Who’s the most reactionary, sexist creep of all?

[Maybe you should send this guy on "skimmity ride".-ed. He's too illiterate to know what it is.]

Al Sharpton criticizing Barack Obama for urging non-violence in the Sean Bell verdict protest puts into dramatic relief the major racial conflict of our time – and it is inside the African-American community, not outside. Outdated racial profiteers like Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and now the formerly obscure Reverend Jeremiah Wright are clinging for dear life to their reactionary views that have impeded progress in their own community for years.

(You can read the rest of my hot-blooded screed on PJM.)

Al Sharpton criticizing Barack Obama for urging non-violence in the Sean Bell verdict protest puts into dramatic relief the major racial conflict of our time – and it is inside the African-American community, not outside. Outdated racial profiteers like Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and now the formerly obscure Reverend Jeremiah Wright are clinging for dear life to their reactionary views that have impeded progress in their own community for years.

(You can read the rest of my hot-blooded screed on PJM.)

It takes a lot of chutzpah to want to be President at the age of 46. I guess it take a lot of chutzpah in general, but, for me at least, the age problem is Obama’s, not McCain’s. In an era when 70 is the new 60, McCain’s age doesn’t seem a problem at all. [Aren't you being a bit self-serving there?-ed. Maybe.]

What’s interesting in this, however, is that both men trumpet being able to cross the line into bi-partisanship but only one of them has actually done it. I have been thinking about that for some time and was pleased to see Chris Wallace digging into the question:

WALLACE: And we are back now with Senator Barack Obama. Senator, one of the central themes of your campaign is that you are a uniter, who will reach across the aisle and create a new kind of politics. Some of your detractors say that you are a paint by the numbers liberal and I’d like to explore this with you.

OBAMA: Well, on issues of regulation, I think that back in the ’60s and ’70s, a lot of the way we regulated industry was top down command and control. We’re going to tell businesses exactly how to do things.

Blablabla…. Actually, Obama has done pretty near Zippitty Doo Dah in this regard in real life – and what puny amount he did didn’t come within a country mile of “risking his career” on it, as Wallace described McCain. In fact Barack could be called a Profile in Extreme Liberal Traditionalism as opposed to a Profile in Courage, to channel that other forty-something who ran for President in a very different era.

Of course Obama hasn’t had the chance to prove himself at all in this. And therein lies the point. In this day and age, only someone of unbelievable arrogance would think himself qualified to be President at 46. You can tell me that Kennedy served at the height of the Cold War – the Cuban Missile Crisis and all that – but I was there then and I remember. We had nowhere near the divided country that we have now in the post-Vietnam era. Now… reaching across the aisle, which was once pro-forma, is far more difficult, while being if anything more crucial. Someone who has walked the walk in that regard has the potential to be an invaluable leader. Someone who has just paid it lip service and then walked the other way is suspect from the outset.

MEANWHILE: This should go viral, although I wish the tempo had been a little faster and they flipped a few more cards… oh, well…

I used to be friends with Nora Ephron back in the day. [What day was that?-ed. You know, when "Hector was a pup!" Como? You're obviously not a Laker fan. If that's another of your Chick Hearn-isms, please get over yourself. Just as soon as the Nuggets win a game. Not fair.]

Okay, now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

As I was saying, one of the old saws of the left…. I mean the real left, back in the day… was the famous Maoist phrase about “breaking with old ideas.” This alluded to the obvious difficulty people have in breaking with their past way of thinking. Most of us have that problem. But, as yet an even hoarier cliché goes, what “goes around comes around.” And now those same leftists, especially those who were rewarded richly for their views, have a great deal of trouble facing new realities. Hey, as yet at least, it does not profit them to do so.

To wit: Ms. Ephron – who takes on “White Men” in what is now a highly-bourgeois screed on the Huffington Post, that comfortable home of the bourgeoisie. Nora still thinks the problem is los white guys. [Does that include bin Laden? He's a white guy too.-ed. As long as he doesn't vote Democratic.] Earth to Nora – the problem is Islamofacism. [You're wasting your time there.-ed. Yeah, you're right.] Anyway, I’m not even going to go on about how beloved Old Europe is far more racist and sexist than we are, etc., etc., because “breaking with old ideas” is hard. Bernard Chapin takes on Nora on PJM today from a more purely conservative stand point than I would, although he does a good job. Ideologically speaking, from my point of view, having broken with old ideas once, I’m not so keen on doing it again. I will remain a Groucho Marxist – as in, “I wouldn’t join a club that would have me as a member”…. most especially the fuddy-duddy club of 1972 revolutionaries Ephron seems to remain a member of. [Don't end with a preposition.-ed. But... And don't go quoting Churchill on me.]

Will people talk out of school? What accounts for the decline? Well, we know some – but there are undoubtedly be some interesting tid-bits. The big question is… Can Pinch take a punch?

Guilt-by-Association stinks.

Well, mostly.

There is the old saw “If you lie down with dogs, you get fleas.” And like a lot of those saws, there’s something to it.

And, if you’re running for president, I submit, the bar should be a bit higher than it is for the rest of us. Fewer fleas, as it were. [I'm glad you got some of that new stuff from the vet.-ed]

So speaking of fleas, there’s the Reverend Wright character who is trying to resurrect himself on Bill Moyers (where better?). On Pajamas Media the going is not so easy. From my point of view, identity politics is about as reactionary as it gets.

If I were a publisher, I’d snap up Charlie Martin’s article on PJM today as the basis for a future book on computing by Charlie. [I thought you were a publisher.-ed. Not of books. Not very generous of you - you made your living writing books for a number of years. You're hanging by a thread here.]

Used to be you made a prediction in print and it was gone in a day – lost in the morgue of some newspaper or the bowels of the public library. Nowadays, it’s written in indelible digital ink that can make you look almost instantly ridiculous- like the “wise words” of this basketball expert predicting a Nugget victory over the Lakers yesterday. What really happened is here.

Which leads me to that other sport – politics. I’m not makin’ any predictions here, but as that cliche of cliches goes, it ain’t over ’til it’s over and the fat lady sings at the end of the day. Hillary, as her most loyal of vassals Lanny Davis implies in The Top Ten List of Undisputed Facts Showing Barack Obama’s Weakness in the General Election Against John McCain could actually pull this one out. [I think Davis is a secret neocon.-ed. He'd never admit it to himself.]

Have a heart, Mickey. You may be right… in fact, no doubt you are… when you describe exit polls in general as “crappy” and then have the temerity to ask the logical question: “If the exit polls are this unreliable for press’ result-predicting purposes, why aren’t they also unreliable for all the scholarly purposes they are supposedly put to? Garbage is garbage, no?”

No! It’s something for pundits to chew on for hours of empty screen time while waiting for actual results to come in. What if they didn’t have this? They’d just have to… make stuff up. [Wait a minute. You just said the exit polls were essentially made up.-ed. Okay, now I'm confused. No surprise there. Okay, I'll give you the last word. Where'd I hear that before?]