The Maverick Tribe

It now appears the news media are ready to anoint Obama as the Democratic nominee.  I'm glad the clock is running out... I'm tired of beating up on Hillary Clinton.  I'm ready to start beating up on John McCain.

In a way I feel bad for Hillary.  She obviously has had designs on the presidency for quite some time.  She has worked tirelessly since 2000 to position herself for this campaign.  She is as smart as a whip and extremely capable.

But she and her husband are increasingly poisonous to our politics.  And I think it's fitting that they are spending their final days wallowing in a cesspool of spin, that is of their own making, and that is populated by every bacterial species of cynicism known to political scientists:  hypocrisy (the most powerful Democratic family to be immersed in Washington for the past fifteen years accusing Obama of being elitist and out of touch), pandering (promoting a pathetic gas tax holiday thought to be sound policy by no known neutral observer), racialized politics (touting her electability based on the strength of support from "hard working Americans, white Americans"), and, of course, good old bald-faced lying (Bosnia).

Obama has fended off the all-things-to-all-people Hillary Clinton.  McCain has fended off the cyborg Mitt Romney.  This election so far has been a triumph of principle over politics as usual, as cliched as that may sound.