Blogtastic! Heroes and Villains

And so to the YearlyKos Convention, a great gathering of political nerds, elves and unemployed college grads, aaand the perfect setting for the latest installment of this month's Key Theme: Hillary vs. All You Motherf*ckers. While the YouTube debates are moderated by a talking puppet and require the candidates to submit their answers in song form only, the YearlyKostravaganza consists of 400 New-Balance-wearing political geeks pushing their spectacles up and asking questions about Section 14 of, er, Paragraph 40 (b) of the Amendment to the Bill for the Overturning of Steel Sanctions...Once again, Ms. Clinton caused a ruckus, throwing down with John Edwards about taking money from lobbyists. Hillary is now so used to the dogfight that she can't conceal her delight:

Yeah! So sue me! I'll take money! From the corporations! From any f*cker! I'm Cruella Motherf*cking Deville, assh*les! Bring it on! Watcha got, huh? Huh? Look upon these rolled-up shirt-sleeves, nerds, and cower. Hillary's here, and she's ready to do business. With anyone. You want a pantomime? Well I'm Your Fairy F*cking Godmother, and I'm here to get things done. Prettygirl Edwards, Pansyboy Obama, what kind of a world do you morons live in? Welcome to HillaryTown, U.S.A. This is real life. And real life hurts. MUAHAHAHA!

Goodness, those bloggists do like Obama, don't they? Poor man can hardly get a word out now without hundreds of screaming 20-somethings rising to their feet like they've just seen the Second Coming. Which, according to Mitt Romney, will take place in Missouri.

Bring It On

Let's see, McCain still has no money, but his campaign has taken on the thrilling tint of an heroic insurgency, which should be good for a few more months. 'Matinee' Mitt Romney told everyone to 'lighten up' about 9/11, and Rudy had a pretty serene month. Democrat Joe Biden (who was once famously busted for nicking an autobiographical speech off Neil Kinnock, of all people) has been answering inquiries as to whether he's kinda just running for Secretary of State really. He said "HELL no!" He means yes. But the REAL news of the campaigns this weekend is actually about the news itself: this Clinton/Obama hooha has legs. Like a cockroach, it has survived the news cycle for 7 days. Oh it's ON now.

Let's see if we can get the order right: At the youtube """'debate""", Obama said that he would absolutely meet with foreign dictators, without condition. Clinton said that the President wasn't supposed to do dumb things like that. After the debate, Hillary made the mistake of doing a little victory shuffle, saying that Obama's answer had been 'irresponsible and naive.' This was a dig too many for Obama, who went straight for the jugular, for the first time addressing Clinton's vote for the Iraq war. This is significant for a couple of reasons. Until now, Obama has left Clinton to flounder about in her own mess with that now-infamous pro-war vote. Why dig where she's obviously weakest? It only makes you look like a bully. Now Clinton's done some playground-pushing, however, there's no way Obama's going to lie down and take it, but, since that was Obama's Foreign Policy trump card, his people must have seen this as a crucial moment for their candidate. What worried them so much?

Then Obama said that Hillary was 'Bush Lite', to which Clinton snorted 'Whatever happened to the Politics of Hope?' She had a point; while the Republicans are expected to hop about calling each other perverts, we like a wussier approach in our Democrats, if you please. Blah blah blah, Obama said something, blah blah Clinton released an interview with Obama which provedish that Obama had contradicted himself, blah Obama said that ACTUALLY it totally didn't contradict anything, anyway. Ad Nauseam.

Now that Obama and Clinton have taken it out of the canteen and onto the playing fields, and the media have circled like junior classmen chanting 'fight, fight, fight fight fightfightfight', we need the old Coach to come out of his office, charge right in there and separate the panting candidates, reminding them that only they can take the team to the playoffs tonight. Unfortunately, there is no coach. There's Chris Dodd, but he's more of a retired neighbour. Once campaigning goes negative, it's darn hard to go back.

In the wake of her recent spat with the Pentagon, Clinton is beginning to look like a woman who can't quite get this whole 'foreign policy' thing down. One more slanging match and it'll look like she's running around picking fights with boys about war. Meanwhile John Edwards has quietly sucked up all the support Hillary and Obama have discarded in the last week. One newspaper suggests that this boosts him to the very top of the 'second tier' candidates, but the Monocle has always seen Edwards as the third top-tier Democrat in this race. His healthcare and poverty templates are the best of the bunch, and he's already an experienced campaigner. How he uses August will be crucial. Since Kennedy used the first televised debates to squish apparent favourite Richard Nixon, television has heralded great changes in electoral races. It's Happening. Again.

Youtube Debating: Mainly about, uh...

Ohmahgagh! The world's first...wait, the world's second...well, whatever. The Democratic Youtube debate starts tonight at midnight. Be there or have better things to do. The beauty of the youtube debate is, in essence, the beauty of the 2008 campaigns. If it all goes without a hitch, no-one will pay the slightest bit of attention to anything anybody says. If, however, a candidate makes a mistake - and that can be a tiny, tiny fuck-up, a little hair tossing (yes, you, Edwards), a little hand-waving (Richardson, you know who we're talking about), or a mind-blowing brain-freeze - it is presented to the world on a silver platter. But wait! Youtube watchers finally get to ask the questions! How could THAT be a bad idea? Anderson Cooper tells us that there are 'many amazing questions'. You mean like this one, right Anderson?

Erm, who shot this video? A poltergeist? Is this man a poltergeist himself? And then, at last, a young man speaks for the people:

What will continue to bemuse y'all, of course, is how in the Sam Hell Barack Obama KEEPS looking clueless in recorded debates without anybody pointing it out. Because he's a man of Destiny, ok? A man of Destiny.

Video of the Day

The Monocle was j-u-u-st about to upload some white-knuckle footage of the all-night Democratic fillibuster on a bill to pull American troops out of Iraq within 120 days. There were close-ups of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid dozing in his chair! An exact count of the amount of water-glasses consumed by Senator Clinton! Then I saw this.



And I just...knew.

Obamarama!

Barack Obama! A Man of Destiny! A Man of Change! A New Hope! The Second Coming! So far, he has raised...golly, even more than Ms. Rodham Clinton. But...why? Well, he's dishy, but not, The Monocle personally believes, quite as dishy as John Edwards. No, the real reason for all this Obamarama is the following clip. At the Democratic National Convention, the man from Illinois gave the keynote speech. It was a truly memorable moment; why it still melts the stony heart of The Monocle itself. He looked, all of a sudden, like the next great president of the United States. And even now, the Senator is covered with sparkly, shiny political angel-dust. He couldn't shake it off if he rolled in questionable substances for the next 12 months. Watch and tremble.