Let's Talk Politics
I've been quiet about politics this election cycle for two chief reasons:
1) As I've said before, I'm not going to vote in the Democratic primary. None of the candidates support gay marriage, not supporting gay marriage is bigotry, I will not vote for a bigot. Therefore, I won't vote.
2) I've not been sure who I would vote for, even if (1) weren't an issue. You all know I was a Johnny E fan back in 2004, and even more so in 2006.
2007 changed that because a) it became clear that he would not win and consequently he began to sound more desperate and opportunistic and b) because, you know what, experience does matter. And while I appreciate him pulling the Democratic party to the left with his policy proposals, he's barely got mroe experience than Obama does, and I don't think Obama has a quarter enough experience to run the country. So, Johnny E was out (and we'll see later why he won't ever get back in). And I've never been an Obama supporter. His empty rhetoric and default position of compromise bother me.
(Say a guy wants to punch you in the face and you want to resolve this issue. Obviously you don't go in saying "Well, both sides have good points, so why don't I accept being punched in the face just a little? Is that an acceptable compromise?" Maybe that's what you end up with, but that's not where you fucking start. How about you start from the position of "I don't want to be punched in the face at all." How about that? That seems like a good starting place. And this is what the Democrats as a whole have done with settling for civil unions (separate but equal) rather than demanding gay marriage. And it seems to be Obama's default position, bargaining from the position of only wanting to get punched in the face a little.)
So Obama's out. Also: my favorite part of the ABC Democratic debate last Saturday was when Obama defended the usefulness/power/importance of rhetoric with... that's right, more rhetoric. (And due to the Ancient course I just took, he reminded me of some people: Sophists.)
But that debate was also the first time I felt like I had seen genuine political discourse on television, which was a welcome change. Obama said very little, Johnny did better, and Hillary kept pounding on the fact that she has a record of creating change. And that's when I accepted the fact that I had become a Hillary supporter months ago. That was just the final nail, as it were.
//
All this makes the events of the three days that followed even more interesting. Now, I was caught up in World of Warcraft all weekend so I didn't see much of this happen live (and, as I don't live in New Hampshire, didn't need to see it all play out live).
Apparently Hillary got choked up a little about how much she wanted to make this country a better place. Which, when I saw the footage, made me like her even more. But that's neither here nor there. There's been a lot of talk about the media reaction to Hillary's "crying" or "breakdown" or whatever. (It wasn't really any of those things, if you watch the tape.) And talk about how the media tried to bury her with it. And even was trying to bury her before that, too. Which I just accepted as a given: it makes a good story and good stories are what they want. (People forget how self-interested journalism is.) Anyway, I just accepted it, because mostly I saw the commentary on the Daily show about it and wrote it off. I've known for a while that Chris Matthews was a loud asshole, so I wasn't surprised that he was a loud asshole to/about senator Clinton.
But that's mostly because I didn't understand the extreme degree of Matthews' assholery. And so I give you Miles Davis for President's very first embedded video, because it's important that you actually see this for yourself:
(Or, well, because that's not working, go watch it on YouTube and come back. I'll wait.)
So... yeah. He said that. Now I understand what people say when they tell me that people voted for Hillary because they were voting against Matthews and misogyny. Anyway, here's the article I culled that video from, an interesting compendium of related media-bits.
Also, remember how I said that Johnny E was out and we'd soon see why he'll never be back in? Well, in the Salon article on this whole thing (which is excellent, by the way, but will sound a little hysterical until you see what Matthews and others actually said/did) gives us this little nugget:
Such joy was there at Clinton's devolving journey from the front of the pack back to the primordial stew of high-strung, overwrought femininity that even her opponent John Edwards, a man who built his candidacy in part with the support of progressive women, felt free to get in on the fun, reacting to Clinton's show of feeling by telling reporters that a president needs to demonstrate "strength and resolve."
What senator Clinton showed was not a lack of resolve. It was strength of passion. Something I once saw in you, senator Edwards. Now, though, it's clouded through with opportunism and seething indignation. You sir, kind of suck.