Every time I publish a diary critical of Barack or Michelle Obama on Daily Kos, a certain number of his true believers post blanks and typographical doodads in the comments. Next come the insults, and some of them are rather unusual for a progressive site like Daily Kos:
"Can we waterboard this moron in absentia?" asks 7November.
7November deserves some credit for the (probably) unintentional humor of his comment... If I have to be waterboarded one way or another, in absentia would be my choice.
But it's the blanks and doodads that say the most about the candidate and his base: Why bother with arguments? In our hearts we know he's right!
"______," says DemocraticLuntz, rewarded by 44 upratings. "♥," says begone (6 upratings). "Ω," says JeffLieber. "√," says oldjohnbrown, and begone returns with "☣." Then there's "...," from TAPayne, followed by blanks from Inland, dantes, Pav, brklyngrl, Lepanto, MadAsHellMaddie, sbdenmom, The Termite, Scoopster, MasonLee and dantes (again).
I sympathize to a certain degree with all these blanksters...
It's hard to find a reasonable way to defend Michelle Obama for waiting her whole adult life to be "really proud" of her country, and it isn't any easier to argue that Barack Obama can win the general election by casting himself in the role of Jesus for a joke.
Compared to the bullshit explanations published by Michelle and Barack, a blank comment looks positively zen.
But in the general election, Barack Obama is going up against an opponent with more of a killer instinct than Hillary Clinton. How could she fail to crush Obama's health plan last night in Texas? Paul Krugman, who knows more about the economics of healthcare than anybody, has certified Obama's waffling about mandates as pure unadulterated crap again and again, and all Hillary had to do was follow his script. Obama is "attacking his rivals by echoing right-wing talking points." BAM! "He’s attacking his Democratic opponents from the right — and in so doing giving aid and comfort to the enemies of reform." POW! Hillary should have been pounding Obama into a corner, and instead she tosses marshmallows about plagiarizing a few slogans!
Nobody cares!
McCain won't be so easy. He's a real fighter, with a history of service and sacrifice for his country that Obama can't match. He's also a dinosaur, who sold out to the most repulsive political agenda in the history of the United States for a chance to be President, and in the best of all possible worlds he would lose in a landslide to any Democrat on the ballot.
But in the real world, Pelosi and Reid have been using "better than Bush" as a reason for being ever since the Democrats won Congress, and it won't be enough in the general election. In spite of their merging agendas, the old soldier McCain is an infinitely better man than the cowardly little punk in the White House, and Barack Obama can't expect a walk-over on his way to the Presidency.
In a Democratic debate, maybe Obama can afford to leave himself open for a knock-out punch that Hillary Clinton can't deliver, but if he tries the same stunt with John McCain, his candidacy will be in real trouble, and the silent prayers of all his little blanksters won't save him.
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