Jim Devine wrote:
>god help me, I listened to (almost) all of the Obama/McCain debate.
>It's very clear that Obama is Clinton redux. IMHO, McCain won. He did
>so by repeating phrases like "what Senator Obama doesn't understand
>is..." making O look like a total novice. He is that, but that's
>irrelevant.
I reply:
As Hobbes wrote, appealing to God is the last resort of those who can no
longer hope against hope itself (perhaps that is a loose translation and a
boozy conflation with the Marcuse of One-Dimensional Man).
Michael Perelman wrote:
>I was surprised how bad Obama was -- both his policy and his delivery.
I reply:
Well...
I'm surprised that you're surprised. Surely Obama has signposted his relatively
awful stances well in advance.
In fact, I was mildly pleased with his claim that the bailout is a neccesary
evil
that must be larded with conditions. Despite being a principled red-green,
that's
more or less my position too. Hey, no less a stalwart than Doug Henwood is on
the same page. Face it, the primary political thrust against the bailout is
spearheaded
by the Congressional class of '94 and their ilk... although I do worry that a
bailout
stacked high with social democratic regulatory stipulations will still lead to
a rout
of the dollar and the evisceration of my puny savings. (I tried to start an
offshore
euro-denominated account about six months ago but was foiled by temporary
unemployment and lack of a demonstrable income stream.)
Of course all of this is just posturing for undecideds (as Brad DeLong notes),
and
circumstances are fast-moving and fluid, so it's hard to correlate what is said
on
the dais with what will actually be done.
It's a well established and accurate theme on the blogz that Obama is a better
orator than debater... he gets antsy, stutters, and interrupts. This of course
is
proof positive that he is a Gold Coast elitist.
Bill O'Connor wrote:
>Another cruise missile liberal.
No kidding. The incantation that Iraq was a distraction from wiping out the
real foes
of the homeland makes Obama more Kerry than Clinton. Or maybe it just makes him
another DP standard bearer. But we knew that. But it's one thing to know this,
and
another to hear Obama blather on about capturing and killing bad guys. I
suppose I
am the visceral sort. Feed me another scare story about McCain and the neo-cons
or screen a clip of Palin waxing prosaic about "American values" and I
seriously ponder
the merits of lesser-evilism. Then feed me some footage of Obama in Brzeninski
mode
(comfortable shoes to inhabit for the guy) and I reconsider the advantages of
fuggedaboudit. All of which is an entirely predictable song and dance.
What was more revealing to me from the "comptent imperialism" point of view was
Obama's bemoaning of how Iraq war spending has indebted the US to the Bank of
China
and prevented the US from confronting China's foreign raw materials
sourcing/commercial
diplomacy. Now here is a man who has learned his CFR lessons well as opposed to
McCain's
Vietnam syndrome obsessions. Plus it scores points with the
populist-protectionist idiots
among the DP base who believe that the singular crime of BushCo has been to
enslave
honest folks to the yellow peril. This untold story is the nasty skeleton in
the closet of
nine-tenths of the US liberal-left, who would rather bash Beijing than make
common cause
with Chinese workers and peasants. It is goddamn pathetic.
This is just a verbal workout for me since I'm not stateside, and were I so I'd
be registered
in NY state where the outcome is not in doubt. But as strictly a fantastical
exercise, right
now I'm 4% for permanent residency outside the US, 3% in favor of Obama (lesser
evilism),
2% keyed up for a third party vote, 1% bent on McCain (the worser the better),
and
90% enthusiastic about swallowing hemlock.
JG
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