Political Crack

294 More Days of W

But the stupid pundits will be with us forever:

The Democratic primary is starting to look like World War I. The origins of the dispute are forgotten. Pennsylvania is the Somme. No chance, though, that the Clintons, who lead the imperial armies, will consent to paying reparations at the Treaty of Denver.

The most striking resemblance to the Great War has been the campaign-worker body-count. They’re strewn all over the battlefield. Geraldine Ferraro (killed for bringing up if Obama weren’t black), Samantha Power (Hillary’s a “monster”), the intrepid if foolhardy Rev. Wright (multiple offenses), James Hagee (Catholics as the “anti-Christ”), Bill Cunningham (“Barack Hussein Obama”), Bill Sheehan (for bringing up Obama’s drug use). All gone. Anyone working for or in support of a political campaign these days is entering a free-fire zone.

Some say the high casualty rate in the campaigns is the result of indiscriminate political correctness. Campus speech codes were put in place to monitor people who said the “wrong thing” about favored groups, often categorized as holding “minority status” by dint of race, gender or sexual preference. Now the Democratic campaigns are using the toxic PC gas on each other.

But something more powerful seems to be in the air. The Samantha Power incident was a case study in the campaigns’ current habit of leaving the wounded for dead. Quoted in a newspaper published in Scotland, Ms. Power, an admired writer on genocide, said of Hillary Clinton: “She is a monster, too — that is off the record — she is stooping to anything.”

Time was a remark like that would earn its imprudent utterer a trip to the woodshed. Now it’s the firing squad.

This may just be a dirty fucking hippie talking, but I’m pretty sure thatuntil all the veterans of a given war are dead, it is considered … how to put this … ridiculously fucking uncool to use said horrific, unimaginable war to make your cutesy metaphors about a presidential race that, unless I’ve been utterly misinformed, hasn’t actually killed anybody. Just … badly done.

Henninger goes on to deplore the idea that when people who are working for or associated with various candidates are fucking stupid, other people can read about it and see it on the Internets, a problemRoy handles with aplomb here.

Schmuck.

A.

6 thoughts on “294 More Days of W”

  1. Way to fuck up your war terms, too. “Free fire zones” existed in Vietnam, not the Great War.
    Let’s see…what else…Rev. Wright wasn’t a campaign worker, James Hagee has nothing to do with the Democratic primary and hasn’t been hounded for his bullshit, and, in the biggest “WTF” of all, Pennsylvania is the Somme?
    Seriously, that makes zero fucking sense.
    Can I get one of these cushy jobs writing opinion pieces? I’ll ease up on the cursing, I promise.

  2. Why is the struggle for candidacy a problem? Because it’s bringing out record numbers of voters? I have yet to see the analysis that takes this into account. Because it means the Democrats don’t present a ein reich, ein volk, ein Party, front to the American voters (whom they then blithely ignore. “So?”, said the Prince of Darkness VP Cheney)? Is it because we put away all partisan politics when we instituted the primary system, and a candidate must be inevitable in order to be viable in November?
    McCain arose from a primary of pipsqueaks and inevitablities (anybody remember Rudy?). Huckabee? Thompson? Don’t make me laugh. Romney was so plastic even the GOP wouldn’t have him. McCain was the default choice, the last man standing. Democrats are motivated to turn out in huge numbers to back their choice, and the choices are so good and so close on every issue that the differences between them are barely distinguishable, except to the true believers. But in 2000 we had Gore, because he was the VP; in 2004 we had Kerry, because New Hampshire decided he was “electable.” Now we have a real campaign with real people excited about the candidates (as I repeatad nauseum, more people voted in the Texas primary than voted in the general election in 2004), and the party is doomed?
    Feh. This isn’t “political analysis.” It’s mindless repitition of a narrative with no connection to reality. Let the campaign continue! Other states want to vote, too!
    Democracy in action! Democracy inaction! Either way, it’s better than what the GOP has on offer.

  3. Totally OT, but just wanted to let A know that I am awaiting the arrival of Battlestar Galactica Season 1 Discs 1 through 3, which should arrive in the mail today.
    I am watching due to your advocacy and am excited to start.

  4. why is there a need for inaccurate historical allusions? can’t think of a football one?

  6. The wingnuts just love war, as foreign policy, a way to diss Democrats as weaklings, and ridiculous metaphor.
    I say this as someone who would not be here had my grandfather’s serious wound in the Meuse-Argonne been fatal.
    And who got a nice high number when the Vietnam draft lottery came my way in 1971.
    BTW, you were great at EschaCon, Athenae.
    You mentioned, but did not tell all about your experiences with “Lord” Conrad Black.
    Do tell, or link.

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