On 2008



(image via usnews)

One has to give credit to the Machiavellian ease – ooze? -- of “Rudiani,” and we try on this blog quite hard not to fatten his already rather bulbous cranium with words of praise (Exaggerated cough suggesting feigned detachment). “Giulianius Maximus,” as we like to call him, managed to fix-up a dilapidated villa in the unfashionable left-end district of the Republican Party (Tenderloin?), as evidenced by his stance/s – Geminian? -- on abortion, thus cleverly immunizing himself against the potent advance of The Fred Thompson Virus, presently spreading at a feverish pace south of the Mason-Dixon line (Averted Gaze).

It doesn’t matter that Emperor Giulianius occupied several tracts of political real estate on the abortion issue. The sheer fact that no one else was operating in that area allowed Rudy ownership of that particular political property. And on a crowded Republican battlefield, it distinguishes him. A woman’s right to choose is also a tasty morsel to Independents, who occupy the same political space and in some states – like New Hampshire -- can vote in Republican primaries. Giulianus Machiavellius?

Fred Thompson’s well-timed portrayal of the all-but-forgotten Ulysses S. Grant on the besieged Home Box Office’s “Bury Me at Wounded Knee” might possibly win him an Emmy to – and how meta is this -- compete against Oscar winner Al Gore’s virtual lock on the Nobel Prize as they simultaneously contend for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Just thinking of it all gives The Corsair cognitive vertigo.

The rise of the less experienced and less battle-tested Fred Thompson within the fortified walls of the Republican Party at the expense of his good friend Senator John McCain is an astonishing thing to behold. The Republican Party, hierarchical in structure as a “Daddy Party” – emphasis on security and character -- ought to be, generally nominates according to seniority, oftentimes at the expense of victory. Senator Bob Dole’s hoary nomination as the Republican Party’s Presidential candidate in 1996 is the picture-perfect example of seniority over an Ice-Cubes-chance-in-Hell of winning the Presidency against the aggressively virile Bill Clinton.

It is said that George Stephanopoulos, in his previous, far more obnoxious incarnation as a Political Operative celebrated mightily when he heard that the ancient Bob Dole got the nomination to run against his guy. The fiery waters must have been flowing in the Democratic precincts that day. Stephanopoulous knew, to be sure, that American voters rarely vote backwards a generation unless given a particularly compelling reason to do so. Clinton, ever the archetypal Boomer, was not going to be the man to concede his Generation’s turn at the levers of Power.

And what an awesome, mighty Power it was. The Soviet Union lay broken by the silvery-haired Cold Warriors. Coming out of that decades-long-twilight-of-the-West struggle, Bush 41 – a most prominent Cold Warrior – was entirely unprepared to unveil a new “vision thing.” Hadn’t his generation just won the Cold War? Hadn’t he laid the abstract groundwork for the “Novus Ordo Seaculorum” where multilateral treaties would be honored – “Pacta Sunt Sevanda” – and International Law might, finally, be enforced with actual might and not just superpower posturing?

But it was the economy stupid, as H. Ross Perot and Bill Clinton knew and campaigned on in 1992. Abstract internationalism does not play well in Peoria. Perot, playing the Jacksonian populist, split the Bush Republican vote granting the Presidency – and a generational change in Power – to William Jefferson Clinton. Clinton’s boldness in running against a sitting President who had, at the time, a staggering 92 percent approval rating after the first Persian Gulf War had paid off. It was the Boomer’s turn; farewell, Cold Warriors, fare thee well.

Unfortunately, several key Democrats in the Senate -- silvery-haired elder statesmen, they -- felt better equipped than this ill-libidoed backwater Boy Governor to assume the mantle of Commander-in-Chief at this pivotal point in America’s history. America was the newly-minted most powerful nation on the face of the planet in 1992; if only Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia and Bill Bradley of the great state of New Jersey and others had not been paralyzed by Bush’s astonishing poll numbers at the time. A Democratic Presidency under Clintonian circumstances was bittersweet. The acrid distaste for Clinton was most evident in the committee battles over the First Lady’s Health Care proposal, so excellently laid out in Carl Bernstein’s new Hillary bio. Socially as well, the Clinton’s were never fully accepted fully in DC by the Sally Quinn set. Was that a factor in Stephanopoulos’ abandoning ship?

The Republican reception of a Clinton Presidency was no better. To this day, the Republicans are almost as bitter about that unexpected 1992 loss of the Presidency as of Watergate. After two terms of Reagan and one term of Bush, the Republican Party felt a measure of ownership over the White House. But it was not to be.

Has McCain’s time passed? The generational change from Bush, 41 to Clinton and the transition from Clinton to Bush makes it difficult at best to imagine a return to the Cold Warrior archetype. McCain, going for broke, made a Faustian bargain, marrying himself to the Bush Doctrine, in order to become the Bushies pony in 2008 (But the Florida branch of The Bushies are also hedging their bets with Romney). Did McCain sell his soul – his sterling reputation as a Truth teller – to become the heir apparent? Time, ultimately, will tell.