The bad news: Nobody saw him beat Hillary Clinton on Saturday night. Okay, so eight million of the already converted watched him beat Hillary Clinton. Otherwise, they were busy doing normal things on a Saturday night, such as watching college football players pummel each other into permanent organic brain damage and premature death. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, autocratic head of the Undemocratic Party, has pummeled the citizenry and enabled Hillary Clinton by scheduling very few debates at very inconvenient times. Bernie should have pounced in the very first debate when he had the chance and the audience. He coulda been a contendah.
The good news: The New York Times broke away from its terror coverage just long enough to write a scathing editorial against Hillary's cynical manipulation of terror to justify her allegiance to Wall Street. To their discredit, however, the editorial board seemed more miffed at her "failure to fake" and feel your pain than they were enraged that Clintonian neoliberalism has caused a whole heap of suffering to a whole bunch of people.
In other words, the Empress-in-Waiting blew it and let down the One Percent big-time by failing to pander to the Left/middle class in public while delivering to the Right/wealthy in private. Besides altering the theme of the debate at the last minute to foreign policy (her over-hyped bailiwick) to give her a perceived advantage, the debate moderator even gave her a heads-up on the Wall Street questions. The Beltway bent over backwards for their designated winner, and this is how she treats them? Oh, the elite humanity!Middle-class Americans associate Wall Street with the 2008 meltdown of the economy that cost so many their homes and savings. In the debate Mrs. Clinton repeatedly referred to her plan for reining in banks, but offered precious few specifics. This is what happens when Hillary Clinton the candidate gets complacent. The debate moderator, Mr. Dickerson, had even tipped her off before a commercial break that the next topic was Wall Street.Her effort to tug on Americans’ heartstrings instead of explaining her Wall Street ties — on a day that the scars of 9/11 were exposed anew — was at best botched rhetoric. At worst it was the type of cynical move that Mrs. Clinton would have condemned in Republicans.She should make a fast, thorough effort to explain herself by providing a detailed plan for how she would promote measures protecting middle-class Americans from another financial crisis.
The bad news: The media-political nexus has decreed that all talk of the economic terror constantly being unleashed against ordinary citizens by the capitalist extremists beholden to the Market God must be "off the table" for the duration of the "official" terror hysteria outbreak/official mourning period.
Climate change? Fuggedaboudit. What are mass extinctions compared to the latest, greatest threat to exceptional American Value$ that ever threatened?
Vox's Brad Plumer, to name just one media hack, hysterically rails against Bernie Sanders for even bringing up the actual climate during this designated time of International Grief and Fear. Plumer says it is so "off-base" to directly link drought to violence. After all, if you're that hot, hungry, tired and thirsty, civil war should be the last thing on your mind, Plumer punditocratically pontificates from the comfort of an actual building. Apparently, jihad and strife only break out during balmy boom times and bubbles-a-plenty.
It has been deemed disrespectful to bring up foreclosures, stagnating wages, unemployment and political corruption at a time when the important people are so busily milking terror for all it's worth. And in terms of advertising revenue and lobbyist dollars for them, and enhanced profits for the war industry, Terror is worth a yuuuuuge bundle. You gotta Keep Fear Alive. "Terrorism, Not Taxes!" is the new campaign theme, shrilled another Times article:
The assault on Paris has thrust national security to the heart of the presidential race, forcing candidates to scramble and possibly prompting voters to reconsider their flirtations with unconventional candidates and to take a more sober measure of who is prepared to serve as commander in chief.They just cancelled out their own "Hillary So, So Disappointed Us!" op-ed. From making fun of his accent and his hair, now they're claiming that Bernie is a bad boyfriend for not wallowing in fear and jingoism on our flirtatious Saturday night date.
The good news: Hillary Clinton was beautifully blindsided by rude boy Bernie Sanders, who went off the pre-approved "all terror, all the time" debate script, and reduced her to bragging that her billions in Wall Street speaking fees and donations have been offset by the fact that 60 percent of her "small donors" are women. She brought her shallow, cynical identity politics into glaring high relief, and it was not a pretty sight. Nor were her lame excuses for helping destabilize the entire Middle East.
The bad news: Hillary is still ahead in the polls. Money still rules politics. The whole system is probably corrupt beyond all redemption. Bill Clinton is now openly appearing with her at campaign rallies, to much applause. Make no mistake, this is an attempted third term, a Clinton restoration, another co-presidency, another chance to cut the social safety net.
The good news: Bill Clinton is probably too old and decrepit to resume chasing after White House interns and female staffers. The Clinton restoration probably does not apply to his entire anatomy. His quadruple bypass probably precludes the ingestion of Viagra.
The bad news: As loathsome as the Clintons are, they are easily beatable by the Republicans, who probably already have a scandalous October Surprise or twelve up their sleeves. Also, before we rejoice that Clinton the Horn Dog has lost his horniness, we must remember that it was only the Lewinsky affair and impeachment distractions that prevented his planned cuts to Social Security and Medicare during those bubble-icious deregulatory 90s boom-times. Therefore, impotence can have its upside when it serves the potentates. The septuagenarian specter of the Clinton Restoration is a huge aphrodisiac for the richest of the rich.
The good news: There is a whole year to go before Election Day.
