Fight Club

Grinning baboon for the right William Kristol – you know, the one who’s made a career out of being wrong about Iraq, is promising that if Obama wins, conservatives “will greet the news with our usual resolute stoicism or cheerful fatalism.” Also that “being conservative means never being too surprised by disappointment.”

Oh, really?

That’s funny because I remember a time, not so long ago, when Clinton beat Bush the elder and became the first Democratic president since one-timer Jimmy Carter was elected in 1976.

And how did conservatives react?

I’m searching for the words to describe their reaction, and what I’m NOT coming up with is “resolute stoicism” or “cheerful fatalism.” My memory of their reaction is more along the lines of “hysterical hand-wringing” and “dire predictions of economic collapse,” followed shortly thereafter by “declarations of all-out war against Democrats” and “secret financing of scandal-mongers,” and, my personal favorite, “hypocritical moralizing.”

Does no one remember that Clinton was bullied by a press apparently bullied by faxes from the RNC to force through a campaign promise in the first, like, nanosecond of his administration, and the result was the ridiculously ill-advised “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy of military service?

Does no one remember that the press was so goaded by the relentless harping of the sore losers of the Republican Party that they declared Clinton’s administration a complete failure before he even took the oath of office? The press so had it in for the Clintons that it actually became a barb inflicted at the media to refer to the “failed Clinton administration” by the spring of 1993.

So, if Obama wins, I wouldn’t exactly prepare myself for an onslaught of cheerful Republican fatalism. They will hit him, and hit him hard. The media, besieged by RNC talking points and the constant prevaricating from the right about how liberal the press is, will decide that they will lose credibility if they are not hyper-critical of Obama’s every move.

I could be wrong. Maybe this time, the press won’t bite. But what I will guarantee is that the Republicans will try to make it happen.

Kristol may find it amusing that “liberals” are so anxious about the imminent election. He thinks it’s cute to pretend to sooth us by pointing out the advantages of a McCain administration. But you know what? Fuck Bill Kristol.

He never had a president from his party so relentlessly hounded by trumped-up trivialities: Whitewater, Filegate, Travelgate (seriously, Travelgate was a scandal, y’all), and then the stupendous clusterfuck that was the Ken Starr investigation.

He never had an election stolen from him by a panel dominated by trollop-headed party hacks pretending to be serious jurists.

He never lost an election because state-sanctioned criminals were allowed to deny his party members their civil rights with impunity.

So fuck him and his fake largess. To be a Democrat these days is to constantly fight for every square inch of ground. To be a Democrat is to be ever vigilant against the eroding of our rights by the toadies of the haters. We must constantly remind the press that we are not just the other side, we are the right side. It is right to extend civil liberties to all Americans. It is right to spend our money on health care, instead of arms deals. It is right to stop the erosion of our economy into a feudal system of CEO lords and working class serfs. We are not just the other side. We are the right side. No matter who wins. No matter who fucking wins.