NOTHING NEW

Oh, that sexy little Maureen Dowd. Ever the femme fatale, she loves intrigue and dark-alley dealings so much, then lambastes her hated enemies for employing the same techniques. Is it because Hillary hasn't done as Maureen has done, embraced her inner vamp? If Hillary wore a fedora pulled down over one eye, a cigarette dangling from her ruby-red lips spotlit by a nearby lampost, would she instead be celebrated? Sorry, Hills, rolling up your sleeves and getting your hands dirty just isn't sexy.

Maureen's latest column (a constant source of pun-ditry if I ever saw it-- oh, a pun!) is about that ever-present rumour of the Clintons hijacking the Democratic convention, persuading the delegates to cast a protest vote for Clinton instead of Obama. It's doubtful Hillary could become the nominee, but it would so hamstring and demoralize the Democrats that McCain would win, setting Hillary up to compete against Mitt Romney in 2012. Veep Romney will have become president after McCain's living rigor mortis has reached an advanced stage, his lips peeled back to reveal his tiny little yellow teeth set in an eternal smile. See? It's already happening.

There's nothing else to write about, so why not the Clintons? Obama and McCain are so lacking in vim and vigour, we need to evoke the spectre of Clintonism to get the pundit's hearts pounding. There's also the backward glance, the "what went wrong?" eviscerations, like this one in the Atlantic. Emails and notes from the Clinton campaign have been released, revealing-- what we already knew. The bickering, the overspending, the inability of Clinton to make hard, fast decisions-- it's already been done. Still, it's fun to look through the timeline and realize, shit, the Clinton camp knew this a long time ago, and still they let it happen.

Of course, if Clinton had won, disarray and overspending would have been seen as a winning strategy. It's the particular curse of the favourite to be labeled self-defeating when she doesn't win. What I don't understand-- how do decision about commercials and states to caucus show one's preparation for being president? It's a winning strategy for a popularity contest, but preparation for commander-in-chief? As far as I know, the President doesn't sit around producing commercials about his merits. And sure, she overspent-- but what president doesn't leave office with a deficit? Clinton's husband, for one-- and although there's evidence she'd be less thrifty than Bill, anything would be better than the current overseer of the congressional money pit.

I can't remember-- did Bush ever veto a single spending bill? Did he ever veto anything? Talk about inability to make hard decisions.