Oooh, nuance!

Yes, I'm back from Aruba, rested, relaxed and ready to roar! (More pictures will be coming later.)

I've been thinking about this post for quite some time. How can I further explain why Barack Obama is not getting my vote? I have tried in various different ways; using plays, lists of ways in which Obama has not kept his promises, and even a petition to show my reasoning. Yet some thoughtful Obama supporters still do not understand where I'm coming from.

I don't blame them. Sometimes, I can't believe it myself! After all, everyone who knows me (or reads my blog) knows that a few months ago, I was yelling louder than anyone that ANY Democrat would be better than a Republican in 2009.

Then I realized: I am a PUMA because I don't have faith in the Democratic brand anymore.

All my life, I have voted Democratic when I could. Fiercely partisan and proud of it, only one time did I cast a vote for a Republic, and that was when I allowed myself to be a single-issue voter. (I'll never make that mistake again.) I believed wholeheartedly in the idea that the Democrats were inherently better than the Republics. Why? Because the Democrats cared about the working class. The Democrats wanted a social safety net and equal opportunity for all. Every enlightened advance made in our society in the last 60 years was forced through by Democrats. And face it - what Democrat would ever say the words I quote above? Embarrassing. Anathema!

Then, along came Barack Obama.

Elitist? You bet. Courting the rightiest right-wingers in our society? Much more than he's courting liberals! And as for the Democratic base? Who needs 'em? They're just racist Republicans, anyway. And as for his policy positions? I don't trust one word he says.

The only way a politician like Obama can brand himself a Democrat is that the Democratic brand is in desperate trouble. There are two reasons for this: the actions of the VRWC (the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, which did and does exist), and the actions of current Democratic Party leadership.

First, the enemy without.

When Bill Clinton was elected in 1992, the New Conservative Republicans knew that in two years, they would sweep Congress. Their plans to infiltrate the media via teevee and radio punditry, and to take over the local parties at the grassroots level, had gone swimmingly. Now, only those in lockstep with the radical rightwing agenda - mostly social and anti-government in nature - would be able to advance to national office. And thus it came to pass in 1994 that Gingrich's Congress took power.

As we know, they immediately began investigating the new Democratic President. But what their media wing did is a lesser-known fact: They immediately began divorcing the Clintons from the Democratic brand.

Despite the avalanche of progressive reforms that Clinton attempted from 1992-1994 while he had a somewhat supportive Congress (and many of which, like AmeriCorps, became incredibly successful), the impression began to be created that Bill and Hillary Clinton were not REALLY Democrats. Smears about their characters and "true intentions" began to be published in every newspaper. Sure, they may try to fix health care, but their "true intentions" were to screw the little guy. The term "slick Willy" was affixed to President Clinton with Crazy Glue. Bill was a liar and a cheat. Hillary was cold, calculating, ambitious and gay. They were possibly even murderers (Vince Foster). (For factual backup of all of these occurrences, I highly recommend, once again, David Brock's amazing book, "Blinded by the Right.")

How could these people be Democrats? They couldn't. And neither could their supporters.

Thus, despite Bill's job approval rating being extremely high when he left office, Democrats were successfully induced to feel that there was something wrong with Bill and Hillary on a personal level. Something unsavory, undesirable, and...Republican.

Fast-forward to 2007, when Barack Obama, the candidate backed by the current Democratic Party Leaders, began his own campaign against Hillary Clinton. Guess what his line of attack was? Her "character" and "judgment." Ring any bells for ya? He and his surrogates even tried to get the media to focus on the Republics' greatest hits of the 1990's, although Hillary put the smackdown on that pretty quickly when Howard Wolfson likened Obama to Ken Starr. And of course, there were the Big "Progressive" Bloggers, who always hated the Clintons, and who were more than happy to allow the most outrageous lies to be propagated as truth in their worlds. (Remember how Hillary "darkened" Obama's face on a videotape? Or how she was spreading the photo of Obama in Muslim garb - "sourced" by the oh-so-reliable Matt Drudge?)

What's amazing is that this double-pronged strategy, so successful with Bill Clinton, did not work on Hillary Clinton. Despite taking years of hits from Republicans AND Democrats, she became the first woman to win a national primary, then smashed all records by garnering 18 million popular votes. And as for winning the Democratic base? The more they saw her, the more they realized that the rightwing spin on her was a bunch of hooey. They came out for her in droves - months AFTER she had been pronounced dead by the National Party and the media.

It is my belief that the Clintons, especially Hillary, represent the true face of the Democratic Party, and not the current Party elites and their favored candidate, Barack Obama. That the Democratic brand is now like toothpaste that's been contaminated by antifreeze - bad for you, and sold-out to the highest bidder. That the only way to save the brand is by distilling out the poison of corruption and elitism, and to get it down to its purest elements - FDR-style populism and emphasis on the working class instead of the rich.

There is no way, no WAY that Barack Obama can do what is necessary to save the brand. He is clearly not inclined to do so, having zero record of any actions backing up his sometimes-liberal rhetoric, and neither are his supporters. They are only interested in creating a Party that more closely reflects their own image of themselves as Teh Kewl Kids Who Drink The Right Kind of Beer and Ousted Those Despicable Clintons. The fact that Obama's nomination is being made possible only with the most obvious and corrupt Party intervention matters not one whit to them.

What I see now is a choice between two parties that represent the rich, do not care about the will of the voters, and look down on people who need the government's help to equalize their opportunities.

Now I ask you, why would a representative of either of such parties get my vote - unless it is Hillary Clinton, who has a record of standing for, and delivering on, true Democratic principles?

There is a movement to send torn-up Democratic voter registration cards to the DNC today, with a note that the former Democrat is becoming an Independent. I myself have not taken this step, since I am still hoping that the Party can come to its senses and nominate Hillary at the Convention. But should the DNC and Party leaders persist in nominating Barack Obama despite the will of the people, despite his weakness as a candidate, and despite the fact that he has demonstrated no allegiance whatsoever to core Democratic Party principles, then the brand truly will be dead.

And I will no longer be a Democrat.

PUMA!

The Pope is in New York City today. There are over a billion people in this world who, if they follow Catholic doctrine stringently, believe Pope Benedict XVI is infallible.

Maybe it's my commie pinko roots showing, but I don't think any man or woman is infallible. We human beings fall too easily into hero worship, in general, and we fail to appreciate that someone can be good without being perfect.

If we would only realize that the perfect is the enemy of the good, then maybe we wouldn't be so susceptible to manipulation by forces that do not have our best interests at heart. Over and over again, we are disappointed in our political leaders, for example, because they are flawed and all-too-human.

I often wonder if Martin Luther King Jr. would have been able to have the same impact today as he did before infotainment replaced broadcast news. Would the media have destroyed him because of his infidelity to his wife? Would they have focused on character over issues, as they have been doing for decades now, and painted Dr. King as hypocritical and untrustworthy, distracting us from the essential truths contained in his message?

I think that the media would have done exactly that. And we would have fallen for it. And our nation would have been immeasurably poorer as a result.

No man (or woman) is infallible. Not the Pope, not Bill Clinton, not Hillary Clinton, not Barack Obama, and not John McCain.

The problem is, Barack Obama is campaigning as if he is the One, the only One who can save our country from its imperfections. Through him, we will transcend all prejudice, all differences of opinion; and, forged into a post-partisan, unified, enlightened whole, we will move forward into the 21st century as a healed, proud and dignified nation.

Doesn't that sound wonderful - especially after eight years of suffering under the most lawless, warmongering, just plain evil administration in the history of our country? But notice how whenever Obama is challenged on these assertions and asked how he is going to implement them, he gives no answers. As he did in the debate on Wednesday, he talks about principles instead of plans.

That's because perfection like that is impossible to attain. Reality rears its ugly head. We do disagree with each other because the Republics are wrong about most issues that concern Americans, and simply electing Obama won't change that. Racism is not gone, and won't evaporate simply because we elect Obama. Poverty and injustice will always have to be fought, and won't disappear simply because we elect Obama. The megacorporations will have to be broken up and their stranglehold on the media and our candidates slowly loosened, and that won't happen just because we elect Obama.

Where are the bullet points? On his website? Oh, please. Is that what he's going to tell the Senate and House when he's asked about his plans for America? Is that how he's going to repair our relations with foreign leaders, and negotiate for peace in the Middle East, as every President (except George W. Bush) has attempted to do?

Barack Obama offers an idealized vision of infallibility that many voters seem to find very attractive. But we reality-based folks know better. Bill and Hillary are not perfect, but Bill was one of the most successful Democratic Presidents we've ever had, and Hillary, based on her record of service to this country, could be even better - especially with a supportive Democratic Congress to push her agenda, which Bill Clinton never enjoyed.

Flawed, but good, beats infallible for me any day. I hope the voters of Pennsylvania will feel the same way.

Waaaaay before Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton declared their Presidential ambitions for 2008, there was a lot of speculation that they were running despite their denials. I thought at the time, "Hillary - Barack - don't do it!"

I didn't think either one of them would make a bad President - in fact, I've usually liked what Hillary has done as my Senator, and I didn't have much of an opinion about Barack except that he gave a kick-ass speech - but I just felt that the country was not ready for a black or female President. As is often the case, I feel I was right AND wrong at the same time.

What the country was not ready for was a black President, a female President...and eight more years of the Clintons.

We can all see how ugly this campaign has become. I do think a lot of it has been fueled by the traditional media, whose antipathy to the Clintons is psychopathic in nature; but let's face it, this country is very far from healing the self-inflicted racial wounds of slavery. Barack's overabundance of melanin has not passed unnoticed by the press, and I would need a database bigger than the NSA to document all the misogynistic labels the punditry has slapped on Senator Clinton.

A lot of the problems, however, have come directly from Bill Clinton himself. His role in his wife's campaign has surely been (kindly stated) a mixed bag. He is such a giant figure in Democratic history; beloved both by most Americans and party faithful, he was one of the most popular presidents in recent history. Sadly, we remember the bad things as well; the constant innuendos and sexual scandals; the far-too-friendly corporate policies; and the definition of "is." Had Hillary waited one more term in office, she could possibly have run for President in 2012 or even 2016, when another Democratic President would served as a buffer between the somewhat unappetizing dynastic idea of Bush-Clinton-Clinton-Bush-Bush-Clinton-Clinton. Perhaps Chelsea could run against Jeb in 2016! [shudder]

I understand that right now, due to the presence of SuperDelegates, it may be impossible to determine who the nominee will be until after the Democratic convention. I wonder if it's possible that John Edwards could be nominated even if he doesn't win a single primary?

If Bill Clinton continues to have a strong and negative effect on his wife's campaign, and if America is not ready to vote for an extra-tan Senator whose biggest assets are his speech-making abilities and Oprah Winfrey, I believe it could indeed happen.

It was too soon.

The charming and talented Sinfonian declared*** today, the six-year anniversary of the August 6, 2001 PDB declaring "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.", a blogswarm day, to make sure we remember how Bush et al. knew it was coming. ***(OOOPS - Sinfonian informs me that he did not originate the blogswarm - that honor goes to Blue Gal and Ripley. But he gets linky goodness too because his post was hawt.)

Well, far be it from me to miss a good blogswarm, even if I am fashionably late to the party as usual!

August 6, 2001 was the day that Bush could have finally paid attention to the pressing issue of terrorism. When he took office, outgoing president Bill Clinton told the Deciderer that he should be watching out for Al Qaeda. He even asked for a special report on Islamic terrorism to be prepared and delivered to Bush. That report - the Hart-Rudman report - was given to George in February of 2001. (You know - the same time that Condi Rice and Colin Powell were stating on TV that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction and was not a threat to America?)

But given the Chimp's ego and general hostility to all things Democratic, it's really not a surprise that he ignored these early warnings from the man on whose carpet he would soon be pooping. George did what he always does - he delegated the anti-terrorism work to someone else (Dick Cheney, who held zero meetings on the subject between George's inauguration and September The Eleventh Two Thousand and One). Then, despite multitudinous warnings from intelligence services in not just America, but France and Germany as well, that a major terrorist attack was coming in the fall of 2001, the strong, protective daddy of our dreams...went on vacation.

You would think that the August 6, 2001 PDB would have finally awoken the Chimp from his nappy time. But of course, it didn't. And America has suffered countless hurts to our national psyche, discourse and democratic institutions since then.

So give some bloggy love to this horrible anniversary. Think about it, talk about it and write about it. And above all: never forget that They Knew and Did Nothing. So much for Republican "strength on national security."