More hot air

I just watched the Democratic "debate." I don't know why. I knew I wouldn't hear anything of any importance, and I didn't. People who expected Obama to attack Hillary must have been disappointed. The same with Edwards. It's as if the Democrats are following the Reagan rule: don't speak ill of other Democrats. Hillary, as usual, was very much in control of herself and made no obvious mistakes of note. I thought most of the questions were absurd as they demanded absolute answers to problems that are not very easy. For example, Russert demanded they answer whether or not they would guarantee all troops out of Iraq by 2013 (the end of their first term). How in the world could anyone answer such a question when no one has any idea of what will be happening between now and then. We could be out of Iraq and back in by 2013. Then he demanded they commit themselves to raising the amount of tax for Social Security benefits, would they do it, yes or no. This was as if there were no other possible ways to go about "saving" social security. Like all of the previous sessions of this kind I think no one probably changed their mind about anything. It was mostly just more hot air with candidates trying to make the best of sometimes ridiculous question and sometimes going off on their pet tangents. Unless something very strange happens it looks to me like Hillary is a shoo-in for the nomination.

The conventional wisdom seems to be taking shape along the lines already predictable. Republicans want Hillary as the Democratic candidate because she has so many negatives there will be a big vote against her and therefore she will be the easiest Democrat to beat. This will probably be true in Idaho but so what, who cares about Idaho. I predict, however, that this may well not prove to be true in many other so-called red states. Hillary is a formidable candidate with an excellent organization. She has so far ran a clever campaign and has come across as much more likeable than anyone thought. There is no doubt she knows the issues and is well informed about them all. Like her or not she stands out as a serious and first-class candidate, more than you can say about any of the Republican candidates (about as hopeless a lot as you will ever see). I think the Republicans know they are going down and are not enthusiastic about their lackluster candidates. They are probably following their usual strategy: mess things up hopelessly, dump it on a Democratic President, do everything they can to prevent the new President from being successful at anything, and then trying to regain power. As they recognize Hillary (of the DLC) as at worst Republican-lite they think she won't do too much damage to their corporate fascist plans.

All in all pretty much a waste of time. Dodd was pretty good. Biden was a bit full of himself as usual. Richardson I thought was better than expected. Obama and Edwards failed to score. Gravel was gravelly as always. Kucinich was brilliant but who pays any attention to him. A tragedy that he wasn't born six inches taller. Pity no one ever asks the candidates my favorite question: what do you intend to do about the Bush/Cheney/Rice/Rumsfeld/neocon war crimes? Does this mean we are going to go on pretending they didn't happen? Are they going to completely escape any accountability? Are we not living in a pea soup of denial and obfuscation that puts Alice in Wonderland to shame?

By the way, Bill Sali voted his predictable "no" on child health care. What a guy! As we used to say, as useless as tits on a boar.

LKBIQ:
"In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning."
F. Scott Fitzgerald