He smells like caramel!
This MadTV skit pretty much sums up the current political Zeitgeist. As John McCain maintains his position as the inevitable Republican nominee, the race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton has entered into, what Barack Obama referred to as, "silly season". The Clinton campaign's desperation, in the face of Barack Obama's increasing dominance at the primaries, has sunk Hillary to shameful lows. She's accused him of plagiarising in his speeches, of being nothing but rhetoric [ironic coming from a Clinton], and has helped circulate pictures of Barack Obama dressed in a turban and tunic, during a visit to Kenya, in order to conjure up some Islamophobia amongst the voters. Yet despite the immense amounts of monkey feces which Hillary has released from her bowels and flung at Barack, Barack has, as if his regular diet consisted of ambrosia, managed to deflect all these attacks and come out smelling like roses. He's more invincible than ever, which has done nothing but frustrate the Hillary campaign to no end. It, ironically, reminds me of Bill Clinton's seeming invincibility against his Republican accusers during Bill's multiple sex scandals.
But Barack, despite his rockstar charisma, should not be exempt from harsh criticism merely because he's a better candidate than Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Firstly, being the political superlative of Hillary Clinton and John McCain is not an incredibly difficult task to accomplish. McCain and Clinton are both mild, establishment moderates who stir up feelings of intense nausea amongst hardcore left and right wingers and amongst revolutionaries [the people who REALLY HOPE for CHANGE] of all stripes. His campaign's constant repetition of the buzzwords "Hope" and "Change" have always been nothing but rhetorical handjobs given out at every Barack Obama rally. The real "Change" candidates [e.g. Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel] have all already been blackballed by the media and forced to become non-entities. For the most part, Barack and Hillary are pretty much the same, old moderate liberal candidate. The same, old reformists who help maintain and strengthen the current political and social system more than their conservative counterparts. The same, old reactionaries-in-revolutionary-garb. Where does anyone see real change and hope in this? All we can do is HOPE that the CHANGE in the presidential office makes the state of our union slightly more tolerable. [Or start a revolution! But I doubt THAT will happen] Mr. Obama is slightly more liberal than Mrs. Clinton, especially when it comes to foreign policy, the War on Terror, and the war in Iraq. Barack's stance against the war in Iraq from the beginning has become common knowledge in the political world. But when it comes to his wishy-washy tolerance of the death penalty, his distaste for gun rights, and all his other lukewarm liberal positions, his credibility as the "Change" candidate diminishes before one's eyes into nicely veiled nothingness. And as anyone who has read this blog knows, I like Barack Obama. But the simple truth is that the race for the Democratic presidential nomination has disintegrated into nothing more than a choice of who's the prettier, cooler liberal. It's like high school all over again. Only now, the person lucky enough to be chosen America's Next Top President has real power. And, unless Ralph Nader were to miraculously pull a viable campaign out of his ass somehow, anyone expecting radical, real change, rather than the mere visual, aesthetic change of having a Black man as president, is deluding themselves.
