Still Hating on the French

Ann Coulter is a raving bitch. I've always had a sense that she was curious in a rotten sort of way and perhaps a counterbalance to someone like Dowd. I am now convinced that she is nothing like the clever, cynical writer from the New York Times. No Ann Coulter is just like her Savior in the White House: An anti-intellectual policy hack. This latest stream of realization bubbled up after witnessing that blonde Siren yammering on MSNBC. It was an accident resulting from my roomate's tendency to watch random news channels at even more random times.
"We should feel a little sad for John Kerry, I mean, he may look French, but at the end of the Day the guy is an American." quoth a self-confident and gloating Coulter.
I was just sitting there minding my own business and some talking head on the cable news channel was trying to get reactions from Coulter as well as some obligatory Liberal. What was his name? Well, it really doesn't matter, he just sputtered and slurred his words like some sort of hard case when Coulter came after him. She was awash in the glow of election redemption. Yes! We have it now! It's all in our hands and the those sorry Sons-a-bitches on the Right and Left Coasts are going to pay dearly for their insolence. Behold!
Well, so really thats just a translation of the steely glint in her eye coupled congruently with a smirk stretched and affixed with permanent glee.
She is worse than the most obnoxious Liberal I can put my finger on right now: Moore. They both say incendiary things, but at least Moore is not under the mistaken impression that he is a spokesman for the Second Coming.
After all this, her side pulling it out by less than three percent (Not a Mandate, George) the best she can come up with is to repeat the idiotic and xenophobic suggestion that Kerry's Gallic countenance is a reflection, not of some inner JFK (Blue Stater before it was cool and a Catholic to boot!), but of some nascent wuss. More Chamberlain than Churchill. She is a moron and should, I think, look forward with plausible faith for a Bush nomination to the post of Poet Laureate.

Four More Years

"I'm going to be involved with heavy drug use for the next four years" was the quote that escaped the lips of one of my housemates as she closed the door behind her and headed to work earlier this morning. It was a late night and a brutal morning, with her barging into my room sometime around 5am to tell me that Andy Card was doing his best Hitler impression while saying to the world, "Resistance is futile! Bush is The Man!" all while the votes were still being counted. And, as it turns out, Card was no cad. He got it spot on and at one o' clock today Kerry is going to make his concession and then the real party begins for the other half of this country. Not here though, not in the Northeast. I live amongst, indeed squarely within, one Big Block of Blue. This place is like a Goddamn tomb right now. Or else a funeral parlor. People are walking around alternately stunned and surly.No one really knows what to do. This is the kind of event that just might push a pacifist to seek out the nearest gun show. There will be protests and marches and all sorts of circus behavior in various cities where the choir is syncopated anyway. Things will come to a hush then for a bit and hopefully we will all be able to sit down and come to terms with whatever common ground is left. Kerry of course is doing the thing that all, ALL his critics said he was incapable of: acting selflessly. In the act of concession he is the first to exhibit hope for a new chapter where the parties are not so bitterly divided. He is a gentleman, after all. Some of us liked him from the beginning for who he was: a statesman, a lifelong public servant, an internationalist, an optimist. Some of us just liked that he wasn't Bush. It is odd to be writing a sort of eulogy for a campaign that I thought really had a chance. But it was not meant to be. In the final analysis, we must move forward.
There are powerful, dangerous forces at play in this country. There is a revolution taking place that threatens to push the pendulum far past moral atonement and into the realm of intolerance. But that's part of the game, isn't it. The uppity New Englanders have been dealt a mortal blow by the Heartland. "Your values are not our values", they say. "Your godlessness is no longer acceptable." And we will deal with it I guess because we have no choice. Even though most of us here in Hell aren't godless at all. Since when do we have to choose between faith and intellectualism? Morality and Progress? Who sold us THAT shitty bill of goods? Well, the answer lies somewhere in the strategy that staged a moderately religious man in Bush at the helm of a party base that is increasingly anything but moderate. Maybe George Bush will find his more even bearings and lead us back to the center. Then again, maybe we are in for some serious change. I view it all as wide open at this point. It's a new day, my fellow Americans. But who am I kidding? I'm feeling depressed and defeated. I'm feeling like I live in a totally different world than the not-so-silent majority. But whatever does happen, at home or abroad, it cannot be blamed on an accident of electoral process. No, this time the American people unquestionably put forward Their Guy. We have bought responsibility now. We the People own outright the fruits of the next four years, for good or ill.

Front And Center

The whole world is watching this one. I just flipped to a Swiss webpage a few moments ago to do my usual jaunt through the foreign news and found a large special section on the front page devoted to our election here in the States. The BBC is talking about it too but that outlet is never really different enough for me. I have this unfounded and sneaking suspicion that they are on the same page as the New York Times and therefore not really Foreign. Not that there is anything wrong with the Times. I love "The Gray Lady" even though she has gone for the dye job. But sometimes you just need to get some perspective. Step outside the echo chamber. Get a feel for what countries apart from the Magna Carta Crew are thinking and saying.
I digress.
The whole world is watching, awaiting the outcome. What will it all mean to them anyway? Will a Kerry win be a boon for internationalism? That is, will Kerry be able to bring the world community together in ways that Bush would or could not? Or will Kerry be forced into a Bush doctrine, hard line stance against terrorist-supporting states once he is in the Oval Office and realizes fully the situation (none of us on this end of things really know what THAT is anyhow)? On the other hand, might a Bush win guarantee Four More Years of the same pre-emptive, unilateralist strategy or will he come back from the extremes according to necessity and opportunity a la Reagan? There is alot of uncertainty and I wonder what the world community really wants. Indeed, what are they wishing for out of our election, wishing for out of us?
Then there is The Most Recent Tape. I am a little frightened that the op-ed guy that I found most compelling today on that so-called October Surprise is one William Safire of the NYT. I was reading bits and pieces of the translation (more on that in a bit) of UBL's most recent missive the other day. Immediately after, I began reflecting on the curious, even-handed and cautionary tone of the thing and I thought, "what gives?". Where is the hate-filled jihadist rhetoric? UBL is not supposed to sound like some guy running for Congress. He seemed to be presenting a case and looking for ways to explain himself to his audience. Safire is really the only one that has spoken to this conciliatory feel of UBL's message in the mainstream media. He points out that the side with the upper hand does not usually look for a plea bargain. So what is bin Laden's aim here? Why the hell would Public Enemy number One, apparently alive and well despite international efforts to exterminate him, come off as anything less than insolent?
Safire suggests that this is the first sign of a weakening of UBL's movement, essentially stating that Bush's approach is working. I'm not so sure about that. I'm not at all convinced that this tape is not some sort of tactical maneuver or even a head's up required by Islamic law regarding the next attempted attack here in the States, as Daniel Benjamin explains in Slate.com today. He goes on to suggest that the effect of the tape may very well be to help ensure Bush's re-election by "taunting him" and thereby "pumping up his support" here at home. This is consistent with Safire's interpretation of the tape as being evidence of Bush's success in prosecuting the war on terror. What is not clear is whether UBL really is weakened because of Bush's actions or merely playing possum to help get Bush four more years of jihad-inspiring American military action against Islam. bin Laden is very clever and that is something that cannot be repeated often enough. In part of his message, translated several different ways, UBL seems to say that if you live in a Blue state you're safe and if you live in a Red state you are complicit with Bush's world view and subject to attack. The exact meaning of this statement is most surely lost in translation. And the several attacks on the epicenter of Blue America, New York City, makes this statement about as fraudulent as a three dollar bill. But regardless, maybe bin Laden has it figured out. Maybe he's betting that the American People will see this not-so-veiled threat as a challenge. "How dare you try to manipulate us!" would be the reaction and the response would then be an outpouring of support for The President to prove that UBL will not intimidate the United States of America. I have a sick, gut twisting feeling that UBL will be watching somewhere safe tomorrow night and counting on the possibility that whoever wins the White House will unwittingly help him in his cause.