And I found it pretty easy to cast a vote that told the Republican Party, for which I recommended a vote last time, not to try any of this shit again. No more McCarthy tactics; no more stumblebum quitting of the campaign trail and attempting to pull out of the first presidential debate in order to wind up voting to save Lehman Bros.; no more driveling Christian fundamentalism; no more insinuation that only those silly enough to endorse them are "real Americans." No more sneers at San Francisco as if it weren't a real American city. McCain and his preposterous running mate will just have to believe in an afterlife in which they can live down the shame of what they attempted this year.More at the link.
But I might possibly have voted for them all the same, clothes pin clamped over my nose in the voting booth, if only because of the crucial struggle for a free Iraq and an autonomous Kurdistan. And, in such a case, I would have been very annoyed at the suggestion that my vote was a racist one. "Historic," yelled the very headline across the top of my morning newspaper. (Just the news, please, if you would be so kind.) Would the letters have been so big for the first female vice president? And isn't it already historic that millions of white Christians voted, win or lose, for a man with one Kenyan parent, that parent having been raised as a Muslim?
November 11, 2008
Voting against McCain, irked by the over-promotion of Obama.
Christopher Hitchens vents, post-election:
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16 comments:
While I think Hitchens understates the similar behavior of Democrats in demonizing Republicans this year, I agree with everything else he said.
Dear God, do we have to describe everything Obama does as "Historic"? On the one hand, yes, it is historic. On the other hand, he's doing exactly what all his predecessors have done, equally historically, but with less fanfare and congratulation.
There is an unseemly condescension about all this that unnerves me.
This is just annoying to me. I love Hitchens - really, I do...I want to give him a great big hug just because I know he'll hate that, though.
And whining so early after he made a such huge error in judgment (IMO)should not be allowed. Tut, tut, Christopher!
Salamandyr said...Dear God, do we have to describe everything Obama does as "Historic"?
Yes you must. Historic has been a code word for black for years. As are the terms pride/proud, dignity, rage, glory, civil rights, strong, manhood, heritage, etc.
Code words for White are fear, hate, bigotry, guilt, racism, prejudice, neanderthal, divisive, ugly, small minded, dying breed, etc.
Hitchens says . . .
More worrying still, there are vicious enemies and rogue states in increasing positions of influence throughout the world (one of the episodes that most condemned the Republican campaign was its attempt to slander Sen. Joe Biden for his candid attempt to point this out), yet many Obama voters appear to believe that the mere charm and aspect of their new president will act as an emollient influence on these unwelcome facts and these hostile forces.
So Hitchens condemns the McCain campaign for making precisely the same point about Obama and national security that Hitchens makes in condemning the McCain campaign. My head is spinning, and I'm not the one with the buyer's remorse hangover.
Hitchens has lost his mind if he thinks that the GOP lost because it bashes San Fransicko. San Fransicko is a treason-city which has isolated itself due to its actions. I thought Hitchens was the kind of guy who thought actions bear consequences? I think for all his supposed intelligence, he's an absolute dunce. He thinks there are only 2 camps in America(Communist intellectuals and Bible-thumpers) and out of his intellectual snobbery throws in with the Communists. Hitchens = FAIL.
Hitchens...."no more driveling Christian fundamentalism.."
Hitch must have some selective amnesia re frothing Black Liberation theology that BO unreservedly embraced for 20 years.
... no more driveling Christian fundamentalism ...
Piss off, Hitchens.
I'm tired myself of people who leave their own countries because they don't much care for what's going on there and feel powerless to change things to their satisfaction, then come to my splendid country pissing and moaning and doing their damn best to change essential elements that have made it splendid to begin with. Got nowhere there, so try their hand here. My wonderful country would be much less without Christians in it. So, how 'bout putting an end to the constant driveling, and book promotions, about Christians. That would be different, now, wouldn't it? Have yourself another cocktail, and a smoke, Wanker.
Also, it's about time for an original writer to give up the "holding one's nose whilst voting." That was cute when we first heard it from the French ten years ago. It's worn bare now.
The point about lopsided coverage is taken, but already discussed at length. I can leave the rest. Pfffft.
As the kids say on YouTube, always so tactful, "I want my five minutes back."
Yeah; that's typical. It's like third parties don't exist. If you're against McCain you must be for Obama, it's not possible to vote for Ron Paul or Bob Barr or Mickey Mouse or "present".
That's the thing--if you want to "punish" the Republicans, you DON'T do it by voting for Obama--because Obama isn't going to say "gosh, those Republicans got punished", he's going to say "I have a huge popular mandate!" And that might not be what you want.
Hitchens' mind is like a bad-hop grounder. You think you know where he's going, but then he careens away from you.
He is shifting to the right, but without wanting to give up on anything important that he said when he was a reliably leftist polemicist. I half-suspect that McCain's support from Hitchens' most despised political figure, Henry Kissinger, helped sink him for Hitchens. And then of course he could never embrace anyone like Palin, as least as she was caricatured. He's an atheist and he came to believe she was a "dinosaurs and men lived together" religious fundamentalist. I suspect that's actually another Palin myth. I don't think her political career up til this year was reliant on the kind of blatant religious rhetoric that she's now associated with. I don't think she's actually any more religious than Obama.
And then there's one more thing: Andrew Sullivan. Hitchens hates being on the same side of anything as Sullivan. They were forced to ride together for Obama, but it's no surprise that he's jumped off the caravan at the first opportunity. He'll walk next to it for awhile longer, though.
Ann wrote:
"Over-promotion of Obama".
Has Althouse expressed Freudian buyer's remorse already?
Of course Althouse expressed buyer's remorse very quickly when she went back to "cruel neutrality". Notice there's no banner up there now.
A lot of Christians I know refused to support McCain because he didn't significantly back the Christian right. So that went both ways.
This is the sort of thing that often happens to the Democrats who split becaue their candidates are too broad.
This time it happened to the Republicans.
You can only be so broad, and then there is a law of diminishing returns.
McCain didn't bring up gay marriage, or abortion, or any of the other wedge issues very frequently if at all in the big debates.
He could have done this, but didn't.
He was aiming at the middle, or os it seemed to me. He lost the liberal Republicans like Hitchens, but he also lost a lot of orthodox Christians.
I wonder if someone like Huckabee would have done better. At least people would have known where Huckabee stood.
With McCain, it was hard to tell.
"I wonder if someone like Huckabee would have done better. At least people would have known where Huckabee stood."
Yes, he stood in a giant, smelly meadow-flop of Christian fundamentalist, soft-socialist shit. Good thing that his boots got stuck in it and he lost the nomination.
I would have liked Huckabee if it were possible to do so. He is not without qualities. But ultimately he blew with the wind, and the stunts he pulled out of his ass to answer press queries were no substitute for having a comprehensive, well-anchored worldview. I'd like Fred Thompson to have some of Huckabee's qualities, like energy.
But I was for Giuliani all the way. I wonder if he looks any better now to anyone?
Thought: Would Palin as VP immunize Giuliani from socon and liberal abuse? I mean, if it appeared that they agreed and that Palin endorsed the fundamental good nature of Giuliani to the base - if she could work with him - maybe that would make him a more viable primary candidate.
His scandals have also been raked up again and again and perhaps are no longer so fresh. And who knows what four years may bring? I certainly think he and perhaps Thompson were the most intelligent, impressive men in the race.
Someone in another thread was talking Obama tactics to peel GOPers like Romney? How about posting McCain to some special czar slot for reforming military affairs?
OMG shoot me.
nichevo,
I'm with you, I was very excited about Giuliani, and very disappointed that his campaign failed so spectacularly.
On one hand, I think that, if he had been the nominee, he would have put up a much, much better fight than McCain and that might have been enough to scratch out a win, but on the other hand, whenever I so much as dare mention his name to a lot of my conservative colleges (I'm a law student in a southern state, so there are a lot of christian conservative types), they scorn him completely- many assert that he is the absolute last that they would have voted for. So, I really don't know if he was ever a viable candidate.
Shit on this editing conflict thing. I lose more posts that way...
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