Blogging on Meds

Proof that evil existis… Bill O’Reilly, in his new book, uses his existence to argue against Atheism. Seriously. Really! I read this on Oxdown Gazette… it made my day.

Bill writes:

Next time you meet an atheist, tell him or her that you know a bold, fresh guy, a barbarian who was raised in a working-class home and retains the lessons he learned there.

Then mention to that atheist that this guy is now watched and listened to, on a daily basis, by millions of people all over the world and, to boot, sells millions of books.

Then, while the non-believer is digesting all that, ask him or her if they still don’t believe there’s a God!

REMINDER: God also made Manson, Hitler and Mark Levin - all pretty successful dudes by their own standards.

Sweet Jesus, I hate BillO

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The strange tale of Max Mosley, the head of Formula One, who was caught on video in a Nazi-themed sex orgy with five prostitutes, gets stranger. He’s suing the News of the World, which secretly videotaped the orgy, for an invasion of privacy. Mosley claimed that he was doing something in private with five consenting women, and the only reason he’s under fire is because his father was the leader of the British Union of Fascists and Hitler’s friend.

Mr Mosley was caught on video by the News of the World with five women in an underground “torture chamber” in Chelsea, where he spent several hours allegedly indulging in sado-masochistic sex. The Oxford-educated former barrister, who is president of the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), reenacted a concentration camp scene in which he played the role of both guard and inmate. Speaking in German and brandishing a leather whip, he beat the women after allowing himself to be subjected to a humiliating inspection for lice and an interrogation in chains.

In his defense, Mosley said that he could think of “few things more unerotic than Nazi roleplay.” Clearly, he’s never heard of stalags.

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Sports Blog Wars

I’m Jewish; Nazis suck. But I also recognize that had Hitler not pussied out on Operation Sea Lion and invaded the UK, we’d all be speaking German. Likewise, had he not gone south to annex Czech-ville before heading to the USSR, the German Army may well have taken Stalingrad pre-winter and we’d all be sprechen deutsch. Actually, I’d never have been born, but whatevs.

Somehow, our boy ‘Dolf came up in a b-ball column on ESPN’s website a few weeks ago. A black woman, Jemele Hill, compared rooting for my beloved Celtics as akin to rooting for Hitler. What I think she meant was that it was like rooting for Citi or GE, but her next sentence featured Gorby, so she was on a politically metaphorical level. It was a dumb statement, that’s all.

But these b-ball fans at Red’s Army ran a “Let’s Get Jemele Hill Fired” post:

For those who don’t know,Jemele Hill is a horrible sports journalist. I once watched her host Jim Rome’s show and thought to myself, “A high-school kid could do a better job.” She’s attacking the Celtics in her latest ESPN Page 2 column…but here’s a line sure to piss some people off:

“Rooting for the Celtics is like saying Hitler was a victim. It’s like hoping Gorbachev would get to the blinking red button before Reagan.”

Amazingly, that line made it past the editors at ESPN.com (Journalism 101 - Rule 1.1 - Never reference Hitler). As Deadspin so deftly points out, someone finally had the smarts to take it down. For me, that’s not good enough. Let’s email ESPN and demand Hill be fired for the simple reason that we shouldn’t be exposed to her garbage any longer.

Jemele got fired, and gave this interview:

You posted something on your personal blog saying you got e-mails calling you the N-word. How many such e-mails did you get?

A lot. But I hesitate to get into that because I’m not a victim and I don’t want it to come off like I’m saying, ‘Oh, look what happened to me.’ These are the consequences of my action. It doesn’t give anybody the right to call me that, and this is the nastiest batch of mail I’ve received, ever, in my 11-year career. But I don’t want that to be the focus.

To which Red’s Army responded:

I’m hoping… HOPING… that none of you sent that sort of email to her.  If you did… I would invite you to never come back.  That beyond worse than what she wrote.  What she wrote was dumb.  What people said in those emails was disgusting and hateful.  It kills me to read things like that.

I just don’t get people sometimes.

In between these episodes (Red A’s firing campaign, her firing, the n*gger emails, and Red A’s denouncing of n*gger emails), we at Med A engaged in a battle with Red’s A over whether Boston was a racist city. Red A accused Anthony of using generalizations when describing Boston’s racism. In fact, Anthony used specifics. He along with many others at Med A have seen the Boston police single out people of color for lesser crimes than we were committing at the exact same time. We’ve seen entire black neighborhoods paved over to make way for college dorms. And so on.

Red’s A countered by saying: “Racism, obviously, still exists in EVERY city… not just Boston. Boston has gone to great lengths to combat it. But times change… and even incidents of racism in certain cities shouldn’t color the entire city as racist.”

Actually, few northern cities are as racially segregated as Boston. Fewer still have as deep a pervading mistrust of one another as Boston’s blacks and whites.

Finally, it seems Red A’s campaign against Hill led to many-a-racist emails, further proving that racism is a Boston forte. Red’s A should have listened to us when we said a crusade of protest against a young, female, black sportswriter would lead to further racism. We suggested their petition would be better directed at, say, the genocide in Darfur or crisis in Zimbabwe. Or maybe they should have just stuck to sports writing and not ventured into journalism ethics.

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For months now, Egypt has been borkering talks between Israel and Hamas, and it looks like both sides have agreed to a temporary cease-fire. This is potentially good news for both sides, as Israeli towns in the Southern part of the country might finally see some relief from daily rocket attacks, and the economic blockade of Gaza could be partially lifted. Of course, this is the Middle East, and past cease-fires haven’t held for long, so there is plenty of reason to be cautious. Israel has threatened a wide-scale incursion of Gaza if the rocket attacks don’t stop, so it’s critical that the cease-fire holds. An Israeli incursion into Gaza to wipe out Hamas would undoubtedly lead to large civilian casualties given that Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on earth (in 2005, the UN ranked the Palestinian Territories 13th most densely populated out of 241 countries). Plus, Israel might be far more heavy-handed in Gaza than it normally would be given the debacle in Lebanon when they fought Hezbollah. The Israeli military might have something to prove after fighting Hezbollah to a stand-still, which suggests that a Gaza battle could be especially brutal.

Israel has been negotiating on three fronts recently, with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syria. Some analysts are hinting that the reason for this three-pronged diplomatic push is to take the pressure off of Israeli Prime Minister Olmert, who’s caught up in a campaign finance scandal, but it seems like the indirect Syria-Israel talks originally began last year, before the scandal was really out in the open, so I’m not sure if that’s correct.

Anyway, the talks with Syria, conducted through Turkey, were revealed a few weeks, and the two sides just wrapped up two days of talks in Turkey. The broad outline of any deal between the two would be the return of the Golan Heights to Syria for Syria giving up support for Hamas and Hezbollah, normalizing ties with Israel, and working out details on sharing water and outlining borders. With respect to the possible deal with Hezbollah, Israel would swap Samir Kuntar, a Lebanese man who was given four life sentences for killing four people, including a four year old girl, in an attack in 1979, for two Israeli soldiers that Hezbollah captured in 2006. 

Considering that Bush was in Israel just a few weeks ago and called Obama’s suggestion to negotiate with Cuba, Syria, and Iran similar to Chamberlin’s appeasement of Hitler, I wonder when we’ll hear from Bush on Israel’s new-found diplomatic push. Surely Israel’s decision to negotiate with two terrorist groups and a state-sponsor of terrorism is appeasement according to Bush’s logic, right? Wrong. The White House fully supports the cease-fire. It’d be nice if some reporters pressed Bush on this point.

Peace on the horizon?

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ESPN Page 2 columnist Jemele Hill has everyone heated with her controversial comments that were pulled from her latest article :

Rooting for the Celtics is like saying Hitler was a victim. It’s like hoping Gorbachev would get to the blinking red button before Reagan.

The column got past her editors with this comment which isn’t surprising because they let Bill Simmons submit the same article every fucking day. Just a side note, does he have a “Sports Guy Column Generator” that spits out tired 1980s guy pop culture references in Men’s Mag Slang centered around a Boston team or his latest man-crush? Bad news Bill, Karate Kid sucks, Star Wars sucks, the Godfather is long and fucking boring and you have Bank Teller hair. Now back to Jemele, in keeping with ESPN Page 2’s style, she’s a terrible writer and she used a pretty raw comparison. Hitler and 9/11 comparisons normally result in someone going “Whoaaaa man stop it don’t go there!” as if some imaginary line has been crossed that could only be crossed by a complete asshole. I don’t have a problem with people making such comparisons, when Katie Holmes’ tits are described as the opposite of the holocaust it was cool and what Jemele did is cheap, in poor taste for an ESPN writer but the Celtics fans, especially the ones that call Boston their home are the ones who are offending me right now.

Everyone is upset in Boston, popular fan site Red’s Army is calling for her to be fired and wbztv.com posted some fan responses yesterday :

“We’re not talking about war; we’re talking about basketball,” one fan outside the Garden said. “How can you compare Hitler to a basketball game?”

“I don’t think you can say Hitler is a victim no matter what the circumstance is. That’s over the top,” another fan said.

These responses sicken me, Celtics fans are as fucking soft as the Celtics’ performance in the 4th quarter of Game 5. Boston Massachusetts is a city that was pissed off that a Holocaust Memorial was being constructed downtown too close to whatever the fucking Bank World Dunkin Donut Garden Center was called that week and too close to the Italian district, the North End. How dare they make us remember Holocaust victims while we’re staring at a statue of Paul Revere en route to a Celtics game (who the fuck went to Celtics games in 1995) belly stuffed full of carbs from the North End. This is a city built on racism, where Smitty O’Houlahan can blame anything he wants on a “nigger” and cops will turn the other red alcoholic cheek. Some area Jews didn’t even want the memorial in Boston because they felt it wasn’t an appropriate location. Downtown Boston is so fat and white that Jewish people actually felt bad breaking up that vibration

So now the poor fans are pissed off and are calling for the head of Jemele Hill the latest goat. It probably helps that she’s black as it’s easier for the city to rally against her. There is a bigger task at hand for the Celtics and their fans and that’s winning a Championship not whining about bad journalism and cheap shot comparisons.

Oh yeah, the Celtics fan side of myself would like to get a jab in though because that side of me is petty, Jemele your gummy grin and bulbous features are as shocking and offensive to me on this Tuesday afternoon as your attempts at journalism. Leave the vulgarity and cheap shot comparisons to bloggers, it’s all we have, you get the pay check, the paid appearances and fanfare, we just want to have exclusivity on swearing and Hitler comparisons if that’s cool with your fat ugly ass. Thanks.

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I listen to right wing radio on most of my commutes to and from the office each day. I listen to the constant looping of short controversial soundbites from Rev. Jeremiah Wright surrounded by pin-point opinions expressed that it’s their proof that Barack Obama will surely destroy America and the world.

But when it comes to the ridiculous sermons from McCain’s cheerleaders for the end of the world, antisemitism is presented as “biblically correct”, Hitler was only doing god’s work and Hagee is held up as “somebody who obviously loves the Jewish people” as said by a failed weatherman turned self-described “neo-con, theo-con” who likes to use the word “wetback” on his Bay Area conservative talk radio recently.
Though it’s not a stretch to say any of this… the bible has some pretty gnarly language that can be spun to validate whatever insane, violent and murderous theory that anybody can think up. Christians have been doing this for 2000 years, (Crusades anyone?) using the words of the bible to kill, control and defraud the population. Antisemitism is baked into the cake, but that doesn’t make it ok to keep around 2008 years later so you can claim Israel is our strongest ally (in concert with the Conservative world view) and court the Jewish voting block as your base while still condemning their people to the depths of hell. Unless, of course, you’re Hagee and you’re waiting for the world to end.

Wouldn’t it be nice if Americans would finally remember why the our country was founded partly on religious freedom? As our Constitution states in Article VI:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

Religious extremism in all forms seems (by a guess) to be on the rise but it’s far from new. When there’s urgent issues and problems to deal with for our future, religion is only part of the problem. So it’s time to re-take religion out of the equation and leave the pastors to preach their garbage in the confines of their holy houses.

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Whether you love him or hate him, Michael Moore is relevant.  And today via his blog, he decided to tell us why he would vote for Obama, if he could. (which he can’t.)

My Vote’s for Obama (if I could vote) …by Michael Moore

Friends,I don’t get to vote for President this primary season. I live in Michigan. The party leaders (both here and in D.C.) couldn’t get their act together, and thus our votes will not be counted.

So, if you live in Pennsylvania, can you do me a favor? Will you please cast my vote — and yours — on Tuesday for Senator Barack Obama?

I haven’t spoken publicly ’til now as to who I would vote for, primarily for two reasons: 1) Who cares?; and 2) I (and most people I know) don’t give a rat’s ass whose name is on the ballot in November, as long as there’s a picture of JFK and FDR riding a donkey at the top of the ballot, and the word “Democratic” next to the candidate’s name.

Seriously, I know so many people who don’t care if the name under the Big “D” is Dancer, Prancer, Clinton or Blitzen. It can be Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Barry Obama or the Dalai Lama.

Well, that sounded good last year, but over the past two months, the actions and words of Hillary Clinton have gone from being merely disappointing to downright disgusting. I guess the debate last week was the final straw. I’ve watched Senator Clinton and her husband play this game of appealing to the worst side of white people, but last Wednesday, when she hurled the name “Farrakhan” out of nowhere, well that’s when the silly season came to an early end for me. She said the “F” word to scare white people, pure and simple. Of course, Obama has no connection to Farrakhan. But, according to Senator Clinton, Obama’s pastor does — AND the “church bulletin” once included a Los Angeles Times op-ed from some guy with Hamas! No, not the church bulletin!

This sleazy attempt to smear Obama was brilliantly explained the following night by Stephen Colbert. He pointed out that if Obama is supported by Ted Kennedy, who is Catholic, and the Catholic Church is led by a Pope who was in the Hitler Youth, that can mean only one thing: OBAMA LOVES HITLER!

Yes, Senator Clinton, that’s how you sounded. Like you were nuts. Like you were a bigot stoking the fires of stupidity. How sad that I would ever have to write those words about you. You have devoted your life to good causes and good deeds. And now to throw it all away for an office you can’t win unless you smear the black man so much that the superdelegates cry “Uncle (Tom)” and give it all to you.

But that can’t happen. You cast your die when you voted to start this bloody war. When you did that you were like Moses who lost it for a moment and, because of that, was prohibited from entering the Promised Land.

How sad for a country that wanted to see the first woman elected to the White House. That day will come — but it won’t be you. We’ll have to wait for the current Democratic governor of Kansas to run in 2016 (you read it here first!).

There are those who say Obama isn’t ready, or he’s voted wrong on this or that. But that’s looking at the trees and not the forest. What we are witnessing is not just a candidate but a profound, massive public movement for change. My endorsement is more for Obama The Movement than it is for Obama the candidate.

That is not to take anything away from this exceptional man. But what’s going on is bigger than him at this point, and that’s a good thing for the country. Because, when he wins in November, that Obama Movement is going to have to stay alert and active. Corporate America is not going to give up their hold on our government just because we say so. President Obama is going to need a nation of millions to stand behind him.

I know some of you will say, ‘Mike, what have the Democrats done to deserve our vote?’ That’s a damn good question. In November of ‘06, the country loudly sent a message that we wanted the war to end. Yet the Democrats have done nothing. So why should we be so eager to line up happily behind them?

I’ll tell you why. Because I can’t stand one more friggin’ minute of this administration and the permanent, irreversible damage it has done to our people and to this world. I’m almost at the point where I don’t care if the Democrats don’t have a backbone or a kneebone or a thought in their dizzy little heads. Just as long as their name ain’t “Bush” and the word “Republican” is not beside theirs on the ballot, then that’s good enough for me.

I, like the majority of Americans, have been pummeled senseless for 8 long years. That’s why I will join millions of citizens and stagger into the voting booth come November, like a boxer in the 12th round, all bloodied and bruised with one eye swollen shut, looking for the only thing that matters — that big “D” on the ballot.

Don’t get me wrong. I lost my rose-colored glasses a long time ago.

It’s foolish to see the Democrats as anything but a nicer version of a party that exists to do the bidding of the corporate elite in this country. Any endorsement of a Democrat must be done with this acknowledgement and a hope that one day we will have a party that’ll represent the people first, and laws that allow that party an equal voice.

Finally, I want to say a word about the basic decency I have seen in Mr. Obama. Mrs. Clinton continues to throw the Rev. Wright up in his face as part of her mission to keep stoking the fears of White America. Every time she does this I shout at the TV, “Say it, Obama! Say that when she and her husband were having marital difficulties regarding Monica Lewinsky, who did she and Bill bring to the White House for ’spiritual counseling?’ THE REVEREND JEREMIAH WRIGHT!”

But no, Obama won’t throw that at her. It wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be decent. She’s been through enough hurt. And so he remains silent and takes the mud she throws in his face.

That’s why the crowds who come to see him are so large. That’s why he’ll take us down a more decent path. That’s why I would vote for him if Michigan were allowed to have an election.

But the question I keep hearing is… ‘can he win? Can he win in November?’ In the distance we hear the siren of the death train called the Straight Talk Express. We know it’s possible to hear the words “President McCain” on January 20th. We know there are still many Americans who will never vote for a black man. Hillary knows it, too. She’s counting on it.

Pennsylvania, the state that gave birth to this great country, has a chance to set things right. It has not had a moment to shine like this since 1787 when our Constitution was written there. In that Constitution, they wrote that a black man or woman was only “three fifths” human. On Tuesday, the good people of Pennsylvania have a chance for redemption.

Yours,
Michael Moore”

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Zimbabwean Government officials raided two hotels in Harare today. One housed the MDC’s headquarters, the other housed journalists. At least four foreign journalists have been arrested, one of them Barry Bearak of the New York Times.

Whether or not Mugabe is even going to bother with a fake run-off election at this point seems up in the air. Dictatorship might be fine for him, which is no surprise considering the man once said this:

“Hitler has only one objective: justice for his people, sovereignty for his people, recognition of the independence of his people and their rights over their resources. If that is Hitler, then let me be a Hitler tenfold.”

The U.S. State Department is calling for the immediate release of American citizens. Zimbabweans it seems are going to be fucked for another 30 years.

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The New York Times Co owns 10% of the Red Sox and all of the Boston Globe. Since tomorrow is opening day, let’s look at one of the team’s minority owners’ recent struggles.

Let me get this straight. A newspaper’s print circulation goes down from 1.2 million in 1993 to about 1.1 million a day over 15 years but at the same time increases it’s audience 50-fold online and it’s worth less money? Huh?

Reading Eric Alterman’s New Yorker story on the death of US newspapers—it’s all gloom and doom, end of this and that. But then I found these figures:

Maybe this is a well known fact, but I am not sure people realize how big The New York Times has become.

The New York Times is the leading global news brand with an audience of 74 million unique visitors a month. That compares to a circulation of the paper edition of 1.1 million daily and 1.6 million on Sundays.

Online, the NY Times gets 50 times the audience that it gets in paper form. Wow. Yahoo News is next with 67 million unique visitors a month, but they are aggregating news. Next is The Weather Channel with 44 million unique visitors per month.

I’m confused. How is a company that loses 10% of it’s print audience but gains 500% online a loser? Oh, wait, the people who keep hammering on this work on Wall St. You know, those same folks who ruined our economy. Wall St hate newspapers. Because newspapers’ websites can’t figure out how to make money, there’s no short term gain. Deutsche Bank—an awesome company who banked with our boy Herr Hitler—says sell your NYT stock. But looking at the numbers above, it seems newspapers should recover profitability in the near future. Here’s one example how…

Each week, online news sites try out new ways to attract people. Yes, there is information diffusion via independent blogs and the like, but consider a breaking story like Spitzer-gate. Every person in an office in America—or the people with all of America’s $$$—clicked on NYT.com two Mondays ago at 2:00pm. That had to worth some money, having America’s entire white collar class look at your site, right?

Some context: When Lohan was up on NYMAG.com nude, Portfolio estimated it was worth $1 million, had they harnessed the advertising potential. A low-end estimate of Spitzter-gate would be, say, $3 million, or the annual cost of the Times’ Baghdad bureau. Soon enough, websites will figure out how to maximize ad revenue on a breaking story.

It’s too early in the digital era to say newspapers are dead. WhoreGate was the Times’ first mega-scoop of the digital age. All this profit-related Wall St pressure must be ignored until newspapers figure out what their content is actually worth in the webosphere.

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A few Obama supporters I spoke to this morning expressed shock that Samantha Power would be forced to resign after calling Hillary Clinton a “Monster” in an interview. Were Power not Obama’s resident genocide expert (she’s best know as the author of A Problme from Heck, a 500 page book on America’s historical inaction to genocide) maybe I’d agree. But “Monster” in a political context reminds a lot of us Hebrews of some guy named Dolf Hitler. Monster=Pol Pot, not Senator Clinton.

Pot, Pol, Year Zero, Cambodia.

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All of the political fellatio/cunnilingus in the media has reminded me that politicians are still assholes at heart. Whether its artists trying to turn Obama into a Che Guevara commodity or washed up actors/lame sports fans (Jack Nicholson) making ads for Hillz, its all corny.

Ron Paul is a racist prick/faux populist, Dennis Kucinich seriously cares about UFOs, John McCain is just straight up fucking crazy, Hillary is a sleazy, money grubbing businesswoman and Obama is a sexyman with a nice smile who’s done nothing but pat himself on the back for not voting on things when he wasn’t even in Washington yet. The list could literally go on forever. Anyone who thinks these candidates will stick to all of the platforms they’re selling is fooling themselves.

That said, I love politics. I just don’t think the smoke and mirrors routine of making politicians out to be saviors is accurate. To successfully do business in Washington, Moscow, Islamabad or wherever, you have to be a lying scumbag. We elect these people to do our dirty work. Every time I vote*, I know I’m selling myself out a little bit, but that’s just how it goes. Spare me the politician as studly everyman/down to earth housemom schtick.

*my prez election voting record sucks…Clinton ‘96 (still back that one), Nader ‘00 (what the fuck was I thinking?), Kerry ‘04 (had to vote for someone besides GW).

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The Clintonization of 2008

Geoff Kenyon

Here are my favorite questions asked by the television media during coverage of the 2008 Presidential election: Is Barrack black enough for black voters? How much does Edwards spend on haircuts? Does Obama sound too much like Osama? Did Elizabeth Edwards get cancer on purpose? And the most important question of them all: Is the world ready for President Hillary Rodham Clinton?

Since the conclusion of the 2004 presidential election, no name Democrat or Republican has been mentioned more then Ms Clinton’s. Of the Dems, her main competition is Barrack Obama, who leads the Iowa polls, and John Edwards, who’s only one point behind Clinton in the latest Des Moines Register Poll before the Thursday’s election. If either can beat Clinton in Iowa, things will be far more interesting on Friday in New Hampshire. (I will be in the Granite State next weekend, so I’m hoping Clinton loses.)

That the Republican Party has failed to produce a truly likable candidate has been entertaining. The media has attempted to fall in love with one Republican candidate after another, but has also found it a daunting task.

Before the 06 Midterm elections, pundits placed McCain (the media darling at the time) as the leading Republican candidate. But in the month following the 06 elections the media turned on McCain. It started when the media hailed the Democrats’ victory a referendum on Iraq, they were appalled McCain didn’t back down from his war rhetoric but instead turned it up with Surge-talk. Then In April of 2007 McCain held a press conference and used his stroll through a Baghdad market place as evidence that the surge was working and that the American people were not be given the truth about Iraq. It was then reported that McCain was wearing body armor and had a small army with him. McCain’s poll numbers began to fall.

By early 2007, the spot for Republican media darling was open. The first contestant was Mitt Romney. But the public wasn’t buying. C’mon, a Mormon from the dreaded Liberal Massachusetts? Soon, Romney was labeled a flip flopping varmint hunter and tossed aside.

Next to step up: Rudy “Neverfuggaditabout 9/11” Giuliani. But the conservative base of the party is turned off by Mayor Rudy’s liberal record.

Then we went through Fred Thompson’s absurd charade—is he going to run for president? Before Fred even gives a televised speech or takes part in a debate, the media anoints him as the second coming of Regan. So when Thompson jumps in to the race he’s third in the national polls behind only Rudy and Romney.

Unfortunately, Thompson did eventually have to take center stage and he flopped–no charisma. So the media picks up on the Giuliani campaign’s spin, selling the idea that Rudy had already won the GOP nomination and was now running against only the wicked Hillary Clinton. I like to call this period the Clintonization” of the Republican primaries. Every other word out of Rudy’s mouth that wasn’t “Mayor” or “9/11” was now “Hillary”. The ploy worked and so began the rise of Rudy in the polls. Copying Rudy’s success, the other GOP candidates began Hillary Bashing, too. Then they were all campaigning against Hillary.

Around this time, the beginning of November, came the crowning moment of the Giuliani campaign: the endorsement from Pat Robertson, the chief Christian conservative. This showed the right believed Rudy was the only candidate who could defeat “The Devil Women” in a general election. Winston Churchill once said “If Hitler invaded Hell; I would at least make a favorable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.” This is how I felt about Pat Robertson’s decision to back Rudy Giuliani for the GOP nomination. There were plenty of candidates Thompson, Huckabee, Romney, and McCain who fit the more socially conservative norms of Christian Coalition than Rudy. But there is a bigger fear in the heartland–one more frightening then stem cell research, abortion, or gay marriage. And that fear is of President Hillary, a woman the right’s attempted to destroy for over a decade.

At this moment of the Robertson endorsement it looked as though Rudy was going to be the GOP winner. But now Mike Huckabee–a much more socially conservative Republican then the Mayor—is riding a wave of headlines. Huckabee is leading the polls in Iowa. The question is: If Huckabee wins Iowa, a state Giuliani has virtually conceded from the onset, can he replicate that success on a national stage? I say no. The reason? Again, Hillary. While Huckabee might be able to win a small rural state like Iowa, he will struggle to win support in many of the lager states out of fear that he will get whipped in the general election by Clinton.

Oh sweet irony! The Republican primary has never been about the GOP at all. Instead, it’s about a woman on the other ticket who hasn’t even won her own party’s nomination yet.

Geoff Kenyon teaches high school history in Connecticut

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