A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

And Then There Were Two

A friend of mine who supports Obama, and who is quite knowledgeable about the Clintons, had this to say recently: "I have a problem with Bill as the spouse of the nominee. I think he's capable of doing something, unconsciously or simply carelessly, to sabotage Hillary." That was, in fact, written before the South Carolina primary, and before Bill did exactly that in his attacks on Obama. And now the media are making much of The Snub -- the supposed cold shoulder that Obama gave Hillary at the State of the Union. Of course Maureen Dowd wrote one of her calumniating columns about The Snub, and today I turned on MSNBC too early -- before "Countdown" came on -- and heard my ineffable namesake yapping away about it, too. It seems that Bill Clinton is capable of sabotaging everybody. (Most of all, himself.)

I did, in fact, mail in my vote for Obama in the California primary, after much waffling among the three of them. But I found myself wishing for a candidate who combined Obama's charisma, Hillary's expertise and John Edwards' passion. I was almost as sorry to see Edwards drop out today as I was delighted and relieved to see Giuliani make his exit. Edwards got a bad deal almost from the moment Obama announced his candidacy, and the vapidity of the media coverage of his candidacy was infuriating. The $400 haircut, for god's sake. (I'm reading Willie Brown's memoir, Basic Brown, for a review. Brown talks about how he never felt any kind of disjunction between wearing $5,000 Brioni suits and fighting for the poor. I wish Edwards had had the same kind of chutzpah. But I'm not sure anyone but Willie Brown could pull it off these days.)

The truth is, I'm suffering from Clinton fatigue. I guess I'll have to get over it, because I still think she'll get the nomination. If she can keep the Big Dog in his kennel, maybe it will be all right.
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