Can you dig it?
No I can’t. It’s late at night, Paris time 6am, and I find myself dealing with horrible jetlag by staying up to watch coverage of Super Tuesday, those darn American elections. And, after sitting through the different speeches, Senator McCain’s victory speech was cut short by none other than Barack Obama. Call me a pessimist, but I have a deep fear of rhetoricians. So, it was lingering distaste that I sat through the beginning of his speech.
It was speckled, in the beginning, with informal English, well employed to disarm the audience. It’s a nice trick, one that was of great use by that other great rhetorician, Bill Clinton. But, what threw me off was the slow, slightly dropping tonality of his utterances. If you could draw it in the air, the sound would arc down, as if the tape playback had slowed down, dropping the pitch. It reminded me of that satin dressing coat clad gang leader, Cyrus, from The Warriors. As he pontificated on, the utterances almost Baptist in demanding response, I couldn’t get the image out of my mind.
Now, perhaps this is a false allusion, perhaps Obama will be able to tie the US together in some unprecedented display of bi-partisan unity. Somehow, I fear that is the same dream that haunted our dear Cyrus. “It’s all for the taking, if we want it.” But is it really?
It will be interesting to see if the Democrats can even unite. The Republicans will have the usual “Conservative Values Purity Test” between McCain & Romney and then go with McCain.
The only thing weaker than McCain running for president at 72 years of age with the battle standard of conservative purity is to watch the Democrats spend 6 months voting caucus by caucus, primary by primary on a proportional vote so they may not have a candidate well into the dog-days of summer when McCain will be tanned, rested and ready.
This will surely cure my insomnia.
bustill
bustill said
Nardac, have no fear - Barack plays street basketball. If what his brother-in-law says is true, than for sure he is America’s best hope.
http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=ae07e83f2e95b2341594531e2fe6b25c5a3f9c1b
It’s amusing to watch all the hand wringing over the lesser of two evils - sexism or racism. Limp liberals can’t stand to be accused of either, so they are stuck on the fence, while Republicans steal the show.
moo said
Delegates, super delegates? My head is confused with this pseudo-democratic process.
On a lighter note, because you are such a Zabriskie fan here is his latest video and facial hair.
http://roadmagazine.net/road_home/index.html
It’s in the Feb 2008 archives, stage 1 interview of the Tour of California race.
Vat game play?
Patrick said
Connecting Obama to Cyrus. Interestingly, it is your intuition at play on this vague connection. But more often than not, that which seems intuitively correct at a glance, under further scrutiny, becomes dismantled by reality.
mojito said
I believe the whole point of this post is that everyone is intuitively guessing Obama to be the more worthy candidate. Given the recent smear tactics on Clinton’s side, I’m not uninclined to agree. However, that still leaves a great deal of doubt as to whether Obama’s rhetoric regarding bringing Republican and Democratic parties together is anything more than that. I highly doubt Washington’s machinations are that simple.
Administrator said
oh damnit. I waited too long before checking the Zabriskie clip. I suck.
Administrator said
The Dave Z clip is still there!!
Can’t miss the first Dave Z of the season!
GO to the video, scroll down to the bottom and hit “archives” and just enter Zabriskie in the search box that appears.
Don’t deny yourself of this pleasure, especially since he looks like Errol Flynn.
Patrick said