Imagine if John Edwards had gotten the democratic nomination. Imagine if he had been on Obama’s short list for the V.P. slot. You’ve gotta be pretty ballsy to run for president knowing the salacious secrets you hold within. This didn’t happen many years ago. It happened in 2006. The party would have been decimated had this come out and he was in the running — hypocrites that we are, we would have buried the man.

Marital infidelity is about as common as wedded bliss is uncommon. Everybody’s got some dirt on them. Only Obama has to appear to be as clean as a whistle. Because if he gets so much as a hangnail, he will be written off by a bunch of “I told you so’s” and “Are you really surprised?”

And how many people do not actually believe that Mccain has had a dalliance or two? If the Democrats were smart, they would get some of their undercover henchmen to dig further into that whole Vicki Iseman situation. The only problem is Mccain could be caught in a hotel room with a dead prostitute and nobody but Michael Corleone there to help him and he would still be virtually tied with Obama. This country is on the verge of completely upending centuries of tradition, and as much as an illicit affair would rankle his conservative constituents, the binds of tradition are much harder to shake free than those loose strands of morality.

But I honestly feel that this whole thing reflects negatively on the man and not the party. If anything, it makes women even more sympathetic to Hillary Clinton, and maybe redirects their ire from Obama to Edwards. I could be wrong. I’m just glad that Edwards was nowhere near any official level of importance to the Obama campaign. Frankly, I like the guy. He did a crummy thing. But we all do from time to time. I’m just glad he’s the only one going up shit creek without a paddle.

sidenote:
If the kid isn’t yours and you don’t love her, why are you hanging out in a hotel room with the woman?

It’s amazing how in a span of a year I went from liking Hillary Clinton and truly debating with myself whether I would vote for her or Barack Obama to getting an extremely bitter taste in my mouth at the very mention of her name.

The following is taken from an article written by Rick Klein and David Chalian on abcnews.com:

Sen. Hillary Clinton told a gathering of supporters last week that she’s looking for a “strategy” for her delegates to have their voices heard and “respected” at the Democratic National Convention — and did not rule out the possibility of having her name placed into nomination at the convention alongside Sen. Barack Obama’s.

At what point do you actually support the presumptive democratic nominee? Or do you ever? What exactly does Senator Clinton think she (and most importantly, the party) can gain from this? Well, Senator Clinton states:

“I happen to believe that we will come out stronger if people feel that their voices were heard and their views were respected. I think that is a very big part of how we actually come out unified. Because I know from just what I’m hearing, that there’s incredible pent-up desire. And I think that people want to feel like, ‘OK, it’s a catharsis, we’re here, we did it, and then everybody get behind Sen. Obama.”

The problem here is that the animus between the two campaigns has barely died down and here you are trying to fan the flames again. What if the bulk of pledged delegates do not go for Obama at the convention? What if it comes out much closer than people imagined? How is that going to look to those people who are already straddling the fence when it comes to this election? Furthermore, do you actually think that the people who are bitter about Obama winning the nomination are actually going to be placated by the fact that your name is on the ballot? I’ve read the blogs and the comments. There are people out there who have actually stated that people who wanted Clinton to win should vote for McCain so that Clinton will have her shot in 2012. What kind of strategy is that?

The fact that most of the comments boosting McCain over Obama simply to have Clinton back in action in 2012 comes from women bothers me even more. Are they aware of McCain’s stand when it comes to women’s rights?

He voted NO on Comprehensive Sex Education

Mccain skipped the vote on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (both Clinton and Obama voted for the bill. However, it was blocked by Senate Republicans) and claimed that he was opposed to it, basically stating that women should not be compensated for acts of discrimination within the workplace, but that instead they need “education and training”

He OPPOSED a repeal of the global gag rule.

He voted AGAINST requiring insurance plans to cover contraception.

In 1999 he stated to the San Francisco Chronicle:

“But certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations.”

Now he states:

I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned.”

I will argue here that a man has a right to change his mind. The question, however, becomes whether or not that shift was a choice for emotional or political reasons.

And Mccain’s long record of siding against women’s rights goes on and on. It seems to me that Hillary Clinton and her enormous brood of female supporters are recklessly threatening to commit an act of “cutting off their nose to spite their face”. Exactly what benefit is there in voting for a man who obviously has no real regard for you or your rights or your body? Even if you are pro-life (which I wholeheartedly respect), you still must be aware of the fact that the idea of women’s rights does not register with this presumptive Republican nominee.

At this point it appears that both Senator Clinton and Bill Clinton are so embittered about the loss of what they felt was rightfully theirs, they are willing to decimate the whole party and dismiss the hopes and ideals of the people who they have supposedly spent most of their lives fighting for.

Well…that isn’t entirely true. Today’s firestorm in American politics (tomorrow, it will be something else) is over the July 21st cover of New Yorker magazine — Barack Obama sporting the Muslim garb, Michelle Obama with the afro and the automatic weapon slung over her shoulder. Both seem to don sly, conspiratorial smiles as if they are in on something the rest of the country has yet to figure out. They stand in the Oval office, warmed by the crisp, fiery glow of the U.S. flag burning in the fireplace. And what room is complete without a portrait of Osama Bin Laden over the mantle?

This is the very definition of satire. Not only is it satire, but it is very good satire. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you may recall a January entry titled Do You Know When Satire Goes Wrong? The entry begins with the following statement

It is when the people who claim to be satirizing their subjects actually embrace the very hypocrisy they purport to expose.

The New Yorker cover is biting, witty, funny to some and has already done what the best of satirical pieces should do — incite the masses. The problem with this particular piece isn’t that the satirists are embracing the lies. For the people who created the cartoon on the cover as well as the article within know the difference between the lies and the truth. The problem is that we are currently living in a country full of citizens who not only embrace the lies but also refuse to believe or seek out what the truths may be.

21% of the voters in the Kentucky democratic primary said race was a factor in their voting choice. 19% of white voters in West Virginia stated the same. 13% of all Americans still believe that Obama is Muslim. These facts prove that there are millions of people out there who do not know fact from fiction and who are basing their decisions on what they have been told. So, when they are shown something like what is seen on the cover of the New Yorker, they do not see clever satire. What they see is an affirmation of the lies they have chosen to believe. I say chosen because in this day and age, we all have the ability to seek out as much of the truth as we can find. But it is easier to believe in falsehoods, especially when they only confirm the deep-rooted prejudices that have long resided within.

So, my problem isn’t with the cover of the magazine. Harold Ross, the founder of the magazine, stated that the magazine was not “edited for the old lady in Dubuque.” That statement can be taken many ways and would probably offend many. But he had a point. There are those who see the cover as enough and have no inclination to dive in further, and there are those who see the cover, lick their fingers and quickly flip to the article, stimulated to know more. Randomly lobbed accusations without proof are nothing more than hearsay and careless slander. To cast a vote based purely on those facts is both reckless and irresponsible.

It all basically comes down to this — a joke is only funny if the audience gets the punchline; satire only works if the audience knows the difference between fact and bullshit.

The following comes from an essay written by Diane Miller Somerville. The name of the essay is Rape, Race, And Castration In Slave Law In The Colonial And Early South found in the book The Devil’s Lane

The castration of slaves as a form of punishment emerged and continued not so much out of fears about black male sexual ardor but rather out of the slaves’ condition as property. In the colonial South, numerous crimes when committed by slaves or African Americans were considered capital. Since the colonial treasuries were required to compensate slaveowners for executed slave criminals, some colonies looked to dismemberment as a means not only of punishing slave offenders and deterring would-be slave criminals, but doing so at minimal cost. The punishment of castration was serious, yet spared the colonial government the costly burden of compensating slave masters for the loss of slave lives.

The essay later states that during the period of Reconstruction, the incidents of sexual mutilation of black men rose.

With the demise of slavery, however, and the enfranchisement of black men, whites began to conflate politics and sexuality and to associate newly won black political rights with black manhood.

How can any black man who is aware of the history of this country and its psychological and physical emasculation of black men make a such a bilious statement? If a white man had made those statements, both Rev. Jackson and Al Sharpton would be demanding the guy’s head on a pike. And I guarantee, there are hundreds if not thousands of white men who wish to do to Barack Obama exactly what Jesse Jackson stated he would like to do. Only, they say it around their coffee tables or huddled together during smoke breaks with their coworkers. They don’t say it on network television. They never marched with Martin Luther King or railed against the mistreatment of black people in this country or gave voice to the thousands of black men and women who were disenfranchised at the ballot box. They don’t care about any of that. But you do, Reverend Jackson. So, when you make the statement you made, the words sting a thousand times worse than when some nescient nobody with a hillbilly mentality speaks the same phrase.

Nothing hurts worse than being betrayed by one of your own. Barack Obama is fighting an uphill battle, and even those who have spent their lives trying to batter down the doors Obama is now walking through seem to be trying to impede his progress.