Ditto.

What are we to think of the staggering number of Obama’s “present” votes (voting neither yes nor no), and his stunning number of missed votes since 1991 leading up to his 38% missed votes during the current Congress? What is the Mid-East to think if his public words are just words, and if his US military withdrawal is to Iraq as Nafta is to Canada? Are we to feel relieved that Obama is a blank slate on which we can write our fantasies? He is our “Pericles, Pico della Mirandolla, Kind Rene of Provence, Lafayette, Joan of Arc, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson” (but without the slaves). If he wants to be “raising armies and changing cultures by spirit” but then giving an anti-war speech at an anti-war rally but then when actually voting, voting with Hillary, but then, but then, but then I suppose Einstein would say everything is relative. If Clinton and McCain are clones of the past, let us hope that Obama is not a clone of his spiritual advisor of twenty years. If Clinton has to battle the Eastern establishment Kennedy / Kerry Obama supporters, let us hope that she is the ‘milk cart pony’ named Seabiscuit who has the tenacity to make it down the final stretch. If Clinton has to be burned at the stake on a daily basis by the sexist press, let us hope this “very strategic, brilliantly articulate” woman is watched over by the spirit of Joan of Arc.

Maurine H , I agree with you that by looking at how a candidate runs a campaign, “you get an indication of how they would run the White House.” According to the New Yorker Magazine, Obama is running a secretive campaign similar to the George Bush White House. Anyone who gets off message is immediately tossed. Obama is secretive and likeable. Sound familiar?

Dr. Gawker, Finally we agree. I also am ready for you to meet your maker.

Suzanne de Cornelia, it is a dark age indeed if you go to a male plastic surgeon and you end up looking like his mistress.

Dr. Gawker, do keep your eye on the polygamous guppies as you gape and stare in your masturbatory way at the fish aquarium.

Yes, Suzanne de Cornelia, and yes, Charles Dickens, these are the best of times and the worst of times, and if you say, “Look, loooook,” in a magical way to a 6 year old, that technological child of today will be as awed as a child from yesteryear. And if you pick up the telephone and it is a call from your friend in Paris, saying, “Listen, lissssss-ten,”and what you hear are students at that very moment demonstrating job loses in France, that one instant international link will counterbalance the negative instant-everything expectation of the 21st Century.

Whether one is a child of today or of yesteryear is inconsequential if one is an anachronism.

Suzanne de Cornelia, 9/11 was “an idea whose moment has come”. But from my point of view it was a bad idea.

Jane, If the angel of writers sits on your shoulder and from time to time flutters down and writes “better” in the margin, it is because your most glorious writing is your stackable tangential humor that is at odds with New Yorker cartoon caption-style writing.

Suzanne de Cornelia, Thanks. So interesting about the slicing and dicing and the magic of the sub-prime mess. The dollar crashing, deflation, depression, recession. No wonder we prefer to bury our heads in the sand. I loved the guy talking about the island where everyone had jobs and the American had the job of eating while the Asians had the jobs of fishing, hunting, etc. That’s what I call the oreo explanation.

Suzanne de Cornelia, Please let us know if you ever find a web site about unregulated derivatives that is as clearly explained as the oreo cookie explanation of the Pentagon budget.

I was a big Obama fan in 2004, and said that he would someday be president. He made me think of Abraham Lincoln, a tall slender great orator from Illinois. But I don’t know what the convictions of Obama are and I don’t know if he has the courage of his convictions. He votes “present” instead of yes or no. In the Senate, he was going to go bi-partisan with McCain but backed down when the heat was on. I asked a M. I. T. professor why Obama did not win Massachusetts when he had the Kennedy machine backing him and the John Kerry machine backing him. The professor said that their governor had already used the hope / change campaign theme on the people of Massachusetts and did not deliver when elected. Obama has the same campaign manager as the governor of Massachusetts, has the same hope / change theme, and used the same “Just Words” speech. My problem with Obama is that he does not feel authentic. And if not being hypnotized by Obama makes me suspect, then I might add for the record, I voted for Jesse Jackson before it was fashionable.

You can botox your bound feet and reduce your shoe size even further.

Jm m, What a brilliant reply.