SemiConscious Dot Org

For the past several weeks, I’ve been trying my absolute damnedest to ignore the ridiculous spectacle that is the 2008 Presidential campaign. I’ve done so mostly out of mounting, teeth-gnashing frustration at the Democratic Party’s insatiable need to tear itself to ribbons with petty squabbling, turning what should have been the easiest Dem win since 1964 into a possible loss and raising the terrifying possibility of Certifiable Batshit Loon John McCain as our next (and probably final) President. Another four years of Republican rule will sound the final death knell of any last lingering, desperate hope that this country can somehow pull itself out of its current death spiral…a prospect that depresses me so greatly that I’ve preferred to pretend it isn’t happening.

However, sometimes a manufactured political controversy comes along, one so ridiculous that it punctures even my comfortable bubble of self-absorption and triggers my Tirade Button. Like, say, when a Presidential candidate makes a speech pointing out the rather obvious fact that millions of poor and rural Americans are feeling angry, abandoned, and bitter towards a government that has left them to twist in the wind for the past thirty years…and is promptly branded an “elitist” by the very same cheerleaders of the policies that threw poor and rural Americans under the bus in the first place.

Oh, and also by Hilary Clinton and John McCain. Assuming anyone can tell the difference between the two anymore, based on what comes out of their mouths. I sure as hell can’t.

Now, it goes without saying that the concept of Hilary or McCain or any Republican (and yes, I’m including Hilary in that category from now on) casting themselves as spokespeople for the concerns and frustrations of economically eviscerated Rust Belt voters is so palpably ludicrous as to defy description. Trying to wrap my poor brain around the jaw-dropping lunacy of the situation sent my Irony Meter into the red and shorted it out completely. So I’ll let this commenter at Balloon Juice sum it up for me:

1. Hillary helps pass NAFTA.

2. Pennsylvanians lose good jobs.

3. Obama empathizes and understands why they’re bitter.

4. Hillary calls Obama out of touch with the people.

5. I go off the wagon and start huffing paint again.

Amen.

But then again, is it really necessary to go to great rhetorical and oratorical heights in order to defend Obama from this idiocy? He does an admirable job or skewering his opponents’ hypocrisy all by himself:

“I was in San Francisco talking to a group at a fundraiser and somebody asked how’re you going to get votes in Pennsylvania? What’s going on there? We hear that its hard for some working class people to get behind your campaign. I said, “Well look, they’re frustrated and for good reason. Because for the last 25 years they’ve seen jobs shipped overseas. They’ve seen their economies collapse. They have lost their jobs. They have lost their pensions. They have lost their healthcare.

“And for 25, 30 years Democrats and Republicans have come before them and said we’re going to make your community better. We’re going to make it right and nothing ever happens. And of course they’re bitter. Of course they’re frustrated. You would be too. In fact many of you are. Because the same thing has happened here in Indiana. The same thing happened across the border in Decatur. The same thing has happened all across the country. Nobody is looking out for you. Nobody is thinking about you.

“And so people end up- they don’t vote on economic issues because they don’t expect anybody’s going to help them. So people end up, you know, voting on issues like guns, and are they going to have the right to bear arms. They vote on issues like gay marriage. And they take refuge in their faith and their community and their families and things they can count on. But they don’t believe they can count on Washington.

“So I made this statement—so, here’s what rich. Senator Clinton says ‘No, I don’t think that people are bitter in Pennsylvania. You know, I think Barack’s being condescending.’ John McCain says, ‘Oh, how could he say that? How could he say people are bitter? You know, he’s obviously out of touch with people.’

“Out of touch? Out of touch? I mean, John McCain—it took him three tries to finally figure out that the home foreclosure crisis was a problem and to come up with a plan for it, and he’s saying I’m out of touch? Senator Clinton voted for a credit card-sponsored bankruptcy bill that made it harder for people to get out of debt after taking money from the financial services companies, and she says I’m out of touch?

“No, I’m in touch. I know exactly what’s going on. I know what’s going on in Pennsylvania. I know what’s going on in Indiana. I know what’s going on in Illinois. People are fed-up. They’re angry and they’re frustrated and they’re bitter. And they want to see a change in Washington and that’s why I’m running for President of the United States of America.”

Sweet Jesus, it’s so nice to imagine having an grownup occupying the Oval Office again. After eight long, dreary years of DubYa, I’d almost forgotten what that felt like.