Why PUMAs Won't Vote for O - The Ex-Boyfriend Factor

Max - 99, doesn't that Kaos agent look like your ex-boyfriend from college?

99 - Max! You've done it! You've figured out why we can't vote for Obama! He reminds us of an ex-boyfriend. (shudders)

Max - Obama works for Kaos?

99 - No, Max, he is Kaos.

It struck me last night like I was Shemp and Reality was Larry. Why won't women and gay men vote for Obama? He's attractive, tall, sophisticated, smart, and he's got that Hollywood smile the cameras love. So, why do women want to throw the remote at the TV and why are gay men furiously blogging about the End of The World?

Obama reminds us of THAT ex-boyfriend. Yeah, you know the one, good-looking, charming, eerie Cruise-like grin. The one that fooled around with your best friend or bought a Rolex on your credit card or called you on New Year's Eve around 8PM saying he had an obscure virus called Gotabetterofferitis.

I was reading this scary little gem by The Body Language Lady about the nexus of narcissism, Obama, and body language. And, then, it hit me. He's the ex-boyfriend your best friends warned you about, the one you ended up leaving back at the caucus without a ride home.

I don't doubt Obama is a narcissist. Sure, most politicians have a healthy ego. In order to believe that YOU are the ONE PERSON in the country who can be the best president, you have to be pretty full of yourself. But, I believe Obama takes things a step further. And, so do the posters on BLL's site, including a psychologist.

It gets creepier. 75% of narcissists are men. 75%! Get it? That's why women and gay men are more likely to see through Obama. We've dated one! But, what about lesbians? What about them? As women, they've watched at least one close friend date Mr. Perfect and then helped pick up the pieces - used condoms, red thongs, scraps of paper with phone numbers, that Rolex receipt.

You can call me crazy. Many people do. But this isn't why. Obama creeps people out in a way I've never seen another candidate do. It's a visceral reaction. I can't see that smarmy smile pop up without cringing and I never even dated a narcissist. (I've known enough to see the signs. Got this one covered, thanks.) This sickly feeling knows no race, creed, or political party. That right-wing blogger was trying to be funny but still hit the target.

(shudder)

(double shudder)

But, what about people who don't feel this way? After all, 40+% of the country hasn't figured him out and those pictures from his trip were really pretty. Well, first of all, narcissists are rare, estimated to be between 1 and 2% of the population, according to the extensive research I did on The Google. And, you really have to have experienced NPD (narcissistic personality disorder) up close and personal to want to vomit when you catch a glimpse of The Eared One. Otherwise, you may be creeped out but you probably won't have an unnatural urge to grab your car keys and hit the gas. In fact, many people unfamiliar with NPD's path of destruction will look at the hollow eyes and believe they are magnetic rather than cold and devoid of empathy.

Narcissists can be very charismatic but only over the short-term. Right now, many Americans are still caught up in the honeymoon period. (Those of us who've been married a while can tell you all about what happens when the HP comes to a crashing halt, right around the time you discover your spouse feels ratty underwear is appropriate for answering the door.)

So, what next? Well, I'm a PUMA. I keep holding out hope that Dean, Pelosi, and Reid will come down with serious cases of Blackberry Thumb, be too bedridden to oversee the grand anointment, and, in their absences, the spell will be broken, the supers will wise up and kiss the princess, who will then rightly ascend to her place as Democratic Nominee, and peace will be restored to DemLand.

Hey, if a nobody with criminal connections, membership in a racist church, and a resume as short as Mini-Me can rise from the ashes of an exclusive prep school/Columbia/Harvard Law to flit around Europe like the late, great Suzanne Pleshette in If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium, then ANYTHING can happen.

But PUMAs voting for Obama - that won't. (shudder, shudder, shuuuddddeeerrrr)

Obama and the Mirror of Erised

Barack Obama brags about being a blank screen onto which people can project their beliefs. He claims he can be anything to anyone. Since when is being a human Rorschach test some kind of virtue?

I have another theory. Perhaps, the senator is more like a human Mirror of Erised (my deepest apologies to JK Rowling). In the first Harry Potter novel, Harry discovers a wondrous mirror that reflects one’s heart’s desire. Reflected in the magical looking glass is the You Oprah Dreamed You’d Be.

Howard Dean might have envisioned his 50 State Strategy.
Nancy Pelosi could have seen her Northern California liberal policies.
Harry Reid might have glimpsed a political leader.

Could it be that this election hasn’t been about “the change we’ve been waiting for” but the petty ambitions of a few self-centered leaders? Is it possible that Democratic officials didn’t just project their values onto their rising star, but their dearest dreams?

It gets worse. Now, Obama is playing his shtick on desperate Afghans. According to John Nichols at The Nation, Obama has been meeting with tribal lords and promising them roses and sunshine:

Unfortunately, Obama is busy making promises.

After meeting with the Democratic presidential candidate inside the US base in Jalalabad, Afghan warlord turned provincial governor Gul Agha Sherzai told reporters, "Obama promised us that if he becomes a president in the future, he will support and help Afghanistan not only in its security sector but also in
reconstruction, development and economic sector."

Translation: Obama is not listening. He is making commitments.

Specific commitments.

Despite the fact that there are more foreign troops in Afghanistan today than at any time since the 2001 invasion -- roughly 60,000 total, including 36,000 Americans – Obama is proposing to dispatch two more US combat divisions (comprising more than 7,000 soldiers) to Afghanistan. That will give the United States even greater responsibility for a technically NATO-led occupation.

Apparently, The One is running around countries harboring suicidal terrorists and telling them he'll give them anything they want. IS HE OUT OF HIS MIND? There are consequences if his alleged promises never come to fruition - PEOPLE WILL DIE.

Afghanistan has been crippled by centuries of war. Its people desperately need necessities like food and running water. It would be honorable and commendable if we could bring that to them. But, Obama is not in a position to do that. Heck, even the real President can't.

Maybe Obama really believes he can do this. He seems to have drunk a lot of Kool-Aid on the trail. Or, maybe he's using these poor people as campaign props and he'll do as much for them as he did for the people in his district (the ones living in the rat-infested, uninsulated, unheated buildings his bud Tony Rezko built on the Illinois taxpayers' dimes).

Here’s what I know. Confidence men succeed by promising their victims what they desire. They’re “blank screens.” They’re Mirrors of Erised. Democratic leaders, influential left-wing commentators, and desperate voters have spent this primary dreaming of their deepest desires. But, inevitably, confidence men have to deliver what they’ve promised – like filibuster a bad FISA bill or take public financing. When they don’t, which they inevitably won’t, the jig is up. At least, it should be.

Unless electing a flip-flopping, pandering pseudo-liberal, wannabe right-wing Evangelical driving a large careening Blunderbuss is their fondest dream, the Superdelegates need a new mirror.

Netroots Neighborhood?

Does anyone seriously give a hoot about NetrootsNation? (formerly YearlyKos after its eponymous narcissistic founder) Maybe they should call it NetrootsNeighborhood, after all, its only attracting a few thousand people out of the 300 mill who live here.

Over at NN, so I've heard, they're actually debating who's more powerful, a bunch of pajama pontificates or elected officials like Harold Ford, current head of the DLC. (Uh, note to the shower-less wonders: put down the Cheerios and pick up a newspaper and yes, they still exist. Elected officials actually pass laws instead of mocking them from the safety of mommy's basement.)

Look, as a PUMA, I'd love to believe that tapping away online will save Hillary. But, unlike the Blogger Boyz, I have a life. In the real world, causes, including elections are won on the street. You have to get out and talk to people instead of IM-ing the like-minded. That's why I tell people IN PERSON why I'm supporting a REAL ROLL CALL VOTE and what they can do to help.

I'd say more but it's Saturday and my real life kids and spouse are in the pool. Needless to say, I haven't watched any of the feed from NN, nor do I plan to.

People who do should get dressed, take a walk, and talk to one or two of those odd looking fur-free creatures that walk upright. Amazingly, those hairless two-legged freaks talk back, unlike the four-legged fuzzy wonders the NN crowd is used to. Fascinating, Captain.

Wiretapping My Womb? Is That Next?

You'd think the president would be too busy screwing up two wars and de-regulating the economy into the toilet to worry about your sex life. But, no. If there are two things we've learned about the Bush administration, it's this: it likes to screw things and it likes to watch.

Now, it wants to do both to American women.

According to the brain trust at 1600 Penn, the birth control pill causes abortions. So do those ungodly (and popular) IUDs. Yup, relying on "Stedman's Medical Dictionary" (does Oprah know about this?) and "Dorland's Medical Dictionary" - instead of that oh-so-unreliable sources such as the American Medical Association, the British Medical Association, and the Medical College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Health and Human Services has decided that pregnancy begins at conception not at implantation. Recipients of federal grants are free to use the new definition to deny birth control to poor women.

A quick lesson, for those of you who were hungover in high school biology, on how to create a baby:

1. 
   Boy and girl meet in a college Russian class.
2. Boy and girl may or may not have gotten drunk. (Note: this step is not necessary, just common practice.)
3. Boy and girl do the nasty.
4. Boy's sperm (what? he lied about the condom? a$$hole!) and girl's egg meet in a Russian class somewhere in Fallopian College.
5. Sperm and egg merge to become The One with the universe.
6. Ta-da! According to the Bushies, Boy and Girl have just created themselves a candidate!
7. Or not. According to the established medical authorities, the commies at the AMA and the ACOG, the egg-sperm melange (zygote, for those keeping score), has to implant into Girl's womb for her to actually be considered pregnant. This is a tricky thing and many zygotes have a different agenda. They get flushed, kinda like the DNC did to the Clinton supporters.
8. If the zygote implants, then begins the long process of lurching to the right and sucking donors dry, I mean growing an embryo-turned fetus-turned-baby. And, only after implantation will Ben and Allison see the dreaded blue line of death. (Kidding. I love zygotes. I just don't want any more.)

So, HHS/Bush 43 is screwing poor women with their new standard. Now, wackos with their fingers on the prescription button can deny women The Pill, the birth control patch, or IUDs. The latter actually does work by preventing implantation but hormonal birth control prevents pregnancy by preventing ovulation (no egg).

Just for grins, let's look at the benefits of The Pill, other than the obvious:

1. reduced blood flow means reduced chance of anemia
2. possible protection against ectopic/tubal pregnancies (that have to end, either in surgery, miscarriage, or the tube bursting killing the embryo and possibly the mother, too)
3. less chance of fibroids
4. regular cycles and possibly reduced menstrual pain
5. possible protection against ovarian and uterine cancer

While I appreciate Senators Clinton's and Murray's and Speaker Pelosi's vocal criticism of this policy, I wonder something. Where are the male critics? Doesn't birth control affect them, too? (Answer, YES.)

And, where is Senator Obama's voice?

Why don't PUMAs have the courage of their convictions?

What's up with PUMAs?

Lo 2o something days ago when the PUMA movement launched, I had Hope. Yes, Hope, and Hope for Change in the Democratic Party's nominee. But something happened on the road to Denver: success.

Blogs that were once edgy and rebellious are now backing away from their original goals. Now that their daily hits are soaring and ad revenue is multiplying at dizzying rates, they've just sorta kinda, well, ya know, SOLD OUT. Sure, they'll still criticize the self-appointed nominee. They might even post a few outrageous allegations. But, gone is that fire in the belly.

Could it be true? Could they end up "coming home" to the party that threw them across the asphalt?

Isn't that what always happens to the Party of Appeasement? Contest Florida? Nah, that'll upset the voters. (Which ones? The majority that voted for Gore?) Impeach Bush? What? When his approval ratings are in the high 20s? Look what happened to the Republicans in the '90s when they tried that! (Yeah, 'cause a private lapse with a consenting adult, immoral as it may have been, is so comparable to invading a sovereign nation on made up intelligence and costing thousands of lies.) Filibuster the FISA bill when it gives Bush EVERYTHING he wants? (And admit that we're just as guilty in that whole debacle?)

Uh-uh. No way. They earned that moniker The Defeatocrats and by god they're going to live up to it! So, other than a few hardy stalwarts like The Denver Group and PUMApac, we're left with happy hours and rants. Besides, Hillary doesn't even want the nomination, right? (And, Obama's a new kind of politician.)

Well, I'm not giving up. Not me. I ain't gonna. I don't wanna. And, you can't make me!