Shooting the Blue State Bar Bull

"No, I didn't see the speech. What did he say?"

"It was exhilarating. I'm still tingling."

"What did he say?"

"He was in rare form. Dignity. Poise. Handsome."

"Nonsense. He looks like Stan Laurel's mulatto love child. What did he say?"

"His inflection, his tempo. Just perfect."

"What did he say?"

"His is a rare eloquence. He struck just the right note of conciliation while still expressing the anger of black America without all the, without all the anger."

"There's a neat trick. But I thought he was addressing some controversy or other."

"Yeah, the Clintons played the race card. Just reprehensible. I'm sickened."

"What's this? The same Hillary the Great as you've characterized her BO?"

"BO?"

"Before Obama. Everything changes AO. It's a whole new paradigm. An exciting time."

"Yes, it's amazing how much of an impact he's had already. To think that some would deny him the presidency! I swear, if we fail to elect this man for the first time in my life I will be truly ashamed of my country."

"I was being facetious."

"I know. He's already bringing us together."

"What I meant was--hey, Alex, you work here too? Set me up."

"You're right; the pastor's remarks were taken entirely out of context..."

"Did I say--yes, one must place 'God damn America' in its proper context. Wide margin of nuance."

"Besides, it's not like he has to answer--"

"For the religious/political philosophy of his stated 'spiritual mentor' and key player in his rise?"

"Right!

"For twenty years of resentful racial separatist demagogy, every Sunday? What Barack condescendingly attributes to those 'raucous' negro church services?

"Exactly! It's all guilt by association."

"Yes, mentoring is such a tenuous association. Especially for a politician."

"You said it! Alex, get this guy another."

"Thanks, but I was being--"

Barack addresses these questions from a whole new perspective."

"What's the persepctive?"

"I mean, this guy understands race as and you and I simply cannot."

"Why is that exactly? I mean he's had neither the typical white nor typical black American experience. That's fine, but why is it this alone constitutes insight? If his history is so unique isn't also true that he doesn't quite share the experience of most Americans, black or white? I mean, why is it necessarily a positive? Because he says so in a hundred equally meaningless ways? Is this insight a genetic birthright? Because after the perfunctory bragging about his mixed parentage, all I hear are platitudes."

"Yes, yes. That's what I'm saying. He understands."

"I see. 'I have understood you, America.' What exactly is his understanding?"

" Exactly. Barack understands. It's a rare thing among politicians."

"Are you fu--? What the hell does he understand? Why can't I hear it like everybody else? Where is this understanding everyone keeps talking about? What's wrong with me?"

"You see, as a black man he's experienced first-hand the oppression of his white ancestors. It's a very unique perspective."

"Yes. Imagine an indulgently guilty white liberal getting to actually be black. It must be exquisite. Continual bliss. To be able to resolve this angst in its glorious reversal, to indulge in the romance of oppression not as an outsider but as its subject--as both, in supreme sanctimony, over and over! But it is kind of weird when his white half condescends toward his black half. I think if it was me I'd call it a wash and get on with business. But I'm not the ambitious sort.
"None of that for Barack; no grace, no generosity. No leaving anything on the table. Just a meticulous, thorough wringing out of any and all possible political advantage from this circumstance--and then some. He lays claim to all he surveys. He claims a unique perspective on all human suffering with those artlessly exhaustive rhetorical sweeps of his, those godawful geography name-checks. It's a kind of greed. 'From the family crossing the Rio Grande to the Hillbillies in Appalachia', he's feeling you. Something to go with his response to the Wright controversy which, if I'm reading him correctly, is 'if it offends, I condemn'; call it 'if you're sore, I'm you're recourse.' If you've got a claim on the collective guilt of white America, Barack Obama is your man. Barack wants his cut. Isn't it a little presumptuous of this guy that he thinks he can coopt the very idea of collective guilt and lord it over the nation?"

"Yes. He's already overcome so much."

"He shall overcome."

"Exactly! I mean, here is a guy who's taken the pain of being a black man in America, all that pain and suffering, he's made that sacrifice."

"Christ-like."

"Can I use that?"

"Oh. By all means. But what pain? What suffering?"

"Duh. He's bla-ack."

"Hey, now you're talking. And white--don't forget! He's half-white!"

"Now you see! And white. He's had to endure the oppression and daily humiliation of the black American, while carrying on his shoulders the tremendous guilt of white America. These are the yin and yang of the American racial dynamic. And he contains them entirely within himself."

"But it seems he gets all the credit for the suffering and none of the guilt for it. They're not equal at all."

"Of course not. You're backsliding now. The suffering is the thing. Dude, it's in Hamlet. You see, because the guilt is complicity in the suffering, for someone on the receiving end of the suffering, because for him it must be borne, the white guilt is just more suffering!"

"My head hurts. But the guilt is conceptual. It's not really suffering."

"No; it's the most purifying suffering there is, because it's conceptual. Because it takes place entirely within, uncompromised by physical reality, it has no bounds. This is not the suffering of the body! This is the suffering of the soul. You and I simply aren't capable of this level of it. You say he's 'ambitious.' This is precisely why it is he and why it is now. He has made that journey, from white to black. He's mounting that cross gladly. His is the suffering of the nation."

"I get it. He is us."

"Exactly. You're almost there."

"Where, damn it, where?"

"To the mountaintop, finally. Barack Obama is the ultimate gesture, the act of penitence, the laying down of arms, the ritual abasement, the apology, all embodied in one man. Imagine that guilt-free future. Can you see it? The mountaintop. This man alone is uniquely positioned to simultaneously absolve white shame and restore the dignity of black America. And it has to be embodied in one man, one, yes, Christ-like figure who contains multitudes within and is endowed with the transcendence of celebrity. He is us, yes! And we owe it to ourselves. But he can't do it if for us if we don't raise him up to the heights from which he will need to operate. No one will now doubt the word of America. But we must act; we must make that gesture. One cannot stand by when he's called upon to atone for the greatest sin, the original sin, of his nation."

"Hallelujah! I see! How could I have been so blind? Thanks Alex, but I won't be having that drink after all. I've found religion."

Red State Bar Banter

"Are you kidding me? John McCain is a lunatic. 'More wars.' Where, John? Who do you have in mind? Anyone in particular? Or is it just the war part that's important? And this 'hundred years' in Iraq business. 'Cause Iraq is just like Japan or Korea, which it of course isn't, but it only gets me thinking, 'yeah, why the hell are we still in Korea and Japan?' And this 'screw you' attitude toward people who disagree with him. I'm supposed to cower beneath his charges of bigotry because I don't share his view on immigration. And the press; don't get me started. This is beginning to get embarrassing. Turn a hose on them or they'll be out in the street all day like that."

"Hah.Yeah."

"I think the guy's been nuts ever since he was a POW. That's the ironic thing about John McCain. We're basically electing this guy because of his personal history in Vietnam. Because of his narrative of heroic suffering. But that same experience should actually make us more leery of this guy. I mean the same thing that made him a perversely stubborn bastard willing his way through his time in captivity may in fact make him an awful president."

"Good point. Alex, give this guy another round on me."

"Thanks. But it's all about this bullshit relationship he has with the press. I'll give him this much: he's figured it out. To get the press on your side humor the bastards night and day. Flatter them. Give them 'access' and they'll love you for it so much they won't ask you any tough questions. Give 'em access and they'll do nothing with it, lest they lose it. Brilliant. And all these middle-aged male reporters who took a deferment in college, having had to rely on the Persian Gulf I box-set on DVD, living vicariously through this old man's yarn that's probably a load of crap to begin with. Laughing at those awful one-liners like a bunch of ass-kissing employees. His whole line is 'I'm a crazy bad-ass. Vote for me.' He'll bankrupt us on war and import millions of poor people in the process. John McCain: Open Borders, Open Warfare.
"But the pride, the vindictiveness, the impatience with dissent and debate; it's positively pathological. And temperament is more important now than ever. Hell, these guys aren't experts on any particular policy question. The best we can hope for is a capable, measured personality commited to the constitution. He is the opposite of that. I think he might possibly be legally insane."

"Yeah, it's kind of a drag having to choose whether to vote Democrat or stay home."

"Are you crazy? And elect Clinton or Obama?"

...

"Oh no, that would be disaster. No, if it comes to that, if my state's in play, I'll bite the bullet and do what I have to."

...

"What are you staring at?"

"Hey Alex, gimme another. Double this time."

Sitting in a Bar in Granite Falls

“Hey, if it isn’t the diehard partisan. How’s tricks?”
“Screw you.”

“Buy you a beer?”
“I’ll buy my own. Hey Mike, Jack straight up.”

“Whoa. Worse than I thought. Buck up, amigo; I’m sure Saddam’s death sentence will enliven, so to speak, the base, no?”
“He gassed his own people!”

“How about that Foley character?”
“Ain't it just like a fag!”

“I wouldn’t know. Bad timing though, wouldn’t you say?”
“October surprise! Where’s the outrage?”

"Indeed."
"Pages Gone Wild. That's what it is!"

“I was more interested in the details of the recent NIE.”
“Another leak scandal! Mike, gimme another.”

“Slow down there, friend. I hate to say I told you so, but--”
“How about that lower than expected deficit!”

“Afghanistan is even a mess now. Couldn’t you just see that one coming?"
“The Dow hit 12,000!”

“Got any stock?”
“That’s personal.”

"Looks like the Senate's in play, hmm?
“The tax cuts are working!”

“Can you imagine what the hearings are going to be like?”
“Cut and run! Cut and run!”

“Iraq is a disaster. What the hell are we going to do?”
"Stand up! Stand down!"

"Or perhaps kneel in prayer."
"Religion of peace!"

"Wow. North Korea. Scary, eh?"
"Clinton strikes again!"

"Have you been following events in Baghdad? Looks like it's coming apart."
"How about those Cardinals!"

“Have another drink?”
“Stay the course and make it a double!”