Quick Hits 9: When the Oceans Started Receding.

I haven't posted anything lately because work has left me completely exhausted for the past few weeks. So here are a few things on my mind lately.


-So were finally down to two candidates. I find myself agreeing with George Will on a couple of points he has made about the upcoming election. He stated that Obama is the more volatile a choice than Hillary would have been. Hillary would have gotten between 48% and 52% of the vote pretty much regardless of what transpired between now and November. Obama, on the other hand, could rise as high as 55% or sink as low as 46% depending on what happens. He also said that this election really isn't about McCain. It will wind up being a referendum on Obama. McCain is a known quantity, so people pretty much already know where they stand with regard to him.


-If I were advising Obama, I would have him take a week to do nothing but sleep, with maybe a few radio interviews and other low intensity campaigning. Last week I heard him give an answer to a question (a couple of them actually) that was almost Bush-like in terms of verbal ineptitude. At one point he continually groped for the word "ventilator", at one point saying "breathalyzer" before settling on "inhalator". I can only assume this was due to the physical exhaustion of all the months of a grinding campaign schedule.


-If McCain has gained any traction in the past few months, I haven't seen much evidence of it.


-The Obama's Witness/Obamamessiah phenomenon seems to be returning after seeming to wane during all the talk about his nutty pastor. I can't decide if this is just the result of people wanting to believe in something so badly that they'll put this guy up on a pedestal, the result of the ongoing dis-enlightenment (a phenomenon I believe is perfectly summed up in a lot of the utterly meaningless and anti-rational language used in this article), or something he is actually working to cultivate. His speech after the last primaries makes me think that the latter may be the case. The lofty rhetoric about when we started "caring for the sick", receding oceans, etc. probably rallied the faithful, but left me chuckling and shaking my head. He does mention that he's not a miracle worker often enough, but which part do you think sticks in peoples' minds? Also whenever he says (paraphrasing) "it's not just about me it's about you" I feel like completing the sentence by saying "it's about your ability to elect me". This carries a risk of disillusionment if he is elected and doesn't bring about rapid economic growth, universal health care, or "end the war" (something he seems to me to be trying very careful not to promise).


-For all the talk of McCain not having any new ideas, I've heard two that interest me. The "League of Democracies" idea seems to be one that could be a good idea. And I really like his idea about having the president have to go before congress on a regular basis to get grilled the way the British Prime Minister has to in the House of Commons.


-If I were the Republican National Committee, I would pay for Howard Dean to be on one of the Sunday talk shows every week. The last time I saw him on there he dealt the race card at least 4 times in the course of 10 minutes. If the Dems want to alienate the electorate, screaming "racism!" for the next 5 months would be a good way to do it. I think they should save that for cases of, you know, actual racism. But I don't know if that's in there DNA. I guess it's one of the dangers of building an electoral coalition on identity politics and grievance-mongering.


-I read Barry Goldwater's book The Conscience of a Conservative recently. Having been written in 1960, some parts were dated but the majority of it is just as true today as the day it was written. Many of the principles he talks about have been completely repudiated (to their detriment) by the current Bush-led GOP. For example he says spending cuts need to come before tax cuts. The current plan is tax cuts and increased spending based on the ideas of Laffer, etc.


-I read an article that said the home town of Ernesto Guevara, tee shirt model and executioner for Castro, has built a bronze statue in his honor. Maybe Charles Manson's home town should build a statue in his honor. Okay, maybe that's not fair. Guevara was involved in a lot more deaths than Manson was. "Go ahead and try them tomorrow morning- but execute them NOW!"


-Gore Vidal reminded us this week (again) how a steady diet of ideological extremism can atrophy a person's brain when he suggested that perhaps John McCain wasn't really a POW in Vietnam. This seems odd to me given the fact that the North Vietnamese used him for propaganda videos, took pictures of his capture, and built a monument at the spot where he was pulled out of the lake. The odd part is not that Vidal would say something stupid (he's made a lucrative career out of that), but that he would actually disbelieve the claims of a communist regime. I guess there's a first time for everything.

-The tribute to Tim Russert on Meet the Press was very well done. I wonder who will take over hosting that show. I hope it will not be Chris Matthews or Keith Olbermann, both of whom are way too obnoxious for that show.

-Finally, I was talking to my mom last night about her recent trip to Europe. At one point while in Bavaria her tour group went to the site of a mansion that had belonged to Adolf Hitler. I cracked up when she told me that. The thought of my mom touring something associated with Hitler was hilarious, because I can't imagine two people farther apart on the spectrum of human behavior than Hitler and my mom.