Vegas line on the Dems

Remarkable week in the Donkey race.

Hillary (also) gave a major speech — on foreign policy. No smiles. All business. Doing her best to appear presidential, and doing it well.

The Chicago minister is indeed a big liability. But Barack’s address of the issue was fresh, bracing, courageous and loveable.

Nevertheless I doubt the party leadership will put him out there to be pounded by Rev Wright videos all fall long.

Thus, seems the show now is all about precisely how the superdelegates will arrange to have Hillary atop the ticket and Barack as VP.

And then the question will remain as to how badly the GOPhers will hurt Hillary with Vince Foster. ??

Curious to see how Barack would react to pressure from above. Surely the party would rather have him concede graciously after Pennsylvania, rather than force a public vote in which the superdelegates went heavily against him.

Maybe I’m wrong. Just reporting impressions at the end of a tumultuous four-day week …

Private Eye behind Spitzer at Post Office?

In case you missed this in the stream of media sewage:

Langone, Spitzer and the CNBC Remark

Here’s a dispatch from WSJ colleague Aaron Lucchetti

Former New York Stock Exchange director Ken Langone has a way of being in the middle of a big story.

That’s especially true if the story involves soon-to-be former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. Langone (pictured, left) has been criticizing Spitzer’s prosecutorial style since, as New York attorney general, Spitzer sued the Home Depot co-founder for his role in the compensation package of former Big Board Chairman Dick Grasso.

After reports surfaced Monday that Spitzer had used the services of a prostitute, Mr. Langone told The Wall Street Journal and business channel CNBC that the news confirmed his opinions about the governor.

On CNBC, he added that Spitzer went “to a post office and bought $2800 worth of mail orders to send to the hooker.” He told CNBC he’d heard that from “somebody who was standing in back of [Spitzer] in line” at the post office.

The soundbite set off speculation — who was that person? On CNBC, Herb Greenberg, a columnist for MarketWatch and WSJ, wondered if it might be a private investigator. After all, Mr. Langone after all had made his dislike of Spitzer very clear. (See his blog post.)

But people familiar with the situation say Langone didn’t hire anyone to follow Spitzer. One of these people said Mr. Langone heard the post-office story from “a friend” who relayed it Monday, after the Spitzer revelations had broke.

Spitzer’s lawyers did not immediately comment.

END QUOTE

Right-wing talking heads seem to favor Obama

Watching the Sunday talk shows this morning chew over the Donkeys’ delegate dilemma, it seems clear that the GOP flacks are selling Obama soap.

I take this to mean that they think (like me) that McCain has a better chance against Obama in the fall (despite polls across the past month that give Barack a slight edge here over Hillary).

Nevertheless, the dire economic picture continues to argue that McCain can’t win in any case, and thus that those who believe Obama is best should continue to back him.

Then again … Many thought Bush-Cheney could not win in 2004. My worry as that November approached: Fascists once in power do not lose elections; it takes a big war — a big defeat — to get them out.

This morning it seems that their War on Terror will have to be enlarged for McCain (no fascist, certainly) to stand a chance. And in that world Hillary seems more electable than Obama.

Donkey vulnerabilities: Dukakis Redux?

Friends and I were sure heading into 1988 that after eight years of Reaganite chaos and abuse the Donkeys were a shoe in.

Instead we got a moderated echo of Reagan’s administration, headed by wimpy lap-dog CIA fellow traveller George Herbert Walker Bush. A rather boring fellow in the public eye.

I can still taste the disappointment of November 1988.

Then when Bush launched the Gulf War, the shock that first night, as television broadcast the bombardment of Baghdad in prime time, made clear the cost of underestimating boring GOPhers and fumbling an election.

I remember standing that night on 7th Street near Avenue A in the East Village, gawking at a television thru a storefront window with poet-friend David Abel. It took several speechless minutes to believe what we were seeing … as ten years later it was hard to believe, gawking west from my roof in Brooklyn, that one of the Twin Towers had just collapsed like a house of cards.

McCain at the moment seems as unlikely a winner as Bush pere did twenty years ago. Should he pull it off he would (internationally at least) be a moderated echo of Bush-Cheney. It seems prudent to worry about history repeating.

Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis was the Donkey in 1988. Ran and won an exciting primary campaign, coming out of nowhere. Then got clubbed like a baby seal in the fall.

Hillary and Barack are much stronger candidates. But the Donkeys remain vulnerable, especially if we have a blow up overseas. And indeed, Bush-Cheney in the past ten days have been stoking the Iran business again, in the UN and out of the Pentagon. April is still on some calendars for an Israeli air strike.

Dukakis, feeling light on foreign affairs, famously made a fool of himself by dressing up in army gear and riding in a tank. He looked ridiculous. (Dubya five years ago on the USS Lincoln, declaring Mission Accomplished in Iraq, was an echo.)

Obama if nominated will feel the same pressure, and have little to say except that he has confidence in his judgment and would appoint experienced people. Not that Hillary is immune on this. But she’s much stronger.

Then again, the economy (stupid) and financial system are melting before our eyes. Perhaps that means no GOPher can win in November, and, thus, that now is the time to back the greater, riskier hope for real change.

The end of a Cycle
of American History?

Maybe Reaganism is melting, melting before our eyes in both the political and economic spheres.

(“Neoliberalism” as they call it in Europe …)

Politics

– Rush Limbaugh’s comment that if McCain is the nominee it means the end of the GOP reshaped and empowered by the Gipper. The end of the Reagan coalition.

– The Clinton restoration (which I was looking forward to happily enough) falling to Obama’s spirit song. Hillary seems to have been pinned to the mat, fairly and squarely, by association with NAFTA and her vote for the Iraq War.

(It seems to me legitimate but also tragic that she and the femme hopes she represents may get passed over in this way — hoisted in part by the petard of Identity Politics that our familiar neo-feminism, first and foremost, advanced with Academic ploys in the 80s and consciously applied to splinter the traditional American Left constituency. Helping Reaganism take root.

Barbara Jordan, whom Hillary has been admiring aloud in Texas this week, famously and thunderously said no to Identity Politics — “Separatism is not allowed!” — during her (second) keynote address, at the 1992 Democratic convention. “Change: From What to What?”

Our neo-feminism is not a child of the 60s but, rather, a reaction against them — a Special reaction against the Universalism of Marx and Woodstock — which came into the world about the same time as Disco and MTV (the latter which splintered the integral, pansocial rock of the 60s and 70s, a prime medium of the politics of the day, into a thousand sounds and furies signifying nothing ….).

I shrugged with disappointment when Bill Clinton caved in to the megacorps on NAFTA. And was disappointed but not surprised when both NY senators in 2002 (Hillary and Chuck Schumer) gave Bush the blank check on Iraq. Barack’s pressing on these points is the strongest moment in his stump speech. If Hillary now misses her tide because of them, there seems little basis for complaint. Yet each might be defended as sensible tactical concessions to the world Reagan left behind, particularly for a woman aspiring to the White House.

I do see her as the better sort of feminist, a true child of the 60s, a fellow traveller of Barbara Jordan. Her focus on economic justice bespeaks that. A Camille Paglia feminist, one might say, rather than the now typical university fare.)

Economics

The deepening credit crunch has people in money-center banks and Congress talking this week about Uncle Sam buying billions worth of homes and/or mortgages to stave off the foreclosure crisis. Unheard of since … FDR and the Home Owners Loan Corporation. Imagine that.

Then add to that my ridiculous idea that price controls on wounded classes of structured finance bonds may be the only way out of the credit crisis, which in the past two weeks has gone broader and deeper, leaving Bernanke nearly weeping this week before Congress.

(As for Paulson … A hopeless bonehead raised on Reaganism. Dinosaur. But he’s not alone. The business world, and the business press, are inhabited entirely by shallow (ie historyless) Free Marketeers. “Capitalism” they chant, as if it still exists …)

In any case: as this crisis swells it becomes increasingly clear there is no market cure for what ails the markets. Laissez Faire is dead, again.

Cycles

To the point:

Arthur Schlesinger, R.I.P., wrote a famous book called a The Cycles of American History — charting the story by observing regular, quasi-generational (Oedipal?) pendulum swings in political dogma and public opinion.

? Perhaps the reactionary swing that Reagan inaugurated, both nostalgic and fearful, which has polluted my entire adult life (graduated from undergrad in 1982), is about spent?

One can easily lay the Schlesinger idea over Hegel’s spiralling cycles to restore a picture of progress.

Might spell relief.

The End, beautiful friends?

Can you picture what will be?
So limitless and free
Desperately in need
Of some stranger’s hand
In a desperate land

Electoral College map

I’ve been playing with the EC possibilities at this handy site. (Start with the “2008 Swing States” view, then click or doubleclick to toggle between red and blue.)

If the Dems sweep the northeast except New Hampshire, take Ohio and the other rust belt states other than GOP constant Indiana, and take the left coast top to bottom, they can win — leaving the entire south to the GOP, including peoriac Missouri, and even Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado (the prime western swing states).

In other words, if the Donkeys get: Washington, Oregon, California and Hawaii. Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Maryland, D.C., Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont and Maine. This yields 275 to 263. (270 wins.)

So I guess it’s a practical possibility for Obama to win. I do think the Donkeys will do very well in the northeast and midwest.

All this forgetting for a moment the voting machine corruption.

Iowa (7 votes) swinging to GOP in the scheme above would give the presidency to McCain by two votes. But since 1992 it went GOP only in 2004, faced with John Kerry. Thus seems a decent Dem bet this year.

And New Hampshire (4 votes) since 1992 went GOP only in 2000. So maybe we should throw that to the Donkeys this year regardless of candidate (although this IS where Hillary made her surprising comeback in January).

Re the western swingers: In 1992, with Clinton getting only 43% of the popular vote (Ross Perot took a big chunk) but a rather huge 370 EC votes, Colorado (9), New Mexico (5) and Nevada (5) went Democratic. In 1996, the GOP picked Colorado off the list, although Clinton increased his EC to 379. In 2000 Gore took only New Mexico. And in 2004 Kerry lost all three (although I seem to recall there was a lot hanky panky in New Mexico).

So, since 1992 these three have swung from All Dem to All GOP in perfect stepwise fashion.

But Bill Richardson will be pushing in New Mexico. And Colorado is suffering terribly at the moment from the real estate recession. So maybe we are safe to assume half of the western swingers — say Colorado’s 9 votes — go to the Dems.

This revised scheme — giving New Hampshire and Colorado to Dems — yields 288 to 250.

George Will suggested today that McCain’s best VP would be the Minnesota governor. Ten EC votes there. Would still yield 278 to 260.

Romney’s resignation speech

Well, contrary to my thought he would try to stick it out til Huckabee’s streak ends with Mississippi in early March, Knucklehead’s leaving.

A pundit suggested it’s not so much that Romney’s decided he can’t beat McCain, but that he can’t beat the Donkeys in November.

His speech re foreign policy is straight out of Rebuilding America’s Defenses (the PNAC manifesto that Bush’s advisors published in Sept 2000).

The venue is the CPAC conference. So he’s doing his best to present his (questionable) so-called conservative credentials.

Ah, there he goes — explicitly comparing himself to Reagan in 1976. So we’ll be hearing from him four years hence.

Morning after

Addressing her people in NY last night, Hillary opened by stating that she would not be “Swift-Boated” by the GOPhers. Seems to my ears that again she is obliquely saying that there’s no Vince Foster problem. ??

Looks like Obama can’t lose a caucus. I imagine they’re being swamped by enthusiastic young folk.

This tightness among the Dems is not great. It means things will get testier. I hope they can keep a lid on it.

Pat Buchanan (my vote for most interesting pundit so far) on MSNBC this morning tried to give an assessment of Obama’s chances in the fall election — ie in the electoral college — and was abruptly cut off by the MC, Joe Scarborough, who shouted (as is his wont) “We’ll talk about the general [election] when we get to the general!”

I wonder if it’s a Rule, from the General Electric (top ten defense contractor and owner of NBC) board room. No talking about Obama’s chances in the electoral college. Until it’s too late.

Huckabee may win Mississippi in March. After that … Hard to see he has a future. Where do his people go? Seems more likely to Romney. Which means the latter has to plod on until at least March 11 (the Miss. primary). I imagine he will, especially if the so-called conservative flacks keep hitting McCain, as seems likely.

Super Tuesday 10:30

Well, both Huck and Mitt have now addressed their faithful, with the eastern states in, each promising to carry the struggle on.

Huckabee’s performance is stronger than expected in the south and esp in Missouri. He’s a charming fellow.  Too bad he’s got all those strange ideas in his head.
And now Georgia! Atlanta goes for Huck. Christ …

Romney seems to have suffered with Huck’s advance. His hopes now seem to reside entirely in California.

Hard to read McCain’s strength along the atlantic coast — is it a good or bad thing (for the GOP)  in the general election?   Chris Large Mouth Matthews was saying it’s bad — because the GOP tends to lose those states. But maybe that means McCain is most competitive where the GOP needs it most.  ??

Pundits suggesting that Huckabee may be able to demand the VP spot from McCain. Dangerous, given McCain’s age and health, and the zealots in the evangelical camp, one of whom might take it upon himself to put Huck in the big chair.

Super Tuesday Mid Afternoon

In Florida — which means watching television.

On the Sunday talk shows and then Letterman last night Hillary went out of her way to declare herself fully “vetted” thanks to 16 years of assault from GOP flacks. No skeletons in the closet to clatter to the floor in the fall. Whereas Obama remains largely unprobed.

I haven’t heard her emphasize this aspect of her experience before. It seems to me she must be consciously implying, among other things, that there’s no Vince Foster problem.

Whether one can believe is another question. I continue to think she’ll get plastered with Vince by the GOP if nominated. How well will she hold up? I think of the beating Kerry took on the relatively minor Swift Boat flack.

Obama’s surge is impressive. It’s clear that there won’t be a Donkey at least until Ohio and Pennsylvania have voted.

I’m curious now as to why Edwards seemed to have put himself in Obama’s corner during the fall. It seems to me Edwards has more in common with Hillary on his core issues, and that Obama is, despite certain appearances, a pro-business candidate. His vision is to somehow bring the poor into the corporate fold. Futuristic or otherworldly, flying in the face of more than three centuries of experience with how free-wheeling industrialism works. His embrace of Reagan seems sincere and betrays a lack of historical understanding. Is he too a child of 80s television?

I have yet to hear a single pundit mention the electoral college when assessing Obama’s prospects. Instead they point, eg, to a recent poll showing that Obama has a slight edge over Hillary when placed against McCain. (Which itself seems odd; I think McCain draws nearly all the old Nixon/Reagan democrats and splits the true Independents with Obama. Seems more of each group might go to Hillary.)

However that may be: Show me the electoral college map that gives Obama the win in November.

His victory would seem to require the overthrow of the pattern — basis of the Southern Strategy — that has obtained since Truman’s hair’s breadth victory in 1948.

That is: only four Dems have been elected president since. Three were from the deep south:  LBJ, Texas. Carter, Georgia. Clinton, Arkansas. And the only yankee (JFK) had the most prominent southern politician of the day (LBJ) as his running mate.

Is the south going to put a black man in the White House? When it refused Gore, who lost home state Tenn in 2000?

Possibly. But it would mean turning the world on its head.

Which suggests that the Obama movement is in part a measure of how bad things are. I suppose this is what Ted Kennedy is sensing — that the destruction wrought by Bush-Cheney has presented an opportunity for creation that rarely comes along. Yet Obama I sense, despite “change,” accepts, if not embraces, the world reshaped by Reaganism, which Kennedy has been battling for 20 years.

McCain’s recent rhetoric re taxes and war has to be discounted a bit (as he plays to the GOP house). It’s distasteful. But he remains the best GOPher out there. I was sure six months ago the Clubhouse would refuse to nominate him. But it seems the party leaders are coming around.

And he continues to remain silent in stump speeches about campaign finance reform, which would undermine the Clubhouse.

Romney is down but not out. Polls seem to say he can still win California, which would keep him in the game. Then when Huckabee drops out, Romney gains.

THUS my original fear post Iowa — that Romney is the next president — has not gone away. The two Dems have serious problems that the media so far have entirely ignored. And Romney is not yet dead thanks to Reaganland.

Meanwhile it’s clear we’re into recession. The employment numbers are horrible and today the main measure of service-sector economic performance came in at 41 (anything under 50 meaning recession). And 30% under estimates. Murdoch (formerly Dow Jones) Industrials thus down 300 plus.

The inauguration of the new president a year hence … FDR in 1932 all over again?

Paul Volcker endorses Obama

The former cigar-chomping Fed chairman credited with killing the stagflation caused by the oil crunch in the 70s.

John Edwards — Next Attorney General

Edwards dropping out of race today.

If a Donkey wins in November (a big “if” in my view), Edwards would make a great attorney general.  From there he could do more to revive the union movement than as Secy of Labor.

Hillary’s looking rather hot

Must say there’s something bracing in Hillary’s mean mien last night in the S.C. debate …

… and this morning when she spoke of Barack’s frustration.

The rigorous exercise of campaigning …

… that pentathlon in the crisp New Hampshire air …

… has put a sparkle in her eye.

South Carolina Food Fightin’ Pretty Funny

This stuff in the Dem South Carolina debate was pretty funny.

And Brawlin’ Bill getting down with his grits.

Reagan GOP about to blow up?

Rush Limbaugh is telling his radioheads that if McCain is the nominated GOPher it will destroy the party. Also is telling people that neither Gingrinch nor Huckabee are true conservatives.

Interesting to think. If after all the destruction wrought by Bush-Cheney there might be a price to pay — the death of the dreamy reactionary anti-social revolution of the rich that geared up in the 80s behind Reagan’s broad shoulders and sparkly grin. The death of the second Guilded Age, so to speak.

While the Dems throw forth their two revolutionary candidates themselves.

But … yes. I’m dreaming.

Reaganitis

Frank Rich (former NY Times theater critic who turned to sociopolitics a few years ago) is almost always worth reading. This weekend he’s recalling Reagan as so many of the current contestants strive to stand in his shadow.

I posted this comment in reaction at the Times website:

Reagan was the first Charlie McCarthy president of the postwar. Bush pere and Clinton resisted the notion. But baby Bush, twice installed by illegitimate elections, seems its well-rooted redux. “There is a cancer on the presidency …”

None of the current GOPhers fit the Grand Old clubhouse mold. But Romney, a rich genial knucklehead anxious to please people, would make, despite his faith, a fine Charlie McCarthy.

As for the Dems: Only four have successfully negotiated the South in the Electoral College since Truman’s squeaker in 1948, and of those the only non-southerner had a prominent Texan on the ticket as VP. I don’t yet see how Obama overcomes this problem.

And I fear that Hillary, if nominated, will be blown out of the water by a blue valentine from Vince Foster.

And, of course (as the Times magazine recently pointed out), much more of the country is using hackable voting machines this time than last.

Best guess today, then, is that Knucklehead Romney is the next man to sit in Washington’s chair.

Bush-Cheney’s repeated illegitimacy, their assault on the law, their prosecution of the most destructive foreign policy in our history …

Destruction seems the theme. All the result of nothing more organized than a 50-car pile up on the interstate? I doubt the presidency, when dust settles, will be found to have survived. The seat seems Charlie McCarthy’s in perpetuity.

And given that the Congress was bought and neutered a while back with TV ad money, this leaves the Pentagon and the secret police as the essence of what Washington is. Old republics don’t die, they just fade away.

Same old stuff …

Perhaps, on second thought, Ford was the first Charlie McCarthy prez of the postwar. If so, perhaps it’s okay to overlook him nevertheless, since he was never elected (even as VP) and did little but play golf while Rummy and Cheney kept shop.

Obama’s paen in Las Vegas this week to Reagan is less than shocking. His vision is for an entirely new businesslike coalition, whereas the visions of both Hillary and Edwards grasp the essence of the class war that the rich renewed in the US during the 80s, and argue for going back to a balance where the working class is not utterly at the mercy of the owner-operators. They are reactionaries. Obama is futuristic, or, otherworldly.

Re McCain it remains difficult to believe the GOP machine would give him the nomination. Perhaps in utter despair. In which case the prime thing one hopes he would push would be campaign finance reform, which has long been dear to his heart.

Yet as far as I’ve seen, he’s been perfectly silent about it on the trail. Trojan Horse?

Bloomberg and Kerry in the game

1. Reports today that Bloomberg has been doing intensive polling nationwide to assess his chances as an independent. Also that he’s looking to spend a billion if he runs. (Supposedly has about $20 billion.)

If Hillary is the Donkey, seems she would benefit quite a bit from a Bloomberg run. Obama less so; ie, seems the Bloomberg drain might be more evenly divided between Obama and the GOPher.

2. Odd and unsavory for John Kerry, as the head of the Party in a sense, to come out so early on to endorse Obama — even from his own perspective re having influence on the race and ideas as things develop.

3. I guess Obama will win the Nevada caucuses. South Carolina … Who knows.

Apparently both Florida and Michigan cannot send delegates to the Donkey convention because they violated Dem Party rules by sched’ing their primaries prior to Super Tuesday. ??

Many are the ways dem Donkeys screw themselves.

New Hampshire

Obama’s quasi-concession speech was beautiful and brilliant. And Huck’s was bright and warm.

I’m very glad Hillary won. When she first ran for the Senate in New York she impressed local pros with her hard work, travelling the upstate counties. She worked hard in New Hampshire, under a lot of pressure. I admire her balls.

If nothing disturbs the Republican field, the best guess seems that Romney will prevail in the end. But it remains clear that neither he, McCain, Huckabee nor Guiliani fit the clubhouse mold, and the GOP is a club. I guess Romney is the closest, and he certainly seems anxious to please people. Seems he’d really rather be hosting Late Night …

The superiority of Hillary, Obama, Edwards, McCain, Huckabee, Richardson, to the people who’ve been in the White House the past seven years is hard to exaggerate. There’s something encouraging in realizing this.

The mission is to get the GOP out of the White House for a while. Not clear how best to do that yet.

Then again, McCain is hardly a Republican. The big question with him is whether he would push a campaign finance reform bill. Something strong along these lines would fix the Congress, assuming the Roberts Supreme Court let it pass. Alas. Fantasies.

Iowa Votes / Demise of the Presidency

Hard to imagine a black man winning the Electoral College vote. (All the Southern Strategy stuff is history?) But Obama’s presence and success in the race seems to be throttling Hillary’s themes. A new way for the Donkeys to self destruct.

I still worry that if she gets the Dem nod, Vince Foster will be shot out of cannons to smear her. Maybe she would survive.

(I wish she would address it now. Does no one else recall the PBS Frontline show where Foster’s widow went on at length about the Hillary-Foster relationship? Even if the journalists have agreed to let sleeping dogs lie, does Camp Clinton think the GOPhers will do same if/when she’s nominated?)

I guess Edwards is the best candidate, although I can see he’s been a bit shrill lately for the corporate press — as the latter has increasingly refused (the Times certainly included) to seriously cover him. Reminiscent of 2000, when it was the Times (in a Sunday mag cover story) that overnight made baby Bush the Repub front runner.

So I guess I’m not optimistic re ousting the GOP. Obama is viable in the EC only in a world turned utterly on its head (which is not to say “impossible”). Hillary seems likely to get smeared with a blue valentine from Vince. And the corporatacracy has nixed Edwards.

Thus doesn’t seem to matter much — re electability — who the GOPher is. Looks to be the Donkeys’ election to lose. As in 2004.

I like Obama very much but his campaign is as ill advised a notion as I can remember seeing. In 2000 it was Ralph Nader. But today the stakes are higher (that is, we know they are higher), and Nader was never proclaimed front-runner. Nevertheless he cost Gore Florida and New Hampshire and thus the election.

Times reports today that the Draft Bloomberg campaign is alive and well. Seems he would run as a post-primaries Independent, if he does. And probably drain more support from the GOP than the Dems, as Perot did in 92, allowing Clinton to win with 43% of the vote.

Is this then the Donkeys’ best hope? A gay technocrat-billionaire from Fun City who don’t know the difference between a government and a corporation?

Meanwhile the world from Palestine to India is on fire. May be very different (again) before the November elections. Perhaps that means McCain. Or the cancellation of elections under martial law in the wake of a disaster.

Or perhaps it means it matters little who sits in that chair. Reagan was the first ventriloquist dummy of the postwar era. With him began the business of running a White House with a poster boy. Bush pere and Clinton resisted the notion. Baby Bush seems to mark its well rooted redux. The death of an institution. Seems doubtful that the occupant in 2009 will be able to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

The Congress was bought and neutered (via television ad money). No doubt the state can stagger on without a real White House too. That leaves the Pentagon and the secret police as the essence of what Washington is. Sorrows of Empire.

Interesting that the collapse of the Soviet Union has been followed by the collapse, in an important sense, of the United States — i.e. the end of the world that the world wars left behind.

Does the failure of American democracy have a cost internationally? Kenya, for example?

Trent Lott & Vince Foster –
Long shots ?

Trent Lott announced yesterday or thereabouts that he’s resigning his Senate seat in January. Rather abrupt. Spoke of wanting to “do things” with his wife.

Meanwhile I spy Republican clubhouse unwilling to nominate McCain, Romney or Giuliani. None are GOPhers at heart. All rather … individualistic.

Long Shot One: Trent Lott gets nominated. Familiar. Abides by the rules. Draws the Nixon/Reagan Democrat vote.

Seems Likely: Donkeys will nominate Hillary.

But Then Also Likely: Two weeks after the Donkey Convention … Vince Foster rises from the dead. Stories they were lovers. His wife is already on PBS video, from early 90s, implying and all but explicitly saying this. Skeleton falls from closet.

Long Shot Two: The smear works. And the vote is close enough in the key states to get monkeyed with (third time now) and Trent gets assigned the White House seat in January 2009.