Why I can’t stand politics, in a nutshell.

Via LJ Blackfolk.

EDIT: Blackwomenblowthetrumpet left some valuable information in the comments about organizing to get Ms. Trotta fired for her completely inappropriate joke: 

An online petition is established to call for the termination of Liz from Fox News.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/tell-a-friend/715194

Kudos to SheCodes over at Black Women Vote for posting that!

Those persons who want to put some concrete action behind their outbursts of anger can do so.

There is also power in the pen.

This is the person to contact at Fox News.
Brian Lewis
Executive Vice President, Corporate Communications
FOX News
1211 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036
Phone: 212-301-3000
Fax: 212-301-8588
E-Mail: brian.lewis@foxnews.com

And you want to know how I really feel?  It doesn’t matter if Sen. Clinton made the comparison before: bringing up assassinations of politicians in a list of examples of extended Democratic primaries is bullshit, especially since Barack and Michelle Obama have been receiving death threats since he announced he was running.  

I do not understand why people still think that she will be considered as a vice presidential candidate since she has a such a special fondness for a potential fatality as a reason she should remain in this race.  

 

Now that Senator Obama has nearly clinched the nomination, this historical analogy is being used to support a variety of points: that in the “oppression sweepstakes” women always “lose” to blacks, that when thwarted in their ambitions, white women will resort to angry racism, that liberal coalitions are mere screens for self-interested identity politics that fracture whenever real power is at stake. But the analogy is flawed and so are the lessons we’ve been drawing from it.

The most obvious difference between the quarrels of 1869 and 2008 is that a presidential candidate is not the same thing as a huge swath of the American population. There’s only one president, but there was no intrinsic reason both blacks and women couldn’t attain the rights of citizenship or suffrage at the same time.

 

Yeah, but you know what can foil an effort at history-making teamwork?  When the person you work with cites an assassination as a reason for staying involved and trying to gain the upper hand of the power in the team.  I sure as hell wouldn’t want you on my team if you’re leaning on a rather painful moment in the organization’s history as a reason to keep waiting for your opportunity to lead.  And I can testify to the fact that I know full well that there are white women who are willing to shit on your chest and call it “teamwork” when you take a position that doesn’t mesh well with their ambitions and stick with it.  Forgive me for not being terribly confident in a “dream team” scenario.  I advise Obama that if he plans to places Clinton anywhere near his executive branch, he should do so in the same manner he claims he’d meet with Iran and Cuba — he’d be willing without preconditions, but there’d be a hell of a lot of careful preparations first.

Never mind even the vice presidential seat.  I don’t understand why people think that keeping hope alive for a scandal is a good enough reason for her to stay in the race.  

 

Hillary knows that in politics, bimbos erupt. Tapes leak. Husbands disappoint. Friends commit suicide. Rivals get sick. Her Senate race against Rudy Giuliani suddenly turned in her favor when he got prostate cancer and dropped out.

The macabre story of 2008 is that the vice presidential picks are important. On the Republican side, it’s because of John McCain’s age and history of skin cancer, and that’s openly discussed.

But on the Democratic side, it is, as The Times’s Obama reporter Jeff Zeleny has written, a “hushed worry.” Barack Obama has fused two of the most powerful narratives in American history — those of Martin Luther King Jr. and Camelot — and that makes him both magical and vulnerable. [...]

She may want to take a cue from the Miss America contest: make a graceful, magnanimous exit and wait in the wings.

That’s where the runners-up can be found, prettily lurking, in case it turns out the girl with the crown has some naked pictures in her past.

 

She can stay in the race (she hasn’t quit yet, in fact), and she does have viable reasons for wanting to stay until the end.  She does command those hardworking voters, white voters.  And since those hardworking voters, white voters have elected the past 43 presidents — well, that’s a pretty powerful base.  She also commands a lot of power in swing states.  She has good, viable arguments even if she is the underdog.  

Note I said viable, not fatal.  ”Well, hell, he can do well, and then he might die or screw some chick or get caught with some blow… and then you’d need me!” is not a good argument.  

You know, for people who traffic in piddling phrases like “flip-flopping” and “jumped the shark” and who went wild over a man uttering a shrill victory scream (yes, Howard Dean, I’m talking about you), you’d THINK a person using an example of a person winning a primary and then being assassinated as a reason for staying in the race would not be given the benefit of the doubt.  And for that reason, I’m very grateful to Olbermann for his statement.  Anyone with a brain would be upset about the comparisons — whether constant or ephemeral.  

And you want the truth?  People are scared for Sen. Obama.  I am.  I don’t deny it.  I don’t have any reason to deny that I’m afraid that Obama might be harmed.  And not long after Huckabee’s foolishness while speaking to the NRA, we have this from Sen. Clinton.  Not long after a paper irresponsibly publishes a picture of Sen. Obama in crosshairs…

… we have this from Sen. Clinton.  

How irresponsible can you be?  On what planet is this a part of normal political discourse?  Or this?

For the love of Pete, Chris Matthews et. al.: this is a presidential election, not Project fucking Runway.  It’s disappointing that there is probably more coverage on women’s cleavages, twisted ageism and women’s beauty, and the commiserating of cowardly white older men about the prospects of respecting female leadership than there is truthful coverage on the atrocity happening in Iraq.

I hate this political season so much.  Just as people have toyed with the ideas of assassination or shirt ironing, I’ve toyed with the idea of not voting.  It’s my second presidential election, and I’m already turned off at its impact.  

And I don’t feel ashamed, I don’t feel worried, and I don’t feel particularly fazed by the prospect that my vote will not be counted.  I have other ways to share my voice politically or otherwise.

Take that as you will.