Saturday, March 31, 2007

Hillary, Barak, and Harrogate (no it's not the title of Southpaw's newest erotic novel)

Harrogate just finished watching Bill Maher's Real Time, and early in the program one of Maher's guests, actor D.L. Hughley, stated something to the effect that Americans aren't prepared to vote either a black man or a woman of any race into the White House.

He also stated what will be obvious to anyone not perpetually on Pete's Couch that there's no way Americans are going to vote in sufficient numbers to elect a black President named Barak Hussein Obama.

These are true things, in Harrogate's opinion. Inconvenient things, bigoted things, but true things nonetheless. But what is to be done about it? If a given Dem primary voter really, truly wants to vote, say, for Hillary Clinton, and then doesn't do it precisely because he or she thinks a woman cannot win, well then ladies and gentlemen and people with loud trucks, that's what you call selling out. Nothing unusual there, of course, especially in the world of politics. But often when we liberals sell out we prefer framing it in terms like "being practical," terms which sound better, terms perhaps that make us feel a lot better, but terms that somehow always wind up failing to make it even a smidge less disgusting. What did Cool Hand Luke say? "Calling it your job don't make it right, boss." Yeah. Exactly.

A moral dilemma therefore awaits Dem primary voters in about a year. How they do will remain under the watchful jurisdiction of this award winning blog and its expert editorial board. And Harrogate has it on good authority that Oxymoron will in fact be there with all the predictions and hot tips as we move closer to the moment of truth.

Meanwhile, and fortunately, Harrogate himself will be facing no such moral dilemma. Because he's not one of those millions who inexplicably love Hillary Clinton even though she's proven over and over again to be the prime definition of a panderer.

And Obama? Please. He wouldn't know a position if it hit him in the taint. Circuitous rhetoric is the man's bread and butter: he is everywhere, he is nowhere, and noone ever remembers him ever having said anything substantive--but my oh my and damn he's pretty. And, he raises a lot of money. (And as Senator Biden kindly reminded us, he's clean. And articulate)

No, the only Dem who seems serious at this point, the only one that Harrogate has even a modicum of respect for, is Edwards. Because Edwards has apologized for past sins and has taken clear positions that can be identified.

It's early, way too early even for Oxymoron to make a prediction. But at this point things definitely don't look good for Democrats re the White House: their top two candidates really suck and also suffer from bigotry, and that's a bad combo any day of the week. So the beleagured GOP, of which a majority of Americans are finally getting sick, and a Party moreover which has screwed us over in every imaginable way since Bush's victory in 2000, nevertheless enjoys the upper hand in this early stage. Something dramatic will have to happen to change this.

On a completely unrelated note. Harrogate leaves you, oh Readers, with one of the great lines of show tune poetry:

Noone cares for you a smidge
When you're in an orphanage.



Stay alert, and stay with Fox.

1 comment:

harrogate said...

Scott,

Welcome to The Rhetorical Situation!

As to your comment: Well, perhaps. Harrogate feels you're underrating the level of racism, not to mention bigotry more generally, that still freights the United States. And then there's his name. It may as well be "Christ on a Crumb Heap."

And remember, polls don't mean much of anything in this context. As Hughley pointed out last night, and as the last two Presidential elections so painfully proved, these things don't so much happen nationally as they do state to state. Harrogate thinks you know where he's going with this.

Finally, it's hard for Harrogate to be excited about the prospect of Obama becoming President, since there's really nothing to the guy that Harrogate can actually see. The Audacity of Hope. What the Hell does that mean, anyway? Find one prominent candidate from any Party or from any election in memory not framing himself or herself as infinitely optimistic and hopeful.

Go ahead. Find one. Good luck.