Category: Politics

Feeling the Heat

Team Clinton is feeling the heat of Operation Obama Bumper.

Apparently my frequent trips from home to Starbucks to work to Panera Bread to work to Little Rosie’s Taqueria and then back home (with a quick stop at Target to pick up some prescriptions and get a gallon of milk) have found their mark.

Co-President Bill Clinton has been dispatched to Huntsville in a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding.

At first, he had plans to attend a $1000 a plate fundraiser at the home of a prominent local attorney. I know where that house is, and I had thought about stopping by yesterday in my “fired up” sedan and taking a picture of The Sticker with the house in the background.… Read the rest

Mental Stretching

It’s one thing for an independent, mushy-headed moderate like me to reach to the left and support a candidate who just might have the gifts to make a good president for times such as these. But it’s quite another for a conservative to the right of Senator McCain to do the same thing.

Yet, that’s what happens here and here.

Here’s a money quote:

My first choice for President in 2008 is Mitt Romney and my second choice is Barack Obama. And that would not be an anti-McCain vote. Like Romney, Obama is a man of vision and character and electing the first black president would ultimately do more to pry away black and other minority voters from a decadent American liberalism, than would anything else.

… Read the rest

The Great Need of the Moment

Move over Caroline. Step aside Ted. In what will likely have little to no discernible impact on the 2008 Presidential race whatsoever, it’s time for me to announce my endorsement for President. Operation Obama Bumper is underway:

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Ah, come on, you can’t say you didn’t see it coming, can you? If in two and a half years of blogging I’ve ever given any of you the impression I was a lockstep conservative who always voted Republican, then I apologize for I have completely failed you as a writer. As I’ve indicated before, here and here for instance, I start thinking in the middle and work my way toward the edges pro re nata–as needed.… Read the rest

If Barack Obama Were a Republican, Would He Win?

With his trademark eloquence and depth, Gnade once again taps into and confronts the zeitgeist.

Obama as a Republican–now there’s an interesting thought. In fact, one wonders, really, how much different his views would be from a moderate Republican like, say, Colin Powell. I shook Colin Powell’s hand in 1994 and I thought, Hopefully, I just shook the hand of the next President of the United States. Sadly, I had not.

If Obama were to somehow survive the gauntlet of the conservative elements of the party and become the Republican nominee, would evangelicals stay home on election day? And if they did, would he still be elected anyway?… Read the rest

Going Negative

I just happened to turn my eyes in the right direction at just the right time–and there he was. My old high school friend Eric was on his way out the door of a Barnes & Noble in Roanoke, Virginia on Christmas Eve, but I managed to wave him down before he slipped away. We had not seen each other in about 8 years, and I thought that it might take him a few seconds to recognize me. But it actually only took him about two. He had the firm, well-practiced handshake of a politician, which he was–or, at least, had wanted to be.… Read the rest

Grassroots Gab

As the polls closed and the pundits pontificated Tuesday evening, the grassroots gab was flying fast and furious in the cramped study of a modest, lily-white, suburban ranch home somewhere in the Deep South:

Fourteen-year-old son: So Dad, what’s the deal with these primaries?

Pater Familias: They’re the process that each party uses to select its nominee for the general election. In most cases, the candidates are competing for that state’s delegates who would then have to promise to vote for the winner at the convention next summer.

Son: Okaaay…so Pops, if Hillary wins, are we going to move?

PF: Move where?… Read the rest

So Go Ahead. Woo Me

Gender bending is something that we don’t even talk about in the Deep South much less practice, so you can imagine how my eyes bugged out when I read this. Apparently, the rest of the country may not be ready to talk about it either.

I’ve always suspected that Hillary had a pair of big brass ones (metaphorically speaking, of course) and that Obama, with those lithe fingers and fine threads, was the embodiment of the modern metrosexual man. Now I have confirmation.

By the way, I would like to announce to the stable of Presidential candidates out there that my vote is officially up for grabs.… Read the rest

An Ecclesiastes Moment

Ecclesiastes is my favorite book of the Bible. But then again, I am a little weird.

Here’s one of my favorites:

Do not be overrighteous,
neither be overwise—
why destroy yourself?

Do not be overwicked,
and do not be a fool—
why die before your time?

It is good to grasp the one
and not let go of the other.
The man who fears God will avoid all extremes.

–Ecclesiastes 7:16-18

So who do you think Qoheleh (“The Preacher”) would commend: a) Pat Robertson b) James Dobson c) Sam Harris or d) Christopher Hitchens?

My guess? None of the above.

… Read the rest

Camille’s Back

There is the endless drone of the mainstream press serving up bland portions of the same o’ same o’, and then there is Camille Paglia.

I have a confession: I dig a lot (but certainly not all) of her stuff. Yeah, I know, I know, she’s a gay-atheist-feminist with a fetish for homoeroticism, but nobody’s perfect, right? Still, apparently beholden to no one, she writes things that others are too wimpish to even think, and does so with a vim and verve that are a rare sight in today’s media landscape.

She’s taken some time off, but Camille’s back. And just in the nick of time to make things interesting.… Read the rest

Grave Dancing

grave-dancing.PNGI wasn’t a fan of his, but I didn’t really think he was a monster either. What ever happened to “you don’t tug on Superman’s cape, spit into the wind, pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger, mess around with Jim, or dance on someone’s grave?”

I’d like to think that when I die, no one will dance on my grave. But there’s probably someone out there who will.

“No more stinky glasses, no more stinky glasses!” they’ll joyfully bleat as they stomp and strut around my grave like a barnyard animal, stirring up a cloud of dust from the freshly dug dirt.… Read the rest

Evrathang is RAY-low-tif

The Explainer at Slate does it again. I commented on this the other day, but little did I know then that I was actually a “code shifter” when I’m hangin’ with the clan back in Vah-GIN-ya and talking mountainspeak.

Hillary’s not the only one trying to convince us of her Southern bona fides. In Full Professor Elrod’s case, the more hard-core secessionists among his rowdy and far-flung boiled peanut gallery may have finally disabused him of the notion. I think it was the part about lapsing into Delawarespeak that did him in.

Huntsville is about as cosmopolitan as you can get in Alabama with so many transplants from all over the country and world.… Read the rest

On Speaking Southern

If this keeps up, I’m going to start feeling sorry for her.

Seriously, she may not be faking it. My accent is pretty neutral for the most part (comes from marrying a Missouri “Show Me”), but I’ve been told that when I’m around my uncles and cousins back home, that I lapse back into a Southwest Virginia lilt.

Yes Vah-GIN-ya, it is possible for an accent to change depending on the circumstances and it not be a campaign trick.… Read the rest