a few days in Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. Hillary will continue to complain and undermine her party while Obama and Super Tuesday Part II will just have to wait. I am on vacation.
Filed under Digressions, Obama 08
Check out the great news: the U.S. is now the world’s top incarcerator! We’ve got more people in jail than ever before.
Filed under Essays
I hate to dedicate too many posts to why Hillary is an inferior candidate instead of focusing on why Obama is the superior one. Yet I continue to do so. I just read a fantastic column by Maureen Dowd in the New York Times.
First, she reinforces something that I have always believed that candidates must learn about running for office — it is a total shame that Mariano Rajoy, the PP candidate for the Spanish presidency, is clueless about:
[Hillary] has been so discombobulated that she has ignored some truisms of politics that her husband understands well: Sunny beats gloomy. Consistency beats flipping. Bedazzling beats begrudging. Confidence beats whining.
Dowd also does a good job of distinguishing the Obama’s confidence with Hillary’s Al Gore 2000 constant metamorphosis.
The fact that Obama is exceptionally easy in his skin has made Hillary almost jump out of hers. She can’t turn on her own charm and wit because she can’t get beyond what she sees as the deep injustice of Obama not waiting his turn. Her sunshine-colored jackets on the trail hardly disguise the fact that she’s pea-green with envy.
After saying she found her “voice” in New Hampshire, she has turned into Sybil. We’ve had Experienced Hillary, Soft Hillary, Hard Hillary, Misty Hillary, Sarcastic Hillary, Joined-at-the-Hip-to-Bill Hillary, Her-Own-Person-Who-Just-Happens-to-Be-Married-to-a-Former-President Hillary, It’s-My-Turn Hillary, Cuddly Hillary, Let’s-Get-Down-in-the-Dirt-and-Fight-Like-Dogs Hillary.
Finally, with respect to Hillary’s sob story about the press not being nice to her, as I wrote early today, Dowd writes,
Beating on the press is the lamest thing you can do. It is only because of the utter open-mindedness of the press that Hillary can lose 11 contests in a row and still be treated as a contender.
In any event, I truly recommend that your read the piece in its entirety: Continue reading
It’s taking me ages to finish Mohamed Berrada’s post modern novel, The Game of Forgetting. Yet this morning I was able to get some reading done during what felt like the neverending metro commute, and I came across these lines in Berrada’s novel:
I think that many people are miserable because they are unable to remember their childhood and incorporate it into their present life. The experiences they lived in childhood are like something that happened to others. This is, perhaps, because they think childhood is less serious than is necessary for life . . .
Filed under Digressions, Literature
In last night’s debate, Hillary complained that she’s been the victim of a press corp that has asked her too many tough questions and not enough of Obama. Yes, they keep asking her the first question, and frankly that just isn’t fair. Actually, it’s not the first time her camp has cried about an unbalanced treatment in the media — Bill whinned about it after Iowa.
What’s ironic is that one of the central themes of Hillary’s campaign is that she has been more tested, questioned, and “vetted” than her Democratic rival. So why is everyone still vetting her? Maybe the vetting isn’t over. Maybe they’re still not satisfied with her answers. Continue reading
On the night of the last presidential debate of the Democratic party’s primaries, I think it is a good time to reflect on the obvious: Hillary should finally give it a rest. It is time for her to end her campaign. Her staying in the race does nothing but harm the party and its possibilities at winning the election in November. Her campaign has also reached an annoyingly offensive tone that it almost too ugly to bear.
Notice that last Thursday she was proudly Barack’s best friend, and then out of nowhere, she is screaming and yelling about shameless tactics and other absurdities. I don’t even think that it is worth it to humor her accusations. It is just another example of Hillary throwing a stone and hiding her hand. She has been playing gutter politics since Nevada, and now her team is trying to figure out just how low they should go. Likening Barack to Bush or stating that he is not ready for the White House not only violate the unspoken rules of the game, they also debilitate the party. The other antics are simply disgusting.
In the past couple of days, many newspapers have run stories on why and how Hillary should honorably concede defeat — for the benefit of us all. For example, yesterday there was Robert Novak’s “Who Will Tell Hillary?” and this op-ed piece by Richard Cohen in today’s Washington Post: Continue reading
Some people are all talk and no game. Well that isn’t the case with my Bro. If an attorney/community organizer can aspire to be president of the U.S., I think my Bro may have a futre — even though he might want to think twice about cetain statements he makes to the press because those go into your permanent record — just kidding.
In any event, check out this article on what’s he’s going to fight the power: Continue reading
Filed under Digressions, Friends / Family
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