Sunday, June 29, 2008

The Brave March Toward Defeat

The endless Democrat Primary seems to have found a way out of its dire predicament. Hillary Clinton conceded the victory to Barack Obama, and called her supporters to now cheer for the party’s nominee. You would think that this would herald a strong, meaningful campaign stressing out the many differences between Republicans and Democrats, underlining the differences in ideas, ideals, principles and values between the two parties. After all, even though on economical, foreign policy and many other grounds, the two parties are just about the same from my European point of view, there are true differences, essential differences when you start tackling societal issues: abortion, modernity, death penalty, the right to privacy, etc.

So, there I was, waiting for this strong campaign to start off, for the Democrats to start marching toward the final goal of a victory in November.

Instead, I found them and all the “progressive” pundits, editorialists and political analysts labeled as close to the Democrats jovially, bravely, happily marching down the road to certain defeat.

Obama-addicts like Maureen Dowd clang to their snubbing and hissing against Hillary Clinton, finding fault with just about anything she might or might not do (how ungraceful of her to be nice while conceding the victory to Obama, if only she had acted like a good, stereotype shrew…). Others continued praising their “leader maximo”, apparently so entranced as not to see where this is all heading, even though each day brings its newest Obama flip-flop.

Of course, politics is not a game for idealists. Ideals are there, but they are painstakingly hidden behind shields, armors and high walls, because what’s on the front lines is realism, a complete absence of decency and qualms when contemplating slander, lies or anything dirty that would help boost one’s chances for a final victory. Still, there’s looking the other way while your hero or his aides deftly plunge a dagger between two of your enemy’s ribs, piercing through the heart, and then there’s looking the other way and allowing your champion to skewer his own feet with his blade, repeatedly.

And I regret to say, that by now Barack Obama has so completely managed to skewer his own feet, that there’s almost no way he can heal in time for the final race in November.

Do you want a catalog of those jarring mistakes? Okay, let’s see:
  • Protesting the supreme court’s decision concerning the non-application of the death penalty to child rapists;
  • the U-turn concerning his refusal to accept public financing and the rules that go with it, the safeguards that guarantee you won’t be the puppet of all the lobbyists surrounding you (but then facts have already demonstrated that the self-proclaimed Obama the independent caters to his buyers, the same as everyone);
  • applauding the supreme court’s decision to make the weapons’ ban on DC unconstitutional (if you ask me, only people lost in a past of cowboys and barbarians cling to an amendment allowing them to have weapons, after all in a civilized society you don’t make your own justice, you let the institutions do that, but that’s another debate);
  • getting ready to make another U-turn in an essential vote in the Senate, to find favor with the breaches of people’s privacy and supporting the telephone eavesdropping done by the Bush Administration;
  • flipping once again on his Iraq stance.

There are others, but I won’t bore you with them. There’s plenty enough here to get the idea.

Looking at that catalog of flip-flops, what kind of feeling do you get, other than the one that you can’t trust anything that said by this candidate who boasted that he’d do politics otherwise and would embody “change”?

Well, you get the feeling that he caters so much to the conservative base, to the Republicans, that you might as well go for the real thing and vote for Mc Cain.

One lesson we have learnt in Europe, Mr. Obama: when having to choose between an ersatz and the real thing, voters will go for the real thing.

Another lesson we are learning, is that people turn away from politics and politicians because those who come before them to get their vote no longer dare be clear about what they stand for, about the differences they have with their rivals, about real differences in vision, and what they have to offer. Politicians, and the whole machinery behind them are so obsessed with politically correct, getting the other side's people to flip over, that they will say anything, betray their own ideals, flip over and over again, deny the heart of their political engagement, in a stupid, doomed to fail hunt for the other side's voters. And in doing so, they completely forget about their own side, they fling the people who made their own roots to the wind.

Because there is no longer a clear line dividing the opponents, because there is no longer a clear difference of vision, of propositions, people shrug and go the other way instead of going to the polls and casting their vote.

Because there is almost no courage left in politics and politicians, because they cater to anything and anyone regardless of ideals and principles, people turn away from them. Because the one supposed to be the flag of your party, the embodiment of your ideas and your views on the world ignores you and is obsessed with winning some of the other side over, no matter what he has to say or do to reach that ludicrous goal, you turn away from him. Because you watch your enemy try to cajole you into voting for him, running behind your own candidate on issues, you watch him do so and laugh--and of course you won't change your vote.

Welcome on the road toward defeat, Mr Obama. You're well on your way there, and from everything I've read, heard and seen, you fully deserve what's coming to you.

If this didn't mean another Republican in the White House in November, I'd be rolling on the floor laughing.