The Maverick Tribe

No, that wasn't Skeletor being interviewed by Larry King on CNN the other night.  (I made the same mistake...was He-Man's nemesis making the talk show rounds promoting a new iteration of the 1980's Masters of the Universecomic book/action figure/animated series franchise?)  Closer inspection indicates the gaunt, hairless, and cadaverous talking head on Larry King to be that of James Carville, former political strategist to Bill Clinton.

Carville (or Skeletor, if you insist) was elaborating on a previous interview with Wolf Blizter he had given elaborating on a previous interview with The New York Times he had given in which he compared Bill Richardson's endorsement of Mrs. Clinton's opponent to Judas' Good Friday betrayal of Jesus for thirty shekels.

"He made misrepresentations," spat the Evil Lord of Destruction.  "He told people that he was going to endorse Senator Clinton, that he couldn't endorse someone else, and then at the same time apparently he was -- he was doing something else, and people are justifiably and understandably furious about this."  Who was furious?  "Major donors in the Democratic party" and "very, very senior people".  Carville named names: Elizabeth Bagley, Haim Saban, and Alan Patricof, three rich people you've never heard of.

"I thought that this was an exceptional case that merited special consideration," he continued later, referring to his Judas retaliation.  Still later he flogged the point a bit more:  "I thought that this was an act that deserved to be singled out and I'm glad that I singled it out.  I was quoted accurately.  And what I said I mean," adding that he thought Richardson owed the Clintons an apology.

Earlier on the Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, the osteological ogre emphasized - no fewer than three times during the course of the segment - that the New York Times had in fact quoted him accurately.  "I gave the quote, I knew what I was doing, I knew what its effect would be when I gave it, and it's effect has been predictable," he explained.

"I said it, I said it in context, and I'm glad I said it," he also told Anderson Cooper.

In case anyone on the outskirts of Eternia still doubted his sincerity or the ability of the Times and CNN to transmit his statements accurately, the Grim Reaper penned an op-ed appearing in The Washington Post this morning.  "Most of the stuff I've ever said is pretty insignificant and by in large has been said off the cuff and without much thought to the potential consequences. That was not the case in this instance," he wrote, underscoring his emphasis of his amplification of his original insult.

Meanwhile, another cabal of major donors in the Democratic party (no doubt very, very senior people and, more importantly, Clinton allies - let's call them Kobra Khan, Trap-Jaw, and Associates) fired off a rather ill-tempered letter to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.  Pelosi evidently had misbehaved by publicly concurring with a gathering Democratic Party consensus holding that the votes of the superdelegates ought not overturn the decision of the elected delegates.  Anyone following the delegate math understands that to follow such a doctrine is almost certainly to hand the nomination to Senator Obama.  Kobra Khan and Trap-Jaw, sitting on their suitcases full of money ready to fund Democratic congressional campaigns, kindly suggested Ms. Pelosi might reconsider her view.

Sadly, Obama's suits responded to these broadsides with their Pavlovian statements of outrage and denunciation.  But does the average voter have their skivvies in a wad over all this?  Well, I happen to have taken a poll of likely Democratic voters gauging their reactions to Carville's recent CNN appearances, and the results are as follows:  11 percent believed Carville's statement about Richardson was justified, 13 percent believed it was unjustified, 20 percent had no opinion, and the remaining 66 percent wondered aloud whether hawking their TV might enable them to make next month's mortgage payment.  Meanwhile, observers inside the Beltway have wondered, if Richardson is Judas, then what represents the 30 silver pieces in this analogy?  A promise of a veep slot?  And, more disturbingly, which of the Clintons represents Jesus, Bill or Hillary?

If you think the Clinton apparatus is beginning to show the desperation, solipsism, and bitter score-settling of a campaign sliding toward defeat, then you aren't fully grasping the gravity of the situation.  Mrs. Clinton's favorability rating is at a seven year low, and the more rancid the primary campaign gets, the less people like her.  Polls (ok, real polls this time) have shown that significantly more voters blame Mrs. Clinton for unfairly attacking Obama than vice versa.  Meanwhile, Carville himself has difficulty hiding his dismay at what he sees as the election's inadequate level of acrimony and is doing what he can to provoke more of it.  But whether the Clinton crowd realizes it or not, what is at stake here is not merely Hillary Clinton's shot at the presidency, but the very relevance of the entire Clinton infrastructure for years to come.

Just as Obama's one-million-and-counting small time internet donors are marginalizing the monied bigwigs that normally bankroll campaigns, Obama's bracing earnestness - when he can muster it - is beginning to marginalize old-style bomb-throwers like Carville, an encroaching reality about which he seems unaware.  (Then again, Carville shows a curious lack of self-awareness.  "I'm not of the Washington world," the veteran political operative told an incredulous Anderson Cooper.)

For Gov. Richardson's part, he must have known his endorsement of Obama would cause a stir.  As Carville rightly points out, Richardson "gained national stature -- and his career took off -- when President Bill Clinton appointed him U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and later made him energy secretary."  But Richardson claims to have settled on Obama because he believes the Senator from Illinois to be the best bet to lead the country.  Of course, this is a preposterous explanation to Carville, as political choices not animated by personal ambition are unintelligible to Washington hacks such as him.  "I believe that loyalty is a cardinal virtue," Carville wrote in the Post.  I'm sure Skeletor, not to mention any cartoon villian, mob boss, or petty dictator worth his weight in mustard gas, would agree.

The rest of us, whether we be Clinton, Obama, or McCain supporters, can come together and agree that James Carville is the last person we want lecturing us on virtues.  Instead, he might consider turning his thoughts from the biblical to the metaphysical and ponder the following question:  if a cannon is shot from a sinking ship, and no one is interested in hearing it, does it make a sound?