No More Russert-Williams + Oscar Notes

A modest request to MSNBC: would you please never have Tim Russert or Brian Williams moderate a debate again? Please?

Instead, why not draw up a list of 100 experts in a range of fields, and then have a computer randomly pick 5-10 of them to ask questions at one of these debates? 5-10 average citizens, also randomly selected after submitting questions, could also press the candidates. How much do you want to be that all 10-20 of these people would be more informed and less prone to quoting right-wing websites and asking "gotcha" questions than the dunderhead multimillionaire TV "journalists"?

As for the debate, I challenge anyone who claims Senator Obama doesn't have "concrete plans and he won't state them" to say so now if they watched it. (And please, friends, do not send me mass emails repeating or restating this particular bit of ignorance, I beg of you.) How he's going to pull some of them off remains a question. You and I might not agree with them. But he has "concrete plans" and more than "calls for hope" or whatever the knock is. As for Senator Clinton, she was evidently seething at Odreamy, who was cooler than he's ever been, even during the ridiculous Farrakhan question, throughout the entire event. I won't psychologize her, but it's clear to me that she really felt this was her moment, and it's slipping away. I wonder if she ever asks herself what might have happened if she had chosen the political career and Bill had remained the corporate lawyer, if she'd led Arkansas for several terms, and then attempted to become president, say in 1992, or now? How different might things be? Lots of counterfactuals there, but I wonder if it runs through her mind? She's dazzling smart and does have formidable political skills, but the Clinton baggage, so much of not of even of their making, is weighing her down. I don't think she's out, but from the media stories I read after the debate, they're already writing her epitaph.

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I sat through the Academy Awards, after having to turn off my favorite TV show, The Wire, because I've been following C's example and viewing it via On Demand early in the week, and I could not bear seeing Omar Little (played by the inimitable Michael K. Williams), one of the most original and compelling characters ever to grace television, capped in the back of the head by one of Marlo Stanfield's mini minions again. Once was enough. It took me an entire season to get over the death of Stringer Bell (played by Idris Elba), and given how the series' creator David Simon hews to life's contingencies, ironies, and complexities, I knew Omar, as close to a latter-day fiction Robin Hood as you might find on TV, was probably going to get knocked off, but I still wasn't prepared for it. I asked Reggie and Bernie in an email if they thought another of Omar's fans, Mr. Obama, shed a tear as well. None of know, the verdict's out.

So back to the Academy Awards: I was bored to tears. John Stewart wasn't particularly funny, hardly any outrageous people acted or even stood out (except Tilda Swinton and Diablo Cody, see below), all of the actors presenting appeared to be striving really hard to look as bohemian as possible, while the actresses seemed to have been given strict rules about what to wear and how dazed to look when they took the stage, the Halle Berry gag went on too long, and those montages were like visual Lunestas.

One thing I did note, though, was how awful or lackluster so many of the films winning the Best Film award over the years were. The Life of Emile Zola, which won in 1937 over The Awful Truth and Lost Horizon? How Green Was My Valley, which won in 1941 over The Maltese Falcon, The Little Foxes (!), Suspicion (!), and Citizen Kane?? Around the World in Eighty Days, which in 1956 defeated Giant, The Ten Commandments, and The King and I? Of course there were some years, like 1950, where there were multiple great films, like All About Eve, which defeated Born Yesterday, Sunset Boulevard, and Father of the Bride, all excellent films, and the 1950s in general appear to have been a high point, but then you get decades like the 1960s or the 1980s--and the 1990s were the absolute bottom of the barrel, really--when it's as if the Academy had no criteria but box-office take or bluster in awarding the Best Film prize--but then I guess I should add that the nature of and changes in the American and global film industries perhaps is key to understanding how things played out.

Also, why did they leave poor Whoopi Goldberg out of the Oscar winners montage? She's now one of the stars of The View, so they really have got to stop their hating. (Pssst: W is at 19%, and still sinking!)

The show probably would been less of a snoozer if I'd seen more (any) of the movies, but of the two I most thought should get Oscars, the first didn't win (Persepolis!) and the second wasn't even nominated. My brilliant film-scholar colleague told me that the Academy (of Motion Pictures, that is) will be restructing the process for submitting foreign films in part because of what happened to the Romanian film I raved about the other day, 4 Months, though I thought a similar drama a few years ago was supposed to have changed things, but I could be wrong.

The highlight, as I told C, was seeing Cormac McCarthy in the audience. Yes, Cormac McCarthy. The same Cormac McCarthy who for decades has been notably reclusive, rarely giving interviews or readings. There he was, with a child or grandchild, grinning (all the way to the bank, but also with astonishment, joy and pride) at the victory of the Coen brothers' successful film translation of what is arguably his weakest novel. I credit Oprah Winfrey for his presence at the Oscars, because it was Oprah who picked The Road, his reader-friendly recent novel, for her Book Club, ensuring it millions of (new) readers and him millions of dollars, which might be enough of a motivator to get Thomas Pynchon or J.D. Salinger or Gayl Jones to make a public appearance I'm sure. And it's been nothing but great news for McCarthy since. A Pulitzer (two decades after the books that deserved it), lots of public adulation, and now an Oscar-winning film to top it off. (I hear that The Road will be a film soon, but it is too good, save for the ending, to resist butchering, so let's cross our fingers and knock on wood.) And the Coen brothers and the movie's producer, who thanked his male partner (go Hollywood!), paid tribute to McCarthy in their comments.

Speaking of Gayl Jones, an idea: Oprah, please use your considerable influence and wealth to start making movies of major African-American and Black Diasporic literary works of the 20th century. Please. Why not start with Corregidora, then try Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, Things Fall Apart, Dessa Rose, Nervous Conditions, Go Tell It On the Mountain, Vanishing Rooms, Salt, Soul Kiss, The Bride Price, and take your pick from The House Behind the Cedars, The Flagellants, Banjo, White Boy Shuffle, or Oreo? You singlehandedly could have directors like Julie Dash, Charles Burnett, Arthur Jafa, Spike Lee, Kasi Lemons, and so on, and the vast array of actors out there from across the Diaspora really burning up the screen! They'd have to give Oprah a special Oscar if she could pull this off, don't you think?

Back to the Oscars: the Coen brothers fascinate me. Always have. I love how they're continue to be so intensely idiosyncratic, which comes through in their aesthetic, and how they've been able to maintain it, to the extent possible in Hollywood, and get rewarded for it over the years. I also think it would be so cool to have a very smart, interesting, and equally strange sibling who utterly understood and whom you could do all sorts of projects with, over a lifetime. But then I know almost nothing about them and they could be at each others throats, though that wasn't the impression I've gotten whenever I've read about them or seen them on TV. I'd like to spend a week on set with them, just observing how they work together. And then maybe spend time with the Dardenne brothers, and see how they compare. (These two make an Oscar-worthy movie every time they call it a wrap.)

Among the actors receiving awards, I was surprised Julie Christie didn't receive the Oscar for Best Actress, but my colleague, mentioned above, said that Marion Cotillard really shone as Edith Piaf. I haven't seen that film, but her win only confirms my view that the Academy values mimicry and biopics, especially ones about foreign figures, over everything else. It does take talent to play someone else, but then isn't that what acting is in the most general and basic sense? And isn't it harder to realize a totally fictional character than one whose tics and mannerisms you can study? Tilda Swinton, of the boy-toy and menage à trois, received the Best Supporting Actress award, and cut the most unique figure. She often looks like the alien that I and a friend are convinced Nicole Kidman actually is (Tom Cruise, you know, we think is also one). Swinton's comments also had a nice spike, as opposed to the usual rambling and incoherence. If you have any clue you might be nervous, write out those thank yous on a sheet and tuck it. And above all, don't forget the loved one who's stood by you through thick and thin!

Poor Cate Blanchett, all that talent, all those great performances, twice playing Elizabeth I, and still no Oscar. I guess Kate Winslet decided to pass on the proceedings completely, since she's been dissed four times in a row (or is it five?).

I also liked how unnerved, spastic and thoroughly herself Best Screenwriter from an Original Screenplay Diablo Cody appears to be. I'd been repeatedly told that she was a former erotic performer with a distinctive personal voice and vision, and I'd imagined an utterly confident creature taking the stage, but she struck me as a quirky and delightful person who probably spends a lot of time staring at a computer screen and has an imagination that probably encompasses worlds.

I figured they weren't going to let Michael Moore anywhere near the stage, given his outburst a few years ago, but Sicko was one of his stronger efforts.

The rest of it, other than Ruby Dee, who has found the Fountain of Youth and isn't telling anybody, Javier Bardem, who looked so happy he was about to float off into the rafters, and Denzel Washington, who was sporting a hot Quo Vadis and barked out his words as if he was a drill sargent, was a blur. So many pale gowns and upswept hair. So many musical numbers whose singers sounded flat. So, so, so long. I hope they bring back Whoopi Goldberg or Chris Rock back as hosts, or perhaps try out Will Ferrell, Steve Carrell, Tina Fey, or someone along those lines. Dana Carvey. Mo'Nique. Someone with a sense of humor and enough zip to keep things lively.

Maybe the writers just needed a little more time. I'm glad they're back and got a workable deal, though.

Obama Sweep + Dems Kowtow + Australia Apologizes + Ronald K. Brown's Moves

Barack Obama (at right, USA Today, Rick Bowmer, AP) swept all three--the Potomac--primaries today, but most incredible, just incredible to me, was the Obama blowout in Virginia today. It wasn't a caucus, the state has a lower percentage of Black voters than some of the other Southern states (Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, etc.) that he's won, and while it has trended purple, Virginia is still quite conservative. I know this personally from the years we lived there.

Hillary Clinton's campaign thought she had a chance in the Old Dominion. Yet Obama won Virginia by a huge margin, 63%-37%, basically winning in every region (Northern Virginia, the Tidewater, the Blue Ridge mountains, the border counties with North Carolina, the southeast coastal areas) except the southwest, and also posted these numbers, according to the NBC exit polls: he won among Democrats 59-41, he won among independents 66-33, he won among Republicans (!) voting in the Democratic primary 70-26. He won among White male voters 55%-45%, among Black voters 90%-10%, and among Latinos 55%-45%. Among White women, he lost to Hillary Clinton 42%-58%.

But most remarkably, he received 274,000 more votes than her, and combined, they outpolled all the Republicans on the ballot (McCain and Huckabee, as well as Ron Paul, and the ghosts of Romney, Thompson, Giuliani, etc.) by 479,230 votes. That is nearly half a million more votes, or about the margin by which Gore defeated W in 2000. I think this bodes very well for Obama, very well for the Democrats in general, and ill for McCain, the presumptive nominee, and whomever he picks as his running mate. McCain in fact received yet another scare from Huckabee. Voters are obviously both energized and fed up, and these higher Democratic vote totals (save for Alabama and Georgia, I believe), both in the primaries and in the caucuses, are a harbinger of November's results.

But let me not stint Maryland or DC. In Maryland, as I type this entry (about 75% of the precincts are reporting), Obama is winning by a 60%-37% margin over Clinton, who alone has received nearly as many votes (220,000 vs. 225,000) as all the Republicans combined; Obama is ahead with about 359,700 by himself. One of the best stories out of Maryland is the victory of progressive Democrat Donna Edwards over Albert Wynn, a teddy bearish corporate sellout who had repeatedly voted against his constituents' interests again and again (cf. Bankruptcy Bill, etc.). Nearly two years ago I highlighted her primary run against Wynn, which she lost, but thanks to online supporters, she was again able to compete, and she did it! The House will have won less DINO and one more Democrat whose platform directly addresses the needs and dreams of her constituents.

In DC, Obama defeated Clinton 75% to 24%. I think it's fair to say this was the least surprising outcome of all.

These vote margins have given Obama enough delegates to tie or pass Clinton, depending upon who's counting/how they're counted. The next state up is Wisconsin, which Obama should win, and then it's on to Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania, the first two of which Clinton is banking on. But I'll save that discussion for another day. For now, once again, congratulations Senator Obama!

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Now the bad news: today the Democratic-controlled US Senate capitulated (again) to George W. and Dick Cheney, and voted 68-29 to give the telecommunications industry retroactive immunity as part of a bill vesting the president with expanding powers to spy on American citizens.

(W spokesdissembler Dana Perino even accidentally admitted today that the telecom companies spied on US citizens. Because they were "patriotic.")

It also shuts down pending lawsuits against the telecoms, possibly ensuring that we might never learn what the W administration was up to with its spying, not only after the September 11, 2001 attacks, but, as a trial involving former Qwest executive Joseph Nacchio has shown, as early as a few weeks after W and Cheney took office. In fact, Helen Thomas's question about this earlier spying led to Perino's unplanned candor. (And we should never forget the dramatic Joseph Comey testimony about the administration's attempts to force John Ashcroft, on his sickbed, to sign off on activities so troubling that he refused to do so, and which Comey also refused to do.)

One of the chief toadies this time was Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid, who all but turned procedural back flips to deny the advancement of the Justice Committee bill, which did not include telecom amnesty was scrapped in favor of the Intelligence Committee bill, which gave the telecoms everything they wanted, and to ensure that any Democratic challenges, led primarily by former presidential candidate Chris Dodd and Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, were defeated. The other was the pusillanimous Jay Rockefeller, who, assuming the role of a ventriloquist's dummy, repeatedly recited RNC and Bush administration propaganda on the floor of the Senate, which was apparently persuasive enough (or cover, either way) for Democrats to join in on the "surrender to terror" and give Bush a huge valentine. This bill, as Glenn Greenwald noted today, is so outrageous that it actually empowers Bush the right to ignore its statutory effects if he so deems it necessary.

The Republicans, unsurprisingly, voted in Bush-enabling lockstep (and yes, that includes those "moderates" like John Sununu and Olympia Snowe), as they have done since 2001, while the Democrats could only muster 29 votes in opposition. Nominally, of course, they control the Senate; in reality, they remain marionettes for corporate lobbyists and the W Gang to run ragged as they see fit. Barack Obama voted no, as did his fellow Illinoisan, Dick Durbin, both of New Jersey's Senators, and the handful of other consistently liberal members of the pathetic, phantom majority (Dodd, Feingold, Kennedy, Kerry, Murray, Cantwell, Boxer, Brown, etc.).

Hillary Clinton did not cast a vote.

At this point, this egregious farce will become law unless the House stands firm when the bill goes to conference, as it did not approve telecom amnesty. I should add, not that it matters a dime, that polls have shown a clear majority of Americans do not want the telecoms to be given retroactive immunity. There are laws already on the books protecting them if they act in good faith, but apparently, as we've seen again and again since 2000, the laws of this country do not apply to this president or his cronies. Nevertheless, the folks at Firedoglake are trying to get people to contact their House representatives via petition. Please do go this route, but even better, send a fax or letter to your Representative, telling her that you do not want the telecoms to receive immunity. W's lawlessness, which will probably never be punished, should still be investigated by a court of law.

As for the US Senate, just go here, find your Senators, and praise them or rant by phone, fax or email. (Praise if they've done the right thing for a change always is important too.)

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Australia has finally decided to apologize to its Aboriginal peoples for decades of sustained state, individual and symbolic violence, and social, political and cultural discrimination and marginalization. New Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has asked the Australian parliament to approve an apology he will deliver at tomorrow's opening session. The apology states in part that "We [the Australian state] apologize for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians." The text is particularly aimed at the "Stolen Generations," those thousands of Aboriginals and mixed-race children who were stolen from their families and raised by whites as part of the state's white supremacist social policy, which, in 1930s Northern Territory "chief protector of the Aborigines" Cecil Cook, aimed to "breed out the color."

Unfortunately, the apology appears to be mostly rhetoric and no action; the Aboriginals will receive no reparations, remuneration, nothing, at least no time soon, beyond the Labour Party's earnest words, which also include a bit about "a future where we harness the determination of all Australians, indigenous and nonindigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity," because, as you might have guessed even if you know nothing about Australia, by every social index measure, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are worse off than white Australians. Mmm hmmm, sounds familiar.

One thing this news brought to mind was the concept of apologies, what they aim to achieve, especially beyond the symbolic, and why it's so difficult for some people to utter or issue them, or why they think that grudging ones (cf. David Shuster to Hillary Rodham Clinton) or non-apologies are sufficient. Here's an extremely brief piece by Jess Perriam on philosopher Aniello Ianuzzi's discussion of the philosophy of apologies. Ianuzzi says:

"Increasingly in today's society, it's perhaps becoming harder still because in many ways we're becoming a more individualistic society and also in many ways the black and white between right and wrong has become very much blurred."

"Therefore people don't generally believe they're wrong anymore."

Dr Ianuzzi gives this the definition of 'moral relevatism' and explains it like this, "We believe we have the rights and abilities to make our own definitions of right and wrong, and therefore we can impose our views on others."

"The ego gets in the way and then of course, sorry becomes that much harder."

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On a happier note, today the New York Times's Felicia Lee (one of my favorite reporters from that paper) focuses on the work of one of the major contemporary choreographers, Ronald K. Brown. Lee provides some history on Ron's company, Evidence Dance Company, which he founded in 1985 at the age of 19, and goes on to talk about the often groundbreaking work he's done over these last 23 years, emphasizing in particular the ways in which the African Diaspora is central to his work. Accompanying Lee's article is a fine photo essay (say what you will about the Times these days, but its photo slide shows rarely fail to catch the eye). Below, Ron, foreground, rehearsing his piece "Upside Down," with members of his troupe. On Tuesday night, Evidence opens its annual New York season at the Joyce Theater. (Photo: Andrea Mohin/The New York Times)

The Winters + Obama's SC Blowout + Eugene Sawyer RIP

I wake up screaming. Well, not actually (and I must credit C for that phrase, which applied to a very different situation a very long time ago), but rather I do wake up wondering how I've made it so far through these winter days that vie to outstrip each preceding one in terms of persistent gloom and sunlessness, the cold that seems to issue from one of hell's antechambers, the endlessly ramped up schedule of tasks and responsibilities.... One of my students wrote to say the other day that he was suffering from "the winters," and asked permission to miss class--his winters, unfortunately turned into the sort of flu that has been laying out number of people of late--and I totally understood. The winters indeed.

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Several longtime correspondents (an old friend, one of my mentors) and some new ones have written me enthusiastically about the Obama campaign (at right, Senator Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, at his victory celebration in South Carolina, Getty Images), championing in particular success in Iowa and New Hampshire, where he finished second, and, on Saturday night, the blowout in South Carolina. (He received 55% of the vote to Hillary Clinton's 27% and John Edwards's 18%.) They've all made great points about his ability to win over young voters, the enthusiasm he inspires (which had frothed up to a mania a few weeks ago), and his appeal, based on the Iowa voting breakdowns, to white voters. One noted, as some news accounts and pundits also have, that he received more votes than the top two Republicans, McCain and Mittens, combined--shades of his Illinois US Senate primary victory, where his vote total alone exceeded that of all the Republicans combined--while another pointed out that for the fourth straight contest, not counting the Michigan balloting, the Democrats have drawn more voters than the Republicans, in part because of interest in Obama. Disgust with George W. Bush would also have something to do with it, but I do agree that Obama is generating a lot of excitement, and his victory in South Carolina was pretty stunning, because of the margin of victory, because of the demographic breakdown of his votes, because of what it might say about possible outcomes there or in more moderate Southern states, like Virginia and Arkansas. None of my correspondents seem in the least worried about Obama's rhetoric--beyond the brilliant speeches, and his victory speech in South Carolina was one of the best I've ever heard him give--or his policies, whatever they may be, they don't seem troubled by his overt use of Republican discourse or ideological and policy vagueness, they don't think that Republican smear machine, coupled with the establishment media (I'm always trying to find the right name for these folks), will wring and wrack him in the same way that it did Gore and Kerry. They all seem more concerned with the strategies and actions of the Clintons, who, no surprise to me, are fighting with lead gloves to ensure Hillary's nomination.

I guess I should be more concerned with the Clintons' actions, especially their racialization of the campaign, exemplified most recently by Bill Clinton's Barack Obama = Jesse Jackson and "black candidate" comments last night, but to me, what Obama, if he's going to be the nominee, needs more than anything is to experience the sort of political fight, complete with racist commentary, smears, distortions of his legislative and personal record, what have you, that he'll be encountering in the general election. Anyone who thinks the Republican Party and its surrogates in the establishment media are going to play fair, especially if the party's choice, Mittens, gets the nod, or the media's beloved McCain, somehow becomes the Republican nominee, has been asleep these past two decades. The Republicans know how to jack up racist and socially-based appeals like there's no tomorrow, and time and again, voters have shown they are gullible enough to fall for it. I know this sounds cynical, and I'm trying not to be, but as I keep saying, I hope Obama's team, and the candidate himself, is gearing up for what's coming. Whining, demanding fairness, and trying to appeal to better angels and angles doesn't work most of the time with these folks. They are ruthless, and if they weren't, we'd never have been plagued with the worst president in US history (and yes, that includes the abysmal roster of James Buchanan, Warren Harding, Franklin Pierce, etc.). Whether Obama's really battle-toughened yet isn't clear to me, but I am coming to grasp that his sustained highminded, above-the-fray pose, which he dropped recently to deal with the Clintons' tactics, does appear to have tremendous appeal across partisan lines, and not just to the punditocracy, who have been looking for any reason to go after the former president Clinton, and continue their attacks on Hillary. He has been mentioning a bit more policy in some of the clips I've seen recently, and he did openly state that it's the politics of Washington today and the policies of the current administration that he wants to change, whose rejection he represents, so maybe there is hope.

As 1,000 and more articles have already noted by now, the real test will come on February 5, when he'll be competing in two dozen states, only a few of which--Alabama, Georgia, and Tennesee--have demographics like South Carolina (though all three are considerably larger). There's Illinois, which he should win without breaking a sweat, but also the diverse behemoths of New York and California, and a range of other states like Massachusetts (where the dual Caroline-Teddy Kennedy endorsements might help), Minnesota, Delaware, and Connecticut, where he has a good opportunity to do well, and others, like Missouri, Alaska, North Dakota, and Oklahoma, where he may not. I'm especially curious to see how my conservative native state, Missouri, votes, especially since its Democratic junior senator, the very moderate Claire McCaskill, and former moderate Democratic Senator, Jean Carnahan, have endorsed Obama and are now actively campaigning for him. I'm as curious about New Jersey, which I think I once read is the one of the most ethnically diverse and balanced states in the US, and could be swayed by Hillary's proximity as much as by an energized youth vote and higher turnouts among African-American voters and Latinos, if they chose to vote for Obama over Hillary Clinton. (I filled out my absentee ballot and have mailed it off, a process that New Jersey has streamlined considerably in the last few years.)

So we'll see how it turns out. I'm on the edge of my seat. Really.

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I haven't checked many blogs today, but I didn't see much mention of the passing last night of Eugene Sawyer (at left, CBS file photo) who was Chicago's second Black mayor, serving from 1987-1989. Sawyer, an Alabama native, represented Chicago's 6th Ward on the Chicago City Council from 1971 until 1987, when he was chosen by the council to serve as Mayor after the sudden death of the remarkable Harold Washington. The City Council session that selected him was contentious, and I can recall even now that Sawyer was not the first choice of many of Chicago's Black political class. Many of Washington's supporters wanted councilman Timothy Evans, now Chief Judge of the Cook County Circuit Court, named mayor, while many of Washington's fiercest opponents supported Sawyer. Sawyer eventually received 29 votes to Evans's 19, and on December 2, 1987, he was sworn in as mayor. In his brief tenure, he not only managed to ensure a period of political calm, but maintained many of Washington's priorities and saw several enacted, including gay rights legislation and affirmative action opportunities in city contracts. He was defeated in the 1989 by Richard Daley, who has been the mayor ever since, and left government service thereafter. Sawyer was 73 years old.

Hillary & the Ghost Gain NH

Ye goode folke of New Hampshire showed that they were not going to led around by the nose, not by enthusiastic young Iowans or their evangelical counterparts, not by the sexist, Clinton-hating media, not by the legions pollsters to whom they sold at least one good New England yarn (Barack Obama up by 9 points). Actually, the working-class and elderly female voters of the Granite State demonstrated via the ballot that they haven't given up on Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (at right, Chicagotribune.com)--was it the debate? the tears? Bill's outburst? the attacks on Obama?--no one else should either. Those Clintons are tenacious folks! The New Hampshirites gave her enough of a margin to eke out a win over Senator Odreamy (who won Cheshire County, home of the city of Keene, naturally), and remind the rest of the country that this primary season isn't over yet. While I doubt I'd have voted for Clinton in this particular contest, I'm glad that she won in part because I do want Obama to recognize it's not going to be a crowd surf to victory, as his comments and the emails from his campaign acolytes suggest, and because her victory upsets the media's all-too-premature prediction of her campaign's end. The gasbags were really feasting on her breakdown, proposed campaign reshuffle, Bill's tirade, all of it. On the other hand, she and Bill had better watch the nasty crap and white ops they were planning on Obama, because not only the GOP, but the media, have shown that she'll be an even more inviting target if she gets the nomination. As it is, the 16-year media assault on her husband, Al Gore, John Kerry, and other major Democrats, has already hit her hard, so just as Obama ought to watch the right-wing frames, she should be careful about rhetoric about his fickleness and effectiveness. She's already being portrayed as a cuff-holding weathervane as it is.

On the GOP side, the media fave, 71-year-old warmonger John McCain (who looks like a ghost to me) finished first ahead of the Man Who Keeps Falling to Earth, Mitt Romney. According to a figure I read on someone else's blog, Romney's spent more than either Clinton or Obama, and has yet to finish above second, but he has money to burn, so he'll probably hang around until it's clear that the Southern preacher and ex-gov, Mike Huckabee, has the lock. (A fast fact: only one GOP president has ever been born in a former Confederate state--they're all from the Northeast, Midwest (mostly Ohio), or West--Dwight Eisenhower, who was born in Texas; with Abraham Lincoln, a Kentucky native, they're the only two Southern-born Republicans presidents. The Decider Guy, like his father, was born in New England.) Rudy Giuliani finished just marginally above Ron Paul, and I know the word is he's waiting around till the delegate-rich super-primary day, but he should do us all a favor and drop out now. BE. GONE. He is not positioning himself as the socially moderate--though viciously racist--Republican he was as New York mayor, but has kept only the crazed neocon part, and there are already enough of those in the Republican field, so why stay on? I know Fox News and many GOP business types love him, but surely they see he's not going to beat out a former POW warmonger; a multimillionaire flipflopper; and a guy who's suggested hosting revivals on the White House lawn. Right? Maybe Huckabee can offer us a preview down in South Carolina, say in Columbia or Greenville or somewhere else. I think people should see what they might be getting. Then he can jam with a rock band and give a speech about how he's not a primate. Or something equally colorful!

Yesterday, a claque of bipartisanophiles met in Norman, Oklahoma to chatter about how they want to hold the 2008 election hostage unless the nominees--meaning the Democratic nominee, meaning Hillary Clinton--pledge to be bipartisan, whatever that's supposed to mean, or else they're going to unleash liberal Democrat-passing-as-Republican-but-now-independent Mike Bloomberg on us. Since he's a multibillionaire and his business is thriving so he could easily spend $500-750 million on a vanity campaign and enthrall the punditocracy, draw lots of moderate Democratic voters (or more than the few moderate Republicans out there), and perhaps throw the race to the GOP, who've demonstrated over the last seven years that their right-wing ideology is a complete and abject failure in every way, except for effecting a net transfer of even more wealth to global conglomerates and the mega-rich. Not that the Democrats in Congress haven't enabled them at every step, because they have, but then isn't that bipartisanship? Isn't that the very bipartisanship that got us into Iraq and permitted the lies about 9/11 and warrantless wiretapping and the outing of a covert CIA agent and legalized torture, without any penalties or a real threat of impeachment, and passed the Patriot Act and the bankruptcy bill and Cheney's energy bill, and abandoned New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, and...well, I guess the Pro-Bipartisans are convinced we must have more of the same. More, more, more. Except that Obama is promising a bipartisan revel that will CHANGE the mess we find ourselves in and pass progressive legislation. Not the proto-fascist stuff we've seen. Hmm. Cognitive-dissonance meter registering strong wave effect.

So let's see if these jerks, led by former Senator David Boren, a dear frien of the Bushes, decide to act out. In the meantime, congratulations to Hillary.

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And then there's this very important case looming at the Supreme Court. You see, W hasn't failed at everything. He has managed to pack the courts, including the Supreme Court, with hardcore right-wingers from now till Kingdom come, as my relatives used to love to say. Another reason not to ever grow complacent.

Cosas Generales

I was going to type that I almost couldn't believe that the new year was underway, but then I realized I'd been waiting for it for a while. Still, there are times when I can't believe that 7 years have passed since 2001 and the turn of the millennium, which was, you'll remember, preceded by a year of frenzy when 2000 rolled around. Often I can recall the 90s, especially the years from 1995 through 2000, vividly, whereas much of the 2000s are a blur. Nevertheless, here's to what I hope is a lively and enjoyable year, personally and for all, even though some of the major economic signs, at least, appear exciting but not in a good way.

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Tomorrow promises ones of the biggest public excitements of the new year, the first (quasi-)primary in the 2008 presidential election calendar, the Iowa caucuses. (I'm glad someone on the Newshour with Jim Lehrer walked me and other viewers through these klatsches-over-kaffee-with-votes-thrown-in yesterday.) Truth be told, what a ridiculous means for selecting anything beyond wall colors for a community center. Not only is Iowa unrepresentative on so many counts in terms of the overall makeup of the US, but this system itself is both hyperdemocratic and at the same time, because so many Iowa voters might not be able to participate in it, undemocratic. It, and the whole Iowa-and-New Hampshire first mindset, should be scrapped.

I think the parties should designate 5 regions of the country, say: Northeast, Southeast, Southwest, Pacific Coast and Rocky Mountain, and Midwest, and have a monthly randomly-selected round robin set of primaries, on the same day, in at least one state from each region, with two others selected at random from different regions, for about 7-8 total. 8 would bring the primaries to June, 7 to July. The four largest states, California, Texas, the ever-shrinking New York, and Florida, would be included in the mix. Thus, January's primaries might include: Rhode Island, Georgia, Nevada, Washington, and Missouri, plus Wyoming and Maryland; or Maine, Alabama, Arizona, California, and Wisconsin, plus New Mexico and Michigan. Or something along those lines. These primaries would be one-person one-vote, open, and tallied by paper ballot (in person or via mail). Every state would eventually have an opportunity to gather the early attention, money and swag, the candidates would have to tailor a national platform more quickly, and the execrable national media might have to really do some work for a change. Will it happen? I doubt it, but one can only hope.

I'm not going to make any predictions and the whole "horse race" and money-raising focuses drive me up the wall, but I can say that I have received more emails and calls (thank the Lord they haven't turned to text messaging yet) from the Obama campaign, despite the fact that I've responded harshly both online and in yet another letter, which I sent out today. One of the most annoying email came several months from Michelle Obama, one of which carried the casual and aggressive subject line "Hey." That was it. "Hey" is supposed to make me want to support her husband, whom she recently said has "deign[ed]" to enter the race? Why, thank you. Most of the Obama missives center on campaign strategy, the evils of the other Democratic candidates, and fundraising, which are the last three things I want to hear about. In fact, I would much rather that Obama offer a concrete progressive platform for his proposed administration and address current and long-term political issues, even in a more philosophical, less specific way, while also explaining his frequent invocation of empty post-bipartisanship discourse and use of rightwing frames and rhetoric, which are going to be thrown right back at him or any of the Democrats (along with the anti-Muslim smears that are being steadily churned up). But I gather his campaign advisors don't care about this, since they are already wooing independents and some liberal Republicans, and they just may win Iowa, and New Hampshire. Or not. Oh well, either way, I'm curious to see the outcome tomorrow night. Ultimate, he, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Bill Richardson, and the other Democrats, save Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel are fairly close in terms of politics and policies, and will have to be ready for the fights of their lives against the Republicans, the mainstream media, and general public ignorance, in the general campaign.

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I haven't commented on the ongoing electoral crisis in Kenya, but I had a strong feeling in the days leading up to the presidential election there that incumbent Mwai Kibaki was somehow going to be declared the victor despite articles and polls I'd read suggesting that opposition candidate Raila Odinga had the edge. There have been a number of rather sketchy presidential and governmental elections across the globe over the last few years, from Mexico to Nigeria to Russia to Pakistan to, yes, the USA, all of which underline the fact that in many countries rulers and ruling elites that are intent on holding on to power will readily do so under the pretext of "democracy," or some flimsy version thereof, and dare anyone to challenge them, while also seeking international sanction to legimitize and normalize the chicanery, unless their hands are forced.

I mention the US in particular, because the present administration perhaps feels it cannot simply refrain from commenting on the situation in Kenya, and yet it's really the height of irony for anyone from this gang to be uttering a word about voting irregularities, fraud, or working with the opposition. I guess Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004, along with all the shenanigans leading up to and after both elections should be completely forgotten. (Have most people simply blanked on both?) Maybe the most powerful thing would be for Condoleezza Rice simply to state publicly that the W Gang knows a thing not only about misgoverning and pitting groups against each other, but also about engineering and stealing elections, and Kibaki didn't do such a good job at it, but, like Musharraf, they've (still) got his back. It is, really, a mess. Gukira's inimitable take(s) are here.

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Amidst the news and ramblings in today's New York Times was this Sarah Kershaw piece, on how HIV seroconversions are falling overall in NYC, but still rising among young gay men. The rise is comparatively highest for young African-American and Latino men. Sewall Chan links to the piece in today's Times City Room Blog, and notes that Kershaw identified several important co-factors, including "higher rates of drug use among younger men, which can fuel dangerous sex practices, optimism among them that AIDS can be readily treated, and a growing stigma about H.I.V. among gays that keeps some men from revealing that they are infected." Yet another that she glosses and which a younger (in his 30s) friend mentioned to me a few years ago was a certain fatalism and belief that he was sure to seroconvert no matter what he did, that he expected to do so. He was, in a word, fated to become HIV positive. I've posted about this before, so I ask: thoughts? Responses?

RANDOM PHOTO

Crèche scene, on Houston Street, last month