But hey, I've been wrong before. I certainly hope I'm not wrong this time, though -- not because I expect anything of Barack except warmed-over Clintonism, but because if Barack is defeated, all these formerly disillusioned Democrats whom Barack has snake-charmed back into the fold will have no opportunity to get disillusioned again. Lost in a wonderful wilderness of if-only's, many of them will remain dedicated DP cultists for the rest of their lives, utterly lost to reason and enlightenment.
I haven't paid sufficient attention to the paradox of the Beautiful Loser -- the candidate you have really persuaded yourself to believe in, and can still believe in because he lost and never got the chance to sell you down the river. The Beautiful Loser is one of the main ways the Democratic Party keeps hope alive, to borrow a phrase.
Win by losing. Quite a trick, really. Get their hopes up. Then lose. And the experience of having hoped will keep 'em coming back, until the memory goes dim and the hapless souls who shared it have all died off.
Here's hoping that Barack wins in November, and gets a chance to show us unmistakably what he's really all about.
Comments (6)
zillions of merit types
from generation boom on older
can't wait to see
the nations massive block of
deep fried white trash
by dint of their blighted indolent suspicious hateful spirits .... cast a flooding sea's worth of errr...bitter ... votes
in a sense
retiring to their ivy towers
and cocaine marathons
in just the ticket
so in spite of themselves
the best of us hope
once more the crisco people
wreck our country's
pilgrims' progress
once more banish higher hope
in brief
on election day
take our dusky yuppadoodled
collectively self willed
tinker belle in black face
and
spit him out like sushi
Posted by op | May 22, 2008 8:50 AM
Posted on May 22, 2008 08:50
beautiful loss
...just the ticket ??
why ???
cause we betters and bests
haven't a clue
what to do with real power
proof ???
we don't need no stinking proof
merit class sterility is genetic
the brightest of the best
that climb above the rest
like mother clinton
and larry summers
are always
society's utterly barren mules
Posted by op | May 22, 2008 8:56 AM
Posted on May 22, 2008 08:56
the usual run of operating accidents
change nothing but the drivers hair spray
only a real train wreck .....
Posted by op | May 22, 2008 8:58 AM
Posted on May 22, 2008 08:58
I may have mentioned this in another comment, but I'm really kicking myself right now for wishing for Hillary's defeat in the primaries -- right up until the moment that the Obama boy-band fan frenzy became too unbearable. Another case of pursuing short-term gain without considering the big picture. My goof.
Granted, like many, I'm getting a big charge out of seeing that prissy pasted-on smirk wiped off Senator Evita's face, but still...if I'd been patient and suffered through it a while longer I could've seen McCain wipe it off in November and enjoyed it even more, especially considering Smiff's recent remarks about how Obombirana is drawing people into the DP when what we really need is for them to nominate Hillary and drive people away in anger, disgust, disillusionment and alienation.
Still, I keep hoping that Hillary stays in it, and through judicious backbiting, backstabbing and bullying -- in other words, "turning on the old Clinton Charm" -- she steals the nomination in a brokered convention...or, if you insist, bloodbath. We can only hope -- if not just for the sake of creating space for a real peoples' movement for change, at least so that we don't have to put up with the goddamn' Obama hype anymore after the convention.
C'mon, Clintons; don't let us down now.
Posted by Mike Flugennock | May 22, 2008 12:59 PM
Posted on May 22, 2008 12:59
I agree with you MJS re: McCain. Polls do show some kind of favor for McCain amongst conservatives, but I sincerely doubt they will go out and vote for him in the end. It certainly seems very possible that many Catholic conservatives will stay at home now given McCain's enthusiastic reception of Pastor Hagee's endorsement. Anyway, what's amusing about the whole Obama-Clinton dichotomy is that on paper and in rhetoric, Hillary is to Obama's left on economic and social policies. I took that glassbooth quiz the other day and I got a 74 percent match with Hillary (94 with Nader and 90 with Gravel). I then sent it to a number of my liberal friends, who refused to disclose their results, but one obama fan admitted she was closer to hillary than Obama in her views a la glassbooth. Anyway, what I guess I am saying is that these people have no idea what Obama is even about. Not that that's news to anyone here...
By the way, here's a fun graph I love to send to my liberal friends: http://politicalcompass.org/usprimaries2008
Posted by dermokrat | May 23, 2008 7:24 AM
Posted on May 23, 2008 07:24
What Flugennock said.
The cherry on top would be VanHeuvel, Gitlin and Alterman at the convention helping the cops locate people to tear-gas and sic the dogs upon...
Posted by ms_xeno | May 23, 2008 5:49 PM
Posted on May 23, 2008 17:49