fpb | ....still giggling like an idiot...

I pray she has.

The odds were pretty long anyway. The gap between her and Obama in pledged delegates may be narrow, but it would be almost impossible to close without landslide victories in all the remaining contests, some of which she was bound to lose even before this bizarre "sniper fire" claim turned out to be as bogus as it seemed. But this is surely her "Snoopy in a tank" moment.

Guys, guys, guys... I know that I can manage to make you forget, from time to time, that I am a foreigner after all. But I am. Thanks for the implied compliment, but.... " 'Snoopy in a tank' moment"?

Dukakis reference. Of course, ostensibly I'm a national and I still had to look it up ...

Yup, Michael Dukakis, driving a tank with just his head sticking out, wearing a huge helmet that made him look like a bobble-head doll.

And then she claimed that she "misremembered" the incident. I've never been shot at -- and I seriously think I would remember the experience if I had. Certainly, I couldn't remember that I had, while not being shot at, unless I misinterpreted the event ... but this is NOT what she's claiming.

For her statement to be true, she'd have to be a total bubble-brain. If she is a total bubble-brain, then she is not qualified to be President of the United States.

Actually, her lying would worry me less :)

That's pretty much what I said. The problem is not so much the lying as the complete absence of any sense of reality. When Bismarck lied, which he did as often as he could get away with it, he did so with a solid understanding of exactly what his lie would do and why it would be believed (if he meant it to be believed; sometimes he told the common sort of diplomatic lie that nobody believes but which allows one to withdraw from an impossible position - as when, having been defeated horse and foot by the unarmed armies of the Catholic Church, he withdrew from the Kulturkampf by blaming the underling who had actually signed the anti-Catholic laws). This lie was unleashed upon a world that had all the means, even without bloggers, to show its falsity; all the old media had massive written and filmed archives on the Bosnian war; and it was so inherently unlikely (no current or former POTUS would be allowed within miles of a combat zone for any reason whatsoever; his own staff would not let him, even if he wanted to go) that it can only represent a reversion to student-room Vietnam-age fantasizing. You can take the hippie out of the dorm, but you cannot take the dorm out of the hippie, it seems.

Edited 2008-03-26 07:24 (UTC)

And then she said she was sleep-deprived. Staying up to answer the phone at 3 am will do that to you.

Great line. Send it to Obama's people, or McCain's, they should pay good money for it!

Things like this are the things that cause me to tell folks that politics are my sport of choice....
NFL ain't got nothin' on this; it sounds like a soap opera:
The wife of a former, disgraced leader trying to recover glory or power while falling victim to the same problems her husband had is facing off against a charismatic half-breed whose desire to define himself has lead him to bad company, and the crusty, angry old military man is meeting them head on in a battle for power....

I think I saw that on Star Trek once. ;^p

I just posted my take on this in my journal under the subject head "Memo to Pinnochio."
http://lametiger.livejournal.com/49906.html

OK, but, speaking as an Italian, it's spelled P-I-N-O-C-C-H-I-O.

Blame it on carelessness. I will correct it.

I saw some poll results a couple of weeks ago (and I honestly can't remember who polled, there are so many right now) where the results were: If the election came down to McCain vs. Clinton, the undecideds would go to McCain, but in the case of McCain vs. Obama, the undecideds would vote for Obama. What's your opinion on that?

(I like reading your political comments, as all too often the view from other countries is that America is bad, that's all there is to it, but you always have very well reasoned posts on political matters, and I've learned facts about European politics from them too.)

Obama has the magic touch. I have changed my mind about him, at least partially - I would still regard it as bad news if he came to power, but I can see now why he has reached this level. Even most of his opponents agree that he is the greatest public speaker in America for decades, and in his recent speech about his minister and race problems he has shown why. Great orators, from Demosthenes to Winston Churchill, make sense. It is not just a matter of verbal beauty, although that has to be there; there has to be an argument. Lincoln's great Cooper Union speech, that opened his way to the Presidency in spite of his utter obscurity, was a merciless forensic dissection of his opponents' attitudes, using the skills he had learned as a lawyer to demolish all their arguments on the issue of new States. As for Winston Churchill, to mention the most famous of his great speeches - before he got to the great peroration, "We shall not flag or fail. We shall fight in France; we shall fight on the seas and oceans; we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air - we shall defend our island - whatever the cost may be..." and so on, he had given a large and detailed picture of the war that managed to tell his people the worst, yet show reason to hope and continue. That was the reason why - as my first teacher of English, who had heard it on the day it was delivered, told me - one would simply hear it and say, "yes, that is what we will do". Truly great speeches embody a sound argument in an artistic form. By the same token, Obama's great speech was based on sound argument. He has managed to disown his minister without rejecting him, explain the black viewpoint to whites without sounding hostile, and define himself as black while treating whites as friends, not opponents or enemies. Some of America's greatest Presidents - Lincoln and FDR spring to mind - have made their way to the White House on the back of their speaking abilities. That is why, so long as Obama and McCain have not measured off against each other, Obama leaves the bigger impression.

On the other hand, while Obama is magnificent at talking at people, McCain has won his nomination by talking with them. The whole McCain campaign has been based, not on great speeches, which McCain knows he cannot deliver, but on sitting down and answering any and all questions flung at him, face to face with his electorate. That is not only good in itself, but particularly an answer to those who regard him as moody, irritable and unreliable. He has been seen at his best when the NY Times levelled those admittedly silly charges of sexual misconduct with an attractive lobbyist: he called a press conference and answered question after question till no journalist had anything left to say. Obama is not at all good at this, and has been known to walk out of press conferences. So, when face to face, McCain is likely to out-argue Obama; and he has managed the trick of gaining much greater experience while keeping his reputation as independent and unbesmirched by corruption. Which, you have to admit, is a considerable asset.

The consequences of the election will be felt more on the domestic than on the foreign stage. Both candidates have disavowed the old, macho, arrogant, go-it-alone attitude of the Rumsfelds and Cheneys, and McCain has stressed as much as Obama the need to have the support of one's allies. And while McCain has been more gung-ho than Obama about Iraq, Obama has made it clear that he would not just leave the country without the consent of American commanders and Iraqi leaders. So American foreign policy is pretty much set whichever of the two wins. ON the other hand, in domestic policy there could not be a bigger difference than that between the free marketeer and pro-life activist McCain and the former activist Obama, who has floated the idea of appointing people without legal experience to the Supreme Court and has managed to find support for abortion in the Gospel.

On the other hand, while Obama is magnificent at talking at people, McCain has won his nomination by talking with them.

You know, that's a fantastic summary right there. McCain may be cranky and outspoken at times, but in the end what you see is what you get--he's not afraid to tell you exactly what he thinks. Obama does give great speeches, but to me he's still a bit of an unknown--you can look at his record, but he really hasn't been in national politics that long. A lot of the extreme right-wing wackos have been calling him a socialist, which in my opinion he's not.

I admit I do like McCain, and if he and Obama are the final candidates, it will be very interesting to watch any debates they may have.

Edited 'cause I suck at HTML.

Edited 2008-03-27 21:54 (UTC)

Who shall win? I have no idea. Neither party has picked an obvious loser, as the Democrats did four years ago with Kerry. But it will be a good contest. Both Obama and McCain strike me as impressive people, people who do not have to make an effort to stand out, with a natural quality of leadership and personality. It no longer is - and thank the Gods for that - a matter of voting for Kerry only because Bush II was worse, or of voting for Bush II only because Kerry was worse.

My problem with Kerry was that he never really said anything. You could watch his speeches and read his website, but IMO he never got from "This is how things should be" to "This is how I'm going to make that happen."

....still giggling like an idiot...

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Sorry, I do know better

Lurker feeling talkative for a change

Re: Lurker feeling talkative for a change

Re: Lurker feeling talkative for a change

Re: Lurker feeling talkative for a change

Re: Lurker feeling talkative for a change