One weird lizard

Most of the columnists I read are decidedly right-leaning. Actually, my favorite columnists, with the exception of the one and only Patrick Buchanan, tend to be libertarians. I should probably read more left-leaning columnists, but I avoid them for two reasons: 1) none of the popular left-leaning columnists strike me as good writers; and 2) for all of the recent dearth of good commentary amongst the anybody-but-the-Democrats crowd, it's hard to capture just how badly the left lacks ideas. Proscribing more government spending for every ailment under the sun was vaguely novel a century ago, but after one hundred years of failed government programs--to say nothing of the millions of corpses, casualties of progress--it takes either historical ignorance or simple idiocy to advocate more government involvement.

The one glorious exception is the ever enigmatic Camille Paglia:

Would I want Hillary answering the red phone in the middle of the night? No, bloody not. The White House first responder should be a person of steady, consistent character and mood -- which describes Obama more than Hillary. And that scare ad was produced with amazing ineptitude. If it's 3 a.m., why is the male-seeming mother fully dressed as she comes in to check on her sleeping children? Is she a bar crawler or insomniac? An obsessive-compulsive housecleaner, like Joan Crawford in "Mommie Dearest"? And why is Hillary sitting at her desk in full drag and jewelry at that ungodly hour? A president should not be a monomaniac incapable of rest and perched on guard all night like Poe's baleful raven. People at the top need a relaxed perspective, which gives judgment and balance. Workaholism is an introspection-killing disease, the anxious disability of tunnel-vision middle managers.

As always, the entire thing merits a read. The Hillary campaign has certainly gotten weird lately. The ad makes way more sense for the McCainiac; it's not as if the hawks are going to give Hillary the go with the GOP nominee gnawing at the bit to attack Iran and snarling at Russia. The point, I suppose, was to emphasize Obama's inexperience, but if that inexperience means he's going to be cautious about pushing the little red button, my guess is there are a lot of Americans who will opt for inexperience.

It's also amusing that the democrats, who have--rightly--criticized Bush and company for fear mongering in regards to the non-existent threat of the Islamo-bad-guys, are now siding with Bush--at least some of them anyway.

I'll try to get to the war issue later this week. Suffice it to say that Obama is the best anti-war candidate in the race for President, albeit to a certain extent by default. I could never vote for him, since he's a fascist--see Jonah Goldberg's book; his calls for unity are classically fascistic--but I hope he continues to emphasize his anti-war positions. Faced with a choice between killing unborn American babies, and killing unborn American babies plus Iraqis and Iranians, I'll hope for, but never condone with my vote, the lesser evil. A half-hearted go Obama.