Facing November's Election

The June issue of Vanity Fair has an article by James Wolcott that focuses on one of my main concerns: the absolute viciousness of the Clinton-versus-Obama supporters as we all eat each other alive. I am not talking about the candidates; I am talking about the supporters of the candidates. As we flay the skin off of each other, it keeps the focus off of what really matters: the White House and McCain.

Wolcott's article focuses mostly on the rift at Daily Kos, and other liberal blogs. Wolcott writes:

The rancor was disproportionate in intensity and extravagant in invective, a fervor worthy of ancestral foes. Months-old grievances seethed and erupted as if they had been bubbling for centuries in a lake of bad blood. On the most egoistic plane, it seemed like a clash of entitlements, the messianics versus the menopausals. The Obama-ites exuded the confidence of those who feel that they embody the future and are the seed bearers of energies and new modalities too long smothered under the thick haunches of the tired, old, entrenched way of doing things. The Hillarions felt a different imperative knocking at the gate of history, the long-overdue prospect of the first woman taking the presidential oath of office. For them, Hillary’s time had come, she had paid her dues, she had been thoroughly vetted, she had survived hairdos that would have sunk lesser mortals, and she didn’t let a little thing like being loathed by nearly half of the country bum her out and clog her transmission.

Meanwhile, George W. Bush polishes his cowboy boots, completely obtuse to the fact that he's destroyed the economy, the environment, Iraq, our standing in the world, the Bill of Rights, absolutely everything he's touched. He's probably secure in the knowledge that with all the Democratic infighting, he's not going to be Impeached, and probably has a nice parcel of land in Paraguay just waiting for him. VP Cheney's response to just about any tough question is his curled lip, "So?" Because he's also secure in the knowledge that he's going to slide out of office unscathed.

Meanwhile, Obama is likely going to declare victory tonight - which is fine with me, let's get on with it, let's focus on November, and McCain. Please. Let us stop doing the Republican's job, let us stop making this easy for McCain. When we consider that McCain's chief economic advisor is Phil Gramm,, vice chairman of a U.S. division of Zurich-based financial giant UBS and former advisor to Enron. UBS is currently the focus of congressional and Justice Department investigations into schemes that allegedly enabled wealthy Americans to evade income taxes by stashing their money in overseas havens.

So I ask you: does it matter if Hillary wears pantsuits, or if Obama's former pastor is a jerk? When you consider the constant barrage of information, candidates are under a level of scrutiny that is beyond human endurance. We can focus on minutia or we can focus on the issues that matter, and elect a Democrat.