A Quessay on the Election

Why have we seen Chelsea Clinton but not Bill in the audience at the recent one-on-one debates, and why don't Michelle Obama and her daughters ever appear at them?

Isn't it strangely prophetic that Barack Obama, in his 2006 book The Audacity of Hope, after admitting his own "unusually -- and at times undeservedly -- positive press coverage," (p. 120) cites only these two people as an example of right-wing bias in the media: "A vote or speech by Hillary Clinton that runs against type is immediately labeled calculating; the same move by John McCain burnishes his maverick credentials" (p. 124)?

What would you say if you knew Hillary's mom's married name and Barack's mom's maiden name both end in "-ham" (Rodham and Dunham respectively)? Are the Rodhams and the Dunhams related? Isn't Barack Obama distantly related to the current vice president, Richard Bruce "Dick" Cheney?

Was Barack Obama's maternal great-grandfather named Ralph Waldo Emerson Dunham? Did he die on October 4, 1970, the same day Janis Joplin died? Wasn't Janis Joplin a drug addict?

Were rock stars Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison (rumored to have been) killed by the U.S. government?

Do Hillary Clinton, Mamie Eisenhower, Spiro Agnew, Laura Bush, Ralph Nader, Pat Buchanan, the late Bobby Kennedy, Michael Dukakis, Howard Dean, Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, Scarlett Johansson, Condoleezza Rice, Billy Graham and Maria Shriver all share a zodiac sign (Scorpio)?
Do Barack Obama, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Rosalynn Carter, Marilyn Quayle, Tipper Gore, Lynne Cheney, Bill Clinton, Phyllis Schlafly, Anita Hill, Fidel Castro, Loni Anderson, Caspar Weinberger, the late Jerry Falwell and Arnold Schwarzenegger all share a zodiac sign (Leo)?

Do scorpions sting themselves to death when cornered by an enemy, rather than be killed? Do lions roar a lot ("variations in intensity and pitch, rather than discrete signals, appear central to communication"****)?

Is it interesting that Barack H. Obama Sr. went to Harvard and earned a doctorate in economics, making Barack H. Obama Jr. a "legacy" student at Harvard? Did both Barack and Michelle Obama receive law degrees from Harvard, and did both Bill and Hillary Clinton receive law degrees from Yale? Who else went to Yale? Did any of Bill or Hillary Clintons' parents attend Ivy League schools? Am I an Ivy League graduate? Was Bill Clinton the only person in his family of origin to attend college?

Is Barack Obama allowed, constitutionally, to pick Bill Clinton as his running mate?

Did Bill Clinton and Barack Obama's fathers both die relatively young as a result of automobile accidents?

Do William J. Blythe III (Bill Clinton), John S. McCain III and Barack H. Obama II have numbers after their names that, all together, add up to eight (8), which is the same as the total combined number of books the three of them have been the top-billed authors of? Eight?

Does it surprise you that Hillary Clinton's house in Washington, D.C., is the only one on the block with no house number displayed anywhere?

Where does Barack Obama live when he's in D.C.? What's his favorite restaurant? Is it the same restaurant favored by Richard Bruce "Dick" Cheney? If not, why not?

In their youths, didn't Bill Clinton meet John F. Kennedy and Hillary Rodham meet Martin Luther King Jr.?

Will Barack Obama respond to those calling for him to pick Bill Clinton as his running mate?
________________________________________________________________________________
*Big ups to Crispin Glover, who really should've run for president this year, and who once wrote an "essay" called "What Is It?" composed only of questions, with a subtly discernible anti-Steven Spielberg thrust to it. Subtly discernible, the way the media's anti-Hillary Clinton bias is subtle. I'm paying homage to Glover's genre*** and giving it a name**: Quessay (question essay). (Actually, so no one accuses me of stealing anyone else's words, according to Google as of today ONE OTHER person, someone named Rockin80sChick4ever, has used the term quessay. And I think she meant something else.)
**When I was in grad school I would make up words all the time, but one of my sour-faced professors (a German) tried to rid me of the habit by writing in the margin: "It's not necessary to invent a new word for the purposes of a term paper."
***I'm also paying homage to the lists of intriguingly paranoiac questions that certain commenters from both fringe ends of the political spectrum like to insert into comment sections (again and again). Except my quessay is different because I can spell.
****Schaller, George B. The Serengeti Lion: A Study of Predator-Prey Relations. University of Chicago Press, 1972. pp. 103-113. Via Wikipedia.

Comments

[dannyS]

Are George W. Bush and Tim Horton related? Does Bill Clinton eat donuts?

[usedwigs]

"Does it surprise you that Hillary Clinton's house in Washington, D.C., is the only one on the block with no house number displayed anywhere?"

Scott, are you hanging outside her house again waiting for her to walk her dog (a la Teddy Kennedy)?

I'm not a Hil fan, but I do see the anti-Hillary bias.

[shrake]

I've walked by. . . a few times. One time there was a clear plastic recycling bag out front, full of a ton of empty orange and grape soda cans. First I thought, "That's weird. Did she have a soda and pizza party?" Then I thought, "Hmm, maybe a certain someone from Arkansas loves his grape soda along with his fried peanut butter sandwiches." MY POINT: The Clintons recycle!

[Shantee]

Perhaps Barack should have had Michelle and their two daughters at the debates.....it would have been a smart move politically speaking, but he doesn't seem like the kind of guy to exploit his children. Hillary had her daughter Chelsea at the debates and it was a very nice photo op. Randi Rhodes of Air America Radio said today that Hillary was exploiting children in her dispicable 3AM TV ad. Perhaps David Shuster's comment about HRC pimping out her daughter wasn't as reprehensible as we thought. We've lived through eight years of one scandal after another in the Clinton administration. Haven't we learned anything? The Clintons once again are trying to pull the wool over our eyes.....I wonder if they will succeed.

[UkieOlie]

The scandals of the Clinton Era were A) private inappropriate behavior or B) Republican driven assaults (and their lawyers made lots of money).
I am very disappointed in the Clinton campaign, but let's try to be fair. Also, Chelsea is an adult who may prefer to be at debates.

[nysc92]

Interesting comments....I wonder why none are Virgos? Does that mean Virgos don't do well in politics? (since we are doing sign analysis and all)...What about those who are tigers in the Chinese zodiac?

And why is it ok to beat up Hillary for being a woman but not ok for us to say Hussein?

I think it's only a matter of time before Obama has his own sandals, opps, I mean scandals...

And finally, why are they sending Bill up to Canada?