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random old notes
19 January, 2004: 8.45 PM CST I just watched the most bizarre exchange on Larry King Live. Larry is covering the Iowa Caucuses as the returns come in, filling time with commentary from Bob Woodward, Bob Dole, and other assorted beltway characters. They had Wesley Clark on satellite to give his impressions of the Iowa race. He had none. �I haven�t been paying attention to Iowa� were his exact word. I guess I�d never seen him live before, and I was astounded at just how totally ridiculous he seemed. This impression does nothing to mitigate my wonderment at the number of my friends who have begun to suggest their preference for this Man Without A Clue. He gives the impression of someone who�s playing at candidacy�as if it were all a joke. I remember a time when he was a far different man, a grave and dignified general. Given the fact that he only chose a political party and found some opinions once he�d decided to run for national office, one wonders: is this real to him? Given the self-important gravitas of military life, can a career officer ever take civil politics seriously? He doesn�t seem to take himself very seriously�I hope democrats won�t get too excited about him either. His goofy self-delight and vacuous rhetoric are more suited to the president of a local Toastmasters chapter than of the United States of America. Lieberman was also on the show, giving his usual performance as the evil Emperor of the Star Wars films: a withered, cynical, leering, smarmy power-broker driven by expediency rather than ideas. Joe Lieberman is living proof that the powers that be in the Democratic Party just don�t get the South. Not to put too fine a point on it, but to your average Texan, Joe Lieberman comes off as an establishment Jew. It shouldn�t be that way, but it is: Lieberman is sexless and dry, the very face of the Washington bureaucracies. Howard Dean is still my favorite of the Democratic hopefuls, but his finish in a distant third place in Iowa gives me pause. He has the best ideas, and in a perfect world, that would make a bigger difference than it actually does. But Dean looks terrible on television. He has the chronic northeasterner�s affliction, looking pasty and uptight compared to the easy manner and broad smiles of southerners like John Edwards (or Bill Clinton, or George Bush Jr. for that matter). When Dean smiles, he looks like a man who has just been kicked in the nuts, grimacing in a rickitus of pain. Then too, the self-important pseudointellectuals of the American media decided some time ago that Howard Dean was �unelectable,� and have made sure to say so approximately 68,000 times a day. We should not be surprised, therefore, that the people who watch these talking heads each day eventually forgot that the only �unelectable� candidates are criminals and the foreign born. On a final note, Bob Dole�s little spat with Wes Clark reminded me just exactly why I have always loved Dole. He says what he thinks, and doesn�t put much varnish on it. He totally spanked Clark on national television. God, send us more people who speak their minds.
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