The Daily Obama with Jon Stewart

Many of us who follow both politics and comedy, and in particular favor comedians who do political humor, were highly dismayed when the formerly brilliant comedian Dennis Miller decided to become a shill for the Republicans and George W. Bush. There is nothing less funny than a comedian with an agenda. Comedians are revered by being reliably cynical. They are supposed to poke fun at everyone in power, and take a hatchet to those who wish to attain power. Their job is to deflate the lofty hubris, and bring those secular deities down to earth. When a comedians take sides, the evasions, the prejudices, and the parochialism that they take such pleasure in bashing creeps into their own acts. They begin to smell as bad as the politicians they mock.

Unfortunately, that is exactly what has happened with The Daily Show. With the occasional relief of Lewis Black, who continues to skewer all, the show has become the left wing’s equivalent of Fox News. On the positive side for The Daily Show, Jon Stewart explicitly states that his news is fake, unlike the Fair and Balanced lie that is perpetrated on Fox. But like Barack Obama, Stewart purports to hold himself to a higher standard.

One thing that a comedian should never become is a shill for a political party or a wing of a party. A comedian should especially never fall in love with a politician. Jon Stewart is head over heels for Obama, and anyone who comes even a little close to showing some sign of disrespect, anyone who does not bow down at the altar of Obama, is ripe for attack.

A prime example of Stewart’s new lack of perspective can be seen on his June 18, 2008 show, where he ridicules former Vice President Al Gore. Stewart mockingly refers to Gore as a “filmmaker”, suggests that Gore is terrified of Hillary Clinton, and then proceeds to compare Gore to a futuristic automaton and Jeff Foxworthy during a criticism of Gore for not endorsing Obama sooner.

This little bit of pique from Stewart ignores two pertinent facts. First, Gore had stated explicitly that he was not involving himself in this year’s Democratic primary process, even joking that he might disconnect his phone to avoid calls from the Obama and Clinton campaigns. Second, it ignores the ridicule that Gore endured following his endorsement of Howard Dean in 2004. And let’s add some speculation that the Obama campaign may have timed the endorsement themselves – Obama is starting up his general election campaign, and it would certainly make sense that they would schedule endorsement events over a period of time to take advantage of multiple news cycles, rather than having all major figures make their announcements on the same day.

Stewart’s passion can be appreciated. But perhaps the best tactical move for an Obama supporter would not be to attack those coming out to support him. Unfortunately, the left, in the person of Jon Stewart, has provided yet another reason to not vote for Barack Obama – this time for moderates who have supported Gore.

The New Dittoheads

Scott McClellan was not the first former Bush Administration official to commit apostasy, but he was possibly the most prominent, having been the main conduit for what would pass for information from that administration. He also had the most history with George W. Bush among those who have spoken out, having worked for Bush since he was Texas Governor.

Of course, the political world knew what would happen next. Every GOP hatchet man (and woman) would come out of the woodwork to attack, to say that McClellan was cravenly trying to sell books, or that he was disgruntled, that he was not really involved in discussions, or perhaps that he had simply lost his mind. It was almost amusing that the ultimate hatchet man of the late 20th century, Bob Dole (is he still alive?), felt compelled to chime in.

Such results are bound to ensue from a Cult of True Believers. They are a secular religion unto themselves, and their gods are of this world and political. They place not only their party above country, but that part of their party to which they identify. All others are infidels, and all other speech is an ignoble attack upon them and theirs. All of their attacks, and their misdeeds, are merely the handiwork of the one and true God.

Of course, the basis of the Bush Administration’s secular religion – the ideals or ideology – was difficult to discern. What at first seemed to be potentially rational, though extreme, policy positions, yielded to emotion. In particular, the stated policy of a humble non-interfering foreign policy transformed via the trauma of 9/11 into one of the more aggressive foreign policy stances this country has ever seen, resulting in the Iraq War. It did not matter to the followers that basic tenets of their beliefs had not been maintained – followers believe their leaders in religions, the True Belief is not in ideas but in group identification.

And now we have come full circle in the ideological realm in this country. The conservative reign of the true believer is coming to a close – McCain is almost as untrusted among Bush’s conservatives as the first Bush. The day moderates – what few seem to be left – and liberals have yearned for, the end of political irrationalism, had seemed to be at hand. We have weathered the manipulations of Gingrich and DeLay and Bush, with 14 years of attempting to have a rational disussion with a dittohead or freeper beginning to fade into history. We had hoped that simple disagreement would no longer yield to petty name-calling or deep hatred.

But this is not to be so, and the biggest surprise is that it is the Democratic Party (or, as Bob Dole might say, “The Democrat Party”, gripping his pen ever more tightly) that is the perpetrator of the New Cult. Over the last few months this writer has witnessed on so-called liberal blogs behavior eerily reminiscent of Bush disciples. The overwhelming percentage of members on these blogs seem to be Obama supporters. The proportion of Obama supporters would make sense from a policy position – Bill Clinton was a leader of the Democratic Leadership Council, and he held some positions that are antithetical to liberal beliefs, such as support for free trade agreements and the death penalty. But the irony is that the followers of a man that purports to be able to “Bring People Together” have such unfettered hatred for their opponents. And then follows the paradox that these followers, these disciples, who argued against Bush and his people for their blind loyalty have matched their predecessors in that blindness.

Perhaps it is because the target is the same, but many attacks used by Bush, Cheney, Rove, and Gingrich have been repeated almost verbatim out of the mouths of Obama supporters. Comments like “You wouldn’t want Bill Clinton wandering around in the White House with nothing to do” after years of saying that Bill Clinton’s personal failures shouldn’t diminish his value as President. And then there is the fake outrage, the most ambitious being the wonderful tantrums thrown by Obama surrogates over Hillary Clinton’s use of RFK’s assassination to note the timing of the primary season – this is a classic conservative tactic.

But that is politics, and anything goes in politics. It is only galling because the Obama camp has spouted this line about “New Politics”. It is difficult to abide hypocrisy no matter what the underlying policy positions. The late, great Sydney Pollack’s character in “Michael Clayton” points to a law firm apparatchik and says “He’s an asshole. But he knows it.” There is great truth in that line. The greatest danger is that a leader is an asshole and doesn’t know it. The Clintons know that they are. Bush was one and didn’t know it – the same goes for Obama.

What is truly hilarious about this campaign is that Obama has succeeded mightily by using Old Politics with new technology pioneered by Howard Dean’ campaign in 2004. He wisely concentrated on caucus states, knowing that his upper-class followers would have a much better ability to turn out there. It did not matter to him whether he won the majority of the popular vote. And it was Clinton’s failure to assume that she would win so early that her great support in Florida and Michigan would not be necessary. It was more important to her to attempt to win early in Iowa and New Hampshire.

This is similar to the situation in 2000, when Gore did not ask for a recount of the entire state. The GOP kept saying phrases like “Get Over It!”, and “Follow The Rules”. Again, the Obama camp is parroting the GOP lines. To them, it is about the delegates, not the popular vote. And it is not important to them that everyone’s vote is counted. Of course, Clinton agreed to the rules as well. Gore must be blamed for his strategic error in 2000, and Clinton must be blamed for hers this year. But where does that leave the people whose votes are not counted? We will not hear a peep from Obama, because he is playing Old Politics. (Another article is being planned on reviewing the anti-democratic effects of caucuses on the primary process.)

The absolutely most disturbing attribute of the Obama people is their seeming inability to discuss in a rational manner statements and mistakes made by their candidate. Two statements stick out: Obama’s professed admiration for Reagan, and his analysis that lower-class whites sought out guns and God because of declining economic fortunes. The former statement is basically incorrect – Reagan did not transform politics markedly, because he did not usher in an era of GOP rule that lasted. Reagan’s achievement was a cult of personality. The true transformational character was Gingrich.

The latter statement in particular showed the true character of Obama and of his followers. First, Obama’s analysis was off the mark, with the exception that feelings toward immigrants has always been influenced by economic conditions. Economic conditions have not had that powerful an impact on issues of guns or religion, and this showed that Obama has a lack of understanding of these communities. So, the conclusion would be that Obama seems smart, he sounds smart, but he’s really not that smart.

But the truly troubling part of this scenario is that Obama’s people agreed with his statements. The reason? Because Obama said it. On liberal blogs and bulletin boards it was impossible to get the members to even engage in a rational analysis of either the correctness of the statement itself, or the potential political impact of the statement. The proof of the statement’s negative political effect reverberated from Pennsylvania through West Virginia and Kentucky during the primaries. Yet all Obama’s supporters could do was offer a variety of redneck jokes.

Obama’s followers are truly The New Dittoheads. This writer has never even considered voting for a Republican in a Presidential election for 30 years, but the thought of 8 more years of tolerating the members of a political religion seems a bit too much to ask. Those who consider themselves to be The Pure And The True, whatever their political persuasion, must be considered a danger to the country.

Reality Check 2008

It has become a mantra among the Obama folks that he will be able to win a number of traditionally red states in the general election. This is perhaps the result of various slogans such as “Yes We Can!” and “He Brings People Together!”. It is a wonder that they continue to believe the latter slogan after the incredibly contentious meeting of the DNC Rules Committee this past weekend, but in general it was time to get some polling state-by-state.

For this, the http://www.electoral-vote.com/ site proves useful. It is currently showing head-to-head matchups in each state between McCain and both Obama and Clinton. After compiling the information on June 2, 2008, assigning half the electoral votes in the case of a polling tie, the results are:
   Obama 296 – McCain 242
   Clinton 343.5 – McCain 194.5

Following are the states currently in the columns of McCain, Either Democrat, Obama and Clinton ((*) denotes a tie; the states not in Obama’s column are McCain in a Obama-McCain matchup, and similarly for Clinton):

McCain	Dem	Obama	Clinton
Alabama	California	Colorado	Florida
Alaska	Connecticut	Indiana (*)	Kentucky
Arizona	D.C.	Iowa	Michigan (*)
Arkansas	Delaware	Virginia (*)	Missouri
Georgia	Hawaii	Wisconsin	Nevada
Idaho	Illinois		North Carolina
Kansas	Maine		West Virginia
Louisiana	Maryland
Mississippi	Massachusetts
Montana	Minnesota
Nebraska	New Hampshire
North Dakota	New Jersey
Oklahoma	New Mexico
South Carolina	New York
South Dakota	Ohio
Tennessee	Oregon
Texas	Pennsylvania
Utah	Rhode Island
Wyoming	Vermont
	Washington

The most interesting aspect of the map is that, although Obama’s followers have a dream of turning red states blue, it is Clinton who would have the great impact in that area.