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Today's
Stories
January 9,
2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
The
Empire Strikes Back
Alan Farago
As Florida Sinks: the View from the Titanic
January 8,
2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
No
Jobs for the New Economy (or the Old)
Russell Mokhiber
The Black Hillary: Obama is Just Another Political Sedative
Robert Fantina
The Gulf of Tonkin and the Strait of Hormuz
Dave Zirin
Butts on Parade
Shamako Nobel
I Am an Emcee: the Politics of Hip Hop
John Ross
Zapatista Women Encounter Themselves
Brenda Norrell
Apaches Defend Homeland from Homeland Security
Laura Carlsen
Why Bolivia Matters
Patrick Irelan
Remember the Maine!
Evelyn J. Pringle
The Holes in Bush's FDA
Jonathan M.
Feldman
After Iowa and New Hampshire: a Strategy for Rebuilding the Peace
Movement
Michael Dickinson
Playing Soldier
Website of
the Day
Sean Hannity on the Run!
January 7,
2008
Chris Floyd
There
Will Be Blood: But No Justice for Iraq Atrocities
John Blair
Remove That Man! Creeping Fascism in Indiana
Uri Avnery
The Case of the White Bird
Andy Worthington
Who Are the Gitmo Saudis?
Binoy Kampmark
Needling the Convict: Lethal Injection and the Supreme Court
David Macaray
Women on Strike
Ralph Nader
Obamarama: the Politics of the Smooth Mood
Michael Donnelly
It's the War Vote(s), Stupid!
Ron Jacobs
Ron Paul's Run: Is Being Against the War Enough?
Gideon Levy
The Hostile President
Dave Lindorff
A Real 9/11 Cover-Up? Sibel Edmonds, Turkey and the Bomb
Website of
the Day
Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea
January 5 /
6, 2008
Douglas Valentine
Good
Guys in Black Hoods
Kevin Young
The
US Occupation and Popular Opinion in Iraq
Richard Rhames
Saddam
Who?
Saul Landau
Bush Snatches Defeat from Victory
Marc Lynch
Why Bush's Iran Strategy is Failing
Robert Fantina
Iowa, Democrats and the Iraq War
Donna Volatile
Antiwar Soldier: an Interview with Jonathan Hutto, Sr.
Jelle Bruinsma
Norman Finkelstein in The Netherlands
Bob Sutcliffe
Remembering Andrew Glyn, Rebel Economist
Harvey Wasserman
Anti-Nuclear Renaissance
Missy Beattie
Why Obama Can't Save Us
David Swanson
Remembering the Separation of Powers
Jacob Hornberger
The Importance of the Padilla Case
Shepherd Bliss
Survival Tools from Kokopelli Farms
Ron Jacobs
Bleeding Kansas
Poets' Basement
Patti Smith, B.R. Gowani and Peter Buknatski
Website of the Weekend
Jimmy Dean Sausage Call Complaint
January 4,
2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
A
Good Night in Iowa
Jonathan Cook
War Crimes Airbrushed from History
Paul Craig Roberts
Thinking for Yourself is Now a Crime
Stan Goff
Ron Paul's Monkeywrench
Dave Lindorff
Clinton's Iowa Flop Exposes DLC Myths as Frauds
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
To Pindi Station
Allan Nairn
U.S. Elections Over Before They Began
Joshua Frank
The Failures of Sectarianism
Peter Morici
Economy on the Skids
Mary McInnis
Iowa Cocky-Us: How to be a Caucus Tease
Website of the Day
The Return of Obama Girl
January 3,
2008
Fatima Bhutto
Farewell
to Wadi Bua
Pam Martens
The
Free Market Myth Dissolves into Chaos
Joanne Mariner
The Presidential Candidates and Torture
Zoltan Grossman
Remember the '80s: Social Movements Between Woodstock and the
Web
David Domke
The Echoing Press and Huckabee
Norman Solomon
Edwards Reconsidered
Nikolas Kozloff
Return of the Faux Liberal
Jacob G. Hornberger
The Padilla Case and the Future of Habeas Corpus
Martha Rosenberg
Quit Picking on Huckabee's Son, Michael Vick
Russell Means
This Property is Condemned: a Notice to Those Occupying Lakotah
Lands
Website of the Day
WolfQuest
January 2,
2008
Jeff Taylor
The
Left and Ron Paul
M. Shahid Alam
The Life and Death of Benazir Bhutto: a Pakistani Tragedy
Gary Leupp
Madness Compounding Madness: Calls for Intervention in Pakistan
Paul Craig Roberts
Criminals with Badges
Heather Gray
Georgia's Racist Death Penalty
Fred Gardner
and Shobhit Arora
Dr. Strangelove's Nemesis
David Macaray
Labor Unions and Taft-Hartley
Benjamin Dangl
Fear and Loathing in Bolivia
January 1,
2008
Iain A. Boal
City
of Disappearances
B. R. Gowani
Benazir's Death in Crisistan
Shahid Mahmood
Bhutto and the Press
Linn Washington,
Jr.
Old Injustices Endure: From Crack Sentences to Racial Profiling
Harvey Wasserman
Taking Leonard Peltier to Iowa: the Moral Low Point of the Clinton
Era
John Ross
2008, Already a Year to Forget
Website of the Day
The Thrill is Gone: BB and Gladys
December 31,
2007
Alexander Cockburn
Goodbye
2007 and Good Riddance!
Tariq Ali
Pakistan, the Aftermath
Liaquat Ali Khan
The Perfidy of Pakistan's Rulers
Wajahat Ali
After Bhutto, a Nuclear Pakistan?
Robert Fisk
Who Killed Bhutto?
Ajai Sahni
Myths and Realities About Benazir Bhutto and Pakistan's Dark
Future
Marwan Bishara
You Say Talk, I Say Attack: The Middle East and the US Presidential
Election Campaigns
Uri Avnery
The Beilin Syndrome
Mark T. Harris
Does This Happen in Canada?
Brenda Norrell
Resistance and Censorship
Website of the Day
A People United Will Never Be Defeated
December 29
/ 30, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
Options
in America: Kill Yourself or Have a Baby
Tariq Ali
Indignation and Fear Stalk Pakistan
Fawzia Afzal-Khan
My Encounter with Benazir Bhutto
Gary Leupp
The U.S. and Pakistan After 9/11: Blowback from an Unholy Alliance
China Hand
Pakistan Stares Into the Abyss
Jacob Hornberger
Stop Medddling in Pakistan
John Chuckman
Pakistan and the Failure of Quick-Fix Politics
Missy Beattie
Evaluating Bush with the Bhutto Corruption Standard
Ralph Nader
Who Will Take the Next Step?
Fidel Castro
There Hasn't Been a Day in My Life When I Haven't Learned Something
Robert Fantina
The Sham of Homeland Security
Greg Moses
Beauty from the Heart of Texas
Catherine Lutz
What We Can Not See: Art and Bombing
Kristin Van
Tassel
Seeing in the Dark
Kim Nicolini
Redacted: Brian DePalma's Scream of Outrage
Phyllis Pollack
Keith Richards Runs With Rudolph Once More
Poets' Basement
Landau, Gibbons and Davies
Website of
the Weekend
Driving Karachi in Search of the Perfect Naan
December 28,
2007
Farzana Versey
The
Complex Electra
Wajahat Ali
A
Pakistani Requiem
Binoy Kampmark
Death in Rawalpindi: Bhutto and Her Legacy
Ayesha Ijaz
Khan
Not Dead Yet: The Pakistan People's Party Still Survives
Anthony DiMaggio
Turkey's Bombing of Iraq
Ray McGovern
Creeping
Fascism
Jim Goodman
Biofuels, the Biggest Scam Going
Ron Jacobs
Transcending the Colonizer's History: Iran, a People Interrupted
Russell Hoffman
Mini-Nukes by Toshiba
John Murphy
Greens Gone Wild
Website of the Day
Guiliani Campaign Official: "Only Rudy Can Defeat the Muslims"
December 27,
2007
Dilip Hiro
A
Tragedy Foretold: Will Bhutto's Death be a Boost for Her Party?
Murtaza Shibli
Who Killed Bhutto?
Stephen Soldz
Fallujah,
the Information War and U.S. Propaganda
Bill Quigley
Locked
Outside the Gates
Paul Craig Roberts
The Great American Lock-Up
Omer Subhani
Killing Bhutto: What Happens Next in Pakistan?
Marjorie Cohn
The Torture Tape Cover-Up: How High Does It Go?
Allan Nairn
Cataclysm By Money Whim
Jacob G. Hornberger
Smearing Ron Paul: Shame on the NYT
Norman Solomon
Channeling Suze Orman
Patrick Irelan
Rumsfeld Spills the Ink
Ben Tripp
Pass the Razor Blades
Website of the Day
Quagmire, For What It's Worth
December 26, 2007
Charles Tripp
From
One Saddam to Fifty
Paul Armentano
No-Knock, You're Dead
Rannie Amiri
Lebanon in Search of a Government
Stanley Heller
Brzezinski and Charlie Wilson's War
John Walsh
Two Unreasonable Men
Martha Rosenberg
The Strange Career of Scott Gottlieb
Norman Madarasz
Bolivia Amends New Constitution and Faces Mutiny from Within
Website of
the Day
Cockburn at the Battle of Ideas
December 25,
2007
Patrick Cockburn
Conscience
and Empire
December 24,
2007
Andrea Peacock
A
Dark Ride on the Border
Tariq Ali
Thinking of Edward Said
Uri Avnery
Help! A Ceasefire!
Jill Jameson
Burma is Not Back to Normal: A Trip from Rangoon to Mae Sot
Steve Melendez
Russell Means Goes to Washington
Mike Whitney
The Big Fix
Chuck Munson
Not Getting It About New Orleans
John Walsh
Clueless Crusaders
Farzana Versey
Tony Blair and the Hawking of Religion
Richard Neville
Dreaming of a White House Christmas
Website of the Day
Back in the USSR
December 22 / 23, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
Mike
Huckabee's Ascending Chariot
Ralph Nader
Politics
and Profits: How the Oil Cartel Gets Its Way
Andy Worthington
Intelligence Failures, Battlefield Myths and Unaccountable Prisons
in Afghanistan
Ahmad Faruqui
The Comedian of Pakistan
Bill Moyers
Society on Steroids
Rev. William
E. Alberts
Blessed are the Peacemakers
Timothy J. Freeman
From Kant to Lennon: Can War Really be Over?
Anthony DiMaggio
Democrats Continue to Capitulate on Iraq
Fred Gardner
Molecule of the Year, Cannabiodiol
Paul Krassner
Enhanced Hazing Techniques
Seth Sandronsky
17 Years of Meanness: Repealing California's Three Strikes Law
William Loren
Katz
Christmas Eve Freedom Fighters: Recalling the Battle of Lake
Okeechobee
Michael Dickinson
In the Dungeon of the Zabita
Ron Jacobs
Why Leon Russell Still Matters
David Vest
Doyle Bramhall's "Is It News?"
Poets' Basement
Orloski, Davies and Ford
Website of the Weekend
George W. Hates Santa
December 21,
2007
John Ross
New Massacres Loom in Mexico
Jacob Hornberger
Nothing Can Morally Justify the Invasion of Iraq
Dick J. Reavis
A
Way Out of the Newspaper Abyss
Jeff Cohen
and Norman Solomon
The 2007 P.U.-litzer Prizes
Peter Morici
Business as Usual as Recession Looms
Jack McCarthy
Let Us Now Praise Judith Regan (Even If She Did Sleep with Bernie
Kerik)
Raúl Zibechi
Sex and Revolution
Steve Early
How the Presidential Candidates Made Me an Atheist
David Macaray
Union Aftermath
Patrick Bond
Zuma, the Center-Left and the Left-Left in S. Africa
Lakota Freedom Delegation
A Declaration of Independence from the USA
Website of
the Day
Solomon v. Beck: Tale of the Tape
December 20,
2007
David Rosen
Mitt
Romney's Secret Life as a Pornographer
Alan Farago
The
Huckster and the Wreckage: Jeb Bush and the Subprime Mortgage
Crisis
Laura Carlsen
Standing Up to NAFTA
Ashley Dawson
The Return of the Bread Riot
Wayne Smith
and Jennifer Schuett
Cuba Changes, US Policy Stagnates
Website of
the Day
How to Talk to a FoxNews Reporter
December 19,
2007
Saul Landau
Is
the NIE Bush's Watergate?
Paul W. Lovinger
Hillary the Hawk
Norman Solomon
The Mad Corporate World of Glenn Beck
Dave Zirin
George Mitchell's Drugs of Choice
Marjorie Cohn
Bush Still Spinning Iranian Nukes
Sen. Russell
Feingold
The Iraq War is Exhausting Our Nation
Sonja Karkar
A Christmas Reflection on Palestine
Anthony Papa
Open the Drug Gulags
Christopher Ketcham
Pave the Holy Lands with Good Intentions
Davey D
Britney's Little Sister is Pregnant: Should We Blame Hip Hop?
Website of
the Day
When Republicans Use the F-Word on TV
December 18,
2007
R. F. Blader
The
Politics of Teen Pregnancy
George Wuerthner
Gunning for Wolves in Idaho
Steven Higgs
Can the NAFTA Superhighway be Stopped?
Vijay Prashad
Encounters with Ghadar
David Macaray
The Free Rider Problem
Ralph Nader
Nine Books That Make a Difference: a Reading List for the Holidays
Eva Liddell
Privatizing War Abroad, Invading Privacy at Home
Martha Rosenberg
While the Bodies are Still Warm: Drugs, Shrinks and Shooters
Dave Lindorff
When Impeachment is Out of Print
Peter Morici
The Consequences the Trade Deficit
Website of
the Day
Ron Paul: How Fascism Will Come to America
December 17,
2007
Mike Whitney
Staring
Into the Abyss
Tom Barry
Planning
the War on Immigrants
Uri Avnery
A
Gaza Masada?
Greg Moses
Crossing the Line in Texas
Allan Nairn
Terrorism; Counter-
Terrorism: Excuses for Murder
Patrick Bond
South Africa's Fight Between Hostile Brothers
Stephen Lendman
Police State America
Charles Jonkel
Grizzly Right of Way
Laray Polk
An Inside-Out Crisis in Gaza
Stephen Fleischman
Pawns in Their Game
December 15
/ 16, 2007
Peter Linebaugh
A
People's Penny for the Magna Carta
Howard Zinn
Bomb After Bomb
Standard Schaefer
The Greening of Big Tobacco
Raymond J.
Lawrence
Let's Take Christ Out of Christmas
Alan Farago
Down on Desolation Row: the Vultures and the Growth Machine
Saul Landau
Lord Byron and the Bad Tourists
Jenna Orkin
Lying to "Reassure" the Public: Bush's EPA and the
Post-9/11 Toxic Air Cover-Up
Ahmad Samih
Khalidi
Why a Palestinian "State" is a Punitive Construct
Robert Fantina
Politics By Photo-Op
Missy Comley
Beattie
Resistance Amid the Ruins
Ramzy Baroud
Of Mormons and Muslims
James L. Secor
A Vision for China's Future
Elijah Wald
Ike Turner's Music Won't be Forgotten
Website of
the Weekend
The Alliance for the Wild Rockies Needs (and Deserves) Your Support
December 14,
2007
JoAnn Wypijewski
The
Dirty Cad: What Giuliani's Sex Life Tells Us About Him
John Ross
Iraqi
Refugees Return: One Cruel Hoax
Jacob Hornberger
Terror Suspects Belong in Federal Court
Andy Worthington
Guantánamo and the Supreme Court: What Happened?
Allan Nairn
"Shoot Them on the Spot": Rewarding War Crimes
Dave Zirin
The Mitchell Report: Absolving the Owners
Dave Lindorff
The First Cut is the Deepest
Misty MacDuffee
Toxic Grizzlies
Ben Terrall
What Happened to Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine?
Dr. Mustafa
Barghouthi
Prerequisites for Peace
Website of the Day
Sen. Kit Bond: "Waterboarding is Like Swimming"
December 13,
2007
Paul Craig
Roberts
Shrinking
the Dollar from the Inside-Out
Mike Whitney
Dershowitz for the Defense--of Waterboarding
Ron Jacobs
Blank Check DemocratsL the Great War Funding Conspiracy
Norman Solomon
The USA's Human Rights Daze
Peter Morici
The Dragon and the Toothless Dog: China Doesn't Flinch
Sandy Mayes
Blocking the Strykers: 13 Days of War Resistance at Port Olympia
Franklin Lamb
The UN in Lebanon: Whose Mission Is It Fulfilling?
Jacob Hornberger
Don't Reform the CIA, Abolish It
Nadim Rouhana
An Interloper in My Own Land
Dave Zirin
On Pigskin and Petrol
Website of the Day
Rachel's Needs (and Deserves) Your Support!
December 12, 2007
Allan
Nairn
US Intelligence is Tapping Indonesian
Phones
Alan
Farago
How Sprawl Eats Its Young
Ray
McGovern
Torture, Lies and Videotape
Winslow
T. Wheeler
The Phony Pentagon Budget Cuts
Evan
Jones
The Raid on Great Western: Why an Australian Bank Might Spell
Doom for the US Farm Belt
James
Petras
An Open Letter to Sarkozy on the Exchange of Political Prisonsers
Joel
Hirschorn
The Horserace Fiction: Clinton, Obama and the Democratic Machine
Joshua
Frank
Why Ron Paul Deserves Our Attention
Sherry
Wolf
Why the Left Should Reject Ron Paul
Dan
Bacher
Survey of a Fish Graveyard
Website
of the Day
Men Eating Bugs
|
January
9, 2008
Pardon My Laughter
Watching
the US Presidential Primaries in Canada
By JOHN CHUCKMAN
"Americans are the only
people I know who believe their own propaganda."
Deborah Eisenberg,
American writer
I think relatively few observers appreciate
the severe limits of America's 18th-century Constitution, the
document shaping offices which so many now scramble to fill.
Change does not come easily, no matter how eloquent the speeches,
how worthy the promises, or how great the need. It would be easier
to raise the Titanic intact than to make one authentic change
of consequence in America.
The only exception is war,
a form of destructive change which occurs with about the same
frequency as elections in America. Most members of both parties
unfailingly vote for it, support it with additional votes, make
no apologies, and utter drivel about fighting for freedom. To
do otherwise is regarded as unpatriotic and, in many parts of
America, as downright dangerous.
America stopped declaring war
after 1941 because it was too inefficient. War was put on an
assembly-line basis. Now, senators and others briefly huddle
before the Pentagon is ordered to bomb the shit out of some unfortunate
people. In the process, the president is elevated temporarily
to Caesar, never to be seriously questioned before the corpses
are all counted. It is an unfortunate matter of style in Bush's
case that Caesar more closely resembles Garfield Goose than Augustus,
so treating Bush with imperial reverence always has a certain
absurdity about it, but absurdity is never allowed to get in
the way of some serious destruction.
Barack Obama is said to be
about change, and I think that he is, but the change he represents
is in his thoughtfulness, tone of voice, and eloquent selection
of words, important enough after seven years of Bush's visceral
stupidity and consistent appeal to the lowest human instincts.
Obama is a decent, thoughtful politician, something not seen
in the White House for a long time, and there is no more powerful
argument for the importance of intelligence and reflection in
high office than the grim reality of Bush.
Obama has what Americans like
to call "class," a form of grace that is almost indefinable
and very rare in American national politics. There are echoes
in his speech of John Kennedy with just a light touch of Dr.
King's cadences. He has the same effortless ability to deliver
a line with subtle force. Most importantly, Obama literally breathes
a sense of freshness and honesty, something which cannot be taught
by the media consultants who infest these campaigns like blowflies
in raw wounds.
When Hillary Clinton recently
attacked Obama for raising too many hopes with his words an
accusation more revealing of Clinton's character than Obama's
- his answer flowed so naturally and with such quiet force of
truth that his words seemed to provide a defining moment. Clinton
brittlely insisted that change came only through steady hard
work, something apparently she to the exclusion of others had
done all her life, but the only truth she succeeded in communicating
was that she was ready to put her head down like Bob Cratchit
with no greater purpose than to fill a record number of forms,
while giving off whiffs of sour attitude. Not a hint of grace
there.
There is, at times, something
painfully reminiscent of Bob Dole in Hillary Clinton. Dole, always
a bitter man, even when he made a joke, communicated a sense
that he was somehow entitled to high office because he grew up
in Kansas and did his newspaper route faithfully and was injured
in the war. Clinton's self-serving stuff about hard work is Bob
Dole Lite.
Clinton has been terribly abused
in her public life, abused while First Lady by savage personal
attacks from Republicans and, importantly, by her own husband's
stingingly-embarrassing behavior. That history may well explain
some of her Bob Dole quality, but people do not vote for a national
leader out of sympathy for a bitter past, or at least they should
not.
Clinton has shown yet another
unpleasant aspect of herself in this campaign: her excruciatingly
bad acting talent. First, there was that (recorded) use of Southern
drawl when speaking in the South, then there were all those photo-ops
with her face fixed in a determined, big-eyed Howdy Doody smile,
and only recently, there was the quavering voice and whimpering
sounds about it all being for America in reply to a question
about how she continued her battle. She is simply terrible at
doing these things, and I am sure it is obvious to all astute
readers of human communication. The impression made is disingenuousness.
As for Clinton's argument that
she has great experience, it simply eludes me. Clinton spent
her White House years swinging between the political fights of
her husband, being called names in return, and baking cookies
in a frilly apron. I think we know which was the genuine Clinton:
the cookies were another form of repellently insincere communication.
But insincere communication
works in America, the public's being so heavily conditioned by
advertising and marketing. Clinton's whimper in New Hampshire
stands with more historic events like Nixon's Checkers speech,
almost enough to make those sensitive to language puke.
A word here about Clinton's
unexpected (narrow) win in New Hampshire after polls said she
would lose: I am convinced the only factor responsible for this
was a brief demonstration at an appearance of hers by some oafs
chanting about her getting back to the ironing board. The event,
hardly noted nationally, is said to have been well broadcast
in New Hampshire. Coming shortly before the vote, it undoubtedly
caused a swing with women voters who generally like Obama. You
might think those ironing-board oafs were executing a clever
Republican plan to promote Clinton indirectly since I am sure
she is seen as the more vulnerable ultimate opponent.
My observation about the importance
of intelligence in high office instantly excludes from that office
John McCain, whose facade of freshness and independent-mindedness
during the 2000 campaign was stripped away in a series of belly-crawling
apologies to the Religious Right and Bush, a performance crowned
by a tearful, knees-bent, televised hugging of Bush around the
middle, reminding one of a tableau from a 17th century artist
showing a follower touching Christ's garment.
And talk about pride in stupidity,
McCain actually said recently that he would have invaded Iraq
even without the issue of weapons of mass destruction. But McCain
never saw a bombing run he didn't like one of the main reasons
he is supported by that shriveled ghoul, Senator Lieberman and
he has a vicious temper, undoubtedly inherited from father the
admiral. Five and half years in a Vietnamese prison taught him
nothing: he still believes he was doing the Lord's work when
he was shot-down while bombing civilians in the Hanoi area.
And just on aesthetic grounds,
McCain looks as puffy and lumpy and weather-beaten as original-equipment
tires from a 1929 Ford. If McCain lasted long enough to serve
his term, he'd resemble King Tut's unwrapped mummy by the end.
Knowing the real limits on
change in America offers a dramatic backdrop to John Edwards'
rhetoric about controlling corporations, heavy on melodrama and
chipper optimism and short on analysis. Edwards is a phony pitchman,
a kind of secular tele-evangelist, although he's not consistently
secular since his vision of America is generously larded with
"God bless" and sentimental, quasi-religious clap-trap.
Good Lord, America is today
nothing but corporations. Between its corporations and the countless
colonial wars serving their interests, you pretty much have the
central story of modern America.
Most American politicians often
use the word "consumers" instead of "citizens"
when addressing voters today, revealing the mind set. The laws
are written in favor of corporations, despite the much-repeated
nonsense about the terrible toll of frivolous lawsuits. The national
political duopoly, the two political parties, is organized and
run much as a pair of hamburger or soft-drink multi-corporations,
with a million unfair rules and regulations buried away in every
state protecting their privileges. In the economic sphere, the
same phenomenon is called "barriers to entry," whose
existence in many forms is why you see only two or three companies
dominate the aisles of every grocery and drug store in the country.
Seats and votes in the Senate the most powerful and least democratic
part of the elected national government are largely bought and
paid for through an elaborate web of lobbies and special interests.
Senator Edwards' own wealth,
which permits him the indulgence of four-hundred dollar haircuts
at frequent intervals, was achieved by a vigorous career of making
secret settlements with corporations. You might call it a lot
of hollering about battling the devil while keeping your eyes
riveted on the take from the collection plate, a wealth-building
strategy perfected by the likes of Jerry Falwell. Expect only
more of the same from this disingenuous man should he win, but
thankfully it does appear we are to be spared regular Sunday
morning preach-ups from Washington on the subject of blessed
spirit of America versus the evil corporations.
By the way, how do you spend
four hundred dollars on a haircut? Likely the price includes
regular dye-job touch-ups and nose-hair trims? Perhaps black-head
removal and a shoe-shine? Maybe, when you know all the stuff
included, his haircuts aren't so extravagant and only seem as
though they were done by the chief hair-dresser from the Court
of Louis XVI, one Monsieur Leonard who created those dazzling
bouffants decorated with cages full of birds and jewels and powder.
No candidate can deliver great
change to America, and if one were even to behave in office as
though he or she could do that, one strongly suspects that he
or she would meet the fate of the Kennedy brothers in fairly
short order.
Mitt Romney, with wads of money
spilling from his pockets, apparently thought he could follow
George Bush's strategy from 2000: just spend enough money, smile
a lot, and don't say anything of consequence, and you'll win.
But America has finally tired of Bush (America has a rather long
learning curve, perhaps excused by its grotesque size), and besides,
Romney has a cool, severe face instead of a smiling half-wit
one. He just looks like a guy that would hire illegal immigrants
to do his gardening work despite his being a wealthy man, something
it turns out he in fact did.
Romney is burdened also with
his past life as a missionary for a weird cult called Mormonism
which only in recent years has emphasized a Christian identity
rather than one associated with its odd founder who supposedly
dug up a set of silver plates engraved with the Book of Mormon
in his back yard (Gee, I wonder how they got there?).
At first, Romney thought he
saw an opportunity to reprise John Kennedy's class act concerning
questions of his religion in 1960. But Kennedy was an earthy
Catholic, and many recognized religion would not get in the way
of the job. That is hardly the same thing as having served as
a missionary and resembling a deacon. And Kennedy was eloquent
while Romney resembles the kind of salesman you wish would go
away and let you shop in peace. Besides, Bush's lumpishness has
exhausted the patience of many by pushing religion into everything,
even the brochures handed out at the Grand Canyon.
Imagine an American president
going to an important international meeting, thumping his big
Bible, declaring it to be the certain Word of God, and challenging
the other world leaders to confess that truth? This is exactly
what Mike Huckabee did at an Iowa Republican debate. Does anyone
not obsessed with electric organs and choir robes think this
is an appropriate posture for the leader of the world's most
important country? Does being a Baptist preacher contribute to
statesmanship? Voters needn't be concerned over Huckabee's readiness
to play Caesar because his kind of Baptist is always ready for
some killing, the wrathful God of the Old Testament having played
a prominent role in his Sunday School experience, ready, as Mark
Twain wrote in Letters From the Earth, to slay even the
women for the sin of peeing against the temple wall even though
they are not capable of the act.
Huckabee does share one advantage
with Obama, and that is his quality of freshness. This cannot
be underestimated in view of the desperation of a people to put
George Bush and his pug-uglies into the oblivion of forgetfulness.
Huckabee may be slightly demented witness his recent argument
about evolution and kangaroos but he does have a boyish, fresh
quality. He doesn't look or speak anything like Giuliani or Thompson
or the other grotesque political goblins haunting the campaign.
It would be the most entertaining
outcome were the final candidates to be Obama and Huckabee. That
match would provide a modern version of the Scopes Monkey Trial
of 1925, with Obama as the voice of reason and good sense and
Huckabee as the emotional and articulate defender of nonsense.
The outcome in America would be anybody's guess.
John Chuckman is the author of What's
It All About? The Decline of the American Empire, published
by Constable & Robinson Ltd, London. Available from Indigo
Books, Canada.
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