Sunday, August 24, 2008

The die is cast

Catholic Priest to sponsor
a beauty contest for nuns
to increase their visibility

The die is cast. Joe Biden is Barack Obama’s choice for VP. We don’t need a bunch of post-mortems. What if he had chosen Hillary, what if he had chosen x or y, or even z. He has chosen Biden. I also don’t believe we need a lot of questions about Biden’s background and possible flaws. I’m sure he was carefully vetted by the Obama team. He has been in the Senate for so long there cannot be much that is not known about him. What is known is very positive. He’s a family man. He’s championed labor throughout his career. he rides the Amtrak home every night, he’s a long-time friend of John McCain but he disagrees with him and is not afraid to say so, and he does not seem to have much in the way of money. I find this particularly interesting as one comment I had suggested Biden could not have stayed in office so long without the support of Delaware corporations. I don’t know if that is true or not, but if his net worth is something in the range of $150,000, as I recently saw somewhere, it would appear they haven’t paid him very well or he has frittered away a lot of money. I did not think Obama would choose Biden (clinging to my apparent fantasy that at the last moment he would pick Hillary), but he did, and Biden seems now to be a fine choice. We all need to get behind this ticket and get rid of the Brafia once and for all.

These die-hard Clinton supporters are a mystery to me. They don’t seem to be an ignorant bunch or uninformed, but their behavior is totally irrational, especially those who claim they will vote for McCain. I agree there was a lot of sexism involved in the campaign, especially on the part of some in the MSM, and I also agree this was unfortunate, uncalled for, and out-of-place. But I can’t recall that Obama himself was involved in any significant instances of sexism (if I missed something please let me know). In any case, it was not Obama’s sexism that kept Hillary from winning the nomination. When the campaign began I thought a lot of Hillary, then as it proceeded I came to actively dislike her, and by now I have become somewhat ambivalent. I do think that if you consider carefully her behavior during the campaign you might conclude that she did things that could have been interpreted as overly feminine and thus may have invited some of the sexism. For example, her changes of mind, her sometimes irrational responses and claims, her crying (I still do not believe she cried on purpose), and so on. Even so, whether this is true or not, I don’t think it should have made any difference, but it might have. All in all I believe Obama treated her with respect and actively tried to avoid sexism. The worst offenders were pretty clearly Chris Matthews, Tucker Carlson, and a few others. Why these rabid Hillary supporters should hold this against Obama I don’t know. And why they would vote for McCain is totally incomprehensible to me. I still think Hillary would have in many ways been a logical and useful choice. But of course the presence of Bill Clinton around the White House would have been completely untenable. I subconsciously (I think) tried to rationalize this problem by thinking it would be possible to work something out, but of course it didn’t happen.

The weather here at Sandhill has been pretty good lately. Our large garden is flourishing and some harvesting has begun. My wife is making dilly beans in large quantities and I am tiring of picking beans. Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, crook-neck squash, beets, and carrots are coming on strong. Our corn is being strangled by climbing beans and the winter squash is threatening to invade the house and strangle us in our sleep. Somewhat to my dismay we have adopted an orphaned cat, almost completely black, about six months old, which we believe may have been abused and abandoned. Our three other cats hate him. He is too innocent to understand. All in all, life is good at the moment. It will soon be fall, my favorite time of year. Cheers. Look forward to a Democratic administration and better times ahead.

LKBIQ:
Take hope from the heart of man, and you make him a beast of prey.
Quida

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Lew, I hate to spoil the good life you have up there in Idaho with the bountiful garden and the gourmet cook wife but I suggest you read the Washinton Post online today. One article describes Biden's experience in the senate. One of the most disheartning votes was when he opposed Carl Levin's admendment that would have required Bush to come back to Congress before starting the war. The other article is about the ongoing lawsuit in New York against Biden's son and brother. The "poor Bidens" is another myth.