I Wish I Didn't Care

Argh. Just when I think I'm curing my addiction to useless political punditry, something happens that creeps into my head and won't get out.

Boy, do the Clinton's know about winning ugly. Ugly, ugly, ugly. Certainly, I'm not the only one who supports Obama in part because of a prayer to just be done with that kind of shit. Of course I think that the world is full of that shit. The Clinton's didn't invent it or control it, but, boy, have they internalized it. Maybe it does have to be that way. Maybe this is how the world works. . . Yet I can't help but think that the world works the way we say it does. If we reject that kind of politics than it is rejected. Of course people on the outliers will always play that way, or whatever way they see fit, but the majority can move on to something else. . . That's not the only reason I support Obama but, in truth, the Clinton's just kind of making me feel icky isn't such a bad one in my opinion.

Now- just to keep getting this trivial nonsense out of my head -- Certainly, Obama is going to have to come up with a good answer to the national security question in order to face McCain, so in that way its not horrible that this thing goes on longer while they prepare one. They need to be able to answer in a way that persuades the undecided to go with them, and maybe the attack from Clinton is a good warmup.

However, I can't see how this whole "Who's ready at 3 a.m.?" question helps Clinton -- why it would help Clinton -- and its partially the ludicrousness of some of this stuff that makes me sick.

First of all, what does that question mean? Like, he may be prepared to answer the emergency call at 5 p.m. but anyone can answer a phone in the middle of the afternoon. It's 3 a.m., when the lights are off, that we should be really worried about because, well, he won't be able to find the phone on the nightstand? Or, probably more likely, he's, well, I guess he's asleep so, you know, being asleep he might accidentally order a nuclear strike on Canada? I mean - what's the 3 a.m. deal? he's not going to actually wake up and think before he does anything? I mean, why is 3 a.m. the key time? I don't get it.

More importantly, I don't get how Hillary is somehow more qualified to answer that phone because, well, was she the one answering the 3 a.m. phone call in the Bill Clinton White House? Is she suggesting that she was? "I've answered that phone call before." She can't possibly be arguing that because, well, it would be kind of unconstitutional, wouldn't it? Since as First Lady, she was elected to do that. . . On the other hand, is she arguing that she is qualified now for that phone call because she can always pass the phone to Bill and he's experienced with those kinds of calls? I mean, I'm not seeing the point she's making. . .

This to me is the definition of a scare tactic -- some vague claim whose actual substance is so obscured that there is almost no way to argue with it. All it does is send chemical emotional fear signals to the brain: the dark night, the sleeping children, the unnamed emergency.

I mean, if the argument is that Hillary knows how to handle an international crisis because she's spent so much time in Washington isn't Obama's counter-argument that this whole Washington arrogance is absurd. Look what a wonderful job they've been doing lately. So she doesn't say that. She says something vague about a 3 a.m. phone call that, when analyzed, makes no sense from almost any direction.

Yup. Don't feel better. Maybe if I just work on something totally different I'll wash off this nagging disgust feeling.