Obama vs. Hillary in the Netroots

[Cheney Killed Bambi]

When Democrats Go Post-al

The vicious Clinton-versus-Obama rupture at Daily Kos, the most activist site in the liberal blogosphere, reflects a party-wide split. What really rankles, as Democrats tear at one another, is the free pass they’ve given McCain—and the White House.

by James Wolcott June 2008


It was supposed to be a run for the roses, only to turn into the chariot race from Ben-Hur, with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama grimacing like Chuck Heston down the brutal homestretch, lashing toward a multi-horse pileup. No, this wasn’t anybody’s dream finish.

After two terms of George W. Bush, which only seemed like a scarred eternity, American voters (so the scenario went) would be pining for Democratic recapture of the White House and a return to competency as a novel change of pace. Let the reclamation begin. In January 2009, the former president would pack his saddlebags and head back to his Texas ranch, secure in the knowledge of having wrecked pretty much everything there was to wreck (Iraq, the dollar, the national debt, America’s prestige abroad, the rebuilding of New Orleans, the Endangered Species Act). The president’s impromptu tap dance at the White House as he killed time waiting for a tardy Senator John McCain to arrive for his official endorsement as the Republican nominee was the perfect vaudeville symbol for the breezy, wanton disconnect of this administration from the consequences of its actions, the unsinkable cheer of its sunshine superman. Despite his dapper moves, Bush’s dragging approval numbers were proof that his old white magic had lost its spell, that his was not an aura in which it was healthy to bask. He shrivelled everything he touched. (So far 29 House Republicans have announced their retirement this cycle, one sure sign of blight.) In the electoral battle to succeed Bush, the positivity seemed lopsided: the Democrats had cornered the market on good vibrations and Pepsodent smiles, while the Republicans—apart from Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee—majored in grim tidings and sour dispositions. Poll after poll showed that Democrats were happy with their top candidates—Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama—while Republicans kept scanning the horizon for a hunk of salvation, measuring Fred Thompson for Ronald Reagan’s raiment until he went logy on them and had to be put out to graze. Even the second tier of Democratic contenders, from happy warrior Joe Biden to Dennis Kucinich, with his red-tressed, tongue-pierced, statuesque wife, seemed like a Happy Meal compared with furrowed Republican also-rans such as Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo. One by one the camera fodder dropped out of the race as the winnowing process culled the weak, the fanged, and the superfluous, the Republican field reduced until John McCain became the winner by default, the last bowling pin standing.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/06/wolcott200806

[Cheney Killed Bambi]

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