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Sunday, September 09, 2007

Oprah's Bone-dentity, Petraeus and the American Public, and New Rules...
Posted by Melina | 9:27 PM




Americans have grown so frighteningly apathetic that as Petraeus gives his report on the Iraq Surge, there will be a mechanical background hum of daily life as gears grind and stock tickers tick in the gray world...and in some sort of 1984 Macintosh commercial, the big screen in Times Square will show a picture of the uniform with the mouth moving, as if in an Olbermann/Letterman/O'Brien/Snuffleupagus weekly funny. Why do I feel so numb about this report?...even though I've waited for it, painfully aware of every death reported since we were put off through the summer...

According to...well, just about every major news outlet, pollster, and blog out there, the majority of the American people feel that this report is full of shit and that Petraeus is less than trustworthy when it comes to his view of the success of the surge in Iraq. Though it does appear that everyone is going off the same wire report for the percent of Americans who are disgruntled, I still believe it holds true across the board.

Even Petraeus himself seems to be trying to get a coded message out by frantically blinking his eyes in Morse:
In a letter to US troops ahead of his testimony, Gen Petraeus conceded that the ”tangible political progress” expected from that the surge was supposed to spur had ”not worked out as we had hoped”.


The tragedy is that once you've sold your soul, that's it. Its not like Petraeus and his ilk cant go on to write their books and make their speeches.... but forget the legacy and respect that might be due a guy like this. I just don't believe that a career officer can deliver these dummied up talking points, while clearly trying to backpedal here and there, and not be somehow haunted by it forever.


I dont even have hope that the senate will surprise us with a major smack down, and yet we know that what he is going to say is likely to put a positive spin on a grim situation. This is the kind of thing that would have made me salivate back in the days of hope, but the realities of such a close majority in the Senate, and the tendency of people in office to have a troubling amount of respect for the uniform, (which I understand, but which also must be questioned in a situation like this,) makes it almost certain that this may be a flat reading of a White House script, written weeks and months ago by the Rovian spinners who are no doubt still in the office finishing up the architecture job for the boss.

Ill be watching most of it with interest, if for nothing else, for the psychological implications of this time in history, and the arrested development of our country.

Bill Maher had a fantastic show last night, and all I can say is that if you've got HBO on demand, have a look at it. If not, check out the HBO page and look at the videos there, as well as YouTube. I also watch AfterHours online, streaming from the HBO page. That also turns up on YouTube. But in the meantime here are this week's New Rules, just for a little of the funny before a hard week to come:



Oprah Winfrey....hmmmm...
I don't much go for the overly black girlfriend thing that she does sometimes, and even though I respect her and what she has done, I get a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach when I see her corralling Hollywood and throwing down for a guy who is inspiring but ultimately not experienced enough to WIN. I'm not saying that I wont vote for him if he is the nominee, but I doubt very much that he will be the nominee. I also feel like he puts on certain airs, and I'm not 100% sure what it is that he stands for exactly. I say this from a place of having seen him debate live and watched him on TV alot...and Ive also read most of his site from the beginning because I find him somewhat compelling in a futuristic sort of way.












In any case, I appreciate that Oprah wants a black guy as president, and that women want a woman...I don't take it very seriously right now, because I am so pleased with our field...but I do wish that she had thrown her formidable power behind the democratic nominees in 2000, and in 2004. In the world of life and death that the Bush administration has created for us, it seems to me that in the past she donated money but remained largely above the fray, because she was trying to be a news person. I'm glad to have her voice out there...but wary at the same time. Oprah Winfrey is a cultural phenomenon, who has certainly tried , against all odds, to raise the level of the culture. But we don't really know what she stands for, and she wields quite a bit of power.


Jezebel has a lighter view of Oprah's huge splash into the pool of presidential campaigning:
The woman, the black, the black, the woman, the woman, the black... OMG IT'S LIKE A REALITY DATING SHOW. We like Hillary and all, except we kind of don't want to vote for her, and neither, it turns out finally, does Oprah Winfrey, who after extensive focus-grouping and analysis of the candidates' respective adherence to the Law of Attraction (i.e. coin-flipping) yesterday , finally decided to come out and endorse Barack Obama. (UPDATE: Okay, so she had endorsed him already, but then she decided to start raising serious bank for him yesterday, and that's the important part.)...and Barack is black, and Oprah's black, and Oprah's from Chicago, but so are Barack and Hillary, but Hillary left, so that must have been it, right? Because it's not like you'd vote for somebody based on a thorough evaluation of their policies, priorities, voting records and level of beholdenness to various entrenched interests? We don't know, because we lean towards Obama, but some of us are fairly Caucasian. So what did to black women have to say? We searched far and wide for two undecided black women voters who would speak their minds.


And upon asking around:

Which settles it. Identity politics are over. It's all about bone-dentity politics. Personally, we're leaning towards Obama, but only by the transitive property of being hot for Ludacris.

C/P from RIPCoco

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