House of Eratosthenes

Our friend in Portales, New Mexico, needed to have this explained to him. I agree with him that somewhere, within the boundaries of this fine nation is a dignified, handsome, sophisticated, masculine paladin who is ready to take front-and-center in the battle to dethrone the Holy Emperor Obama. And to make victory a heady possibility in a way Sarah Palin cannot.

Trouble is, whoever that guy is, he’s a yellow-belly. He’s a “smart” Siamese fighting fish, holding back, letting the others take chunks out of each other so he can snare an easy triumph. An easy personal triumph, might I add…good for his own campaign, but not for the country.

I cannot criticize the fellow beyond that. I can’t, because I don’t know who he is. That’s my point. Whoever he is, he’s what my grandparents used to call a “no-account.” You can only criticize him so much, because you don’t know who he is. There’s nothing honorable about this.

Gingrich made a couch commercial with his failed successor as House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, legitimizing the global warming scam. Romney had an ObamaCare-style health care plan in Massachusetts, which is an abject failure by now. Huckabee is saddled with a reputation for being soft on crime, which he richly deserves. All three of them have clung to the hope they can be rehabilitated by ducking-and-covering while the hottest part of the pre-nomination battle burns itself out. And, like the smart Siamese fighting fish, maybe they’re right.

They’re still cowardly pussies, if that’s their plan. If it’s not their plan, then they’re just plain lazy. Either way: Not the kind of leadership the country needs.

Palin Now, as to their noisy cheerleaders like our friend in Portales, and those in agreement with him. Ah…they aren’t cheerleaders yet, are they. The object of their cheer has to stick his head out of the ground, identify himself, and accept the cheer. So let’s call them anti-Palin ankle-biters I guess. They insist it’s far too early to figure out who is to be the champion of the movement, and they have a point about this, until they do some more speaking and then they don’t. It is certainly not too early to shout “quitter!” and “unqualified!”…and other little cliches that have been re-used and re-used so often, and then re-used some more, that some more substance behind them would do them justice. But the substance never comes.

Buck sez…

The Palin fanbois will weep. Or gnash their teeth. Or both. That’s fun to watch, actually.

…and that is not what I saw in the underlying thread. What I saw was, I challenged the ankle-biters to produce another name, and what I got was a bunch of retread-rhetoric. I ended up calling them Libertarians. Not as in, lovers of freedom, but such perfectionists that it wasn’t possible to get a coherent plan out of ’em. Just criticism for the status quo…no constructive alternatives, none whatsoever.

Well, I can look past this somewhat. There is lots of time. Palin does have her share of baggage — but doesn’t everyone. In my book, anybody who just repeats it over and over again without participating in a deeper discussion of the meaning, is just running scared. And they’ve lost sight of the issue, I think. Once we start bellyaching about somebody’s voice being annoying, we’re embroiled in a contest of personalities. And that really isn’t where things need to be going. It didn’t work out so hot the last time.

But I don’t think the ankle-biters are engaged in an argument about personalities. I think, for the most part, they’re good-hearted Republicans (and conservatives who aren’t Republicans) who want Palin dis- qualified, not un- qualified…as in, they’ll be safe, it won’t matter how many votes Palin gets later because she’ll have been “disqualified.” In other words, they aren’t satisfied with being able to cast just one vote. They want a guarantee.

Why are they so scared? Because Palin is a front-runner…perhaps the front-runner…and she deserves to be. Take a look at this video Buck embedded. See how chief Palin ankle-biter Charles Krauthammer recoils at the mention of that name “Romney”:

There is no excitement here. None. And there should not be. This business taking place with the 2010 midterms was…well, I don’t want to say a “big fucking deal,” I’ll let the other folks talk up their efforts that way.

But it was a long, sustained effort. Anybody who remained anonymous throughout the entire thing, having not a single word to say about anything, can hold that position as far as I’m concerned. Off with ya, and don’t let the doorknob hit ya where the Good Lord split ya. Is that unfair? If so, where am I going wrong?

I just think we’re losing sight of something here. We’re failing to envision the future. Palin goes up against Obama, and I’m told that’s where her “unqualified”-ness comes front and center as The Anointed One squishes her like a bug. Hmmm…well, for that to happen, some of these people who wanted Obama driven out of there, decided to cross over and vote for Him anyway because He came up against such a hopeless snowbilly ninny. Now, then. Who are these people? The ones who have made up their minds we’re going to pay an untenable price for bad government as long as Obama stays where He is…and then…decide, well, it’s just going to have to be that way, because after all Sarah Palin is dopey.

I’m just not buying it. I don’t doubt there are people who will vote for Obama over Palin. But I think just about all of those people would vote for Obama over just about anyone. Because they like Him. They’re democrats.

Oh, some of them call themselves Republicans. But they aren’t. My point is, those votes don’t exist. A voter who pulls the lever for Obama over Palin, for the most part is going to pull the lever for Obama over Romney, Gingrich, Huckabee, Giuliani…

I suppose I’m wrong. Some folks will loathe a Palin candidacy, but in a pinch, punch Palin’s chad. And guess what? If that is what makes me wrong — then she’s qualified.

If it’s late enough that some can say otherwise, then it is late enough to figure out who’d do better. If it’s not late enough to figure out who’d do better, then it’s not late enough to disqualify her. And it isn’t; she hasn’t said what she’s going to do yet.

Ah, but there’s all this passion behind getting her out of the running before she’s even in it. So much excitement. So much adrenaline…you can hear it pump, pump, pumping away.

I understand some people don’t like her. I understand some people find her voice annoying. I have found her voice annoying, too, on more than one occasion. And so I can understand why some might labor under the belief that a different candidate might have a better shot. A different, dignified, sophisticated, middle-aged male guy. I understand the desire.

But I don’t understand the exuberance behind it. Not while he remains unnamed; not while he remains “some guy who might step forward someday soon.” I don’t see how that stirs passion. Something is wrong, if it does. I think these are people who are just fond of the eighteenth letter of the alphabet. They care more about a change of party, than they do about the vision & message behind such a change.

Friendly reminder: It’s not enough to get Obama fired. We need a fighting spirit behind it, one that makes so much sense that it doesn’t need a sonorous, dignified, sophisticated “great speaker” to get it sold. The message needs to be rock-solid. Domestically, it needs to be: If we want the economy to turn around, we have to make it alright for people to make (and keep) money. With regard to foreign policy, it needs to be: The United States will be the best friend you ever had, and if you make her your enemy, she will become the worst nightmare you ever imagined. Those are the goals. That’s where we need to be. Next to them, having a President with the letter “R” after his name doesn’t mean a whole lot.

I’m all done talking to people who say Palin is not that person…that she’s a “quitter” or that she’s “unqualified.” Until she says she’s running, this is a waste of time. So my question is — who’s going to make this happen? Who, besides her, has the balls to say things like “[Barack Obama] is a man who can who can give an entire speech about the wars America is fighting, and never use the word ‘victory’ except when he’s talking about his own campaign“?

Point him out. If the hour is late enough to criticize her, it’s plenty late enough to throw in another name. But if you want me to support him, he must pass that test. He has to have brass balls, at least enough to match that dumb ol’ girl you’re wishing back to the kitchen.

Shorter Morgan:

Baby hair with a woman’s eyes
I can feel you’re watching in the night
All alone with me and we’re waiting for the sunlight
When I feel cold, you warm me
And when I feel I can’t go on, you come and hold me
It’s you… And me forever

Sara(h) Smile
Won’t you smile a while for me
Sara(h)

Rave on, my good man. Rave on!
- bpenni | 01/03/2011 @ 21:16
I think your friends’ trouble is less that the Great White Knight isn’t stepping forward because he’s a coward, than that the Great White Knight isn’t stepping forward because he simply doesn’t exist. Guys, this isn’t like ’92 was for the Dems. We’re not going to have our own Bill Clinton riding to the rescue when nobody else wanted to run because they were scared of the incumbent. (Setting aside for the moment whether, given all that “having our own Bill Clinton” potentially implies, we actually want one.) If they’re not at least looking and sounding right now like they might enter the race, or at least starting pretty soon, they’re probably not going to be. The field you’ve got is most likely what you’re going to have when the primaries start. And entirely aside from Sarah Palin, the field right now, with all due respect, does not contain a Great White Knight. Newt Gingrich, with all due respect, is not the Great White Knight. These guys can wait for Senator Great Pumpkin, or Governor Godot, or Congressman Harvey. I think I’ll stick with a candidate who, as flawed as she might be, actually exists.
- Rich Fader | 01/05/2011 @ 12:55
Quite right. Although it’s certainly not reasonable to contest the notion that Palin has baggage, lots of people hate her, they’re not going to change their minds. The Palin/Biden debate was, in all likelihood, a verbatim premonition of what any Palin/[insert name here] match-up is going to be: Everyone who was married-up to the idea that she’s an idiot & stupid & deserves to lose at everything, will swear up and down that she lost. But meanwhile, her ideas are always going to be sensible. They need to be. Sarah Palin is completely lacking in any talents required to get non-sensible ideas sold to anybody. So even if she were sympathetic to nonsensical things like “I just think when you spread the wealth around it’s good for everybody,” she would be tactically forced to leave that to someone else better suited for selling nonsense.

To back her, is not to assert that she can court that part of the electorate that places weight on personality at the expense of ideas. Backing her, instead, is the abandonment of that part of the electorate. And it’s long overdue. Those people don’t want the pressure of voting anyway. They’d rather watch teevee.
- mkfreeberg | 01/05/2011 @ 13:37
Sarah Palin is completely lacking in any talents required to get non-sensible ideas sold to anybody.

Word. Would that there a lot more people running for political office who suffered the same talent deficiency.
- Physics Geek | 01/05/2011 @ 20:24
With regard to foreign policy, it needs to be: The United States will be the best friend you ever had, and if you make her your enemy, she will become the worst nightmare you ever imagined.

“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” – JFK, Inaugural Address (1961)
- cylarz | 01/06/2011 @ 11:09

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