The sun hangs low on the western shore

Top Five Reasons I Can't Get Over It.

1. The walk. Nonchalant, but knowing where it's going and knowing it's attracting people. Whether or not that's a conscious effort is beyond my comprehension.
2. The smile. There's the half-smile, there's the feigned smile, and then there's the smile. The smile is what gets me every fucking goddamned time.
3. The hair. Don't you just want to brush it out of the face? I do. Every single fucking time. Because it's so hot.
4. The references. Anyone who references French poets is hot. Anyone who can quote Buffy is even hotter.
5. The look. There is one. I still get it. And I hope no one else does. Because that look is a look that Greek men have killed other Greek men for. It is the look that says, "Fuck hope! I don't need hope! Because this is the fucking greatest thing I've ever found!"

Somebody kill me, please.

Sittin' at home, what am I doing, a boy waiting by the phone, alone jealous and stoned

or, Why I Don't Really Give A Flying Rat's Ass About Last Night's Election Or Rumsfeld's Resignation

I know I really should care quite a bit. Things seem to have gone almost perfectly for the side with which I agree more. The Democrats now control the House of Representatives, and they will likely gain control of the Senate as well. Donald Rumsfeld, the biggest idiot in all the Bush Administration besides the President himself, is stepping down. This ought to be a banner day for people like me, right?

I wish.

Look, most of what I blog about is politics and music, occasionally dabbling in television and movies. I also like to write about what I find wrong with the United States' populus. So when there is a victory, like Wilco selling 500,000 copies of their masterpiece Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, which was summarily rejected by Reprise Records, or an intelligent Democrat like Barack Obama getting elected to the Senate, or the fact that there will be, for the first time in history, a female Speaker of the House when the Congress convenes in January, I like to celebrate. I like to get excited. I really like it when things work out for the best.

The thing is, lately, things haven't been working out for the best.

Let's just say this: when people say, things will get easier, especially in the face of things going so far down the toilet that they've reached the streets of Beijing, they forget to tell you that it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. If ever it actually does get better.

That works for Iraq, I think. Things aren't going to get better there for a long, long time. I truly believed that eventually things can work out for the best, but my belief has been shaken. I think Iraq is a lost cause. So's Afghanistan. So's the Israel-Palestine conflict. The entire fucking region is doomed to in-fighting.

Same deal with politics. Tammy Duckworth and Representative-Elect Peter Roskam spent over $10 million on their campaigns, collectively. How the fuck is that smart? Couldn't that money have, oh I don't know, gone to help the poor? Who the fuck do Peter Roskam and Tammy Duckworth think they are that they can spend $10 million on a stupid fucking election that, in the long run, doesn't mean jack shit, because the American Empire as we know it is over? How can they do that, especially considering that the money they spent on one fucking campaign for two fucking years in a stupid and meaningless fucking seat in the utterly useless House of Representatives could've helped the entire fucking population of the state of Illinois?

Donald Rumsfeld resigned. Hot fucking dog! THAT will make Iraq better! 'Cause it wasn't that we have no strategy there to speak of, and it wasn't that the Administration was pushing "full speed ahead," it was all Donald Rumsfeld! Fucking incredible! Fucking amazing! Good job, President Bush!

Don't you see, folks? NONE of this matters; it's all a fucking farce. The Democrats, the Republicans, the Greens, the Independents... it's all bullshit. Because nothing in politics really matters at all.

Okay, maybe that's oversimplifying the case, but it's absolutely 100% true to my mind at the present moment. Because something that matters far more to me has slipped away faster than you can say "Mission Accomplished." And frankly, politics doesn't even fucking matter right now.

I should be tap-dancing on the fucking desk on which the computer on which I presently type sits. I should be turning somersaults that Rummy is taking a fucking hike. In truth, sure, I'm happy -- ecstatic, even -- but it doesn't fucking matter anymore.

I feel like there is a lot I want to say that I can't in such a public forum. Just know this, ladies and gentlemen, especially Republicans out there: there are far worse things to lose in this world than an election.

Run away with me to another place

I've said in the past that Barack Obama has disappointed me by being a true voice of moderation in the Senate. When he campaigned in 2004, I thought he was campaigning on being a true-blue progressive, when really, it turns out, he was always a moderate at heart.

That's why Sen. Obama's time has come: on November 8, he should announce that he's throwing his hat in for the presidency of the United States.

There are plenty of good reasons for me to say this. First of all, the Congress is where you want your left- and right-wingers. In the House, they should be the most radical ones; in the Senate, they should be a little less radical, but still able to polarize the other side. That's what makes up good debate. But the presidency, that's a tricky one. Bill Clinton was a great president (although by no means one of my favorites) because he was able to weather the storm of political partisanship by being a moderate. Same goes for George H.W. Bush (again, not one of my favorites, but one of the best single-term presidents we've ever had, despite his questionable -- okay, wrong -- stance on how to improve the lives of the poor. A thousand points of light my ass). Those are the reasons why Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush are so incredibly bad, why they will ultimately be looked upon as jokes when their real history is written in about seventy-five to a hundred years: they were extremists.

Now, you say, we've had extremist presidents before. Teddy Roosevelt was a true liberal progressive Republican, believing in strong pro-worker policies at home and an agressive foreign policy. FDR tried to reshape the courts as only a dictator should. And yet, these two men are looked upon quite fondly by their respective parties; I, too, believe them to be two of the best presidents of the 20th Century (though they're still not Ike).

Well, here's the thing: policies in moderation should be the goal of any person wishing to take the White House. Since Eisenhower's election in 1952 (wherein he went up against the greatest man not to win the presidency, Adlai Stevenson), the pedulum has swung one way and another. JFK was a Teddian progressive, believing in the same agressive foreign policy as the former Republican president; yet his voice of moderation won out in the Cuban Missile Crisis, and only a liberal-hack-turned-moderate could have won over the American public after the Bay of Pigs debacle. Nixon wanted to pretend to be a moderate, and actually was incredibly (and surprisingly) progressive for awhile; but when his true colors came out, he was revealed, caught, and sent packing. Carter similarly attempted to be a moderate, and he had it down for awhile; but circumstances far beyond his own control forced him to become a hard-liner, and, quite frankly, he shot himself in the foot (note to all conservatives out there: calling Carter the worst president ever is an absolute farce, especially in the wake of what the current administration has done, not to mention William Henry Harrison).

But Bill Clinton, a president with whom I disagreed probably twice as much as I agreed, was a moderate voice. He was (and still is) also eloquent, charming, and slick. And somehow, he never came across as smug. Those are the features of a moderate, and that's why Sen. Obama should run.

Forget the fact that Obama has a funny name and African ancestry; neither matters. Forget his keynote address at the '04 Democratic National Convention; in two years' time, people won't remember it. And forget Hillary Clinton; she doesn't have nearly the speaking ability Obama does, and it'd be way, way harder for her to cast herself as a moderate in the wake of being a once-upon-a-time rabid feminist.

But I dare somebody -- anybody -- to cast a vote against Obama. He says all the right things, and he's yet to make a political mistake (I don't agree with about half of his votes, but that's as a senator, not president). He's a young guy with a powerful voice and the passion to unite the country. And -- and this is probably the most important thing -- he doesn't have a track record long enough to damn him.

Think about everyone else who's running. Sen. Clinton might be able to win a primary, but imagine the way Republicans would turn out against her; if they turned out to vote against John Kerry, they'll do so in spades against Clinton. Former Vice-President Al Gore has nobility in his blood, and he's an awfully smart dude; but the fact that he's connected with the Clintons won't help him, and the 2000 recount will linger in a lot of people's minds, especially on the Medium-Right and Middle grounds. Sen. Russ Feingold -- my guy! -- doesn't have a snowball's chance in the seventeenth layer of hell of actually getting elected, mostly because he's twice-divorced, something with which the family values people would have a field day (unfairly, of course; and I think that Feingold could bring a lot of the 50% of divorced Americans out, but he'd have to announce his candidacy really, really soon and define his argument). Sen. Joe Biden is a really, really, really smart guy; but whereas Obama allows his intelligence to bleed through his speeches, Biden allows his intelligence to define them.

The Republicans, meanwhile, are living in a dream world. The Big Time Favorite right now for them is Former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, a social moderate and fiscal conservative who did a lot to fix up New York. But there's no way the man could actually win the presidency based on one fact: he was a mayor! It doesn't matter that he was mayor of the biggest city in the country, and it doesn't matter that he was mayor of the biggest city in the country on the day of the worst terrorist attacks this nation has ever seen. The fact is, if Giuliani had gone for the Senate or tried to run for New York Governor, he would've pulled it off, won handily, and positioned himself for an '08 White House run. But he didn't. And that lack of experience will come back to haunt him, despite his generally high polling numbers in both the Republican Party and the nation as a whole.

Running neck-and-neck with Giuliani is Sen. John McCain, the guy the GOP decided wasn't Christian enough in 2000. To be fair, I once would've supported McCain, and I have since changed my mind by watching him position himself as a social moderate and friend to the Christian Right; thus, I would now never, ever vote for him. So I'm not exactly unbiased here. But McCain, quite frankly, has a worse shot at this than does Giuliani. Reason? He's too old. Now talk about Reagan all you want, go right ahead, but keep in mind the Kennedy-Nixon debates in 1960. Kennedy looked like a young, vibrant, energetic whiz kid, while Nixon looked old, tired, and washed-up. Now, John McCain is an excellent debater and a very good politician, but how is it going to look if short, stumpy, heavy-set, balding Senator John McCain is standing at a podium opposite tall, lanky, young, energetic Senator Barack Obama? The image alone would win Obama the presidency in a heartbeat. We -- and by "we" I mean the American public, not me in particular -- want vibrant, vigorous people to lead us in the nation's highest office, and McCain just isn't that.

In an ideal world, we wouldn't be picking from, as Aaron Sorkin put it on The West Wing, "the lesser of who cares." In an ideal world, the contest for the presidency of the United States would be between Senator Barbara Boxer, D-CA (with her vice-presidential candidate, Governor Mark Warner, D-VA) and Senator Lincoln Chafee, R-RI (with his vice-presidential candidate, Governor George Pataki, R-NY), or some combination thereof. But I recognize we live in a pragmatic world, politically speaking, and winning is, or, at least, has become, just as important as the issues themselves.

So here's what I suggest, pragmatically speaking: Senator Barack Obama, Democratic Party nominee for the Presidency of the United States; Governor Bill Richardson, Democratic Party nominee for the Vice-Presidency of the United States. That way, we get to somewhat progressive-minded individuals who can be voices of moderation in the presidency. And Democrats win in a landslide: imagine every single African-American and Latino in this country, and tell me that there wouldn't be some motivation to see someone who looks and speaks like them in the two highest offices in the land.

But alas, I'm not holding my breath, and I fully expect to see this on the ballot in 2008 -- at least, I do right now:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, President
General Wesley Clarke, Vice-President

Senator Bill Frist, President
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Vice-President

If I seriously have to pick between Hillary Clinton and Bill Frist in the next election, I am seriously, seriously considering moving to Canada. No, not really. Maybe Holland, though.