Clueless:
A much-too-long interview with Camille Paglia, self-appointed "cultural critic," at Salon. TBogg has the money quote:
The Democrats have to start fresh and throw out the entire party superstructure. I was bitterly disappointed after voting for Ralph Nader that he didn't devote himself to helping build a strong third party in this country.
The woman's an idiot.
Hillary:
From Pam's House Blend. If you can get past Pam's knee-jerk bad attitude toward Hillary (sounds to me like Spaulding has swallowed the Republican talking points on that topic whole), you can see that Clinton is what I've always said she is: an intelligent and adaptable politician. She's a pragmatist, which used to be what we wanted in elective office in this country.
She's obviously intelligent -- probably a little bit more than intelligent -- and thoughtful, but most important, I don't think it matters what her personal beliefs are, because I don't think she would govern on that basis. What seems to have both the left and the right twisted up about her is that she's not an ideologue. She pays attention to what's going on in the country and she's a realist. After the debacle with health care early in her husband's administration, I think she learned real fast to figue out what she could get away with and work from that basis. I think she also developed a strong sense of how vicious and unprincipled the right is.
I don't think Clinton should run for president in 2008 simply because her mere candidacy would give the Christianists a new lease on life. I also don't think, as socially backward as we've become under Republican tutelage that we're ready for a woman president. (Y'know, that's sad -- that's really sad. The land of the free hasn't yet joined such countries as Iceland, Finland, Israel, India, Sri Lanka, Britain, Germany, Latvia, and the Philippines in having a woman head of government.) We really can't afford another four years of their being in control of the government -- or even thinking they are. There are some serious fixups that need to be done in this country which are only going to be more difficult if we're distracted by their non-issues.
I have to say, though, that after the past six years, couldn't we do with a little realism in Washington?
Jean Schmidt:
From Atrios, this letter from Jean "Murtha Is A Coward" Schmidt. (It's a pdf file.)
The letter is close to priceless. The "rules" that Schmidt is referring to are rules applying to members of the House of Representatives. Victoria Mursin is not a member of the House -- yet.
Extraordinarily stupid.
1 comment:
I have a hard time talking with anyone who thinks it's going to be productive to vote third-party in national elections. They don't seem to understand that that does no good whatsoever in our governmental organization; if we had a parliamentary system like so many other countries do, voting third-party would make sense. Wishing we had that sort of system and voting as if we did, makes no sense. I get the feeling from listening to some of my friends that the reason they refuse to vote Dem or Repub is because they aren't 100% satisfied with the candidates. News for the kids: government is an environment where freedom is preserved by civil compromise.
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