Backed into a Corner

So, today's the day after Superficial Tuesday. Let's just call it Whatever Wednesday. On the personal front, my back is still screaming in agony. I am starting to walk in a weird funny sideways way, like I'm inching across a slippery log spanning a ravine, all the while leaning to the right to avoid the poisonous adders in the hanging vines above me. Briefly, after a really great massage from my friend, I had the smallest road-flare of hope that it was getting better. But now, it has plummeted again into agony.

Speaking of agony, after watching all the of the returns on Tuesday, I am feeling very tempted to say "poor Obama," although I think I can hear the entire Pioneer Valley scoffing as I type this, choking on their hummus pitas and B-complex/spirulina smoothies.

I don't know what to think about what happened yesterday, Hillary taking three states to Obama's one. I mean, I think her negative campaigning worked, that's what I think. And that's what's kind of sad. Part of me admires her fightingness, her Hillary Swank Million Dollar Baby-ness, but part of me thinks that it's less of an underdog story and more of a Anakin-Skywalker-becomes-Darth-Vader story. The age old tale of power at any cost. The age old tale of best intentions, of thinking to oneself, "I'll do whatever I have to do to seize power (for the greater good), but once I get it - then I'll go back to the old me." Which never works.

Hillary, just spend the four bucks and go rent the Lord of the Rings.

Now I know Obama is not some kind of victimized saint. I am plenty well aware that Obama is a politician like any other. Although he is very good at making it seem entirely natural, I can still smell the false sincerity in his constantly magnanimous gestures and words to Hillary, always complimenting her, never taking the bait to fight. Although I have to say, fake or no, it was kind of refreshing to see a politician not take the lowest road. But, lately, as Obama has continued to just passively sit there - like the family St. Bernard being ear-tugged and punched by some bratty diapered two-year-old - I have really started to miss the Obama of a few weeks ago.

Remember that one? The one who gave all those great speeches? The one who rallied something in the pit of your stomach when you heard him talk? The one who stopped giving all those great speeches the moment people made a big stink about part of it being written by someone else? Well, I think he shouldn't have stopped. I think people liked him because of his speeches, not in spite of them. I think that's how he shines. And I also think it made him look that much more guilty to have stopped.

I don't think I am terribly rallied or excited by this new speechless version of Obama. When he sits there now, decidedly not speechifying, and not being combative or riled - well, it feels like listening to someone explain how your tax return works. There's this colorless, desaturated quality to his voice when he's just speaking like a regular person. I don't think we want a regular person: it is precisely because he tapped into this more-human-than-human quality that people ran - no, stampeded - to the polls, shoving the very young and the very old out of the way to get there. But now, it seems, there's not enough there there, as someone famously said. So, thank you, Obama, for this very calm and civil version of yourself but I, and the rest of the country, will take a pass. Move over Obama 2.0, we're more than ready for version 3.0.

Which brings us back to negative campaigning. Obama 3.0 has no choice. He is gonna have to go negative. Hillary's got him backed into a corner. I spoke earlier about Obama so far managing to avoid taking the low road, which I think he laudably has. But the game has changed now. He's going to have to do something different. Because, these last two weeks, Hillary not only has taken the lowest road, she has taken it in a dragster. And, ahem, guess who won the most states? Sadly, it seems it the negative campaigning that actually works, and Hillary knows this and is not afraid to use it. So now she has Obama backed backed into a corner, punching like an angry joey, and still Obama is not yet ready to take off the gloves.

...

Now it is early Thursday morning. Not much has changed in the last 24 hours, except that my back is still on strike. I dreamt last night that I accidentally set my friend's house on fire, although I don't know what that means. But I do think that Obama's house, figuratively speaking, is ever so slightly on fire. And that's the thing about a burning house: it's either on fire or it isn't, there's no such thing as house being a little bit on fire. So, Obama, once again, we appreciate your calmness and your attempt to maintain order, your willingness to walk calmly to the exit. But sometimes it is good to scream and to run, and to throw a few punches along the way. Sometimes it is called for. At the very least it is time, my friend, for the bucket brigade.

Although, you will understand that I cannot be of much help, what with my back and all.

~~~~~