Letters to the Editor
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Rosenkavalier
You're just discomforted because a prominent feminist supports Obama. Are all women obligated to vote for Clinton? I don't think so.
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The Beanbag Syndrome
Being sat on like a beanbag is a tough proposition, Hillary's potential V.P., is in for the fight of his or her life to breathe.
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Why rush?
"But hasn't Rush's massive appeal always been based on his adherence to core principles rather than to narrow partnership?" What on earth are those special core principles you're referring to? I've never understood your appreciation of this douche-bag. Camille, as a fan of yours, if your reading this, please try to better explain what about him you find appealing.
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Hillary's VP
"Only a masochist or castrate would want to be Hillary's V.P. anyhow, since Bill would sit on him like a beanbag."
Abd the perfect vp nominee is... Al Gore!
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Barbie Should Look So Plastic
The utter vapidity of today's so-called erotic imagery is indeed sad and disillusioning. Nothing is real, or at least can be trusted to be real anymore, and if it isn't then what the hell's the point? With faces lifted and botox'd with increasingly obvious and soulless results, breasts enhanced within an inch of surreal, and waxing up the wazoo (and all that increasingly going for guys as well as gals), it's all a parade of designer bodies stamped out by an uber-fashionista consciousness that seems ready to delete all humanity from our visual experience.
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Not bad. A first.
This is actually the first Camille column that didn't make me gag. I think she's improving. Of course, one can't agree with everything. Rush Limbaugh always sticks to principles???? My God, a statement like that should nearly disqualify its writer from further consideration as a rational human. A strange blind spot, that.
And isn't "tactical voting" a reasonable feature of other democratic systems that aren't like our two-party, winner-take-all slamfest? The necessity of forming coalitions among multiple parties in order to create a ruling majority has always required tactics, hasn't it? The U.S. form of democracy may be one of the dumbest, most limiting forms of all.
True dat re: the current fetishized race of models and actresses, though. Peculiar. Makes you realize the advice given in "The Graduate" has finally come to pass. "Plastics," indeed.
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We'll Get Around to Rush...
...but first, Ms. P., thank you. I still love you. As an observer rather than a panderer to the faux intellectual floaters, you still speak to men and women with equal clarity. As an equity femenist you make me proud to be a man in a world full of remarkable women, and it becomes easier to forget those so unremarkable that they leave stains where they've been hovering. I'm almost OK with being an American man after I've read you. This time you made so much sense it almost made my eyeballs bleed. Especially the Clinton vs. Obama part.
As for the anti-Paglia crap that invariably shows up, well, just consider the action-reaction involved and give yourself a little pat on the back, chuckle, and move on.
Having said that, and having been deeply perplexd for two decades by the appeal of Rush Limbaugh to anyone other than a cannibal, yes, could you please 'splain that set
of "principles"? Seriously, I'll pay attention. There must be something there because you said so. Just please 'splain it to me.
Or not, which is more likely. One does not make demands of The Goddess I guess. Still, I can grovel with the best of them.
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Didn't you swear that your vote was going to Hillary?
I could have sworn that's what you wrote in an earlier column. Oh well. What changed your mind? PS - I know you inwardly want to return to Christ. (Which I root for.) Your worldview is amazingly established by him already.
Peace,
XY
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the Independent vote
@ the critics:
Sorry that you don't like what Camille Paglia has to say, and also sorry you don't have anything better to reply with than ad hominem attacks. Sheesh - unless you have something constructive to ad, what is the point? This is a place for thoughtful discussion, and I encourage you to play to your better sides in the future.
Now to the article:
Refraining from attack ads is good strategy if Obama wants to portray himself as something different. If he starts acting like the rest of them, you'll see his Independent support weaken. Its a sad day when refraining from objective behavior is praiseworthy, but yet here we are.
Speaking of the Independents - if you can get 51% of Democratic support in the general election, what net % does that win you? Something like 35-40% would be my guess, and that's losing hand in this contest. Perhaps the strategy is to force a bunch of already discontented people to vote for the lesser of two evils in a Clinton / McCain contest.
So the question is whether or not the Democratic party superdelegates have the sense to read the writing on the wall that the traditional element of their party is only marginally less despised than the party they aim to unseat. How could they possibly miss this point? We have only to look to the past to see the many ways they could.
Speaking for only one Independent - go ahead Democrats, nominate Clinton and lose the general election. Please! If you aren't going to lead or follow, then get the hell out of the way.
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I heart Camille
She is interesting.
I don't understand the people who say they are going to stop reading Salon because of her. All you have to do is skip her column, really not hard. Or since you obviously read it, just enjoy her unique perspective and don't hate.
I like her comments on feminists and HRC. I went to Berkeley and majored in Women's Studies and I do not think HRC is a feminist. I support Obama. There are more of us out there than you'd think.
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America votes for the killer instinct
A readiness to "push the button" and kill somebody--which Senator Clinton's 3 a.m. ad implies she is ready and able to do--is what seemed to sell in Texas (especially to Rush Limbaugh's paranoid crossover voters), Ohio, and Rhode Island. Proof of the killer instinct has a long tradition in presidential politics. Michale Dukakis rode a tank in 1988 but looked too intellectual and everyone sniffed: "He's no killer." Draft dodger George W. Bush passed the test in 2000 that he was a tough guy by executing people in record numbers while Governor of Texas, including Karla Faye Tucker, who was a repentant born-again convert like W. Anti-war/Vietnam War hero Kerry felt compelled to shoot at birds in Ohio in 2004, but it was obvious his heart wasn't in it and he lost both Ohio and the election. We know Vietnam war pilot Senator McCain has the "killer instinct," though he prefers dodging flak and dropping bombs from high altitude to hand-to-hand combat.
But Senator Obama has yet to show that he is more macho than Hillary Clinton, not to mention, McCain ...no small task. Despite Nazi-like slurs that Obama is a secret Muslim (so?) or that he wouldn't be winning if he weren't "black" (though his glass is half "white"), voters may ultimately decide that Obama is too nice, too New Testament to rattle the nationalistic saber. After all, America is Old Testament all the way.
But as macho a political cutthroat as Hillary seems to be, because she is a woman it just isn't fair that she has to compensate so much to show she has the will to kill and won't go wobbly at 3 a.m. when the phone rings. Assassinating Obama's character won't be enough to seal the deal against McCain in the general election. What she needs to do is really "push the button" and launch Bill. If she divorces him between now and the convention, she's a shoe-in. If she isn't buff enough to dump Bubba, we'll see Bill and Monica and Whitewater etcetera Drudged up 24/7 by McCain's surrogates in an all-out air war between the convention and kingdom come.
An attack ad we can expect to see from the Republicans if Hillary is nominated:
The phone is ringing and ringing and it is 3 a.m. in the White House. Bill senses danger and tells Monica to hurry up and answer the phone before Hillary wakes up.
Ugh.