{"id":891,"date":"2008-09-02T08:19:04","date_gmt":"2008-09-02T08:19:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/?p=891"},"modified":"2008-09-02T08:19:04","modified_gmt":"2008-09-02T08:19:04","slug":"us-politics-still-weird","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/?p=891","title":{"rendered":"US Politics: Still Weird"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a citizen of the rest of the world, man, I gotta say, that Obama guy you got in your election race can sure deliver a hell of a speech. The acceptance speech at the Denver convention? That is a thing of beauty. Almost enough to make us rest-of-worlders start to hope.
\n(Any of my fellow rest-of-worlders who haven’t encountered the speech yet, you can find video and transcript here<\/a> – this thing is seriously worth your time.)
\nAnd this is, what, the third? fourth? incredible speech by Obama during this campaign, speeches for the ages that will be studied in schools for decades or longer. And the speeches aren’t just wind-up toy messages, they are the product of the man and his campaign. This is the guy the Dems want you to vote for.
\nAnd on the other side of the ballot paper? John McCain, who is basically a missile in a rumpled suit, and who managed to snatch the media eye away from Obama the only way he could, with a completely frikkin’ insane nomination decision for his VP. I mean, Sarah Palin? This is his counterpoint? Its such a wacked-out move that it doesn’t even make sense on its own terms. Is she meant to grab the Clinton voters? Seriously, you figure a fundy Christian anti-abortion hardliner is going to win over disgruntled feminists?
\nThen again, this is the US, and up is usually down over there. Political engagement there has advanced further from rationality than in any other first-world nation (though most of the others are racing to catch up, it must be noted). Just hold it in your head for a moment – the truly insane thing is that in the US, a country economically wounded, deeply corrupted and compromised, locked in a tortuous unwinnable war, in this country there will be an election between Barack Obama and John McCain – conjure up the images in your mind, these two men, and all that they represent – there will be an election between these two men, and John McCain has a good chance of winning<\/em>.
\nIt doesn’t make the slightest lick of sense, but I’ll tell you this: it makes for one hell of an interesting show.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a citizen of the rest of the world, man, I gotta say, that Obama guy you got in your election race can sure deliver a hell of a speech. The acceptance speech at the Denver convention? That is a thing of beauty. Almost enough to make us rest-of-worlders start to hope. (Any of my … Continue reading US Politics: Still Weird<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-everything-political"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8D9ZE-en","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgue.isprettyawesome.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}