"I'll Be Back"

You've probably noticed that despite some strong opinions on the subject of politics, I've avoided any serious talk about the current presidential campaign. I suppose my attitude is that any point I might be able to make about the race, the candidates, what-have-you has already been brought up and beaten to death by one media outlet or another. Some of the best analysis, insofar as it hasn't reeked of pompous pandering, has come from Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi; at the other end of the spectrum is the 24/7 short bus circle jerk over at MSNBC. I realize I pick on the network quite a bit, but anyone who's endured even a few minutes of the Olbermann/Matthews/Scarborough trifecta-of-smug can probably understand the venom. The only reason to cut the MS political team any slack at this point might be because Chris Matthews appears to have recently suffered a stroke.

The networks, the newspapers and the magazines have all exhausted every horserace and boxing metaphor in their arsenals; the blogs have taken their respective stands and provided America's True Believers with a place to sound off like they've got a pair.

It's all been done.

But this race is still important, and like anyone else I worry about where the country's been and where it's going.

Which is why it pisses me off to no end that Hillary Clinton has anointed herself "The Comeback Kid" this morning -- as if a desperate and entirely predictable 11th hour reach into her bag of political dirty tricks has earned her a parade.

Yesterday, Clinton eked out a victory in Texas while also taking Ohio and Rhode Island, essentially deflating the momentum of Barack Obama. In doing so, she ostensibly brought her flatlining candidacy back from the brink, much to the bemusement of many in the press, who called time-of-death on Clinton 2008 weeks ago. The fact that Clinton won three states last night, though, isn't as noteworthy as how she won them. True, the public is fickle and likely grew sick of both the aforementioned media death knell and the canonization of Obama, but over the past week-and-a-half Hillary Clinton has played every ugly card up her sleeve, consequently managing to cement her reputation as a soulless political opportunist who will say or do anything to get elected. The Clinton Machine, now under the command of unscrupulous toad Mark Penn, either shouted to the press or demurely whispered in voters' ears every bullshit controversy and unequivocal non-issue it could come up with -- from a hearsay argument that kind of, could've, might've shown that Obama said something to someone in Canada at some point about NAFTA, to those nagging questions about Barack Hussein Obama's religion, to the threat of a tantrum-filled scorched earth campaign against her own party, to a seemingly GOP-copyrighted attack ad aimed at convincing America's impressionable soccer moms that Barack Obama is going to kill their children in the middle of the night. Factor in her warm and fuzzy appearance on SNL (Note to Lorne Michaels: When Hillary Clinton is the funniest thing on your show, it might be time to issue some pink slips) and you've got all the usual ingredients for a good old-fashioned Clinton Comeback.

And that's exactly why it shouldn't be allowed to work.

I don't consider myself a staunch supporter of Barack Obama. I admit that he's an inspiring political speaker and that his election, in and of itself, would do wonders for our wounded reputation around the world -- but I'm not naive enough to believe that he walks on water or exists on a plane far above the rest of America's political scoundrelry. What Obama does represent however, as trite as this may sound, is the future. His supposedly inexcusable lack of hands-on experience -- experience, it's worth noting, that Hillary Clinton is sorely lacking as well -- is actually his most appealing quality; I'm already well aware of what a Clinton presidency looks like (as well as 20 years of McCain senate votes for that matter) and I feel about it the way I feel about a movie from the first Clinton era -- Independence Day: Sure it was decent at the time, but do we really need a fucking sequel?

Hillary Clinton has already shown us what we can expect from a Clinton Redux White House, and it's all too familiar: opportunism, self-serving platitudes, dirty tricks and underhanded machinations, the reality that, to borrow her own phrase, "From Day 1" she'll work tirelessly toward getting re-elected.

We've had years and years of that way of thinking, and look where it's gotten us.

It's time for some new blood.

I can't say for sure what a Barack Obama presidency would be like.

But it's got to be better than the alternative -- either alternative.