Frustration

John McCain "clinched" the Republican nomination on March 3rd. Barack Obama clinched the Democratic nomination June 3rd.

How could anyone honestly be undecided at this point? These two couldn't possibly be more different. The close race between Kerry and Bush sort of made sense in '04 - one was an incumbent, a war-time incumbent, of all things - and one was utterly uninspiring.

But this is a different race with two nominees who have vastly differing running mates and utterly contrasting backgrounds (rich, poor, educated, militarized, etc...). Oh, and there's the whole platform thing. McCain is offering us a third Bush term by stepping up military spending on the war of terror and giving corporate America more tax breaks so that their piss can drip down upon the rest of us, somehow anointing us with prosperity. Obama wants to relieve the struggling middle class and take the war where it belonged in the first place, Afghanistan.

Honestly people, if you haven't decided by now, stay home. You were given democracy, however often it breaks down, don't take that right and shit all over it.

Rattlesnake

Right after watching the first debate last night, Sean found this thoughtful commentary piece on Talking Points Memo, an excellent muckraking blog by Joshua Micah Marshall (who visited our group at Stanford last year... good times).

What I have posted below (here is a link to the piece) was written before the debates started and I think Marshall makes some excellent points. Enjoy!

Looking forward to what we can expect from tonight's debate, the most telling points are situation and character. The polls for the moment look good for Barack Obama. And what he needs to prove in the context of the entire campaign is that he has the stature and heft to be President of the United States. That and Obama's character both suggest that he'll try to put in a solid, reassuring performance rather than aiming for a knock-out punch or some game-changing moment.

Meanwhile, everything about John McCain's character and the situation he finds himself in suggests he'll do precisely the opposite.

Whether we call it John McCain's freak-outta-palooza or just some freewheeling maverickism, everything John McCain has done over recent months and especially and with a new intensity over the last week has been geared to upsetting the applecart and creating some event which trips up Obama and shifts the trajectory of the campaign. Some of us may see it in a negative light or a positive light, but descriptively, I don't think many people on either side of the political aisle would disagree with that analysis.

Add to that the issue of character. A high stakes campaign brings out the essence of an individual. And campaigns, in almost every case, are defined by the candidate. With these rapid-fire rash and erratic actions, I think we're seeing the real John McCain. It may be filtered through and packaged by Steve Schmidt or Salter or Davis. But fundamentally I believe this all stems from John McCain.

(To add to the miss, note this pool report filed as McCain headed for the plane to Mississippi tonight with Rudy Giuliani in tow -- the "general atmosphere is utter confusion." Not conducive to going into a high stakes debate. But very much in line with McCain's recent affect and behavior.)

Put those two factors together -- recent behavior/strategy and fundamental character -- and I think you have to expect a John McCain who is unpredictable, possibly uncontrollable and looking for any moment to launch a dramatic ambush or confrontation that will amount to his ultimate roll of the dice.

--Josh Marshall

Inauguration

I've decided to move my blog from facespace because I'm jealous of those real blogs out there.

And what could be more fitting an inauguration than to post pictures of me washing the skunk stink from my dumb-ass dog? Again. Will it never stop?

And, no, I'm not wearing pants. But neither is she, dammit.

In other news... Sean and I saw Salman Rushdie the other night in San Francisco, an event that is part of the City Arts and Lectures series - the same wonderful organization through which we've seen Art Spiegelman and Barbara Ehrenreich. Rushdie was endearing - funny, cocky, lewd - he told a great story about playing ping-pong with Charlotte Johansson during which she expressed repulsion over the idea of him licking her face.

I don't know. I'd let him lick my face, I mean, how many people have experienced that?

And, oh yeah, Happy Summer Solstice! If I were in Fairbanks tonight would the night with pretty much zero darkness, although the whole summer is void of a night sky. I miss that - it never stopped me from sleeping, but was really handy if you had to pull an all-nighter doing something interesting, like killing chickens and whatnot.

The weather has been great here - sunny, mild and breezy with spectacular sunsets. The fog has been minimal, instead we have clouds, that's a rarity.

Work is great, too - our 2007-2008 batch of fellows has mostly departed, so the office is empty and our one problem employee has been in Israel for the last week; tender is the workday. Sean and I have no summer travel plans, just hopefully a couple trips to our favorite nude beach and maybe some hikes, should we ever feel motivated enough to leave the house some weekend. We do, however, have some travel coming up this fall. We're heading to Hawai'i with my mom over Thanksgiving and will be spending winter break in Palm Spring with Sean's parents. Best of all, we're going to venture eastward at the end of January to see Barack Obama's Inauguration.

I know, aren't we counting chickens before they hatch?

I say no. Considering that McCain's latest defense strategies have been to call Obama's policies "pre-9/11" (a lame-ass move from the Bush League play book) and say he's untruthful because he decided not to use public funding for his campaign (Is not using public funds really a bad thing? Is that the best attack you can muster?), they're already at crisis point. It ain't getting better from here for McBushinstein's feeble little campaign.

So, we're pretty excited to see a brother in the White House! Which also leads us to wonder, who will speak at the inauguration? JFK had Robert Frost and Clinton had Maya Angelou. Frost is dead and Maya is a Hillary supporter and, well... we really can't think of any other living figure who lives up the task. Thurgood Marshall is dead; ditto MLK Jr; ditto, um, Lincoln. The only person who springs to mind is Nelson Mandela, but he's not American,
so probably not quite
appropriate (though awe-inspiring, nonetheless).

The best speaker, most properly "larger-than-life" pubic figure
I can think of is Obama himself. What a great fucking quandary! Well, no matter who speaks, I plan on being there, this is a moment I don't want to miss.

Stephen Colbert, maybe? Jon Stewart?

And thus ends my first blog - or, as Nixon ended his resignation speech: "In leaving it, I do so with this prayer: May God's grace be with you."

Or as Pynchon says in Gravity's Rainbow:

"What?" - Richard Nixon