Party Unity My Ass

For reasons that are mirky to me and of no interest to anyone else, I have been unable to pay any significant attention to the US presidential primaries without becoming so morbidly depressed and angy I can't function. Somehow I've taken very personally the vile, sexist trashing Hillary Clinton has received in this campaign, not only from the usual quarters but from people who were supposed to be her friends and mine. Hence the lack of posting here. I've kept my head firmly in the sand, only occasionally pulling it out to look around and see if things are really as bad as I feared. They were and they are. I confess that (so far, at least) I've reacted to manifest injustice by giving up instead of fighting.

I do take credit for the rough accuracy of at least the first half of my prediction in February on how the Obama-Clinton campaign would turn out:

Why are the MSM greasing the skids for Obama? Because, in a year when it looked like the presidency was a lost cause for the Republicans, the Money thinks maybe Obama can be beaten. Even by John McCain, not so long ago the most loathsome man in America. Once Obama has the nomination, the corporate media (who served him up) will eat him alive. He is not, of course, the chosen candidate of the corporate Money--he is the candidate that Money thinks it can beat. Lulled into a false sense that the media love him, he has no idea how to handle the evil slagging press that has been a part of Hillary Clinton's daily life for decades. I'm afraid he will disappear beneath waves of ridicule and scandal in a landslide (underlain by the oozing mud of vile racism at the local level) that will make McGovern and Mondale look like winners.
I hope I'm wrong.

What I didn't predict was how gleefully and mindlessly Obama's supporters would lap up and regurgitate all the poisonous nectar they were fed about Hillary Clinton by not only the MSM but also the major "liberal" and "progressive" blogs. Increasingly I feel myself to be one of the ants in T.H. White's The Once and Future King. Mammy-mammy-mammy-mammy.
Thankfully there are actual vertebrates thinking and writing about the election. My favorite (Tennessee Guerilla Women is a close second) is the late Dr. Violet Socks, whose latest manifesto Archimedes Lever is a must read. According to Dr. Socks:

Leverage is here.
It’s here because of Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the shameful way she was treated — by the media, by the Obama camp, and, most damning of all, by the Democratic National Party. Even women who didn’t personally support the Clinton candidacy were nonetheless appalled by the Trashing of Hillary. It’s not that she lost; after all, losing is part of the game. It’s that she wasn’t beaten in a fair fight. She was treated like garbage, and she’s still being treated like garbage. (As of this writing, Howard Dean is refusing to let Hillary’s name be on the ballot for the first vote at the convention, a startling departure from the norm. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in this campaign and she earned more primary votes for President than any Democratic candidate in the history of this country. And the DNC won’t even let her name be on the ballot.) The huge swell of anger in the land is the righteous rage of millions of women — women who are armed and more than ready to punish the DNC. Over and over the message is being beamed straight to the powers-that-be on a laser light of pure anger: You don’t get to take our votes for granted anymore. No more.

Yes, I'm aware that cheering on the forces of PUMA may be as good a way as any of bringing about the landslide I've already predicted, and yes, the appointment of W and its aftermath have taught me that it is important to keep the greater of two evils out of the White House. But who cares what I think?