By Enemy Central on 10.28.08 @ 6:08AM
Once in love with Barack, always in love with nobody else.
It's been a long-time coming, but the Washington Post
and New York Times have finally broken their silence and
endorsed "Barack Obama for President." That was the headline of
the Post's October 17
editorial, which the Times proudly plagiarized in
its offering
of October 24, which also happened to be United Nations Day, if
any of you forgot. It is celebrated in New York City not so much
as a holiday as an opportunity for padding the old expense
account and redoubling one's efforts at double parking along the
fast lanes of Turtle Bay.
In keeping with its more mature voice -- indeed, it expressed
some regret at not endorsing John McCain, who was a good guy
before he became a bad guy -- the Post said not a word
about the UN. Not so the shrill voices at the Times, who
praised Obama as someone who "wants to reform the United
Nations." In your face, Kofi Annan. Not for the Times
McCain's wish "to create a new entity, the League of
Democracies." Did you know such a move "would incite even fiercer
anti-American furies around the world"? These are the same people
who also wrote, "Mr. McCain's willingness to joke about bombing
Iran was frightening." Boo! Happy Halloween.
Nonetheless, was McCain's behavior more frightening than what the
Times called his "irresponsible" and "opportunistic"
selection of a "running mate so evidently unfit for the office"?
Or was it superseded by the express judgment of the New
Republic's ageless enfant terrible, M. Léon Wieseltier, who
in a thoughtful
examination of his own voting patterns launched into this:
"And when he picked Sarah Palin, [McCain] told the United States
of America to go f--k itself." Chris Buckley and David Brooks
would have put it more elegantly.
Can't be too sure about Mr. Kathleen Parker, though. He's the
husband of the wife who now has
discovered that McCain chose Palin because he found her
irresistibly attractive. Unable to get anyone in the McCain camp
to confirm that that was the case, Mrs. Parker had to rely on her
husband's insights, along with those, solicited over wine, of an
unnamed 75-year-old gentleman, whose experience in such matters
is apparently not to be confused with her husband's. But it does
put into perspective the cavalier behavior of one Sen. Ted
Stevens -- that would be, of Alassska, as we like to hear it
pronounced. What fool reason would an aging fellow have to
corrupt himself beyond his means unless there were a lovely young
political player in his midst whom he desperately hoped to
impress?
Old boys come in various shapes and sizes, sometimes in the same
person. Alan Greenspan is spoken for, and it's safe to assume
that in his marriage he accepts the stern regulatory powers of
his missus. Yet as he confessed before congressional inquisitors,
that did not prevent him from straying with his long-time free
market companion. He now regrets not displaying greater interest
in Ms. Free Market's uglier features, which have left him, a
long-time booster of entrepreneurial relations, distraught and
practically a socialist. Which is not a codeword for communist,
no matter what they might be telling you in pro-America country.
Barack Obama has returned from the Hawaiian SSR, the lava land of
his birth. Though peeved not to be running unopposed, he remains
confident about his chances in next week's formalities, having
had his political bona fides reinforced by the emergence of a
taped interview from 2001 with a Pacifica Radio-sounding Chicago
PBS station. Whoever is listening to the tape isn't hearing it,
which we can take as final confirmation of what the
Washington Post in its endorsement hailed as Obama's
"evident skill at conciliation and consensus-building."
Early Voting has already left its mark. We now look forward to
Early Inauguration, if not on Thanksgiving or Christmas then
certainly on New Year's Eve. And the only sounds we'll hear will
be the clinking of champagne glasses, thanks to the
pioneering work of the latest neocon-turned-Obama-con, the
Hon. Kenneth Adelman. So he celebrated victory in Iraq
prematurely back in 2003? This time he's making sure the cakewalk
he's on includes lots of EOW icing.
