Wait Wait What?
Sometimes politics sends me into a pit of black despair, especially when things that are obvious to me are either completely ignored by everyone else or willfully portrayed in a way 180-degreees removed from truth. I realize that this is in some respects a failure on my part to look at things objectively and understand them from another perspective, but I look at the president's record and I think: "How can there be another perspective?" Somehow, though, there are people who are not convinced that he is completely useless bordering on dangerous. Reading polls are just depressing.

But then the clouds part, the sun shines and even boring obsessives like me can find a reason to smile. See, it turns out even Republicans hate George Bush. Republican senators Hagel (NE), Lugar (IN), McCain and Kyl (both AZ) all came out this week organized, on-message and critical of GWB's Iraq policy and the failures thereof. The organization part gives me a little pause as I wait for the other shoe to potentially drop, but for now I'm taking this at face value.

It is astounding that in September of an election year a coterie of high-profile senators from a sitting president's own party would come out so publically with criticism like this. Did I say "astounding"? I meant "wicked awesome".

The best part is John McCain. After being absolutely slandered and savaged in South Carolina in 2000 while running against Bush, we knew he was dying to say something negative about Bush, even after that awful forced, awkward hug moment where GWB forgot John McCain doesn't have full range of motion of his arms after that whole Hanoi-prison-camp thing he's still working on recovering from (Here's the picture. It's brutal).

All the points he made on the Iraq issue were tempered and valid with one exception. I am a partisan, but I was shocked when I read McCain had referred to Bush as a "gaping, festering, freshly-reamed fuckhole". I know his campaign demeaned your service and incarceration in Vietnam, Senator, and then suggested you fathered a black child out of wedlock, but really, comments like that a really beyond the pale.

And in the category of News To Which I Personally Had A Somewhat Mixed Reaction, Bush totally caved, assenting to three debates. He had initially balked at the second debate, public-meeting style with questions from (gasp!) Undecided Voters in St. Louis but then realized you can't run a campaign as an Alpha-male pissing contest if you publically admit that under some circumstances, you're bashful about whipping it out. Part of me (and I'm not saying which part) is a little disappointed. I really really wanted Kerry to be able to say to the people in Missouri "George Bush is afraid to talk to you". So Kerry is going to have to go back to his boring old "George Bush is really not particularly good at his job" rhetoric and pray to God that someone will realize he's actually right.

Let's start the debate countdown then: 10 days to go. These are always, always the best part of a presidential campaign and always have the same common theme: Let's see who can fuck up the least. Sure it's debatable (har har) as to how much impact these things have on the outcome, but you can't beat them for political theater.


This post on the Narcissus Scale: 8.5


Pops

- posted by Pops @ 9:46 AM