DISQUS

Well we are all post-partisans now, and Obama is certainly doing his bit to keep the center-Right in power, so it is odd of Matt to complain. This is what he voted for.

>It feels like the first time you really understand how to keep loving someone even after you've seen their flaws.

All I see with Obama is flaws. Alexander Cockburn is hardly my favorite pundit, but in this case he has Obama's number: if Obama was white everyone "in love" with him would recognize him as the Joe Biden clone he is, and he wouldn't have won a single delegate.

I'm going with the lesser of two evils myself-four years of McCain followed by the chance for a liberal revival in 2012, as opposed to a faux Democrat closing the door on progressive policies for another generation.

Hey, Obama has been endorsed by the MSM, Colin Powell, and other Bush fellow travellers exactly because they know this is a time when real progressive change was possible for the first time in decades, and they trust that Obama will see to it that it doesn't happen. Less than perfect? The man is the worst (meaning least) Democratic nominee since before FDR, but hey, he photographs well with kids and he is black, so we should ignore that reality. (As for Obama the anti-war leader, by now that's a joke. See Biden,Joe.)

And when Team Obama is done trashing whatever liberal sparks remain within the Democratic Party and reviving the GOP, don't say you weren't warned. (But then people who have allowed themselves to be conned rarely admit it-no matter how bad Obama is, I'm sure we'll be told he was the best we could do.)

Given that Obama, Pelosi, Reid and even Barney Frank are busy selling us all out, why exactly should I care about how awful McCain supposedly is?

The best way to get through this election would probably be to ignore it. Assume both that Obama will lose and that that result is really a dodged bullet (since a probable failed Obama presidency would give us a generation of Republicans) and start paying attention to politics again in time for us to try for a better candidate in 2012.

No, I can't quite manage it either.

I've watched the first two seasons on dvd (I have a multi-region player, though I believe they are coming out on region 1 later this year) and the show develops some really unexpected twists and turns (no spoilers, don't worry) and leaves things open for a very interesting season 3 (which I assume is in the works).

Yes, McCain should never be President. Unfortunately Obama should never be President either. And one of them will be. If it is Obama we either get another Republican in 2012, or have to wait until 2016 for an actual Democrat. So I'll go with McCain in the hopes of an actual Democrat in 2012. It sucks I know, but I'm a lesser evil sort of voter.

In the US? Buffy. In the UK-Monty Python.

As for Lost, it all depends on whether where they are going ultimately is a real destination, or this is just tv's longest shaggy dog story. But I'll hang on until the end to find out, so they've accomplished that much.

I agree. There are an enormous number of reasons why Obama isn't fit to be President but his chronological age isn't one of them

>This should be obvious, but let me make it clear: the people who foisted George W. Bush on the world do not have the right to criticize Barack Obama for being inexperienced or arrogant.

Agreed. But those of us who opposed Bush from the very start until now do have that right, and some of us see more than a touch of W. (and Nixon) in Obama.

>People have the absolute right to state their own ethnic self-identification. Nobody but they can decide that.

I'm waiting for the right to one's own species identification. I'm torn between dolphin and cat. But really, anything but the hairless apes with which I've long been identified-against my will.

>and "real men" like JKF "taking" women against walls?

Given JFK's severe back problems, an unlikely position.

The Nation gave us Christopher Hitchens and everyone's favorite Stalinist, Alexander Cockburn, so it already has a lot to answer for-this is just another example in too long a line. (Calvin Trillin has been about the only reason to read The Nation for many years.)

My father used to sing to me:

There once was a big fat Dutchman, by the name of Dunderbeck,
Who used to make sausages, and all such kinds of dreck.
He had the finest butcher store that ever could be seen,
And he took out a patent on a sausage meat machine.

Chorus:

Oh Dunderbeck, oh Dunderbeck, how could you be so mean?
To ever have invented a sausage meat machine.
The dogs and rats and pussycats will never more be seen
For they'll all be turned to sausages in Dunderbeck's machine.

One day something happened,
The machine refused to go.
Dunderbeck climbed inside,
The reason for to know.
His wife she had a nightmare,
Went walking in her sleep.
She gave the crank an awful yank
And Dunderbeck was meat!

Chorus: reprise.

And then I'd go right to sleep.

Hillary voted against ending debate-see http://www.govtrack.us/users/events.xpd?monitor...

In short, Hillary did the right thing, Obama didn't.

>As for Clinton, she voted FOR cloture,

No, she didn't.

Hillary did the right thing, and Obama the wrong thing. Why am I not surprised?

I never liked or trusted Obama; to me he was always Professor Harold Hill without Robert Preston's charm or the great songs. So I'm hardly surprised, much less disillusioned, and I think the chances of his "turning this around" are closer to "none" than to "slim."

The difference between Obama and the Clintons is this: for the Clintons "triangulation" was a political tactic in a time when the GOP was still in full flood. For Obama it is who he is.

>If the best we can hope for from Obama is the same sort of centrist Democratic politics that HRC represented, so be it.

That is indeed the BEST we can hope for-but what we can actually EXPECT imo is much worse; someone who will either simply fail as President (reviving the GOP brand in the process) or govern in a manner that is actually regressive rather than incrementally progressive, killing off th Democrats as even an haphazard progressive party . Sorry, we need to worry about more than the next four years, and everything about Obama tells me that in the long term (if not the short term) he will be a greater disaster than McCain for the causes we no doubt share. Of course everyone has to use their own judgement (and without an alternative Universe where we can run through both scenarios we can never know who is right) but personally my mind is made up. (Not that my vote matters, since I live in NY.)

It is very simple: Obama is hardly a Democrat, never mind a progressive Democrat. He believes only in himself, and he stands for nothing but his own ambition. Some of us recognized this early on and tried to warn everyone, but as it turned out the game was rigged and the Obama supporters under the influence of their own projected fantasies.

But we have no other choice! we are told.

Of course we do. This should have been a year to revive liberalism, but thanks to Obama it didn't work out. Given the choice of two bad Presidents, personally I'll take the Republican so we can try again in four years, rather than see Obama kill the chances of a real progressive revival for the next 20.

Finally, a candidate I can get behind.