MucheDumbre

Watching Hillary Clinton bring an end to the roll call vote during the Democratic convention had several thoughts go through my mind.  First off, it looked like the Obama team wanted to make sure Hillary knew she was beaten by rubbing her nose in it.  Bad doggie!  I also thought of an executioner who tells the condemned, “Yeah, go ahead and you put the noose around your neck.”   Amusing?  Sure.  A little sad?  Yeah, that too.  When she stopped the roll call vote, Hillary probably knew she was well and truly fucked, but I didn’t get how fucked until today.

I was taking a shower after working out and was thinking about Hillary (believe me, this had to have been the first time I thought of her while I was naked) when it suddenly struck me like a bolt of lightning, “I’m out of conditioner!”  But after that, another thought occurred to me, Hillary lost her one good shot at being President.  That is something that she was no doubt aware of as she called off the roll call vote. 

Consider:  If Obama/Biden wins in November, and has a fairly successful Presidency, he’s in for 8 years, and Hillary doesn’t get a shot until 2016.  However, she is going to have competition: Joe Biden.  Biden is a man who has lusted for the Presidency for decades, and has made no bones about his ambition.  Biden is 65 now, and will be 73 in 2016.  Age is not quite the issue it used to be.  McCain is 72 today and still in the running.  Biden has a 90 year old mother, so maybe long lived genes run in his family.

So in 2016, Biden will have been the long serving Vice President, the establishment, standard bearer for his party. That would be an uphill battle for Hillary.  So barring some crazy political upheaval, Hillary’s only chance of being President is if Obama loses in November so she can hit it in 2012 with a big fat I told you so.  I suppose she could be content with being a New York Senator and fighting the good fight from the senate, but I’ve always thought the senate was a stepping stone, not a destination for her.  As a PUMA representative said on O’Reilly tonight (and I’m paraphrasing here), if Hillary had the top spot and Obama had the number two spot, that would guarantee 16 years of Democratic control of the Presidency.  Now it’s guaranteeing 16 more years of Republican control of the Presidency.

Well, at least there is a bright side.

I think Obama’s chances for winning the top spot are a bit better than the downcast PUMA rep gives him credit for.  But for some of these women, they have no one to vote for in November.

This brings me to the workout that led to the shower that led to the Hillary epiphany.  Yes, I’m telling the story in reverse order.  Pretend it’s that too clever by half Seinfeld episode when the gang went to India. Or if you want to get pseudo highbrow, pretend its Slaughterhouse-Five.

I was at the gym on the treadmill when McCain introduced Gov. Palin at Dayton.  At our gym we have a bank of TV’s across the wall for all of the treadmill and elliptical machine users to stare mindlessly at, just as if we were all at home on the couch.  Normally, I’m listening to my podcasts on my mp3 player, but watching the action on some of the TV’s I decided to unplug from that and plug into the jack on my treadmill to get the audio from one of the TV’s carrying the Palin speech..

I’m almost ashamed to admit it, but the first thing I thought of was, “Damn, she’s hot.” Not something I ever thought I would say about a potential VP choice, particularly after 7 plus years of Cheney.  I had never heard of Palin until today, but I had to say, she gave a good speech.  That’s important.  In politics it doesn’t matter how bright, knowledgeable or witty you are if you can’t communicate it. 

It became clear, at least to me, that McCain was seriously going after the Hillary supporters.  Particularly with this line from Palin’s speech:

I think as well today of two other women who came before me in national elections. I can’t begin this great effort without honoring the achievements of Geraldine Ferraro in 1984, and, of course, Sen. Hillary Clinton, who showed such determination and grace in her presidential campaign.

It was rightly noted in Denver this week that Hillary left 18 million cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling in America. But it turns out the women of America aren’t finished yet, and we can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all.

 So thanks, Hillary, for ramming your head again and again into that glass ceiling.  It should be loose enough now for Sarah Palin to push through.  But that’s always the way isn’t it?  Moses didn’t cross the river Jordan, and Jesse Jackson, who has been the go to guy for every racial grievance for the past few decades, is never going to be President.  Other’s get the rewards for sacrifices that the pioneers make.  I guess that’s why it’s called sacrifice.

Hillary supporters are not monolithic.  Most of them, after the bruising primary battle, dusted them selves off and like good soldiers supported their party’s nominee.  Some, like the downcast PUMA rep on FOX tonight, couldn’t.  Others will grudgingly vote for their party in November, and some won’t be able to bring themselves to.  And some, for the first time in their lives, are finding their party’s candidate so unacceptable they are thinking of voting Republican.

Crazy election times we are living in.

Earlier this morning…

I was at home at work when I heard on the radio that Palin was McCains VP pick.   Sarah who?   I clicked on the TV and channel surfed the news channels to try to get some info on her.  I didn’t really know what to think.  I knew that for Republicans, who McCain selected for VP was important, and if it wasn’t the right type of person, it was a deal breaker.  McCain was on iffy terms with many of his party as it was.  Trail balloons of him selecting Lieberman or Tom Ridge had enraged the Limbaugh’s and Hannity’s of the Republican pocket universe.  McCain had a multitude of bad choices and only a very few good choices.  I myself thought he would go with Romney, a man he personally despised but who might settle down the right wing of the party (paradoxically, since Romney as Governor had been more liberal that any other Republican running, but that’s another story).

What I quickly gathered about her: governor, mayor, NRA member, hunter, blunt, son in the Army, all made me think it was a good pick.  Not one I saw coming, but clearly one to shake things up.

Of course she could turn out to be friends with a terrorist, or have some sort of crazy preacher, and that could sour the deal.  But at first blush, she looks like a good VP pick, and one I wouldn’t mind seeing in Maxim.

So now the two tickets are, in a weird way, balanced.  They are both “historic” in the sense that no matter who wins, it’s going to be the first something.  And you have inexperience but great ability straddled with experience, just flipped on each of the tickets.  Biden, as the adult, is sitting in the backseat and letting the kid drive, and wizened McCain is driving Miss Sarah in his model T. 

Just a thought, but I think I might plan to take the day after election day off so I can sit up all night, eat my finely buttered popcorn, drink my beer, and blog away as the returns come in. 

This is going to be the best election ever!

Breaking news: The Surge worked.

Actually it’s not so breaking.  The results have been apparent for several months now.  Civilian casualties are down, military casualties are down, and acts of violence in general are down.  Iraq is no paradise, but on the other hand it’s not quite the hell on earth that could have safely described it in 2006.  It’s hard to argue now that it was the wrong strategy, so let’s take a look down memory lane and see who opposed it eh?

Senator John Kerry:  “The simple fact is that sending in over 20,000 additional troops isn’t the answer–in fact, it’s a tragic mistake. It won’t end the violence; it won’t provide security; …it won’t turn back the clock and avoid the civil war that is already underway; it won’t deter terrorists, who have a completely different agenda; it won’t rein in the militias.”

Kerry’s fellow Democratic Senator from Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy, declared the surge, “an immense new mistake.”  Kennedy actively tried to fight sending any more troops.

Senator Christopher Dodd, former Presidential candidate and onetime threesome partner with the previously mentioned Senator Kennedy:  “We don’t need a surge of troops in Iraq–we need a surge of diplomacy and politics. Every knowledgeable person who has examined the Iraq situation for the past several years–Baker and Hamilton, senior military officials, junior officers–has drawn the same conclusion–there is no military solution in Iraq. To insist upon a surge is wrong.”

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer (really, is that his real name?), when asked is she was worried that the gains of the surge might be lost if the troops were removed too hastily, “There haven’t been gains, Wolf…The gains have not produced the desired effect, which is the reconciliation of Iraq. This is a failure. This is a failure.”

Governor Bill Richardson, former Presidential candidate and yapping Vice Presidential wannabe had this to say on the surge:  “The president is wrong. We don’t need anymore troop surges, we need a diplomatic surge. We must get all our troops out of Iraq as soon as possible.”

Senator Joseph Biden, yet another former Presidential nominee, and currently running for either Obama’s Vice President or his Secretary of State, whichever will put him in front of the cameras the most, told this to Secretary of State Rice on the surge:  “We heard a plan to escalate the war, not only in Iraq but possibly into Syria and Iran as well…I believe the President’s strategy is not a solution, Secretary Rice, I believe it is a tragic mistake.”

And of course Senator Hillary Clinton, who tried to play the man in her ultimately failed Presidential race against Senator Barack Obama:  “Based on the president’s speech tonight, I cannot support his proposed escalation of the war in Iraq…The President simply has not gotten the message sent loudly and clearly by the American people, that we desperately need a new course. The president has not offered a new direction, instead he will continue to take us down the wrong road, only faster.”

There was some Democratic support however.  Senator Lieberman said this in support of the surge:  “it’s just unfair to our troops implementing the surge, to Gen. Petraeus, who helped create this totally different strategy — which is working — to essentially pull the rug out from under them, to take away their reason for fighting before they even have a chance.”

Oh wait, Lieberman is an independent now.  Although he caucuses with the Democrats he is regarded as traitor.  Quite a fall from being the Democratic Vice Presidential candidate 7 plus years ago.  But I don’t want to make it sound like only Democrats opposed the surge.  There was some Republican opposition as well. 

Retiring fence sitter and amateur historian Senator John Warner had this to say, “Young men and women of US forces and coalition forces should not be caught in the crossfire of a civil war prompted by who should have succeeded Mohammed in — what is it? — 650 AD?”

Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel, who teased the country on his decision to think about deciding to consider whether to entertain the notion of running for President, had this to say:  “This is a dangerously wrong-headed strategy that will drive America deeper into an unwinnable swamp at a great cost. We cannot escape the reality that there will be no military solution in Iraq.”

But right now, the opinions of those who matter most are the two Presidential candidates, John McCain and Barack Obama.  Come January of next year, no matter who wins, George Bush will be packing his bags and whatever White House towels he can get away with.  As he leaves, his policies leave with him.

McCain’s views on the surge are well known.  In fact, you could argue that he risked his political career on the surge.  But what did fellow contender, Barack Obama have to say?

Before the surge: “It is clear at this point that we cannot, through putting in more troops or maintaining the presence that we have, expect that somehow the situation is going to improve, and we have to do something significant to break the pattern that we’ve been in right now.”

After the surge was announced:  “I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq are going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse.”

Of course you will have to look a little bit for Obama’s earlier comments now.  He scrubbed his website to clear out his previous anti surge comments.  Now, guess what?  The surge worked:  “In the 18 months since President Bush announced the surge, our troops have performed heroically in bringing down the level of violence. New tactics have protected the Iraqi population, and the Sunni tribes have rejected Al Qaeda–greatly weakening its effectiveness.”

Hey, anyone can be wrong.  It’s possible that someday I might be wrong about something.  It’s not likely, but never say never.  But it’s stunning when an entire political party is wrong about something so important.  The Democratic Party and the mainstream media was as one on the idea a year and a half ago that the surge couldn’t work and shouldn’t be tried. 

In this election, Barack Obama isn’t running on the experience card.  McCain has that locked up.  He’s running on his judgment. Because he opposed the war on Iraq, he is somehow supposed to have better judgment?  Sean Penn opposed the war too and he thought it was a good idea to marry Madonna.  His supposedly superior judgment had him opposing the surge too.

It wasn’t judgment that had Obama opposing the war,  it was the reflex of the anti-war left.  The same reflex that had him oppose the surge.  I’m still waiting for an example of his good judgment.