Clark's Coincidence

OK, I usually steer clear of posting this kind of post, but it's time for some speculation, theorizing, hypothesizing, and rank rumourmonging.

It should come as no surprise to long-time readers of this blog (if any) that I'm a fan of the idea of retired General Wesley Clark as Secretary of Defense, but knowing that retired military can't serve as SoD too soon after their military time, I certainly wouldn't mind seeing him in any of various other Cabinet positions. (He does have a degree in economics from Oxford, after all; potentially useful in these times.)

Then, there was that overblown dust-up about his remarks that McCain's Vietnam service & POW-hood were not alone enough to qualify him for the Presidency.

Well, I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.

After which, the Obama campaign Largely disavowed him and his words. After that, I had pretty much abandoned any such hopes for him.

However, a couple of recent news items have me rethinking that. The first one that caught my attention in this regard was the appointment of Samantha Power to Obama's transition team. As you may recall, back in March, she was reported to have said:

[Hillary Clinton] is a monster, too — that is off the record — she is stooping to anything.

(A brief aside: I find it interesting that reporters will grant off-recordness by default to Bush administration officials, but report things from Obama advisors that are stated as off-the-record in midsentence.)

After this came out, Power resigned from the Obama campaign. However, it was recently announced that she would be part of his transition team for the Department of State, after Hillary Clinton was leaked as the likely (since official) choice for Obama's Secretary of State. This seemed like an unsubtle enough way of provoking those who were jumping on his campaign for misstatements and inartful phrasing that it got me thinking that there might be room for forgiveness for Gen. Clark, as well.

However, there was the talk of current Secretary of Defense Robert Gates staying on for at least a time with the Obama administration, also since confirmed. Apparently, Obama wants to keep him around while we withdraw our forces from Iraq, preferably within that 16 month time period that Obama had described during his campaign.

At this point, I thought to myself, "hmm, 16 months after inauguration, that would be in May 2010. I wonder when Clark would be eligible for an appointment to Secretary of Defense?" So I double-checked my recollection that it was a ten-year waiting period (10 U.S.C, Subtitle A, Part I, Chapter 2, § 113, "A person may not be appointed as Secretary of Defense within 10 years after relief from active duty as a commissioned officer of a regular component of an armed force."), and went to look up when Clark had resigned his commission. And what did I find?

Clark retired May 2, 2000; ergo, eligible May 2, 2010. The very same month that that 16 month period comes to an end. It could certainly be purest coincidence. But, as a famous presidential speechwriter once said, "Would it be irresponsible to speculate? It would be irresponsible not to!"

Light at the End of the Crazy Tunnel

You know, I'm getting kind of sick of the "bipartisan" call on behalf of Republicans and the Beltway.

Face it, suckers, you lost.

Real America voted for the Black Man as President because he was speaking our language: change from the status quo, infrastructure rebuilding, bringing back our civil liberties, not to mention fixing our communities. I was talking to someone the other day who admitted that he voted Republican, but was glad that Obama won. I was walking down the street to the mall, and there was a group of people just walking around yelling "Obama won!" and cheering for the sheer joy of it.

That's Real America, motherfuckers. Get over yourselves. You lost.

Even if the Presidental Limo gets outfitted with spinners and those air-freshener crowns in the back, I don't give a fuck as long as I get my tax cut and we get alternative energy spending. Spinners on a car have never bothered me one bit, some are actually cool, and as for those crowns, well, my 60 year old mother thought they were awesome. And we're white. So suck on it losers, we won.

This election was a referendum on Republican policy, and America bitchslapped it with a resounding "Hell, NO!" at the polls. If George Bush had a mandate in 2004 with a few thousand votes, Obama's got a SUPERMANDATE, and doesn't have to be bipartisan, bitches. Go on, grab at those straws, but it's still not going to erase the EPIC FAIL that is the Republican party, take your motherfucking ball and just go home. Your game was good for a bit, but someone who knew what they were doing came to the court and wiped your ass with it. Now you're just being whiny about it. You've lost your power, at our hands. And you damn well deserve that, what with all the destroying of our country you've done. And I will do what my parents did for me, and remind the youngsters of this time, so that they grow up and never vote for you depraved motherfuckers.

Young people voted, and do you think that they voted just for themselves? They see what trouble their parents are in, their grandparents, aunts, uncles...and they voted for someone who would make a reasonable stab at change, so that the hardships they see for their family members might ease up. Why on earth do people think that only old people vote for "the children"? Do you think those young adults are totally incapable of voting for a candidate that would make Mom and Dad's life better? Apparently, there are some people out there who don't know any young people.

We're all in this together, us and the whole fucking world. You can take your isolationism and and exceptionalism and shove it straight up your ass.

And your bipartisanship? Launch that into motherfucking space - I don't want to see that shit again, unless you're talking bipartisanship with socialists and progressives. You lost, fair and square, America has spoken, and we resoundingly said that we don't want to listen to YOU.

Ayers, or ???

I just want to point out another overlooked but significant point about the alleged Obama/Ayers best-friendsness/acquaintance/heard-of-the-guy. What was the alternative, from Obama's point of view? Just ditch the committee, in effect saying, "well, fuck the poor, I can't work with this guy, so they're just going to have to suck it up?" What kind of character would have behaved that way?

On an unrelated note, I'd just like to say that one of the greater trivial annoyances (isn't that like "jumbo shrimp"?) of the past few days has been repeatedly having my nose rubbed in the fact that the English language consigns the verbs "pall" and "pal" (if you can even tolerate its having been verbed) to share identically spelled gerund forms. Curse them!!