The Devil You Know

So now she's gotten mean and he's gotten weak. And the disappointment is palpable in both their faces.

Oh, for the heady days months ago when there stood before us a virtually intact, ready-to-go cabinet of intellects, activists, statespersons and progressive Americans, each with passion, zeal and breadth of knowledge about what's been ailing this country and the know-how to fix it. They stood on those stages and raised the level of debate to new heights, far above the swollen-groin and gurgling-gut level nonsense the world had been treated to for two terms of BushCo. (or Fear, Inc.), each one able to hold his or her own, easily more formidable than anything the Repuglicans could bring. And courtesy of W's shenanigans, the Repugs knew their gooses were cooked and had all but slinked away. But they still had the one thing the Demoprats didn't: time and a lot of rope. Because even facing defeat they know that the Dems would trip up just as they are. Damn Repugs. If it weren't for their destroying this country you could almost admire them.

But what does it say about a person who adopts the tactics of sworn enemies in order to win? When that person derides inspiration as weakness? When an optimist-activist-humanist suddenly takes a page from the Lee Atwater/Roger Ailes playbook and does a Max Cleland number on her opponent? Sick. And sad, sad, sad. And, of course, it says they will be president.

But it also tells us about who we are as a people. This sacrosanct process of vetting presidential candidates brings out not the best but the worst, exporting in its grand gesture not the power of the people but the corruption inherent in its current leadership, those smug oligarchs running the country into the ground with their profiteering corporate paradigm and ensuring the Death of a Nation. And within the overlong Hillary and Barack rasslin' match, we see the battle between the opposing components in the modern American psyche personified by the tactics the two candidates have themselves employed.

When electing a leader has become so commercialized and the candidates become so enmeshed in snide trivialities, the democratic process itself becomes a spectacle worthy of a Las Vegas theme-hotel: "Hey There, America!®", a symbol of lazy arrogance, the logical result of years of believing its own press, that it deserved its own greatness when it was in actuality the beneficiary of inspiration, passion and luck, historical lightning in a bottle to be cherished and protected rather than hawked and sold in a no-bid contract. What is winning the presidency if there is nothing to preside over but a flabby, broken economy and the president a formerly principled but now spiritually depleted straw boss?

What do we gain by not recalling history's lessons, by constantly submitting to the warped ethics of materialism and turning a vital democratic ritual into a commercial charade? We risk scenarios even worse than what we are now experiencing, worse than panic runs on stocks, oil and housing. There are already riots for food. Next, water. Later, air. That much is at stake.

But the race continues, degenerating further with each low-brow spat and media indulgence. And the two once potent contenders are now hobbled and distracted, forced into unfavorable positions and forcing the people to choose between the devil we know and the devil we don't.

Great job, everybody! Four more years!

Comments

[GOP4MoreTears]

Ya Think?

[ndolomar]

When did education become the equivalent of "elitism"? Furthermore, when did aspiring for greatness and the American dream become a bad thing? I very much would like for Sens. Clinton and McCain -- as well as the mainstream talking heads -- to explain why there seems to be a systematic goal to race to the bottom. It is beyond me why none of Clinton's or McCain's supporters has decried the media for broad-brushing them as inarticulate, ignorant, emotional dummies. It's basic science: You can't have an action without a positive and negative reaction; thus, you can't call one group "elitist" because its members are college-educated, without calling the "opposite" group dumb, which by media definitions is what the elitist among us aren't. If this is the case, if striving for knowledge and the pursuit of happiness makes us elite, then why are blue-collar workers even saving up to send their kids to college? Wouldn't that be making them potential "elitists"? The simplest answer is the correct one here. What seems more elitist: a person who trusts that you are intelligent enough to face an ugly truth and asks you to assume ownership of your and everyone else's futures, or the person who tells you he/she knows better than you and should be in charge? My own preference, I want someone who's a heckuva lot smarter than I, but still gives me some credit.

[LeeFromVA]

Hillary is polarizing. If you need proof of that, just look what she's done to the Democratic Party. And the media is her accomplice. We've all been divided up in groups by age and gender and race, so even if you don't like the candidate, your going to vote with your demographics. People thought she was crazy playing the race card in SC, but how else could she make this us vs. them. She plays the gender card all the time. She went on to use the elite card. Her latest tactic, she and her mouthpieces out there are saying that she has more balls than Obama. She's also sending out negative mailers telling people that Barack wants to take their guns.

I think the media should be banned from reporting exit poll data that tells us how each demographic voted. Aren't we all Americans?!?! Hillary is trying to turn this into "regular" people vs. elites, so that a vote for her isn't just a vote for her, it's a vote for "regular" people. Same thing Dubya did. But how does she keep the votes of the "regular" people in a GE? I fear for this country. If we can't get past this crap we're doomed.

[DennyCrane]

Ultimately, the blame for who gets elected must rest on the people. There was a British paper that ran the headline "How Can 51 Million People Be So Dumb?" after the 2004 election. The media may manipulate things to give us the candidates they want, but we as a people bear responsibility. We let the media promote the candidates they want, we let them focus on non-issues, and we let the candidates themselves dodge tough questions. Maybe we got the President we deserved.

[StephenKMack]

Dear Mr. Weber,
As usual beautifully written, and argued superbly:you are the best writer on the Huffington Post!
Look forward to your posts.

[iluvsam]

"When electing a leader has become so commercialized and the candidates become so enmeshed in snide trivialities, the democratic process itself becomes a spectacle worthy of a Las Vegas theme-hotel"

Steven, this is nothing new. This has been going on since the beginning of time. For example, on a trip to Pompeii, our tour guide made us aware of the still exising grafitti on the walls from a political campaign. The words about the candidate's opponent were not very nice as the words aren't very nice today. Do you think emperors killed their rivals just for fun? Do you think Elizabeth I (a person the pope at the time called a "whore"...no dirty politics there, I guess) had Mary Queen of Scots killed for a laugh? As for our own country, you can find this stuff in EVERY campaign in this country's history. It IS the nature of the beast called politics. Please don't act like the Clintons invented dirty politics or as if they are the only ones who engage in it. Obama's claims that the Clintons are dirty politicians is in itself dirty politics. It is a less than subtle form of manipulation. They all play it. Don't act as though it is something new. If you think that if Obama gets the nomination the GOP isn't going to play dirty because it isn't the "nice" thing to do, you're sadly mistaken.

[NoFactsJustTruth]

I see the seeming weakness as strength, Steven, refusing to stoop to the 'gutter-level' politics of others, win OR lose. It's been a while since I've read it, but I believe it was the prologue of 'Profiles In Courage' by JFK, he explained how by the time a politician is elected to a national office they've been forced to sacrifice any plans for change, their ideals and even the very principles that often inspired them to seek leadership in the first place, and all because of the many compromises required to generate enough funding and receive enough endorsements to provide them a path to success.

A difference could NOT be more clearly illustrated, whether EVER realized, than seeing for the first time in decades a public servant trying to change the status quo of LOBBY politics. THIS, if nothing else, should tell EVERY voter here's a candidate with enough principles remaining to attempt bringing citizens TRUTH, instead of the same old corporate smoke and mirrors.

A politics of scorched earth and the destruction of 'anything to win' creates apathy among voters, feelings that change is NOT possible, and result in the same path to corporate dominance that warps EVERY message 'allowed'.

Will the people choose a candidate that 'rejects' the LIES of giving corporations EVERY advantage, and the taxpayers only grief, the lies that are destroying OUR Constitution, OUR economy and OUR country, OR will people choose that 'devil they know'?

[AdamX]

Obama is not weak. The arguments against him are.

[bobdob]

Hillary is SO 1990s.

[Herrington]

I have known this devil far too long now. I know every scent and sensation in evidence of his presence as well as I know the craggy fissures in the face that now gazes back from wherever it is that is inside the mirror. I can spot him at a thousand yards and feel his footfall reverberate on a path he walked the day before. Before he speaks I have already heard what he is about to say, he does not change, ever.

He has perfectly calculated the bell curve of the human condition. He exploits the deadly mix of stupidity and ambition that hovers around the asymptote, appealing to vanity over sobriety. Generation after generation of men fall prey to the carrot just out of reach, selling their souls for yet another day to struggle toward the vacant promise.

As the saying goes, if you dance with the devil the devil don"t change, the devil changes you. Both McCain and Clinton have definitely been dancing too long. They have begun to reek of sulfur.

[ResidentChimp]

You're sure doing your part.

[chronic5]

Where do you get off first calling it for Clinton and then for McCain? Yep, I'll skip this "style of writing" in the future.

[shrugged]

You've provided a good summary of USA federal politics for at least the last 40 years. A better analogy would be All Star Wrestling. Don't think Obama's hands are clean using the Chicago machine to run his candidacy.

[utd]

Prove it, and then feel free to explain why the MSM and even not-so MSM have given him a pass, but you parrot off the right wing slander machine line, f-ing prove it dude.

[23000Days]

thanks! Delightfully eloquent, as usual Steven. I read this on truthout last night and thought it worthy of pointing out.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/043008D.shtml

It about the democratic party and some things we need to do to put it back into firm control of policy.

[professor]

Practice saying President McCain.

What country do you think you live in? A black, president of the U,S of A? Yeah. And you, sir, are an astronaut. Look at the map of PA. He won Philadelphia. Period. Philadelphia. Is it going too far out onto the shank o' the limb to hint that blacks and teenagers will not suffice? That only old people really, really vote? That only old people really, really count ? Old people may not count on TV or in the movies or on the web or at the mall or in your solipsistic consciousness or anywhere else the youth of today co-mingles.

But they get you back, every election, at the polls.

When you say Obama, say McGovern.

Same thing exactly. A big cause. Seemingly lots of true believers.

And then, somewhere, elsewhere, out of the limelight, biding its time, socked away over there in Invisible-to-the-Media Reality-World, the thick fat huge relentless bottom of the iceberg hulking, lurking, and writhing with distaste for all them wish-they'd-just-go-away damn hippies and honorable persons of the tanned persuasion with their stupid "reading" and stuff.

Democrats are insane.

P.S. A woman nobody likes ain't got the proverbial snowball's chance neither.

[definitelyNOTmisterRIGHT]

D-E-L-U-S-I-O-N-A-L-!

[Dansden]

Mr. Weber,
You are the PRO of prose here and Republican thinking democrats can't and won't get it like they cannot find anything 'funny' about The daily Show or the Colbert Report- keep up the parabolic polemics that call American citizens to responsible thought and reflective decisions about the care and future of our nation!
Thank you again!

[kellygrrrl]

"the heady days months ago" are not to be longed for, Steven

The Volunteer Army for Change is stronger than ever.

Yes, We Can!!!

[myskylark]

The bias in this blog is gorgeous.

It wasn't both candidates who displayed a breadth of knowledge, it was Clinton.

Clinton did not conduct a GOP type gutter campaign, but she has been accused of it over and over by Obama supporters. You are the practicioners of dirty campaigning.

This campaign has been mild compared to the campaigns run by Bill Bradley against Al Gore. Now the saint from New Jersey supports Obama and bemoans the "divisiveness" of Clinton's campaign.

Ted Kennedy ran a vicious campaign against incumbent Jimmy Carter, and insisted on running right into the convention even though he was so far behind that any pretension to the nomination was ludicrous. But today, Ted Kennedy supports Obama and he's outraged by the tone of the Clinton campaign.

This campaign has been milder than any Democratic campaign for at least twenty years.

What's different is that Hillary Clinton is a white woman daring to challenge a black man, and to the ideological elites of the party that, in and of itself, constitutes racism and dirty tactics.

If and when Obama becomes the nominee there will be large defections to John McCain. The idiotic primary/caucus rules and the stupidity and cowardice of the superdelegates will be the culprits of the loss of the White House in 2008. Don't blame the Clinton's - blame Obama and blame yourselves.

[Eduardodelazul411]

What is this, opposite day? Clinton's campaign is the one engaging in most of the mudslinging, not Obama's.

[dbooth]

I would add that it was only 8 years ago that many in the Democratic Party were seething with rage when Al Gore conceded the election to George W. Bush. Moderates and the right were decrying the damage that was being done to the country and in his concession speech, Gore said for the good of the country it was time to give up the fight.

Now, when they've painted themselves into so many corners it seems certain they are on pace to defeat , all you hear is how this nomination process must be stopped now to keep from damaging the party.

I am struck by how many Obama supporters there are on these blogs who are feeding mean-spirited vitriol against Clinton when their beloved candidate is stumping about a new type of politics that involves inclusion and issues, not the mudslinging and dirty tricks "of the past." Clearly, these supporters do not TRULY believe in what their candidate is espousing. Either that, or what he's inspiring in people is downright ugly and that is not something we need in this world.

There is a path for her to win the popular vote, albeit narrowly. The Super Bowl isn't over, and one big play and one unfortunate misstep by the opponent can mean the difference between witnessing the seemingly inevitable become witnessing the seemingly improbable. You don't stop playing the game as hard as you can until the very last second has ticked off the clock.

[groovychaos]

skylark - i, for one here, agree with you.

[shel3364]

HUH???? I believe it was stated unabashedly that, when she couldn't beat him on the issues, Clinton was going to use the "kitchen sink" strategy. Her campaign's words, not mine.

"Clinton did not conduct a GOP type gutter campaign, but she has been accused of it over and over by Obama supporters. You are the practicioners of dirty campaigning." Obviously, you have not been paying attention. Good Job. That's what your candidate is counting on.

[grendl]

You're right in one respect.

Hillary isn't running her campaign like the GOP. She's running it even more viciously.

" I and Senator McCain would bring 35 years of experience to the White House, while Barack Obama brings a speech he made seven years ago".

That's stabbing a fellow democrat in the back, a course of mutually assured destruction meant to ruin his chances at the White House, should he actually win the Democratic nomination. The GOP don't even turn on their own like that.

" Not that I know of", oh so subtle digs like this, 3:00 a.m ads scaring the shit out of soccer moms that their angelic children will be in trouble if Barack wins the White House. You can dismiss it as soft politicking but intelligent people have seen the truly insidious and vicious nature of this campaign.

and that last scare tactic about defections to McCain. Truly shows what a self serving turncoat you are.

[ScapeGoat]

I third it! Hillary would sell her soul to the devil if it would mean winning the nomination. Lets hope that cooler heads prevail.

[bdul26]

You say this as if she hasn't already sold her soul to the devil....

[definitelyNOTmisterRIGHT]

i second that! keep up the good word!

[kellygrrrl]

the mere mention of Dems defecting and voting for the Repub in the GE is so much nonsense, it makes my stomach turn.
Perhaps some Dems will sit it out if their candidate is not the nominee
but I do not personally know one single Dem that will vote for McCain.

now, yes, some Independents might do that, but not the Dems.
if anything, they'll skip it altogether.

BTW, I talk to Dem voters all day every day in So Cal. I've never heard one say they would vote McCain.
Conversely, I've heard several lifelong Repubs saying they might vote for the Dem.

[groovychaos]

to kellygrrrl - i actually hear a disturbing amount of what you claim does not exist. i have heard people say they like obama but that if he isn't the nom, they regretfully will have to go with mccain. reason? they simply think hillary is downright evil. i ask them to give me reasons why they feel so strongly about her and they have no substantive answers. yet sadly, painfully, this is what these obtuse people will indeed do. there is a dearth of loyalty to the dem party as a whole.

and just for the record, i am a hillary clinton 08 supporter/voter, but i will vote for whomever is the democratic nom in november

[Eduardodelazul411]

Not all people who are less fond of Hillary are like that.

[itmaybetoolate]

I was a conference recently and a highly educated woman in her early 50's ( I have known her for some years and respect her a lot) who is a ardent HRC supporter said "They think we will just go over to Obama. They are wrong!" I was shocked and frightened. She is truly angry at what she perceives to be unfair treatment of her candidate. If she is a representative of women her age who support HRC, we are in trouble.

I urged her to vote her children's interests rather than her own, and pointed out that mcinsane as prez was not in the best of interest of her children. She did seem to hear that. My point is that Obama cannot assume he has the support of HRC's supporters. He does so at his own peril.

[bdul26]

This goes both ways. Unfortunately, what I have seen from HRC hasn't compelled me to want to vote for her, should she manage to become the nominee. I don't think my conscience would let me.

Just one example: Her comment on Iran. Seriously, Hill, didn't you learn anything from Iraq? Can't we use some diplomacy instead of always posturing like we are the toughest? Please tell me that, if somehow you are elected president, you will figure out how to get along with others.

Violence is not strength and compassion is not weakness.-- Camelot (the musical)

[itmaybetoolate]

"an ardent..." my bad!

[frustratedinohio]

Honestly, what are you trying to say? Your prose is so thick, just come out and say it already. Are you upset because McCain is going to win the GE and everything we have done has been a waste of time? Are you trying to say Hillary wouldn't make a good president. I think the thought bubble behind this is rather small. Something that could be said in 3 sentences. Have you become disillusioned with Obama? What is it?

[definitelyNOTmisterRIGHT]

he is not "trying" to say anything, he IS saying it! learn to read, please!

[Ankhst]

Perhaps he's simply trying to say "Learn the language, natives! Even the dirt-poor used to be more literate than most HS graduates these days!" -- but at the same time, convey his thoughts on a very hot topic with intransigence mounting on all sides.

Or put another way, Mr. Weber is [perhaps] trying to literally elevate the level of dialogue on HuffPo if not the blogosphere in general -- and rather than merely deliver well-written prose about nothing (Seinfeldspeare), actually contribute to the dialogue in a meaningful way.

You are not required to agree, but you are invited to read. If you resent having to expand your vocabulary and attention span, kellygrrrl's suggestion is appropriate.

Think about this: if the average American gave 20 minutes' attention (instead of 60 seconds or less) to any of the myriad political and social issues in America, would there even be such a thing as Bush-Cheney? That is, other than, "you mean those oil industry pricks who tried to steal the election from President Gore and mortgage the entire country?"

Not that I'm bitter...

[MNinWI]

Exactly!