Clinton race-baiting, Part 2 of _

"If you have a social need, you're with Hillary," the aide said. "If you want Obama to be your imaginary hip black friend and you're young and you have no social needs, then he's cool."

It really is masterful -- if disgusting -- politics. Even if this turns out to be a misunderstanding or overheated rhetoric among informal advisers, they still polarize the campaigns and make Obama a niche candidate. Obama becomes the definitive "black candidate" of a black constituency, no matter how hard he tries to be the candidate who's moved beyond race. Certain white voters will perceive him differently, and the Clintons maintain plausible deniability. Maybe it bodes well for her performance in a general election. That it risks starting a war within the Democratic Party is secondary -- all that's ever matter is their own survival.

In light of Bill's exploitation of Ricky Ray Rector,* none of this should be surprising.

*Rector, a black man with an IQ of 70, shot a police officer and then attempted to kill himself. He believed that prison guards were throwing chickens and alligators into his jail cell, imitated an ape, and on the night of his execution asked a prison guard for a slice of pecan pie before bed, not realizing that he was about to be killed. Before his death, he also stated an intention to vote Bill Clinton for president. In 2002, the Supreme Court ruled that executing the retarded is unconstitutional. For Clinton, it was all an opportunity to prove death penalty bona fides.

The Clintons' Rovean smear tactics

Let's pretend that legitimate attacks on the party's anointed frontrunner are steeped in misogyny instead of the harsh criticisms levied against any standardbearer. Once she's off limits, engage in race-baiting.

I can't stand them.

Flop's guide to the New York Primary

Chapter 1: Registration

If you haven't registered or filled out a change-of-address form, you're going to need to do this. I started off by downloading the form from the New York state website. But then I saw people in the subway registering people. So I filled out the form and she gave me two Obama stickers.

The deadline's on Friday, so I suggest you get on this. If you happen to find a cute, earnest college student type with red hair and brown eyes to mail your forms for you, then you can consider it kind of a bonus.

Next week: Choosing a candidate.

MmmBarack, bop ba doo bop, bidee bob ba doo bop, bop ba doo I don't like Sen. Clinton very much.

This site will live-blog the New Hampshire primaries for at least some part of this evening. I know this interests no one but me, my co-blogger and one of our readers, but really, when has this site ever cared about pleasing you? Not since Tits Week!

I spent much of today feeling grateful for Howard Dean's old campaign and thinking about why Bill Clinton is a blight. Maybe you'll have that to anticipate, as well.

Stay tuned!


7:31 p.m.: When Tom Brokaw and Tim Russert share camera time with Chris Matthews, I imagine they think the same things I do when I'm having a conversation with "Flop." Something like, "How did I end up in the company of this excitable, rambling madman, and what can I do to extract myself?"

7:42 p.m.: Exclusive scoop! Commenter Oops Pow Surprise has reported in the comments (on this site!) that Hillary Clinton currently is behind by 70 percent. For its part, MSNBC just spent several minutes talking about crying, when crying is appropriate, etc.

7:52 p.m.: I've revised the headline per dmbmeg's suggestion. This is an interactive process tonight, you see. Speak up and let your voice be heard.

7:59 p.m.: MSNBC promises exit poll results at the top of the hour. I'd love to put this liveblog to a rest by about 9 or 9:30. I bought a PS3 over the weekend and would like to turn my attention to Assassin's Creed.

8:01 p.m.: Oh, yikes. Too close to call between Clinton and Obama. That is not what I expected or wanted. Uh ... huh.

8:10 p.m.: Not wanting to repeat my experience in 2004, when it took me months to get behind John Kerry, I've been very careful this year not to get too passionate about one candidate. I'll support any of the Democrats, and I logically know this, but after Obama won on Thursday my passions went up and I looked forward to the Clintons disappearing as soon as possible. I'm not excited about the possibility or reorienting.

8:13 p.m.: MSNBC calls the Republican race for McCain. I've spent most of the primary season steeling myself for a Clinton-Romney election, but an Obama-McCain or Obama-Huckabee election seems like a much more grown-up process.

8:23 p.m.: The MSNBC panel is agreeing that the primary season has been "perfect" for Rudy Giuliani. He is presently running a distant fourth in New Hampshire and lost badly in Iowa. The mind reels.

8:34 p.m.: In news that actually matters, I am not happy with Rich Rodriguez's effort to chase Ryan Mallet out of town and to essentially predict Mario Manningham's departure when retention appears to be an open question. I like my coaches to shut the fuck up in public, please. I'm trying to be positive and keep an open mind, I swear, but he isn't making it easy.

8:44 p.m.: Nothing happening, so I will briefly pimp a blog I like that I don't see cited many other places. Any time I miss the Midwest, it's a good antidote.

8:54 p.m.: Outside of the Bush family, no one in American politics is more insufferable than Mitt Romney.

8:55 p.m.: I have a sickening case of Clinton fatigue already. The whole thing is like a nightmare on re-run. That idiot Ann Lewis is back, speaking for the campaign on MSNBC. In her Iowa speech, the camera showed Madeline Albright, Wes Clark and Bill Clinton in the background, and I had this sick flopping feeling in my gut. All that's missing was Janet Reno and Dick Morris and some wretched betrayal of Lani Guinier. I keep trying to persuade myself that I can support her. It does not feel good at all.

9:11 p.m.: This is going to be my last evening of live-blogging. Right now, I feel a lot like this:


Thankfully, John McCain is giving a dull, hackish, standard Republican acceptance speech, because otherwise I'd be having an imaginary three-way negotiation between myself, Hillary Clinton and the devil about whether I could vote Republican instead of Clinton.

9:26 p.m.: The MSNBC people disapprove of McCain's speech. It was dull, but the cackling and hooting is a little much. I guess it was the reverse Dean Scream.

9:33 p.m.: Clinton is going to win tonight, and goddammit fuckitall motherfuck, and this is what I get for thinking voters in this country would do the right thing for once. Shit.

10:33 p.m.: NBC New Hampshire for Clinton. Brian Williams calls Sen. Clinton "the new comeback kid." Vomit.

It's on to Assassin's Creed. Good night.

11:20 p.m.: “I listened to you,” said Mrs. Clinton. “And in the process I found my own voice.”

As always with the Clintons, it comes back to narcissism and condescension. I cannot fathom why people support her.

"There Will Be Blood"

I saw There Will Be Blood over the weekend. It's the finest movie I know since The Thin Red Line was released in 1998. There are a small number of great books where the key issues are never settled and the motivations are unclear. This movie is like that; I can't think of any others. I've read reviews where the interpretations share nothing in common. I did not see the story of a born lunatic, but of a shrewd businessman who channels all of his emotion into control and mastery of land. When he tries to simulate a family, the efforts are wrecked by causes he can't control. From that point forward, he must control everything and trust no one. It's about displacing emotions into real property. In suffering for his repression, Daniel Plainview is more like Newland Archer than Bill the Butcher. Newland Archer spent the rest of his life quietly miserable, but Plainview wants revenge against the world.

There are many other ways to view all of this, and none of us has definitive evidence. This movie is full of mysteries. Are Paul and Eli the same person? Was H.W. really just a prop? What was Daniel thinking during his first physical confrontation with Eli? I have opinions about the closing sequence and why people say the things they do, but getting into detail would deprive you of the experience. In much of this movie, I think that when people say extreme things they mean the opposite.

After more than an hour of bleak sandy landscape there is a sequence in green groves and farmlands, and it feels like a tease and reminder, that outside of the bleak landscape and monstrous actions there is a calmer, cooler world. I can't think of any other movie where set design, lighting and scoring are so forceful but never distracting. You feel the sand, heat and darkness, and when it moves to a few brief scenes of foliage and water, there is a great sense of relief. Paul Thomas Anderson uses light and color in a mimetic way, the way a great novelist uses words. That's not unique, but I've never seen it done so well. When it ended, I wondered if this is what it was like to read the modernists when they first published or see the impressionists when they first painted -- to walk away from a work and feel like you've seen a comfortable form of expression turned inside out.

Success!

When Barack Obama won Iowa last night, it was the first time that a presidential candidate I've supported won an election. In 2000, it was McCain and Bradley in the primaries and Gore in the general; then Dean/Kerry in '04. In '96 it was Bob Dole -- I don't remember who I liked in the primaries. Recalling my mindset from that time, it was Steve Forbes, probably.

Michigan won a game that truly mattered for the first time in years. I've had games where nightmares about a loss woke me up in the middle of the night, but this week I had two mornings where I woke up before 8 a.m. due to good dreams about the team.

Today the cold air smells a little cleaner, the cigarettes taste a little tastier, my shoulders feel a little lighter and my messed-up hair looks a little perkier. The world feels right and joyous. I wonder if this is how normal people feel every day.

I kan haz kawkus LOLzy? Another liveblogging experience

Why, hello friends.

There's an informal tradition on this site that political spectacles get a special live-blogging treatment. This tries all of our patience, true, but what else is new?

Tonight:


I'm going to be flipping between MSNBC's maniacal belching and the maniacal belching of the Fox team announcing the Orange Bowl. At around 9 p.m., Chris Matthews joined Keith Olberman on a set that resembles nothing less than a day-glo blue electronic cathedral. I'm not much into aesthetics myself, so upon regarding something and thinking, "My, that's hideous," perhaps it's a sign that something is going wrong.

Matthews already has declared Obama a "man of the third world" and a Kenyan, then said that if Obama wins Iowa it will be as big as Ronald Reagan beating Jimmy Carter in 1980. Not quite, but the man just gets so excitable that he loses control of the syllables that spill out of that Stay-Puft little head.

9:06 p.m.: MSNBC has called the Republican race for Huckabee. I've got a little fondness for him, but we're not here to talk about that kind of stuff tonight.

9:07 p.m.: Oh, hi, friends. Dinner has just been delivered, from a nice little restaurant called Odessa on Avenue A. I shall be dining on the Odessa Dinner Combination, a nice little platter that includes a stuffed cabbage, kielbasa and pierogies. It promises to be delicious. Won't you join me? Pour yourself a nice cup of cocoa, snuggle up by the hearth, and let's enjoy a cold winter's night of caucusing, Orange Bowl and fellowship.

9:13 p.m.: The lovely and very bright panel on MSNBC are ringing the death bells of Mitt Romney's campaign (this would please me enormously) and predicting a McCain-Huckabee contest. Wouldn't that be nice?

9:16 p.m.: In news that actually matters, I'm learning that Kansas is beating Virginia Tech 10-0 early in the second quarter. This would be another nice surprise after the West Virginia win yesterday and the Michigan win on Tuesday, right? I've really enjoyed Todd Reesing this fall, and the portly visage of his large-pored coach, and would be pretty delighted to see a Kansas upset. And you know, I really dislike most Cinderellas in college football -- Cinderella is a euphemism for unexposed, Colt Brennan. Kansas, on the other hand, has often played very good football. This would be a nice win.


9:21 p.m.: Chris fuckin' Matthews is preoccupied with establishing a narrative that we'll have a presidential race between a Kenyan and an evangelical preacher.

9:25 p.m.: Goodness, friends! MSNBC has called the caucus for Iowa. That could bring this experience to a quick conclusion. Cue Chris Matthews: "This is Lexington and Concord. ... a guy named Barack Hussein Obama ... grew up in Indonesia ... on a victory projectile to win the Democratic nomination." Matthews also went on at great length about Nancy Pelosi's challenges as Senate majority leader.

9:29 p.m.: Chris Matthews has identified this evening as a triumph for blacks and a setback for women. Mr. Matthews shall not be invited to dine at my hearth and sip the house cocoa.

9:31 p.m.: Kansas 17, Virginia Tech 0. I just invented a cheer: "Hook 'em, 'hawks!"

9:39 p.m.: Sad news: VaTech just scored, friends. 17-7 with 1:24 left in the half. I caught the tail end of the drive. If Fox's announcers are to be credited, Virginia Tech has just found success with the run, and should continue to run.

9:42 p.m.: Serious Interval. I really despise when political journalists go out to the countryside and marvel at that thoughtfulness of the yeomen who participate in the political process. This is wrong for two reasons. First reason: No shit there are people not living in metropolises who know things and give a damn. Second reason: I'm sure plenty of those people are petty, vengeful, ignorant pricks, too. Just because they went to public school doesn't make them marvels.

9:54 p.m.: Chris Matthews to Obama campaign manager: "What is your candidate's appeal to younger women as opposed to older women?"

9:57 p.m.: Oh, gracious, friends. I'm sad to report that the halftime show of the Orange Bowl features ZZ Top playing "Sharp Dressed Man" while a squadron of girls in shiny silver dresses shake their booties on the field. It's like an early Puffy video for the trailer park set. (I can say this because I am both an Eastern elite and a member of the trailer park set.)


10:04 p.m.: I will vote Duncan Hunter for president if he promises that Fox will never have another BCS contract.

10:17 p.m.: Odd. Fox announcers just reported that Kansas was concerned about in-game rain because Todd Reesing's hands "are not real big." Huh.

10:21 p.m.: I know what Barack Obama, John Edwards and Mike Huckabee are not: vacant-eyed robot Stepford candidates who have lived depraved existences dedicated to the accumulation of power. There are many reasons not to like them, but it might be nice to wake up one morning in 2009 with a president who has lived a normal life and done many normal things, whether or not we personally can identify with those things.

10:26 p.m.: How is your cocoa? Tasty? Yum.

More high horse, friends! I have learned to live with the possibility of a second Clinton presidency. Flanked by Bill, Madeline Albright, Tom Vilsack and Wes Clark, she gave a great little concession speech focused more on the Democratic Party than her own candidacy. I really liked it. It was a little pep rally for a Democratic victory in November. But you watch that crew and hope that their time has passed. They've been visionless leaders, and if they're slightly less responsible than their rival dynasty for the past 20 years of untrammeled greed, dishonesty and bloodlust, they carry a significant share of the responsibility, regardless of party affiliation. Obama, Edwards and Huckabee are all game-changers. Hillary Clinton is part of the problem. I would love for that era to pass.

Now is the time on Cole Slaw when we dance.

New Year's Resolutions: 2008

This year, I resolve to ...

Stop taking first dates to Pax, visibly sighing when they order the specialty soup, then coming home and watching old episodes of Charles in Charge, hoping that Nicole Eggert or Josie Davis will be wearing something that shows her navel.

Stop choosing the "Bill Me Later" option when buying tickets on Continental.com, then hiding in my bedroom when angry pilots come knock on my door, demanding that I pay up, because "Larry don't like deadbeats."

Just write a check for $100 to my high school's general fund and be done with it this time, rather than insisting on a breakdown based on departments and teachers I liked and disliked, even if the Classics department said it was no big deal that they were stuck with Domino while Modern Languages got Sugar in the Raw.

Take the steps, unless the floor I'm going to is really high. In which case, I can take the elevator, but I have to walk in place the whole time.

Start every day with 25 pushups, 25 situps and and an apple. Pears would also do.

Not start smoking, like I have for each of the past 30-some years.

Finally submit that draft proposal of a new MTA Subway map, renaming each line for a prominent figure in New York City and State history, to Albany. The 4-5-6 will be the George, James and DeWitt Clinton lines; the 1-2-3 can be the Mario, Andrew and Chris Cuomo lines. Moynihan gets the A train. Mets fans will come to know and love that the Gouverneur Morris is the only way to get to Citifield.

Finally read all the books on my shelves I haven't yet. Including: The Oresteia, The Sun Also Rises, 1991 Cleveland Indians media guide.

Stop hiding alarm clocks set to 5:37 a.m. in various corners of CrimeNotes' apartment every time I visit.

Masturbate less furtively. Even if my girlfriend is trying to sleep next to me. It's a doberman, let it have its ears.

Finally start using that Nordic Track.

Gameday photos

It's pretty much impossible to get a decent game photo from the stands, especially if you're more interested in watching the game than photographing it. Here are a few from the Cap One Bowl. I'll leave it to others to discuss the game itself. It was the first time I've cried in public since my age was in low single digits.

Warmups! I'm happy to have a photo with Hart and Henne in one shot, even if it's not great. Astute observers will note Fred Jackson on the far right. At this point I turned to my friend and said, "I don't care that we're going to lose. I'm really glad I came."

Gators and Wolverines line up. My perception of SEC fans is a pack of screaming Jim Beam-fueled rednecks sodomizing deep-fried turkeys in front of their RVs. I found the Florida fans civil, well mannered and friendly before and after the game. In the hotel, in restaurants and at the game, I heard nothing but good wishes and congratulations. Strangely, about 10 minutes before kick-off a middle-aged in full Buckeyes regalia took a seat next to us. I wondered what it would be like to get ejected from a game for fighting (they sell beer at the Citrus Bowl, and I took advantage) but he cheered loudly for the Wolverines. At halftime I shared my hopes to see Ohio State crush LSU. In our row, their was love among the Big 10.

Halftime! The other side of his sign read, "Win one 4 Lloyd."

We sat right behind the band. I love watching games with the band.

The game was over. Lighting was terrible by then, so sadly this was the best shot of the field that I managed to get. Long, Hart and Henne are on the podium at this point.


Florida fans left quickly. After the loss to Ohio State in November, I stood in the rain after most Michigan fans left. I watched the Buckeyes run to the sliver of OSU fans in a mostly empty Michigan Stadium and watched their post-game celebrations through Carmen Ohio. As miserable and lonely as that felt, I felt its opposite as Henne took his final (healthy!) knee, the band began playing, and a contingent of the team ran to our corner of the field to celebrate.

I've never seen a Michigan crowd so involved in a game, from kickoff through conclusion. At the Rose Bowl, at Ohio State games: the intensity of the Michigan fans on Tuesday was unprecedented in my experience. It was like being in a students' section for the entire game. Everyone stood, and everyone screamed. Once the post-game ceremonies wrapped, the chants carried down to the men's room, and for a bizarre ten-second interval, there was a sort of tunnel of fans lined up waiting their turn and cheering on everyone walking out.

"What a happy day you've given me to remember the rest of my life."

Now, for a cheer, they are here triumphant ...

After Michigan had done it, after the seniors had finally won a bowl game, after they'd beaten the defending national champions on what might as well have been their own field, the players went to Lloyd Carr, and lifted him up on their shoulders. It was long overdue.

How perfect was that? Seeing Lloyd, beaming, hoisted into the air. And because he's Lloyd, after a few seconds, he started banging on their shoulder pads, telling them to let him down because he had to go shake the opposing coach's hand.

Urban Meyer, defeated in a bowl game for the first time at Florida clasped Lloyd's hand and then listened to what the now-retired coach had to say.

"Someday you're going to retire and your guys are going to play as hard as my guys played," Carr told him.

Maybe. It's hard to imagine players who love their coach more than Michigan's do Lloyd. As Shawn Crable, who could have been buried for some technically dunderheaded plays that may have cost Michigan important games at Ohio State last year and against Appalachian State this year said:

"He made me into a man ... I was 18 when I came here. I had just turned 18 and I thought I knew everything. He was more than just a coach. He understood was coaching was, but he also understood what turning out men took. I know a lot more. I can handle myself in different situations."He took a lot of boys who thought they were men and turned them into real men."

And that he did so with compassion, dignity, and yes, even that oft-misused term, class, is why even those who never played a down for the man love him so. Under his leadership, Michigan has been as close to the ideal of collegiate athletics as you can get while still kicking ass at the highest level of the game. We love that. We really, really do, and not everyone gets it.

It's easy to think that Michigan is some weird little arrogant enclave, cut off from the rest of the college football world by spread offenses, multimillion-dollar coaches and a new brand of focused, NFL-style coaches. If you thought that, and you're not a Michigan fan, then you can be forgiven. Because it can certainly look that way at times if you don't slow down to take a longer look.

What makes Michigan special, what makes me proud to be represented by Lloyd Carr, Shawn Crable, Mike Hart, Chad Henne and others, is that Michigan seems to be one of the few remaining fanbases that realizes college football is just that. It's college football.

Although it's easy to forget, what with a national worldview formed by ESPN chatters, blogospheric one-upsmanship and columnists who parachute into our world to provide a Brooksian take before returning to their nests lined with old clippings of articles about Bill Parcells. But this is an amateur sport, played by mostly teenagers, for the enjoyment of students, alums and fans. Winning is NOT everything. Although playing hard to do just that most certainly is.

In the NFL, coaches call time outs a fraction of a second before the ball is snapped for a winning field goal. In the NFL, coaches cut nonperformers in a heartbeat. In the NFL, winning really is everything, and those who can't win are shown the door. Because lovable losers just don't exist at that level, and seats will get empty fast. At any given time in the pros, there's a handful of teams who are just cycling coaches in and out the door until they get a spark. My own pro team did that for a while, and it really, really sucks ass. If the Browns hadn't broken out the way they did this, year, the media and fans would have been clamoring for Romeo Crennel's handsomely mustachioed head on a platter (presumably surrounded by a stadium-mustard reduction). There's a few college programs that do that, too, and some of their fans even seem to revel in it. Maybe purgatory can be a blast, but that sounds like hell to me.

I don't want my university's team to be like a pro team. It's tough to talk about ideals and stuff like that without wandering over on to the preachy side of things, but, yes, I really do want Michigan to represent ideals like sportsmanship, fair play, hard work, education and, yes, seriously good football. Considering them the equal of any other team in one's fan portfolio is missing the point.

Pro teams are assemblages of people who came to their team for a reason beyond their control. They were either drafted, and had no say in it, or the whims of the market brought them there.

Michigan's football players came there of their own free will. They looked at the other possibilities and made a decision, just like all the rest of us who went to school there. Sure, when I sent in my housing deposit, I wasn't thinking of my NFL draft prospects, but I was thinking about my future just the same. I came to Ann Arbor, I looked around and said: Yes, this could be home.

And so did everyone on that roster. It's fundamentally different from the pros, where there's a payroll to be met, seats to fill, scoreboard graphics to design, beer prices to set, T-shirt guns to buy, naming rights to be sold and all that other nonsense.

College football really is different. No matter how much ESPN, the BCS, Fox Sports and a good deal of fans are dragging the game toward the other trappings of professionaldom. Just win, baby is not the lowest common denominator. At least, not at Michigan.

Lloyd Carr got that, and then some. And that, more than the Big Ten titles, national championship and sustained success, is why he will be missed.

* * *

"So gentlemen, what a happy day you have given me to remember the rest of my life.” -- Lloyd Carr, concluding the final postgame speech of his career after Michigan beat Florida 41-35 in the Capital One Bowl, Jan. 1, 2008.

Us too, Lloyd. Us too.