SlowpokeBlog

There's something bleakly comic about the amount of thinking and hand-wringing many progressives are doing over the choice between Obama and Hillary when irrationality tends to carry the day in American politics, especially in this age of cable news insanity. I've been doing plenty of feverish cogitation myself -- yes, I've actually been waking up in the middle of the night with Democratic candidates dancing in my head. Tomorrow is the Virginia primary, and for the first time ever I am considering intentionally not voting. I realize this makes me sound like the sort of purist I usually can't stand, so let me add that I will absolutely vote for the Democratic candidate in November. People so enamored by one of the two candidates that they refuse to vote for the other in the general election can blow it out their behinds.

The trouble is, neither Obama nor Hillary have shown solid progressive leadership. Both of them pander to the right to the point of grotesquery. I could almost forgive Obama his weak health care plan even though that issue is extremely important to me, but that "Harry and Louise" ad was so wildly irresponsible, it really made me question his judgment. Wouldn't it be nice if Obama used his rhetorical talents to promote a real health care plan? He has also repeated right-wing lies about there being a Social Security "crisis"; his praise of Ronald Reagan was steeped in gauzy right-wing frames about the '60s, '70s, and '80s; and his campaign actually created an oppo page about Paul Krugman, a true-blue progressive hero whose intellectual integrity I greatly admire. Anyone who reads him closely knows Krugman is a former Edwards supporter who is very concerned about upholding New Deal principles, not some kind of hack for Hillary. Obama has been so reckless in his approach to these bedrock issues that I simply don't trust him. Sorry to rain on the hope parade, people, but there it is.

While I think Hillary knows better than to say some of the stuff that's been coming out of Obama's mouth, she is the apotheosis of the milquetoast pandering that seems to define (or un-define) the Democratic party these days. Her willingness to introduce a bill to outlaw flag burning is one such case in point. Recently, she accepted a FOX News invitation to debate. She also ran an ad in Louisiana featuring sleazebag former senator John Breaux, the subject of this cartoon, who just opened a lobbying firm with Trent Lott. (Maybe Breaux is a popular guy down there, but he's the kind of politician who has been part of the problem.) In the end, all of this costs her authenticity points, and authenticity matters.

That said, Hillary is getting the royal crapola treatment from the media, and it bothers me that some Obama supporters are sounding an awful lot like the paranoid Republican wackadoos who spent the '90s inventing scandal after scandal involving the Clintons (see today's Krugman column and blog post). I've heard Obama fans, hopefully not representative of the majority, call her "shrillary" and "the bitch." Not cool.

So much of my life is dedicated to battling right-wing language and memes, it's heartbreaking to see the candidates (and sometimes their supporters) embrace them and do damage to our long-term goals. So I'll make my statement -- which will be heard by no one -- by abstaining.

FYI: From what I can see on the streets of Charlottesville, the Obama campaign has a huge presence compared to Hillary's. He's everywhere. I even saw a spray-painted, sidewalk-graffiti Obama head reminiscent of the iconic Che Guevara portrait.