TW3 — and the HillaBamaDramaRama

That Was The Week That Was … the war of the words. And the speechifying just keeps coming.

On that note, both Dem candidates gave a talk on economics today — Hil says She can fix it; Barack says We can. If there isn’t a huge gap in their proposed solutions [although that seems to be enlarging, some] their styles continue to come from two different ends of the spectrum and open different psychic trails into the future.

In equal coverage of the Pub side, McRib gave a speech on Iraq, declaring, with the kind of old-poop-ism I’ve come to expect when listening to his simplistic, Bush’ian rhetoric, “We’re succeeding. I don’t care what anybody says.” This is an example of what Ambassador Marc Ginsberg calls Mac’s “blazing saddle diplomacy.” So John doesn’t care what we think, nor does Bush, who gave a speech on terrorism … he thinks that the new wave of violence in Iraq is a ‘very positive development.’ Do ya know what he’ll say if the Iraqi army isn’t able to deal effectively with the insurgents? We’re staying. We’re staying when they’re losing to help them — we’re staying when they’re winning to support them. Stay the damned course.

Whatever the Pubs spout these days is not polarizing anymore, not frightening, not even interesting … it’s just wah-wah, a flat and disconnected buzz that hits the ear like the hum of a mosquito. What is old, tried and failed continues to whine like white noise … McCain, Dub, conservatism, imperialism. Old.

Anyhow, back to what pundit Andy Ostroy calls the HillaBamaDramaRama, I had to admire the accuracy of the recent jab going around the web that Hillary is “doing a Tanya Harding” — knee-capping the leading competition … killing all the villagers to capture the village [and it takes a village, right??] I guess enough of us have realized that it’s character we need to be examining here [maybe some of us are thinking about that final scene in Primary Colors where it becomes clear that winning is all that matters, not how ...] and Hil is losing the numbers she was building on the bones of Rev. Wright. After her Bosnia gaffe and the trouncing she took, she reinserted Wright back into the conversation — is that how she’d handle that 3 am phone call?? Finger pointing? [I keep hoping she'll shake herself as in a dream, smell the coffee and show me a little of the woman-stuff she's made of ... I think it's in there, but I haven't seen it yet.]

Here, by the way, is the whole of the sermon in question — if you take time to read it, you may find Wright’s oration and his pastoral influence … as did the minister at Hil’s former church in WaDC … well worth consideration. The sound bite was just that — and the simpletons lapped it up like honey. Again — and to be fair, equal time to all contenders — while both Obama and McRib continue to take flak about their religious picks, I’m afraid we need to take a look at Mrs. Clinton’s loyalties … after digging and digging to find them; turns out they’re very quiet, very secret. And you KNOW that’s not a good sign. Must read here, and more here and here if you’re interested in where the uber-elite meet to plan government and praise Jesus.

All this leaves progressives wondering if there could be more than a whiff of truth in the smoke that’s signaling the possibility of a sacrifice of this election to Mac, positioning the Clintons for a 2012 win [counting on the desperation Four More Years would give us.] I know the possibility pushes the envelope — but what hasn’t pushed it in the last months and years; nothing should surprise us anymore. And, although Reuters made this statement today, “Somebody forgot to tell Hillary Clinton the Democratic Presidential race is over and Barack Obama won,” Hil has promised to keep on keeping on, though we’re all exhausted … me, specifically.

I’m at that “by their fruits shall ye know them,” place. Like George Lakoff said in his piece, What Made Obama’s Speech Great, “The true power of the speech is that it does what it says. It not only talks about empathy, it creates it.”

So — the question to ask is … what’s been created lately? Hillary has certainly created a clearer picture for me, if no one else — and a knee-jerk response from about a fifth of both Dem’s followers pledging to vote for McCain if their candidate doesn’t win. Nice thought process, Americans – hand the win to the lizard-brains if your feelings get hurt! Let’s hope it’s more growl than substance, since one these three — the old man, the old playbook or the new, unexplored factor … will take us into 2012.

And so it goes — some of it will no doubt show up in the surrealistic juxtaposition of NEXT weeks TW3. And if all this leaves you feeling like the gal, below, who woke up with a new anus [the mind reels, as do the puns] maybe, hopefully, eventually it will lead us to something like the last bit here, the story of Petra the swan; THAT would be something to see!

Jude

HARPER’S WEEKLY REVIEW
March 25, 2008

As the war in Iraq stretched into its fifth year the
U.S. death toll rose to 4,000, and a national conference
intended to reconcile sectarian groups was boycotted by
Sunnis. Senator John McCain visited Jordan and told
reporters that it was “common knowledge and has been
reported in the media that Al Qaeda is going back into
Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq
from Iran.” Senator Joe Lieberman was seen whispering into
McCain’s ear, after which McCain apologized. “The Iranians
are training extremists,” he explained. “Not Al Qaeda.”
Later, in Jerusalem, a fistfight among photographers,
soldiers, police officers, and tourists erupted at
McCain’s Western Wall photo shoot, resulting in damage to
several pairs of sunglasses. In response to fury over a
handful of remarks made by Reverend Jeremiah Wright during
the course of his 36 years as a pastor of Trinity United
Church of Christ, Senator Barack Obama delivered a nuanced
and serious speech about race in America. “I think it’s an
obligation of any opponent to use this issue,” said
Congressman Peter King (R., New York), “to make Reverend
Wright a centerpiece of the campaign.” The National Archives
released more than 11,000 pages of Senator Hillary
Clinton’s daily schedules as first lady, providing proof
that she once read ‘If You Give a Moose a Muffin’ out loud
to a group of children. Scientists concluded that
destroying information by throwing it into a black hole
was not effective, because the information could leak from
the hole at 1,000 bits per second, the same speed as a
dial-up Internet connection.

The Dalai Lama said that he would resign as the spiritual
leader of Tibet if violence in the area
escalated. Francisco Duque III, the Philippine Secretary
of Health, encouraged Roman Catholic worshippers who
planned on flaying the skin off their backs or crucifying
themselves on Easter to get a tetanus shot first and to
use clean whips and nails. Mikhail Gorbachev admitted that
he is a Christian, and Michael Stipe, lead singer of
R.E.M., announced that he is gay. “I thought it was pretty
obvious,” said Stipe, who has been explaining that he is
not heterosexual for nearly a decade. ‘Playgirl’ invited
former New York governor Eliot Spitzer to pose nude in its
pages; Spitzer’s replacement, David Paterson, became the
first black governor of New York and promptly admitted
that he had in the past frequented a New York City Days
Inn hotel to have sex with “a woman other than my wife.”
Theodore Pederson, once an aide to former New Jersey
governor James McGreevey, said that for three years he,
McGreevey, and Dina Matos, who would later marry McGreevey,
would have dinner and drinks at T.G.I. Friday’s and follow
that with sex as a threesome. “Friday night specials,”
Pederson said, “developed into Saturday mornings.”
Researchers found that a diet that includes lots of folate
will keep sperm healthy.

The cubicle turned 40, Viagra turned 10, and Hotel Luxor,
the oldest whorehouse in Germany’s red light district,
announced that it would close for lack of business. Marvin
Richardson, an organic strawberry farmer in Idaho who is
challenging Senator Larry Craig for his Senate seat, had
his name legally changed to Pro-Life. An 81-year-old
Australian committed suicide by building a robot that shot
him four times in the head, and ABBA’s former drummer Ola
Brunkert accidentally cut his neck on a piece of shattered
glass at his Mallorca home, walked outside, collapsed in
his garden, and died. Horst Rippert, an 88-year-old former
German fighter pilot, told the biographer of Antoine de
Saint-Exupery that one of the 28 planes that Rippert
gunned down during World War II was piloted by ‘The Little
Prince’ author. “If I had known,” Rippert said, “I wouldn’t
have fired.” President George W. Bush spoke with soldiers
in Afghanistan. “I’m a little envious,” he said via a
remote video link. “It must be exciting for you–in some
ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting
danger.” An elderly German woman filed a lawsuit against a
hospital in Bavaria after she checked in for a leg
operation and was instead given a new anus. A study
concluded that 95 percent of all Native Americans in
North, Central, and South America descended from six
“founding mothers” who lived 20,000 years ago; researchers
discovered a hidden ocean underneath the crust of Titan,
Saturn’s largest moon; and a NASA probe revealed that Mars
may be covered in table salt. It was reported that Petra,
the German black swan who fell in love with a swan-shaped
paddleboat two years ago, has moved on to a new
relationship with a live white swan. The two are now
building a nest together.

– Claire Gutierrez
http://harpers.org/archive/2008/03/WeeklyReview2008-03-25

“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007

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