Day One

I hate to agree with any corporate pundit, especially one who is also a rabid Clinton functionary, but I have to concede that James Carville, commenting (actually emoting) on CNN, got it right: if the Democrats had a “message” to convey last night, they kept it well hidden. Hardly a word about the Bush wars or the economic crisis or much of anything else – including, especially and remarkably, race. Instead, it was all about “character” and feeling good. That might have been OK if the Democrats had it in them to go “negative”: if it was John McCain’s or George Bush’s or Dick Cheney’s characters that were the issue. But instead it was all about what a nice guy Barack Obama is, and how he’s just plain folks. In the usual surfeit of liberal civility, Bush and Company hardly came up.

What redeemed the evening, just a little, was the Ted Kennedy tribute, followed by his appearance on stage and his speech about health care and ending the war in Iraq. He was about the only one even to mention such things. It recalled the slightly less saccharine liberalism of the good old days. Michelle Obama’s speech and the theatrics around it made good entertainment too. The pundits claim she did what she had to do to put the “elitism” charge to rest, and perhaps they’re right again. The Obama children were icing on the cake, especially when one of them pointed out, as no pundit did (so far as I know), that their daddy, when he appeared on a giant TV screen, calling in from Kansas City, didn’t seem to know where he was – he said he was in Saint Louis. No doubt, that was just a McCain moment. Michelle Obama’s speech had its down moments, though. Needless to say, they were amply praised by the conveyors of conventional wisdom. To her credit, she was a little less churchy than her husband has been of late, but the shout out to Hillary was contrived and over the top, and so was the “patriotic” drivel and the praise for “the troops.” In sync with Joe Biden, she added gratuitously that those troops had to be brought home “responsibly.” In a contest between war mongers and war Democrats, obviously the Democrats are less bad. But must they betray their supporters so flagrantly, and must their supporters praise them for doing it!

Last night was just boring; because the Clintons are coming, the next two nights promise to be both boring and nauseating. Worse still, their supporters will be on TV in force. It’s good for the ratings, I suppose. Lately, they’ve been calling themselves PUMAs; the expression stands for Party Unity My Ass. It’s a good name and right on. But leave it to the Democrats for its purveyors to come from the party’s right. Would that the party’s left were enough enlightened and enough organized to demand only as much party unity as is necessary for ridding the country and the world of the menace of a John McCain presidency; and would that that left were prepared to join forces after the election with Nader and McKinney supporters who cannot countenance Obama’s Clintonism. Otherwise, the coming Obama administration will wallow more outside the realm of decency than need be. Decency is the best we can hope for from Obama, given that no one who is not thoroughly marginalized dares question the basic structure of the regime. But decency is not to be despised, especially in comparison with the criminality of the Bush government and its certain continuation should John McCain win. Obama probably can be dragged, kicking and screaming, into the realm of the decent; as I’ve speculated before, he probably knows better than the politics he evinces. But it won’t happen so long as the order of the day is making nice to the Clintons and getting in line with Joe Biden.

Festival of Sleaze

Lenin called revolutions “festivals of the oppressed.” Despite his campaign’s endless prattle about “change,” Barack Obama’s ascendance to the presidency – an outcome all but guaranteed unless he throws the election, as Democrats are wont to do – is no revolution, and the Denver infomercial about to begin is no festival of the oppressed either. It is a festival of the sleaziest of the corporations who rule us. As in Beijing, whoever doesn’t like it can go stew in a free speech zone.

It’s not a revolution, but there are intra-ruling class changes afoot even so. Expect Big Oil to be more out than under Cheney/Bush, and expect key sectors of Wall Street to be more than ever in. The credit card industry has a special reason to rejoice. Their leading patron, Joe Biden, is about to find himself one heartbeat away.

How fitting that the event should be held in a building named for Pepsi Cola. For generations now, the Democrats have played Pepsi to the Republicans’ Coke. How fitting too that the ceremonies will be presided over by Nancy Pelosi – exemplar par excellence of those who talk the talk (within strict limits, of course) while doing their utmost not to walk the walk their constituents elected them to do. If it comes down to choosing between those constituents or being good imperialists, Pelosiite Democrats will go for the Empire every time, even if it means aiding and abetting nincompoops like George Bush. That’s why Speaker Nancy took impeachment “off the table,” and why bringing such manifest criminals as Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Rice and the rest to justice is not even part of our political discourse today.

Expect the Democrats, under Obama-Biden, to follow Bill Clinton’s example in the aftermath of Iran/Contra. Expect them, in other words, to just forget about it. Their motto might be – “immunity per tutti.” The telecom companies were only the first beneficiaries. The criminal clique that has occupied the White House for the past eight years is going to get away with murder – countless murders – along with more violations of international law than a Democrat can shake a stick at.

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Because we are about to witness a festival of sleaze, the conventional wisdom mongers will be in their element. NPR has become so mind numbing that, unless one pays pecial attention, it’s hard to tell one “senior correspondent” from another. That’s why I didn’t catch who it was who praised Obama’s selection of Biden on the grounds that Obama takes care of the “change” voters, while Biden will provide mainstream credibility.

Credibility indeed! Biden is a corporate flunky and a pushover when it comes to Republicans foisting right wing judges upon us. His record on the Senate Judiciary Committee is borderline shameful. But his foreign policy acumen, his strong suit according to the Cokie Robertses of the world, is a joke. Yes, Biden is credentialed in foreign policy insofar as long incumbency in the Senate confers credentials. But long incumbency hasn’t made him smart, any more than Condoleezza Rice’s incumbency in various academic positions – her “major” was the Soviet Union, no less -- made her anything more than an inept bungler, as we witness yet again in the still smoldering (formerly Soviet) Georgia crisis.

Georgia is one of many areas in which there is hardly any space between our two official parties, thanks in large part to Joe Biden’s support for extending NATO to Russia’s borders. Georgia became an American “project,” as the Russians say, under Bill Clinton, though the situation has only gotten worse under the watch of Condoleezza Rice. In this, she was aided by John McCain, who is so wedded to the neocon idea of sticking it to the Russians that his campaign’s chief foreign policy advisor, Randy Scheunemann, is actually a registered lobbyist for the Georgian regime. Yet all Obama can think to do is utter vacuous words about “complexity” and “diplomacy.’ With Biden on the ticket, no one should harbor any illusions that he means anything by them.

Biden buys into the reigning Democratic narrative, which is also essentially the reigning Republican narrative, lock, stock and barrel – on Russia and the former Soviet Union, on the Middle East (for him, Israel can do no wrong), on Africa and Latin America. When he does deviate, it is almost always for the worst – as when he proposed breaking up Iraq into three federated states. In short, he’s a dunce, notwithstanding the conventional wisdom according to which he gives Obama foreign policy “cred.”

I suspect – or is it just a vain hope? – that Obama actually knows better, but that it is easier for him, and more “politic,” to keep his good sense a secret. But I’m not so foolish as to think that he will reveal his better self once he parks himself in the Oval Office. It is better, I suppose, to be a “liberal internationalist,” as the pundits call Biden, out of necessity rather than conviction. But not much; not when the (corporate) party, about to flare up again in Denver, never ends

The Sunny Side

The Big Tease and, for progressives, the death (of hope) watch is over, not that there ever was much hope: Joe Biden, the “Plagiarism Joe” of yesteryear, will be Obama’s VP. The conventional wisdom would have it that Biden is long winded and that he talks first and thinks later. True enough. But his main fault is that, even more than Obama (but not more than the Clintons), he represents everything that is putrid in our political culture’s lesser evil: the moral and intellectual shallowness of the Democratic Party and, more generally, of contemporary American liberalism.

But there is a sunny side: now Joe Biden won’t be Secretary of State.

Biden’s selection also clarifies a point that was never seriously in doubt: Obama is not a candidate of genuine, progressive change – except in the sense that he doesn’t look like the others on the money. That’s not a difference to be despised, and Biden can be useful for promulgating the idea that, as he put it early on, Obama is attractive and “articulate.” Voters with overt or latent racist attitudes need to hear that if the electorate is to hand the doddering former napalmist war-monger John McCain, the neocons’ best hope for continuing the Dick Cheney “vision,” his just deserts. Otherwise, Obama’s choice only confirms, yet again, that the “change” he would promote is of the plus ça change (plus c’est la même chose) variety – that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Hillary for VP?

Reportedly, that’s what Ralph Nader thinks will happen. It would be the Kennedyesque thing to do, after all: to join forces with one’s very own LBJ. It wouldn’t be the end of the world either; compared to Biden, Bayh, or Kaine, Hillary almost looks good. [I still think Maria Shriver would be a better choice, if only so that Arnold might become the Second Lady. But don’t count on Obama thinking that far outside the box.]

It’s another opportunity missed. Thanks to George Bush and Dick Cheney and their wars, we had a chance this year genuinely to change course -- somewhat. There was even a candidate, John Edwards, who might have led the charge. [Who knew, while the primaries were on, that had he won the primaries, a Clintonesque fling with a New Age floozy would most likely, do him in – notwithstanding the fact that, years ago, John McCain behaved even more unconscionably towards his own distressed wife, when he flung with the beer distributor’s daughter who’s been funding him ever since?] What became clear by Super Tuesday was that that opportunity was missed; that, in 2008, voters will only again have the chance to do what they failed to do in 2004 -- replace a criminal clique of manifest incompetents with competent, mainstream stewards of a declining empire.

Even so, Obama was the better choice over Hillary – not because his politics are better, they’re about the same, but because he was good for edging the Clintons off the political stage and perhaps also for dispatching some of their more dreadful functionaries. [Already, it’s clear that that is not going to happen.] There was even a chance, albeit a slim one, that, if we the people were to rise to our historic responsibilities, Clintonism too might fade away under an Obama administration – to be replaced by something a little less “liberal” Republican. If Nader is right -- if, as a Caroline advisee, Obama waxes Kennedyesque in his VP selection -- then it will increase the likelihood that that opportunity too will be missed.

Savor the Moments

When it comes to conveying inside tips, The New York Times is usually reliable. This was the case when it helped prepare the country for the war in Iraq, and it is probably the case now with the Obama campaign. This is why I am now inclined to believe that I was wrong, that contrary to the principle established by Keith Olbermann and his band of pundits, that anyone already slated to speak in Denver is out, Obama is likely to pick one of the three reported “front runners”: Joe Biden, Tim Kaine or, worst of all, Evan Bayh. The choice of any one of them would be of a piece with Obama’s recent (post-primary) turn even farther to the right, his abject pandering to Hillary diehards, and his overt expressions of debased, suburbanite religiosity.

One has to marvel at the genius of our institutions. Not only do they offer little space for candidates to betray their constituencies’ hopes – since those hopes hardly have a chance to be articulated in our duopolistic party system – but they encourage such betrayals as there can be to take place before, not after, victorious candidates take charge. In this respect, the victories “anti-war” Democrats scored in 2006 were an exception, as was LBJ’s 1964 landslide victory over Barry Goldwater.

Where Obama is concerned, the betrayals are already well underway. However, for the next day or two, before the VP choice is announced, we still have a moment to savor because we still have a slender reed to which to cling. After all, maybe The Times is wrong: maybe Obama will fool everyone and look left.

There’s another such moment in the offing too – in the afterglow of the speech Obama will deliver when he accepts the Democratic nomination. It will be a truly “historic” moment, as we’ll be reminded countless times, delivered on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s iconic “I have a dream” speech. Obama will likely be up to the task: if nothing else, his oratorical skills are indeed “inspiring.” It’s just his (Clintonite) politics that leave everything to be desired. Most likely, his VP’s politics will too. But, for the next day or two, the dream goes on – as it will briefly again the weekend after next.

Prelude at Saddleback

The holiday (his and ours) is over. He’s back – not from Heaven, but from Hawaii, its earthly approximation -- to test the faith of those who see Him as more than just the lesser evil. The test starts tonight at an Orange County mega-church, where Obama and the increasingly hapless John McCain will field questions from godly parishioners and from the Reverend Rick Warren, their mountebank. A Google search on Warren reveals that he’s one of the most influential men in Christendom. Before I found that out, I had been blessed – I’d never heard of him. Anyway, it seems that, compared to other snake oil salesmen, he’s not too Republican. He even invited Obama to his mega-church before – to the consternation of many in his flock and over the objections of some of his rivals for the hearts and minds and wallets of the deluded. The problem, that time, was that Obama is pro-choice. No problem for Reverend Rick. Could it be that we are entering a post-Falwell Age? It wouldn’t be a minute too soon. Even Nixon’s buddy, Billy Graham, was starting to look good.

Anyway, between now and the looming infomerical in Denver – and thereafter – the intestinal fortitude even of the Obama faithful will be tested repeatedly by the three (trinitarian?) prongs of Obama’s – and the Democrats’ – electoral posturing: displays of unabashed godliness, obeisance to the Clintons and their most benighted supporters, and support for “national security” (an official theme of the Denver gathering of the faithful). The Democrats probably won’t sink so low as to carry crosses, if only not to offend their most trusty paymasters; and they’ll probably not hand out pictures of Hillary, though I wouldn’t be surprised to see more than a few in the crowd. National security – especially “supporting the troops” by keeping them in harm’s way – is another matter. So is “reasserting” America’s “moral authority” in the world. No doubt the Democrats already have a big order in for Harry Truman icons; maybe they’ll even have pictures of A-bombs on them.

Then, if that isn’t enough, there’s McCain’s coronation in Saint Paul, shortly thereafter, to anticipate. That convention will feature speeches by the Torturer-in-Chief and by Dick Cheney. In this year of Our Lord, one would expect that in a city named for a saint, the Righteous would find it in their hearts to make citizens’ arrests of at least those two: for war crimes, crimes against the peace, and crimes against humanity – and, as Vincent Bugliosi explains in The Prosecution of George W. Bush For Murder (Vanguard Press, 2008) – for plain and simple murder as well. More likely, though, as in New York four years ago, the Forces of Light, largely bereft of any godly contingent, will be herded into far-off cages in this Land of the Free, while Forces of Darkness even more potent than the imaginary ones the Rick Warrens of the world conjure up swirl about them.

Dear Caroline,

You’d be a far better VP than those rightwing Democrats the pundits say you and Obama will likely choose, but don’t pick yourself like Cheney did, when there’s an even better choice – one more appealing to those pesky diehard Clinton supporters -- in plain view. Since they think being a First Lady and a wounded woman are qualifications, and since they’re into dynastic politics (along with dysfunctional families), and inasmuch as the idea is to placate them, the choice is clear: your cousin, Maria Shriver is the one. Not only is she a Kennedy by another name; she’s also a Vice Presidential candidate’s daughter. Not only is she a “straight talker” who can charm a gullible press; she is the press. She’s “bipartisan” too, like Obama likes, but not abominable -- like George Bush or John McCain or, for that matter, the Obamanable publisher Mary Matalin. After all, the man she got her “experience” from, though Republican, is still less right-wing (or, as “liberal” NPR would have it, “centrist”) than that red faced, finger wagging, “girlie man” who just won’t go away.