hardyparty's blog

Vitriol with a spot of tea

For years I've been saying that I just can't wait to vote for Hillary Clinton. This is not to say that I'm a Hillary suppporter. In fact, I was ready to throw her overboard for Obama back in the early days of the election season, when he was a fresh face preaching an idealistic philosophy that seemed just barely practical enough to start fixing the problems with American politics. However, I now realize that his rhetoric was just a way to entrench himself with the younger, idealistic crowd, whose voter turnout in increasing (you kids, what with your MTVs and your rap musics...).

Now, though, the race for the Democratic nomination is heating up. Obama and Edwards have started attacking Clinton, the frontrunner, and she has finally started hitting back. Wait, Obama. I thought a dirty campaign was beneath you. And shame on both of you for letting Hillary look like she's defending herself. I would've bet big money on her being the one to take it dirty first. Clinton recently pasted on a big smile, adopted a cheery tone, and, without naming names, blasted people like Obama, who is new to the game of politics, for posing “the argument suggests that people like me, and Governor Richardson, and Senator Dodd and Senator Biden, are somehow disqualified from making the changes that America needs, even though we’ve been doing that for decades.” (She's giving props to her competitors, which may come as a surprise. Yeah, like they stand a chance of beating her)

Obama's response to attacks like this? One of his puppets made a statement that his campaign doesn't need lectures from someone who followed Bush into Iraq. Yeah, how about we get off the skeletal horse remains? It's not moving anymore. The crème de la crème of his retort, though, is to start a new website. In a stunning move that resembles "Mom, she keeps looking at me funny!" he has opened http://www.hillaryattacks.barackobama.com/ to point out every time Clinton does something awful like punctuate the word "fun." Gods help us all...

The website uses as a headline:

"'...well, now the fun part starts,' Mrs. Clinton said, punctuating the word 'fun.'"

Senator Clinton, telling reporters in Cedar Rapids about her plans to attack Democrats from now until the Iowa caucuses. [NYT, 12/2/07]

Now, I'm not an expert on vocal inflection (he says, apparently making Vulcans horny), and I never actually heard Hillary say this, but in my head I have a pretty good idea of how she punctuated fun. I doubt she was saying it was going to be "fun" as in Tickle-Me-Elmo "Hahaha, that tickles!" kind of fun. I don't see Hillary as much of a "fun" person, if that's the only definition. I'd imagine her use of the word was a much more Montgomery Burns-ish, sarcastic type of fun. I imagine that after the interview she also drank the tears of a small child, but that is neither here nor there. The point is, it sounds like she was making the statement that it was going to be fun to smash her Democratic opponents, who are much more aligned with her political goals than the Republican candidates, in an ironic fashion. You see, probably because it's not going to be fun and she regrets having to do it.

In other political news, I was listening to NPR on my way home from work yesterday and heard an interview with Mitt Romney that confused and infuriated me. A transcript of the relevant portion of the interview follows, with Robert Siegel's questions in bold:

You've also invoked federalism on the issue of abortion and said that you think that's something that states should have the right to either legalize or make illegal. At the same time, though, you've expressed at least aspirational support — I think was your word — for a constitutional amendment to protect the rights of the unborn. Aren't those two ideas absolutely irreconcilable?

Actually, it's the same view that the president has proposed in the past and that he supports, and I think many in my party recognize — even the author of that provision in the Republican platform, Jim Bopp, follows the same course — which is that the right next step for America would be to remove the one-size-fits-all pronouncement from the Supreme Court, which took away from the states and the elected representatives of the citizens the ability to guide abortion policy and instead mandated a single standard.

In my view, it's time to overturn Roe v. Wade, and that would, of course, return to the citizens and to the states this authority. Ultimately, I would welcome an America where there was such consensus around abortion that we ended the practice altogether, but that's frankly not where we are right now, and therefore the right next step is to overturn Roe v. Wade.

But isn't support for the constitutional amendment support for a one-size-fits-all national ban on abortion?

It's a recognition that it would be a wonderful state for this country to be in where there was a massive national consensus that abortion should not be a practice of this country...

Source: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16846036

First, just because the president also shares your self-contradictory position isn't something I'd be proud of. He's not known as being one of the foremost logical minds of his generation. I mean, this position is obviously a pander to two distinct camps within your own party. You have to be a voice for federalism because that's what the Republicans want, and you have to hate abortionists as baby murderers sent from the devil to appease the religious nutjobs who have grafted themselves to the party in order to make it soluble in the modern political theater. Secondly, and I feel myself beginning to channel Lewis Black, you can't give an issue to the states when you've legislated it into the Constitution of the United States! You can't! You have basically just told us that you disapprove of abortion but you also disapprove of an across-the-board solution. You then tell us that you think there should a constitutional amendment that does what you want across the board. However, since you'll never realistically get this, you think that states should be able to do whatever they want to do so that at least you'll get your way most of the time. It's a pity that nobody considering voting for Romney will ever read this- because he's making all this shit up to get your vote! (/channeling Lewis Black...for now)

Finally, we come to the third item in the trifecta of things that piss me off. We've covered Democrats, and we've covered Republican; we will now cover the religious. Specifically, the reaction of the people of Sudan to a teacher who gave a teddy bear a name that insulted the favored prophet of their gods-forsaken country. First, if there was a god that loved you, you wouldn't live in Sudan. That's proof enough that you're overreacting. This foreign teacher allowed her seven-year-old students, most of whom were presumably Muslim, to vote for the name of the class teddy bear mascot. They named it Muhammad...and all hell broke loose. It seems that insulted the prophet (P.B.U.H.), and before the fiasco was over there were riots and people chanting for this woman's death. Really? Allowing their kids to name a teddy bear Muhammad is enough to have the Sudanese populace call for your death? I wonder how they would feel if I announced that Muhammad licks my asshole clean every night?

I'm just so very tired of the religious thinking that they are entitled to never being offended. They get up and announce that I am not a patriot because I don't believe in their manufactured fairy tale deity, they say that I am not entitled to the same rights as those who have taken leave of their senses and joind a particular cult, they get up and spew the most vitriolic, hate-mongering filth about me wanting to molest little babies and rape puppies because of my sexuality, and then wage a war against speach that is offensive to them. Well, fuck you Muslims (and fuck you Christians and Jews as well). You don't have a monopoly on god, and I am frankly in a mood to see your genocidal tendencies turned around and used on yourselves. But more on this when I finally finish my Christmas. It's that time of year when the world falls in love indeed...

2007-12-04 18:43:35 GMT

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