Two wholly unrelated gems have popped up in Andrew Sullivan's "Daily Dish" today. One is a heartening video of a thoughtful, apparently exhausted Barack Obama talking about his decision to leave his old church and about yesterday's decisions handed down by the Democratic National Party's Rules and By-Laws Committee.
The video is all the more interesting for the fact that Obama doesn't mention the diplomatic moves he made to ensure that the decisions could be made. And for the contrast between the demeanor of the Obama campaign throughout this challenge. We will make no more comments at this time on the appalling nature of the Clinton camp and its boosters.
The other gem from Sullivan gets reposted here so it doesn't get lost. It's a keeper. It's from "Fossils," a poem by Rutgers professor J. Barbarese.
When he was young he used to spend the whole summer
in the abandoned slag heaps around the old mines
outside the city of Scranton. It would take him hours
to pick through the shale stacks, the sweat writing lines
in the dust on his face, and the old ball peen hammer
slung from his belt pinching his belly button.
Some days there was nothing to read but the signatures
of ice and erosion and tools. Then he'd find one,
a slate unnaturally filigreed with the fright masks
of a trilobite, ferns, the inferior commissures
of ancient clams. He would wrap them in moist newspaper
and carry them carefully home. Once his teacher asked
him to talk to the class about fossils.
Satan plants them to trick us,
he said. When I get home I smash them to pieces.
Well, maybe the two gems are not unrelated.
Also, via Andrew Sullivan, this bit of wisdom from Matthew Yglesias:
... People who are seriously drawn to Hillary Clinton's plans on health care, climate change but also think they might vote for John McCain in the fall rather than the candidate with plans that are very similar to Clinton's are being a bit confused. People who are seriously drawn to Clinton on feminist grounds but are considering staying home in the fall so McCain can replace John Paul Stevens with another justice in the mold of Alito or Roberts really need to think harder.
Maybe -- just maybe -- Hillary Clinton has an ounce or two more maturity and political savvy than her slimy surrogate, Mr. Ickes.
... Despite the fireworks, Mrs. Clinton’s associates said she seemed to have come to terms over the last week with the near certainty that she would not win the nomination, even as she continued to assert, with what one associate described as subdued resignation, that the Democrats are making a mistake in sending Mr. Obama up against Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee.
Her associates said the most likely outcome was that she would end her bid with a speech, probably back home in New York, in which she would endorse Mr. Obama. Mrs. Clinton herself suggested on Friday that the contest would end sometime next week.
Or maybe not?
But that is not a certainty; Mr. Obama’s announcement on Saturday that he would leave his church was just another reminder of how events continue to unfold in the race. She has signaled her ambivalence about the outcome, continuing to urge superdelegates to keep an open mind and consider, for example, the number of popular votes she has won.
There are still 150 undecided superdelegates, in spite of pressure from all side. One has to ask ,what are they thinking?
