politics

Amidst the multi-year media onslaught that our presidential election process has become, I’ve had to adjust my critical thinking filter to an even finer sieve than before. Sometimes it occurs to me that at least the news media is flooding the landscape with an issue that matters to people’s lives. At other times, though, the campaign overkill reaches such a level of absurdity that I wonder if perhaps these press hacks aren’t qualified to tell us about anything more important than Anna Nicole’s baby daddy, so maybe they should stick with that.

Consider for example this AP/Yahoo News poll and writeup published yesterday, which concludes that John McCain is the candidate of choice among pet owners.

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Memo to Sen. Dianne Feinstein: thanks a whole big bundle.

Too well I recall the morning last November when I read your stated intention to vote in favor of confirming Michael Mukasey as U.S. Attorney General. It made what would have been a pleasant breakfast at a local café go down quite a bit less easily. I narrowly averted embarrassment, because your characterizations of Judge Mukasey as independent-minded and repulsed by the idea of torture were such stuff as spit-takes are made on. I couldn’t believe that you, my home state’s senior senator, had watched the same confirmation hearings as I had and not come away similarly disgusted at Mukasey’s craven dodging of the torture issue.

Your op-ed included a desire to see Judge Mukasey come before the senate panel again to have another chat about the whole Jack Bauer-iziation of American justice thing. Well, who’s back on the Hill today but your guy Mike the AG, front and center, talking waterboarding and destroyed CIA interrogation tapes. You must’ve been geeked, armed with a bucket of popcorn and ready to see The Muke torque up and bring the outrage, huh?

There are times when a mere “I told you so” doesn’t seem to cover it.
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Conveniently for me, South Carolina’s The State has stated in their endorsement of Barack Obama the exact reason that I support him:

due credit: Andrew Sullivan

On positions from Iraq to health care, the policy differences between Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama are minute… The one most significant difference between them can be found in how they would approach the presidency - and how the nation might respond.

…[We] have a good idea what a Clinton presidency would look like. The restoration of the Clintons to the White House would trigger a new wave of all-out political warfare. That is not all Bill and Hillary’s fault - but it exists, whomever you blame, and cannot be ignored. Hillary Clinton doesn’t pretend that it won’t happen; she simply vows to persevere, in the hope that her side can win. Indeed, the Clintons’ joint career in public life seems oriented toward securing victory and personal vindication.

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Even in this era of with-us-or-against-us partisanship, I never cease to be amazed at the neocons’ mendacious, irresponsible, utterly illogical denial of the escalating environmental crisis. You can arm yourself with Coby Beck’s excellent syllabus, but what can you ultimately do about people who are shallow enough to play politics with the habitability of the planet?

I have beaten my head against this particular wall in far too many conversations, so today, I’m sending in the cavalry.

Who’s a puppet now?