I have neither read nor watched any "news" in about 5 weeks, and I was reminded this week of why this abreviated abstinence surely added years to my life.
The one bit of "news" I have been privy to recently is that John McCain made an ad linking Barack Obama and Britney Spears, deriding them both simply as "celebrities" who might make you want to throw your underwear on the stage but who you should not want to be in charge of bombing Iran.
Really? There are so many ways to dissect this phantasmagoric culture-fuck that I hardly know where to begin.
Firstly, I guess it's refreshing that the ad didn't subtly apply that, if Brother Obama were elected, he would deflower our precious and pure nubile womenfolk. This may be due in part to the fact that Britney Spears is about as pure as and nubile as a truck-stop bathroom.
The relative chastity of our favorite daughters aside, I am serious when I say I applaud the lack of overt "Obama's gonna pimp out our women" ads. We have made progress in this regard, at least; nobody's making ads with Barack Obama filling in for Willie Horton. The fallback strategy, however, is bizarre in the extreme.
John McCain isn't saying we need to save our Britneys from Barack; he's saying Britney is Barack! Welcome to post-racial America, which is less racist but every bit as idiotic as the prior iteration.
It has been rather fascinating to witness how Hillary Clinton, and now John McCain, have gone to great pains to paint Obama's infectious popularity as being ipso facto evidence of his lack of real leadership qualities. Surely one cannot be both popular and wise!
What a dismal worldview this is; it leaves no room for likeable people that are actually worth knowing. If one is interesting, inspiring, in touch, he must necessarily be illegitimate, naive, perhaps even devious, nay, treacherous.
The problem with this argument, and the reason Senators Clinton and McCain are having a hard time refining the rubric of this narrative, is that it implies a rather dismal view of the intelligence and judgement of the American people.
Their argument says, essentially, "If the American people are intoxicated by a politician, that obviously means that said politician is a demagogue and a charlatan." The inescapable implication, of course, is that American voters are saps, which is true, but which must not be spoken in polite company (and if Presidential Candidates know anything, it's Political Correctness and Polite Company).
But to equate Barack Obama speaking to hundreds of thousands of Europeans, who would have stoned and spat upon our current president had he ever dared venture into public in a European capital, with a pop star whose claim to fame is the infrequency with which she wears underwear is....well, it's so pathetic that it's not even worth getting into a high-brow dissection of the thought process that went into it.
McCain, it is now manifest, is desperate. He should not feel feel desperate, however, as desperation implies some sort of control over one's destiny which is perceived to be slipping out of reach. John McCain, however, never had control over anything.
McCain's lack of control is one of the most interesting things about this election, and it is a thing that could be rather liberating if the candidate himself accepted it. Put simply, this election has absolutely nothing to do with John McCain.
This election is a referendum on Barack Obama, and nothing more (as if that were not enough). John McCain is a brave man and a relatively decent man, but that is totally immaterial to the parameters of this election.
Americans will vote on whether or not they are comfortable with Obama. If they are not, it would make no difference who Obama's opponent was unless Obama was running against a darker-skinned person, perhaps even a woman, a lesbian, an atheist, a communist, or a Muslim (surely, several million voters are convinced that Obama is one of these things).
I am always one to look for historical precedent, and the one I am drawn to is the 1960 election. As with all historical analogies, the incongruities far outnumber the parallels, but it one sense, I think the comparison is apt.
The 1960 election pitted John Kennedy against Richard Nixon. Nixon was the sitting vice-president, and though still in his 40's, he was not the candidate of "change". He was a known quantity, promising to do nothing much more than not rock the boat.
Kennedy, however, was different. His youth, his religion, and his inner circle all represented dramatic change in the context of his times.
That election, accordingly, was nothing more than a referendum of whether people were okay with a young, roguish (read: scumbag), Catholic, openly intellectual (unlike today, when candidates are pressured to dumb down) candidate. Poor Dick Nixon, who was a far wiser man, indeed a great man, man than mainstream American thought acknowledges, got lost in the shuffle.
It isn't that Nixon in '60 and McCain in '08 are utterly predictable automatons; they are both strong candidates in their own right. But, due to the nature of their respective opponents, Dick and Mac found themselves in elections in which they wasted their time by even bothering to campaign.
This leads to the question: when the establishment candidate realizes that his only chance at winning is to make voters scared of endorsing his "radical" opponent, how does the establishment candidate react?
Well, Dick Nixon reacted by visiting all 50 states (back in the age when a round trip to Alaska was a week long, semi-dangerous proposition and an utter waste of time in terms of vote-gathering). Nixon took his case to the people in a way that no presidential candidate had done before.
Nixon fought hard (and, objectively speaking, won that election), but he never attacked Kennedy by comparing him to Elvis or to James Dean. There was never any commerical implying that, since Kennedy's wife was so hot, he must be a halfwit.
Yet that is what McCain, or at least his campaign (and does this man not put the "pain" in campaign?) has stooped to. No one likes a hater. Barack Obama has many manifest weaknesses that McCain could tastefully and constructively adress and exploit, but he seems not to know how.
And do you know why? It isn't just because Obama's a celebrity; it's because of how Americans, even stodgy old Johnny Mac, apparently, behave around celebrities. Utterly intimidated, relived of your senses, so flustered and disoriented that your own value escapes you, and you are left with nothing but envy. And, not to get all Yoda with it, envy leads to hate.
The one bit of "news" I have been privy to recently is that John McCain made an ad linking Barack Obama and Britney Spears, deriding them both simply as "celebrities" who might make you want to throw your underwear on the stage but who you should not want to be in charge of bombing Iran.
Really? There are so many ways to dissect this phantasmagoric culture-fuck that I hardly know where to begin.
Firstly, I guess it's refreshing that the ad didn't subtly apply that, if Brother Obama were elected, he would deflower our precious and pure nubile womenfolk. This may be due in part to the fact that Britney Spears is about as pure as and nubile as a truck-stop bathroom.
The relative chastity of our favorite daughters aside, I am serious when I say I applaud the lack of overt "Obama's gonna pimp out our women" ads. We have made progress in this regard, at least; nobody's making ads with Barack Obama filling in for Willie Horton. The fallback strategy, however, is bizarre in the extreme.
John McCain isn't saying we need to save our Britneys from Barack; he's saying Britney is Barack! Welcome to post-racial America, which is less racist but every bit as idiotic as the prior iteration.
It has been rather fascinating to witness how Hillary Clinton, and now John McCain, have gone to great pains to paint Obama's infectious popularity as being ipso facto evidence of his lack of real leadership qualities. Surely one cannot be both popular and wise!
What a dismal worldview this is; it leaves no room for likeable people that are actually worth knowing. If one is interesting, inspiring, in touch, he must necessarily be illegitimate, naive, perhaps even devious, nay, treacherous.
The problem with this argument, and the reason Senators Clinton and McCain are having a hard time refining the rubric of this narrative, is that it implies a rather dismal view of the intelligence and judgement of the American people.
Their argument says, essentially, "If the American people are intoxicated by a politician, that obviously means that said politician is a demagogue and a charlatan." The inescapable implication, of course, is that American voters are saps, which is true, but which must not be spoken in polite company (and if Presidential Candidates know anything, it's Political Correctness and Polite Company).
But to equate Barack Obama speaking to hundreds of thousands of Europeans, who would have stoned and spat upon our current president had he ever dared venture into public in a European capital, with a pop star whose claim to fame is the infrequency with which she wears underwear is....well, it's so pathetic that it's not even worth getting into a high-brow dissection of the thought process that went into it.
McCain, it is now manifest, is desperate. He should not feel feel desperate, however, as desperation implies some sort of control over one's destiny which is perceived to be slipping out of reach. John McCain, however, never had control over anything.
McCain's lack of control is one of the most interesting things about this election, and it is a thing that could be rather liberating if the candidate himself accepted it. Put simply, this election has absolutely nothing to do with John McCain.
This election is a referendum on Barack Obama, and nothing more (as if that were not enough). John McCain is a brave man and a relatively decent man, but that is totally immaterial to the parameters of this election.
Americans will vote on whether or not they are comfortable with Obama. If they are not, it would make no difference who Obama's opponent was unless Obama was running against a darker-skinned person, perhaps even a woman, a lesbian, an atheist, a communist, or a Muslim (surely, several million voters are convinced that Obama is one of these things).
I am always one to look for historical precedent, and the one I am drawn to is the 1960 election. As with all historical analogies, the incongruities far outnumber the parallels, but it one sense, I think the comparison is apt.
The 1960 election pitted John Kennedy against Richard Nixon. Nixon was the sitting vice-president, and though still in his 40's, he was not the candidate of "change". He was a known quantity, promising to do nothing much more than not rock the boat.
Kennedy, however, was different. His youth, his religion, and his inner circle all represented dramatic change in the context of his times.
That election, accordingly, was nothing more than a referendum of whether people were okay with a young, roguish (read: scumbag), Catholic, openly intellectual (unlike today, when candidates are pressured to dumb down) candidate. Poor Dick Nixon, who was a far wiser man, indeed a great man, man than mainstream American thought acknowledges, got lost in the shuffle.
It isn't that Nixon in '60 and McCain in '08 are utterly predictable automatons; they are both strong candidates in their own right. But, due to the nature of their respective opponents, Dick and Mac found themselves in elections in which they wasted their time by even bothering to campaign.
This leads to the question: when the establishment candidate realizes that his only chance at winning is to make voters scared of endorsing his "radical" opponent, how does the establishment candidate react?
Well, Dick Nixon reacted by visiting all 50 states (back in the age when a round trip to Alaska was a week long, semi-dangerous proposition and an utter waste of time in terms of vote-gathering). Nixon took his case to the people in a way that no presidential candidate had done before.
Nixon fought hard (and, objectively speaking, won that election), but he never attacked Kennedy by comparing him to Elvis or to James Dean. There was never any commerical implying that, since Kennedy's wife was so hot, he must be a halfwit.
Yet that is what McCain, or at least his campaign (and does this man not put the "pain" in campaign?) has stooped to. No one likes a hater. Barack Obama has many manifest weaknesses that McCain could tastefully and constructively adress and exploit, but he seems not to know how.
And do you know why? It isn't just because Obama's a celebrity; it's because of how Americans, even stodgy old Johnny Mac, apparently, behave around celebrities. Utterly intimidated, relived of your senses, so flustered and disoriented that your own value escapes you, and you are left with nothing but envy. And, not to get all Yoda with it, envy leads to hate.
2 comments:
know it's impossible to prove a universal negative, but can you demonstrate, categorically, that Barack Obama was NEVER a lesbian? I put it to you, sir.
Also, sorry for not getting back to you about the Nas song. I'd have to listen again to get a better grasph, but I've been impressed by him lately. He showed up on Colbert, which was pretty great. Worth a look if you're tooling around the ol' video vault.
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