haven't we been through enough, new york?

our tax revenues have plummeted, our governor is supposedly inept (although someone please give me a cogent explanation of why this is so), and now we may have to look at this fuckface again? why???

The End Is Nigh

On Tuesday, a man who spent $30 million to win the Florida Republican Primary finished in third place with less than 282,000 votes. On the same day, another man, who had been precluded from spending even dollar one to win the Florida Democratic Primary, also finished in third place with less than 249,000 votes. Yesterday, both Rudy Giuliani and John Edwards gave in to the reality of their lots in life--and we, in turn, give in to ours.

As this blog has made clear, I regard the former Mayor as depraved and deranged, a man who would make it his mission in life to execute Muslims around the world, a man who would call this excess of American might, largesse of the American spirit. Sometimes, even this fat, dumb country has a way of surprising me: it took a hard, long look at Mayor McCarpetBomb and realized it didn't like the dithering, slithering mess that it saw. It realized that the highest office in the land--though occupied by a myopic brush-herder--deserves more than a man who stood near the embers of his own astonishingly misplaced Emergency Command Center and took credit for...for what exactly, I'm not sure.

I am a bitter and vindictive person, I know; I am given to ad hominem attacks, but Rudy Giuliani is a horrible person, a union buster, a terror-bater, a Machiavellian gifted at decorating his own legend, and I can only pray that his failed campaign will ruin him professionally and erase him from our national consciousness. My saying this may seem impolitic--perhaps I am trampling on the already down-trodden--but if we are really to move beyond September 11th and heal, we must lay to rest all the myths that surround the narrative of that day: Rudy Giuliani did not stop the attacks , he did not guide us to some new understanding in their wake, he did not show resolve in the face of hardship. He was a man who saw oppportunity in disaster, and for that he deserves to be punished. The end of his campaign should be only the first penance.

If we are to gain anything from the day that made Rudy Giuliani, I hope it is this: tragedy should humble us, sober us, lead us to self-reflection. It did not in the immediate aftermath of the attacks; it has not in the protracted aftermath of the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. But when the vilest, rankest of our electorate can look at Rudy Giuliani and see a false prophet, I am heartened. Perhaps, we are not as dumb as I thought.

As for John Edwards, his departure portends different things for our country. Others may despise him for his haircut idiocy, for building his wife an expensive home, for working for those who are blazing a path straight to hell. But I look at him and I see this: a vain man, surely, a flawed one; he profited by helping others profit from their misfortunes; he arrived in Washington a centrist, and then he ran for President, and everything changed. The current administration, its disavowal of its people, its disdain for accountability, shocked this man--this nouveau riche son of a mill worker--into caring, and I--in a way I have not in years--cared about his candidacy.

Edwards rose from freshman obscurity to deliver what I regard--yes, even in the age of Obama--the most stirring stump speech Iowa has ever heard. (Sorry, apparently, there is no youtube of it.) He paraded on the floats of hope. He pandered to the establishment and became his party's vice-presidential nominee. He drank from the grail of establishment politics and became sick to his stomach: John Kerry, insouciant to the last, refused to excoriate the masters of swift-boat politics; he refused to get angry, when in 2004 anger was all that we had left. Edwards got sick to his stomach, indeed, but more important, finally, he got sick of himself: he repudiated his time in the Senate, and he became a left-wing populist.

He crafted an entire campaign about the least politically powerful people in this country, and he brought class issues once again to the fore. For Russ Feingold, for some readers of this blog, the Edwards of today cannot be reconciled with the Edwards of 2004, but as far as I'm concerned, I cannot imagine how a man goes to Washington in 1998, filled with giddy-eyed hope and backwoods moderate ideas, and doesn't come out as enraged as Edwards has. Frankly, it's the narrative of my own political evolution.

As Rudy Giuliani's political demise puts to rest some of the myths of September 11th, John Edwards' signals that there is room in the graveyard for other myths still: specifically, that party politics are about the people and not the party itself. As the warring cults of personality that are the Obama and Clinton camps come into sharper focus, we know now--and we know without a doubt--the poor in this country have no purchase on our political spirit. And the Democratic Party will never again nominate a populist.

Happy Armageddon!

Hey, I need to blog again. I know. Parents were in town Christmasweek, and then 'Pockets and I flew back east for a wedding in Pittsburgh/to see if my new niece/nephew had arrived on the scene, but that's no excuse: Benazir was assassinated/bumped her head; Pakistan devolved into a riotous and blood-spattered free-for-all (which led to the destruction of, among other things, my aunt's car...while she was driving it); The Wire season premiere dropped On Demand; Mike Huckabee became the would-be-nominee for a bit, then started to talk about things not related to our Lord and Savior/love handles; Giuliani became irrelevant; and Will Smith secretly converted to Scientology (which makes him still more electable than Romney). Also, Happy New Year! Here's to hoping that nuclear holocaust/impending Chinese colonization/bird flu/Britney-LiLo-Winehouse's inevitable group overdose and-or suicide pact decides to put off plans till '09 at least.

Dream Ticket

More Giuliani--this time with his potential running mate. I don't know. Slow news/personal news day, I guess (unless you really want me to blog about the crepe I ate earlier at Zola). Anyway, having bashed him for so long, I thought it only fair to celebrate America's Mayor's laudible sexual harassment policy.

We all gonna die...

So, who gets nuked first today? Iran's the odds-on favorite--no doubt--but I hear Cheney has it in for Luxembourg.

Also, cousin-defiling, abortionist, cross-dressing, terrorism-fetishizing, firefighter-hating, Iraq-Study-Group-avoiding, coke-dealer-hiring squeegee-eradicator/absentee-dad-in-chief is making it a little too easy on me: Now, he wants to carpet bomb my grandmama's house. Wait, scratch that; he thinks we already are.

These Days, Even Rhodes Scholars Have to Pay for It

The only thing even remotely surprising about this story is that Vitter didn't use the occasion to announce his candidacy for the Republican nomination because, you know, being a fake-family-values, adulterous and/or divorced jackass is kind of like a prerequisite this primary season. I guess he's still got a lot more to learn--but, thankfully, he's taking lessons from a pro.

Quote of the Day

“He’s been riding our coattails since 9/11 like he did something. He did nothing. He showed up to funerals. So what? He’s a self-promoter. I told my wife, ‘Anything that ever happens, I don’t want him at my funeral.’" -- New York City Firefighter John Walsh on America's Fame-Whoring, Cousin-Defiling, Cross-Dressing, War-Mongering, Squeegee-Hating, Abortionist Mayor

May Polls

I'm not putting forth my best effort this Sweeps season, it would appear. School ended and I found myself separated from my computer, and a curious thing happened: I realized all the blogging, anonymous tipstering to gossip sites, watching of 30 Rock I was doing between JSTOR and Lexis research was sustainable so long as there was some sort of other task to avoid. If I sat at my computer for seven hours, working on a paper, I could steal away to the blog or to my favorite bit-terrorist site now and again, and all would be right with the world. Now, as I wait for bar prep classes to start on Wednesday--with no reason even to turn on my laptop--I find myself going whole days without checking email. I've been reading and riding my bike around a newly resplendent A2. I went to the Arboretum and got lost. I ate at Zingerman's twice this week. I guess the old Powerbook and I just needed some time apart, and I needed to remember what people did with themselves pre-mid-1990's...Now onto the post:

Everyone has noticed how the presidential election season seems to have started earlier this time around than in years past. It's like your local mall festooning the rafters with faux snow and over-sized, plastic candy canes in October. In the last few weeks in fact, there've been three debates--one Democratic, two Republican (torturepalooza?)--and we're still, what, almost seven months from the Iowa Caucuses. There is an obvious point to be made here: in that span of time McCain's face might disintegrate or American politics' George Foreman, Al Gore, might jump in the ring--that is, anything can happen--so why all the attention being lavished on the front-runners? At this time in 2004 (in fact, even deeper into the season) Howard Dean was the Democratic front-runner and Wesley Clark was getting a whole lot of buzz; In 1992 Paul Tsongas was steam-rolling his way to the nomination. In 2004, Kerry pulled out a miraculous victory in Iowa and Dean found himself in a very special Brady Bunch episode; in '92, Iowa was irrelevant (because native son Tom Harkin won it with 76% of the vote) and Tsongas pulled out New Hampshire, but Bill Clinton schooled him down the road.

All I'm saying is this race isn't Hillary v. Obama/Bobblehead v. McMeltyface. After his robust showing there in 2004, John Edwards is winning nearly every single poll conducted in Iowa over the last few months, and has South Carolina locked down. He knows how the primaries work. Who cares about the national polls that put him in third? Romney's got a machine in place in New Hampshire, and New England pride being what it is, is winning nearly every recent poll in the granite state. Who cares if nationally he's polling behind Jowly McDistrictattorney? In the absence of any incumbents, there's no such thing as a front-runner eighteen months before the election, and if you think this election's going to be Hilary vs. some cross-dressing abortionist cousin-defiler, you may be right, but you're flying in the face of the last twenty years of American presidential electioneering-- speaking of which, check out Bill Richardson:

"He disrespected us in the most horrific way."

Loyal readers of this Blog know cold4thestreets' feelings about America's Mayor. He's the worst kind of politician: power-hungry, shrill, devoid of ideas, nakedly, cynically exploitative of our worst fears. He's a dishonorable man and stands to gain more from September 11th than its perpetrators; he's never met a union he didn't want to bust up, a homeless guy he didn't want to drag to central booking, and yet I'm supposed to get all weak in the knees because he has some sort of passing grasp of reproductive rights. Finally, the other shoe's dropping. Members of New York's Bravest--maybe the most honorable people our country knows--are beginning to come out with their true feelings about Giuliani. Let's hope this is only the beginning...