The Invisible Counterpoint

The Democrats, as usual, are still fighting the internecine party battles of the '90s. While Jerry Brown struggles with the 1992 presidential primaries out in California, Bill Clinton is attacking a prominent liberal critic and defending his legacy of triangulation. At a joint appearance with former British prime minister and warmonger Tony Blair, Clinton complained about MSNBC's Rachel Maddow (without naming her) for, basically, telling the truth about his presidency. (Alex Pareene, “Bill Clinton peeved that Rachel Maddow called him a Republican,” Salon, 14 Sept. 2010) Chelsea I foremost think of Republicans as emotionally-neutered individuals. Subdued blues; nothing bright, pink, and affecting. As such, Maddows and Obama (and Jon Stewart / Colbert) feel more Republican to me than do either of the Clintons. Take a look at who they begat: bright, spunky, welcoming Chelsea: the Democratic essence stirs in them. Too bad they had their reign when they could only reign, R...

I still don't understand why the right is giving O any public praise for this. I would've expected the right to quietly toast and gloat, but continue its public criticism of of O and the Oslo speech on whatever trivial or manufactured grounds it could come up with. I don't see what the right gains tactically from publicly praising a Dem prez for a war speech, when the Repubs have gotten so much mileage for decades on asserting ownership of national security. Someone 'splain, please? (ironwood, response to post, “The strange consensus on Obama’s Nobel address, Glenn Greenwald, 11 Dec. 2009) Left vs. right is in a process of re-sorting into war-craving, sacrifice desiring, and the genuinely peaceful. The war-craving understand that Obama is the right cover to legitimize sadism on a scale that Bush could never accomplish, owing to his whole aesthetic seeming about 20 years out of date. For many Republicans, Obama is the new Israel, in a way; and the left that just cannot...