Keep it to yourself

There have been some, but not many events in the American political circus that have left me feeling almost as bilious as last night's Democratic revival meeting. Ronald Reagan's colonoscopy photos on TV for one and the detailed descriptions of Bill Clinton's dalliance posted on the Internet by the very same Republicans who were trying to make it illegal to talk about sex in cyberspace. Way too much information, as the cliche goes. I want to know more about all the candidates, but I don't to share a confessional any more than I want to share a bathroom with them.

I smell the same flatus-in-the-elevator, dirty laundry funk in the fulsome proclamations of fatuous faith by people claiming to be capable of filling the most powerful office on the planet. I don't want to know that the guy who feels chock full of sin has a finger on the button or can't get through a marital crisis without invoking invisible spirits and claiming fealty to a supernatural master with inclinations toward world destruction. I'm not impressed with someone who needs the spectre of eternal punishment resting on his shoulder to be able to make a moral or ethical decision. I'm just not impressed with faith at all; it's a sign of weakness.

Although I guess it's best that I know whatever batshit beliefs a candidate has, I still can't see such lapses of decorum as anything but vulgar if they are sincere and anything but disgusting if they are not.

Cross posted at The Reaction

The candidates debate

Sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon.
Going to the candidate's debate.
Laugh about it, shout about it
When you've got to choose
Every way you look at this you lose.

First of all, it's not a debate and secondly, to expect any of these candidates to give a satisfying solution to a problem without discussing the causes of the problem is silly. Ruben Navarrette's article today on CNN.com may correctly identify the lack of clarity on the part of the Democratic proto-candidates ideas about immigration, but it doesn't identify things like NAFTA and its effect on Mexican farmers or discuss the ease of obtaining forged documents and employment by corporations eager for cheap laborers without the ability to complain. Even with a clear picture of our immigration woes, would we know who would make a better president?

I have to wonder if these rhetorical analogs of dodge ball aren't really serving best to introduce confusion and to distract from the selection of someone best suited to reverse the dictatorial and imperial ambitions of whoever it is that is actually running the united States. I am far more concerned and I think we all should be far more concerned with Bush's blatant arrogation of permanent dictatorial powers without congress or the courts being able to say no. We should be more concerned with the attempts to create new and more violent wars that would precipitate such actions than which doomed attempts to seal the borders should be chosen.

Even for those who are worried, there is no opportunity to ask what they would do to preserve Democracy, the rule of law and the Constitution while someone is trying to trip them up on the pressing question of the visa status of their gardener. Even with the internet the answers we get are not answers to the questions we ask and the candidates we get are chosen by others. Every way you look at this, you lose.