Hunter’s lament falls on my deaf ears

I used to have a crush on Hunter. He has a gift for cantankerous snark. His latest diary, Lonely, Lonely Primary Season, is full of little gems like this:

This is all highly disappointing to me, because I have been — to use a popular term — Left Behind. Somehow, without ever being aware of the instant in which it happened, I find that everyone else on the planet has been lifted up to a higher plane of being, a place where the same politicians that have disappointed us time and time again are suddenly the Second Coming of True Leadership. The same politicians that have for the most part sat on their extraordinarily talented asses, when it comes to giving voice to defending the rule of law or planning for our own soldiers to come home, are now revealed as Perfection made human and come to Earth. How I long to be a part of that transformation! To not be left sitting in the empty streets of unforgivable neutrality!

Oh, Lord, let me find my true love, an earthbound angel worth my undying, obsessive, all-too-willingly gullible devotion! An individual without provable flaw, an individual so clearly more inspirational, more trustworthy, and more compassionate over all others that I can — nay, must — make them my own! A candidate I can have true passion over, can woo, can obsess over to my friends until they find me so insufferable that they stop inviting me places — a lover I can fantasize over, obsess over, can chronicle the every flittering act of, secretly building inside myself towards that fateful day when I eventually become jaded and bitter and resentful over those same quirks and foibles! A candidate whose marginal policy differences are worth the destruction of any friendship, and whose reparsed record can support any foolhardy action! That sort of love, the sort of love that makes the world go round and never, ever ends in sorrow of any kind!

It used to be music to my ears. Hunter is taking to task all of the beserkers who have raped and pillaged DailyKos in the past several months in pursuit of silencing all of the voices not praising their candidate. And let’s be clear about this, because the truth is rarely “fair and balanced”, the majority of the bad actors are supporters of Barack Obama. Oh, sure, there were a few Edwardians to join the fray and Clintonistas have been known to get a rowdy at times. But Clinton supporters on DailyKos are very underrepresented.

So, why does this diary of Hunter’s sound like so much adolescent angst to me these days? Well, I’m here because the system set up by the DailyKos admins allowed the rabble rousers to troll rate my considerable mojo into oblivion all because I compared Obama’s supporters to a bunch of movement Jihadis. There was no better word for them. They are on a mission to convert or put the non-conversos to the sword. I’m sure that many of the Obamaphiles didn’t even bother to read my diary before they hurled their missiles. I have been accused of being a racist in the most nasty terms imaginable. But in the process of rating me out of existence, they proved everything I wrote about them.

Now, I happen to think Obama would make a fine president, assuming he gets a crash course in presidentin’ after he’s elected. I am roughly Obama’s age and grew up in a time when, except for a brief period of time in South Carolina, I didn’t know what segregation was. I am like my children’s generation in that the fact that Obama is African-American is of no importance to me. i see an intelligent, accomplished man and I will gladly work my ass off for him if he is my candidate.

Neither is it of any importance to me that he might have spent time in a Muslim country. If he *were* Muslim, it would not be an issue to me. I could just as easily vote for a Muslim-American as an atheist or a Mormon or Jew or Druid. (I draw the line at fundamentalist evangelicals, or any fundamentalist sect actually). And the reason that religion does not phase me is because most candidates take their citizenship responsibilities very seriously and recognize that as Thomas Jefferson said: “… it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”

But what has religion to do with this post? Nothing, except that this is the excuse that many Obama supporters used to drive me off DailyKos. Somehow, it is OK for them to hypocritically condemn me for using the word jihad to describe their behavior, perpetuating the idea Muslims are personas non grata while calling me racist in the next breath. Here in NJ, we have a rather diverse population and we are aware of Muslims at work, school, shopping and recreational activities but I will not start to separate them from their citizenship based on their hijabs.

But never mind. So, I am out and the friendly and congenial Clinton Cocktail Hour, which was created to help heal the wounds of this bitter and divisive primary season has been forced to close it’s doors and seek opportunities elsewhere.

And Hunter moans, “Woe is me” because he’s left to swim in a sea of irrational exuberance with the inmates who have taken over the asylum. He can’t make up his mind to support these perfect candidates, while the little band of Clinton supporters, who have all along acknowledged the imperfections of their choice, huddle together and try to ward off the increasingly hostile crazies.

What to say, Hunter? There is no candidate who is going to sweep you off your feet and whisper sweet nothings in your ear. The perfect is the enemy of the good here and frankly, your undisguised antipathy towards Clinton never made a whole lot of sense to me. If you know something about them that hasn’t been investigated yet that would really turn us off of our food, by all means, tell us. In the past year, I went through all of the reasoning steps that you are apparently still wrestling with, came to a decision, based on the serious nature of the times we are living in and the mess that is going to be left behind, and picked my candidate. Personally, I don’t care which of the three you pick, but for gawd’s sakes, grow up already.

In the meantime, *I’m* the one in this lonely outpost. I roughly have the same status on DailyKos as Rush Limbaugh. But the people who continue to write the most trite drivel for Obama and the most vicious invective against Clinton are free to come and go as they please there. I won’t say I don’t miss the place but right now, it’s a disaster area. This was a result of partisan passivity towards some of your own tribe. It won’t clean itself without help. And until you and Kos and the other admins welcome us back or at least punish the worst offenders among those who are left, DailyKos may continue to become marginalized and out of step with the rest of the country, gradually losing any influence it once hoped to wield.

If you think it’s lonely now, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Obama bravely swings at softballs on GMA: They’re ganging up on me!

Barack Obama dried his eyes and went on GMA this morning to accuse Bill Clinton of distorting his record. GMA provided tea and sympathy:

Q: Do you feel at times that you’re taking on two candidates at one time?

BO: (chuckling) Well, you know, there’s no doubt that having President Clinton on the trail and attacking, spending most of his time attacking me, uh, can be a distraction during the course of the campaign. But anyone who has heard my wife Michelle on the stump knows that she is an incredible asset so I feel that it balances out.

I agree, his wife Michelle is a great campaign speaker. In fact, I remember not too long ago that she was saying, “If you can’t run your own house, you certainly can’t run the White House.” I’m sure she was talking about Nancy Pelosi but you get the point.

Jonathan Alter thinks that Hillary can’t control Bill. There he is, running around the country, shooting his mouth off. It’s almost like “she’s in two places at one time”, Alter said this morning on Morning Joe. Now, I ask you, is that fair? I mean, it’s *nothing* compared to the Swiftboating attacks that the GOP is assembling for Obama should he win the nomination or the endless investigations and smearing of the Clintons when they were in the White House. It’s not like his personal reputation has been dragged through the mud relentlessly and he hasn’t been called a “congenital liar” on the OP/Ed page of the “Paper of Record”.

But it is sooooo unfair. It just looks like if you elect Hillary, you get the greatest mentor in the world to go with her. It’s just mean. And he tells falsehoods and inacuracies about Obama’s record. You can’t believe anything he says.

Ok, Ok, take a powder, Bill. Get some rest. You have to save your strength in case Obama gets the nomination.

YES!!! We’re going to the SuperBowl!!

Third time’s the charm for Tynes. You done good.

Congratulations to the Giants!

*funky chicken dance*

Oh Yeah! Oh Yeah!