US politics

Clinton Obama Clinton’s candidacy is now inevitable

US politics
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Nothing demonstrates how sheer godddamn useless the American news media is as the primaries this year. It’s been very funny to see the press veer wildly from their starting position of Hillary Clinton as the designated winner, only for Obama to be anointed as such the minute after he had won the Iowa primaries, then to be written off again now Clinton has won New Hampshire. This tendency to latch on to the latest shiny thing as the One True Shiny is of course at its worst in the US press, but don’t for a minute think it’s much better elsewhere; just listen a few days to Radio 4’s newscoverage if you want proof.

Meanwhile another annoying feature of the US newsmedia is also in full force, their pretence that their own prejudices, likes and dislikes determine objective reality and are shared by the voters. The pres has alway loved McCain and always assumed against all evidence to the contrart that this was shared by the Republican primary voters. Now that McCain has won New Hampshire, which should not have been a surprise, considering he did this last time as well, expect them to become insufferable in their McCain lovin’.

all of which would be annoying enough on its own, but unfortunately this press posturing can and does influence real world events. If the big story is that Obama or Clinton is winning, instead of the much more prosaic truth that they both have now picked up roughly the same number of delegates, chances are people alter their voting. Doesn’t always work of course; the big Hillary Crying Jag that was such a sure sign to the pundits that she had lost the plot seems to have done exactly the opposite. Because the media blew it up so much it galvanised some groups of voters into voting for her.

Don’t cry too much for Hillary

US politics
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Hilary Clinton

It’s not difficult to feel sympathico with Hillary Clinton, when you read the nonsense wingnuts write about her. The poor woman must be fed up to the eyeballs with the stories about her hubbie’s escapades, the demands to show she’s feminine enough to bake cookies, the accusations about how she did away with her cat, the lesbian accusations yadda yadda. Any Democrat gets something of the same treatment of course, but the wingers seem to have a particular hatred for Hilary, for reasons I still don’t fully understand. They are just driven mad (well, more mad) whenever they notice her.

But don’t cry too much for Hillary. In a perverse way, this insane hatred of her is helping her. For while it keeps the rage of the dedicated wingnut stoked, this sort of story, especially when written by a slavering Republican stooge, only gets her more sympathy from normal voters. Remember how popular both Clintons were during the Lewinsky affair?

At the same time, because the story is about Hilary’s cleavage, or her laugh, her policies and ideology go largely unexamined, at least in the mainstream media. Which explains how she can be presented to the public as the uberliberal, when in fact she’s the most rightwing of the main Democratic presidential candidates. So while these idiotic stories may hurt her personally, they also help her politically….

Hillary or Rudy

2008 US election
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That might be the horrific choice on offer next year in the American presidential elections, the worst of the Democratic candidates versus the nutties of the Republicans. Not a very inspiring choice, not that there’s any Democratic candidate much better, or any Republican less worse. I well understand why so many Americans don’t vote anymore, as it changes nothing.

Nothing, I hear you say, but what about the War on Iraq, or the Supreme Court, or Healtcare, or… And sure, you’re right, having a Democratic president, even one as awful as Hillary would be slightly etter than yet another Republican nutjob. With Hillary in the White House, the ongoing war against the poor would be covered up somewhat, more people would get slightly less poor, the structural racism and sexism in American society would be lifted somewhat and there would be slightly less and slightly less insane foreign military adventures on offer.

But that’s all. Hillary won’t give up the god-given right of the United States to meddle in other countries affairs, nor will she do anything that will offend big business too much. At best she will provide a breathing space, four or eight years in which the battered US middle classes can recover somewhat, the military can get itself back into shape after Iraq and Afghanistan and things can go back to normal. Which is better than what Rudy would offer, more craziness, but not much better.

To me, the upcoming elections feel somewhat like a rerun of 2004, with a rightwing Democrat against a loony rightwing Republican; the big change is that this time, the Democrat will probably win. But it’s hard to get excited about this, as it seems that four more years of war and disaster hasn’t lead to a more radical alternative. Ghu knowns I’m not hoping for a socialist, but at the very least an actual liberal, somebody who has not bought into the War on Terror, would’ve been nice.

Linky, linky

2008 US election, Life under Capitalism
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The post over at Crooked Timber about how Americans now have worse teeth than a decade ago is interesting. Interesting, in that the discussion in the comments tries hard to avoid the simple truth as to why that is: lack of dental insurance. Too scary perhaps.

Meanwhile, The Guardian reports on vulture capitalism, the practise of buying up third world debts then suing the country in question in an European or American court for the debt plus interest. Many of such funds are based in London and it probably won’t surprise you either that some of these funds have ties to highlevel US politicians…

Lawyers, Guns and money is worried about Giuliani, who has stuffed his campaign chockful with the nuttiest of neocons. Personally I don’t doubt he would be a disaster as president for America, but for the rest of the world he might be the better choice than a more competent candidate like Clinton. Because whoever becomes president will always be someone willing to use US military force abroad, and somebody a little bit nutty might be opposed more and earlier.

Does that make sense? Perhaps not.

The Washington Post and Monica Lewinsky

Media, Numpties, US politics
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Just before the year ended,WashingtonPost article that perfectly encapsulated the ingrained sexism, stupidity and sheer spite of the Beltway establishmenttaking on its favourite target, Monica Lewinsky:

There are moments that make you question your fundamental assumptions about the world. One of them took place a few days ago, when news emerged that Monica Lewinsky had just graduated from the London School of Economics.

She did not!!

Lewinsky, 33, is known more for her audacious coquetry than for her intellectual heft, and the notion of her earning a master of science degree in social psychology at the prestigious London university is jarring, akin to finding a rip in the time-space continuum, or discovering that Kim Jong Il is a natural blond.

Even more staggering, the same bubbly gal who once described the act of flashing her thong at the president as a “small, subtle, flirtatious gesture” has now written a lofty-sounding thesis. Its title, according to Reuters: “In Search of the Impartial Juror: An Exploration of the Third Person Effect and Pre-Trial Publicity.”

Monica! We hardly knew ye!

The rest of the article is a lameoid attempt at justifying this childish sneer by Boboing some sort of pathetic social commentary out of it. It isn’t important. What is important is the view this article gives of Lewinsky:that of a stupid, sluttly little girl who cannot possible have enough brains to attend the LSE, never mind graduating. This has of course been the view the press always had of Lewinsky, portraying her either as a simple little girl caught up in a drama too big for her, the victim of Bill Clinton the Masher, or the homewrecking slut who set out to fuck herself a president.

None of them considered that actually, to become a White House intern you must have some brains, that it’s slightly different from interning at some well meaning local business, nor was any willing to admit she was actually a young woman who wanted and got a mature sexual relationshipwith a man she admired, liked and perhaps even loved. That’s just not possible in their world. The Great Unwashed for their part did see that once the details of their affair became known, but then they’ve always been more insightful than their alleged superiors inside the Beltway…

There’s also the insane jealosy of Bill Clinton, the Man they had Snubbed, of all people “bagging” a young pretty intern, something that neverhappened to any Republicans; they always had to buy their sex. It all added to Clinton’s undeserved to them popstar image, so that’s why they trashtalked and kept on trash talking Lewinsky. Look at that picture of her in the article: not very flattering, but fitting the image of “Lewinsky the dog”, the triplebagger they want us to believe she is. Reality is, quite a few of us would not mind having such an obviously intelligent, pretty young woman attracted to us…