Europe vs. Clinton, Edwards and Obama | 66 comments (66 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Europe vs. Clinton, Edwards and Obama (4.00 / 3)

Firstly, I had an epiphany last night that Obama is Sarko

I think that diary nails it to the wall.

Not to suggest the identity is perfect. But I think it explains some of the unease that some people are feeling around Obama.

And it's a feeling I've had myself. I remember arguing with people who Just Didn't Get It in 2000. The feeling I have now isn't quite so obvious and panic-stricken, but it is similar.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Sun Jan 6th, 2008 at 10:44:24 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Europe vs. Clinton, Edwards and Obama (4.00 / 2)

The bankruptcy of American democracy is illustrated by the fact that Obama chooses to campaign on such empty sloganeering---and that it sells.
Gore is right- the political dialog in the US is broken.

Capitalism searches out the darkest corners of human potential, and mainlines them.

by geezer in Paris (risico at wanadoo(flypoop)fr) on Mon Jan 7th, 2008 at 01:59:16 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Europe vs. Clinton, Edwards and Obama (none / 1)

Wouldn't this be the bankruptcy of any democracy?

There are 300 million Americans. We have an electoral college system instituted at the time of the founding of the nation.

This has consequences. In certain states, the candidates can have a more heady discourse. In others they can't. n Iowa, the Republicans have to pay attention to farming and God. In New Hampshire they don't. This is why Huckabee wins in one state and drags in the next.

The States are nowhere near as fractious as the EU of course, but you can imagine trying to run a campaign for Europe.

I agree with you that there is little substance spoken (although each of the candidates have offered detailed plans that are easily reviewed, seldom referred to for fear of boring the electorate) but this superficiality speaks to the deep fissures in American culture.

by Upstate NY on Mon Jan 7th, 2008 at 10:30:01 AM EST
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Re: Europe vs. Clinton, Edwards and Obama (none / 1)

Upstate NY:

Wouldn't this be the bankruptcy of any democracy?

As always, it comes down to education and the media. A critical media and a critical, informed population would be far more democratic than what we have now - anywhere.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Mon Jan 7th, 2008 at 06:25:47 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Europe vs. Clinton, Edwards and Obama (4.00 / 6)

Same here, I have a very uneasy feeling about Obama, but as you said not as bad as in 2000.

To me Obama is like an empty screen or a Rohrschach inkplot - you can project whatever you want, whatever you hope for on him. And my guess is, it will be a rude awakening for those people if he becomes president, because even if he should be a much better president, than my feelings indicate, he will not be able to fullfil these undefined projections on him.

Like so many times before, I really hope to be proven wrong - it would be even a great joy to be proven wrong for a change.

by Fran on Mon Jan 7th, 2008 at 02:14:19 AM EST
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Re: Europe vs. Clinton, Edwards and Obama (4.00 / 3)

To me, Obama is Sarko with added Empathy, and both remind me of Blair in that they all believe in nothing other than in gaining and retaining power and (in Sarko's case, Kudos).

I doubt whether any of them have ever had an original idea in their lives and all therefore go with the ideology foisted upon them by the Corporatocracy.

Except that if and when that ideology is generally perceived to have failed (which it is doing right now) both Obama and Sarko are capable of turning on a policy sixpence and doing something else.

It is the job of ET and others like us to get that "something else" out there.

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson

by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Mon Jan 7th, 2008 at 07:58:22 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Europe vs. Clinton, Edwards and Obama (4.00 / 2)

I must be missing something in Sarko. To me he is "that horrid little man" always popping up unwanted being terribly chummy with Merkel and others who really wonder what he's on. He has about the charm of a smart teenager always claiming to be smarter than everybody else.

We are so used to people like Blair looking like intellectual giants compared to Bush. Any of Obama, Clinton, Edwards and maybe even McCain would make Sarkozy seem like a very marginal figure in the grand scheme of things. Even Putin has more substance though I'm not sure I like the substance.

The American's sometimes complain that when the want to negotiate with "yurp" they don't know who to ring. I hope it's not Sarkozy because he'd give away the Common Agricultural Policy just for an invitation for a State visit to Washington and a white tie dinner in the white house. Thats why Cecilia had to go and a replacement had to be lined up.

Index of Frank's Diaries

by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Mon Jan 7th, 2008 at 12:58:42 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: the missing link (none / 1)

here between Sarko-Bush-Obama et al is an ideological and concrete regression to the mean ;)

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Mon Jan 7th, 2008 at 04:46:25 PM EST
[ Parent ]

partial clarification (4.00 / 2)

Yes, the "identity" is suitable yet too little, too late, coming from Ms Alegre who is/was a hard-core HRC campaigner.

I'm well aware of the rhetorical debt BHO owes that creature -- that economic "beacon of opportunity," preemptive doctrine, NIE applications, affordable housing?, energy policy!-- since '06. When I was still commenting at dKos, comparisons were rejected out of hand. BTW, the most peculiar remark in my mind, at any rate, was BHO explicit statement that he agreed with GWB on maximum sentencing.

The perversion of due process in GWB's wake cannot be understated. Most recently I indulged in a lop-sided discursion on creeping unitary theory, specifically the putative adjudicative function of "my"(BHO's phrase) DoJ. And as it happened one week later, Charlie Savage (Boston Globe) filed a survey of leading candidates of both parties. I lurked dkos, seeking coherence on the subject and finding none.

Doubtless the expectations of the American voter, irrespective of race or blog activity, are so low as to be immeasurable. High paradox on the campaign trail of "change," no? I am discomfitted by the notion that the myth of a classless society is at last affixed to personal finance.

Relating Obama to Sarko now is a demographic wonder, a wholy intellectual digression perhaps. All that I'm able to express here is that I was much impressed by Sarkozy's ability to split the left by generation, using "reform" as an axe, serated by promises of marginal "opportunities" for the youth vote. Then, again, I am not as intimately familiar with his rhetoric as I am his um stature.

Suffice to say, should BHO win the office, I look forward to warm coordination between him and the leader of the francophone universe in devising solution to um shared unemployment problems.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

by Cat on Mon Jan 7th, 2008 at 07:00:49 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Europe vs. Clinton, Edwards and Obama | 66 comments (66 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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