(Photo Credit: Haraz N. Ghanbari, AP Photos, via Wa Po, 8/23/08)Nice touch, don't you think? Sending the text message announcing that Hillary was not the veep selection just after 3 a.m.? Yeah, we figure it means some great and powerful Obamaniac has been lurking here in Roxie's World along with all the English profs and pretty boys. Whateve, dudes. Good luck to you.
We're not on board the love train yet, kids. Hell, some of us aren't even out of bed yet. Let us do some thinking, reading, caffeinating, and fulminating, and we'll get back to you later. Meantime, here's a little YouTube of one of the loquacious Senator Biden's finer moments. Note to Obama campaign: Take it from an old dog. You will want to have a muzzle and a short leash handy for this big (old) fella.
Well, it's not much fun being right--Obama really doesn't have as much confidence as people say. Bluster? He's got plenty of that, and that's what folks have been calling confidence. Though they look alike, they are far from the same thing.
ReplyDeleteSo when I heard the news, the first thing that popped into my head was the Beatles' classic, "I'm a Loser," which Obama stands a good chance of singing on November 5:
What have I done to deserve such a fate
I realize I have left it too late
And so it's true, pride comes before a fall
I'm telling you so that you won't lose all
How could someone be so unimaginative, so boring, so conventional in his choices? Change? Ha! This is same ole same ole. You've made a big deal about "judgment," Senator Obama, and your choice here, your apparent refusal to even consider the choice of 18 million voters, raises big questions about your judgment. You and many of your followers have been acting like you don't need Senator Clinton and her voters while she has responded to your decision with her characteristic magnanimity. We'll all see whether you're right about not needing her or her voters: but never fear, we hear ya!
--Goose
Some of us are old enough to remember Biden's conduct at the Clarence Thomas appointment hearings in 1991. Disgraceful. I'll have to look up a clip of that on YouTube.
ReplyDeleteAnd, if my close-to-middle-aged brain is correct, Biden has been caught plagiarizing more than once. I remember two instances--an article for a law journal and a speech he gave some time in the late 1980s. Is this the kind of experience Obama wants? Also, I wonder what those Obamaniacs who criticized Clinton for being an insider are saying about their messiah's choice in veeps? If anything, Biden is more of the same. And didn't he vote to authorize the "war"?
ReplyDeleteBiden certainly did vote to authorize the war, but we always knew Obama's stance on that was b.s. Wonder how the bloggerboyz will react to this bold, courageous, hopey-changey choice.
ReplyDeleteWake me when it's over, kids. This old bitch needs a good long nap.
You all have but two choices (provided that you do not want a McCain presidency, and I don't think Roxie has gone that far off the deep end): you can either stay at home, thereby helping to put McCain in the White House, or you can cast a vote for Obama (despite what an e-mail that I received last week said - Obama does not suggest a third Bush term). What's it gonna be?
ReplyDeleteHello Roxie, a note here in appreciation of Goose's quote from the Beetles — and hopefully to brighten this day — a secret disclosed !! — yes, a new sighting of T-shirted, non-conformist John Lennon, in Dickinsondom !! — matched up with the Tao Te Ching and an ED poem — and expressing my sentiments of DEFIANCE exactly...
ReplyDeleteLove the new blog, Eden's Innuendo! It's beautiful, and Goose will be delighted by the Lennon/ED connection. Defiance -- Yes: We are with you.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I'm loathe to respond to comments left my anonymous posters, I must take issue with this simplistic view of this matter. While I know that *most* of us here in Roxie's World will punch the Obama/Biden chad come November, this doesn't mean we should immediately stop expressing our frustration with the DNC and the Democratic party, as a whole. Framing this situation in binary terms is reductive and obnoxious. It also glosses over the incredible degree of sexism that Clinton faced when running her campaign. Obama is at best a moderate and I'm sick of his apostolic minions suggesting otherwise.
ReplyDeleteOh I DO love the Lennon-Dickinson connection, Eden's Innuendo! That's FABULOUS. Two of my favorite poets. . . .mmm. . . .maybe they ARE my very favorites. Thank you for that and congrats on the wonderful new blog.
ReplyDeleteWhat I'm really sick of is the fact that both political parties spend $20 million plus on their conventions while public schools can't afford books and are otherwise underfunded and while there are more and more homeless in this country. The Democratic Party has lost its way, and somehow this spring and summer's gutless blustery behavior mimicking Republican vote thievery and so forth just brought that all home to this slow learner. So, as Roxie has urged, I'm focusing on important issues where I can in fact perhaps make a difference: Transgender Equality in Montgomery County, MD, and perhaps donations to any schools in our area that do in fact need books, etc.
Running an errand I was listening to the radio and I was struck by something that's caught my notice for some time now: many Obama supporters sound bitter and angry; yep, that's no typo, Obama supporters--not Clinton's or others whom they accuse of being bitter. Just an observation, and I'm not certain what it means, but there's a lot of anger in that camp.
Oh politics -- during her only visit to Washington, D.C., Emily Dickinson is rumored to have said to a "prim old Chief Justice of the Supremest sort, when the plum pudding on fire was offered--'Oh, Sir, may one eat of hell fire with impunity here?" (as reported by her niece, Martha Dickinson Bianchi, in Life & Letters of ED 46).
--Goose
I think that ultimately, this was an extremely smart and savvy pick. I think that a Clinton choice would have been a moment of clever realpolitik, but with the choice of Biden, Obama has proven that this decision was not about a power play to grab a bloc of voters (who will and should, by and large, vote for him come November) or a state, or even a region (totally has the Mid-Atlantic sewed up). This was about creating a vivacious, idea-centric but non-ideological team of willing partners. Hillary as running-mate would have likely been something like an arranged marriage: two perfectly capable people who would feel pressured to like one another and govern with one another. Symbolic gestures aside, theirs likely would have been an awkward, dysfunctional relationship.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Joe Biden never got on national TV, waving his arms around and shouting, "SHAME ON YOU, BARACK OBAMA!" You think the GOP has good material with their current "Biden doesn't think Obama is ready" ad? Think of the goldmine of Obama-Clinton primary material they could tap into.
Biden also never took sides in the primary bloodbath, after he dropped out. His loyalty to the party was pure and whole. Yes, the guy loves to hear himself talk, but I honestly believe that he's ego-free -- a regular guy who uses his powers to promote good ideas, stick it to hypocrites, and in general act as a paradigm of the incorruptible political leader. The guy is a tough, brilliant, tenacious warrior who knows the game inside and out.
Also, this VP recruitment couldn't have happened to a nicer guy -- someone who has toiled in Congress for more than half his life, being a sort of second Teddy Kennedy. You can tell that he's humbled and proud to be a part of this; it will never be about vendettas, or missed opportunities, or Freudian psychodrama, or power plays. Biden will share power, and you know that in 8 years, he will have no interest in the presidency (he'll be 73). The vice presidency isn't a pithy stepping stone for him, and I doubt he'll ever look at Obama and feel like he got screwed out of the Presidency. In other words, he will be a civil servant above all. Not to say that Hillary Clinton isn't -- I think she's a remarkable civil servant -- but I think that Obama's no-drama, no-nonsense approach meshes much, much better with Biden's feisty political courage than it does with Clinton's personal idealism.
I hope that you're happy with the Biden pick. I really think that he offers a lot of what Hillary would have (a lust for a good political debate, an admirable work ethic, a sense of duty to country, and the vigor of someone 20 years younger), but in a humble, low-maintenance package with little baggage. Some plagiarism charges 20 years ago and a questionable bankruptcy bill (which McCain voted for, so it'll be a moot point) really do not dent the guy.
I'd love it if Dems could get past the convention and forget about the wounds of the past. Obama and Biden are candidates of the here and now -- and they won't still be fighting April's battles.
Thoughts?
Well, here ya go: since Obama chose not to be bold or new with his VP choice, then Biden was probably the best choice. By contrast, choosing HRC would have been both bold and new -- we would have had two much-discriminated-against groups represented on the Democratic ticket. Plus, the nominee would have displayed the confidence to choose the opponent who was statistically tied with him at the end of the primaries--and that's really a different way of operating politically. But with that choice, Obama eviscerated his own rhetoric of change (which was already empty after his pulling out of public financing, then voting for FISA, and so forth. . .we've seen conventional and even conservative choices all summer). This choice is what he had to do after painting himself into the corner of "no way will it be HRC," but it suggests that he is not confident enough to do anything other than the same ole same ole. Obama now seems to be looking backward rather than forward, which saddens me. Also, Biden was sharply critical of Obama's vague plans for withdrawing from Iraq, so I'm not sure how they're going to square that one.
ReplyDeleteEven I, Goose, was not alive when Richard Nixon ran on the following slogan, but for this voter, Obama has taken me right back to the future. Campaigning for Congress, Nixon's slogan was, "A vote for Nixon is a vote for change." I don't have time to look it up now, but I'm fairly certain Nixon did the same thing in 1968. So, running on "change" is nothing new and it usually ends up to be chimerical.
So, I'm kind of dazed to be totally uninspired by the Democratic ticket. My expectations have been considerably lowered, that's for sure, and, as I wrote yesterday, I'm putting my political energies into causes where I can make a difference.
Obama needs to hope that McCain will likewise make a predictable, "safe" choice. And he needs to hope that Biden, who's an ok guy, doesn't do anything that makes him seem unintentionally risible (which he has had a habit of doing).
--Goose