Well, here it is, the morning after, and we still can’t predict with any certainty who the Democratic nominee for president is going to be, but it’s looking pretty likely the Republican nom will go to McCain. My own prediction — and this isn’t my own preference, mind you, it’s just what my Magic 8-Ball is telling me — is that we’re going to end up choosing between Clinton and McCain come November. But who really knows? There’s still a lot of time to go…

I find it interesting that Huckabee made such a strong showing; obviously, his surge was fueled by Christian evangelicals in southern states where they are in the majority. I wonder if they honestly believe their guy has a chance in the general election, if they were just voting their principles, or if voting for Huckabee was really a strategy to block Mitt Romney, because evangelicals have such a problem with Mitt being Mormon?

Here in Utah, the voting went pretty much as I expected. Romney won the local Republican primary by a ridiculous margin (90 percent, I believe), owing, I’m sure, to his religion and his reputation as the man who saved Utah’s bacon during the 2002 Winter Olympics. (Long story, but just in case you don’t know it, the Cliff’s Note version is that preparations for SLC’s Games were not going well, there were scandals, and the whole thing looked like it was going to be a embarrassing disaster. Mitt took over the Organizing Committee at the last minute and the Games turned out to be a resounding success.) On the Democratic side, Obama took a wide lead over Clinton. Many people I’ve talked with this morning seem surprised by this; I’m not. Even among Democrats, Hillary is not well-liked in these parts. My theory is that even many so-called liberal Utahns — who, let’s be honest, would be considered fairly conservative in other parts of the country — tend to subscribe to more, ahem, traditional views of gender roles, and Hillary alienated, offended, or threatened them during the Wild Bill Years with her strong will and apparent acceptance of her husband’s philandering. But that’s just me talking out of my hat; it could also be something as simple as Obama visiting the state in person while Hillary just sent Bill and Chelsea in her place.

Either way, it was an interesting experience to be part of the Big Time for a change. Only eight months to go…

This is a historic day for the citizens of Utah, the first time we’ve ever participated in the Super Tuesday process, following unprecedented visits by nearly every major presidential candidate from both parties. (Little old Utah normally doesn’t get this much attention from the candidates, partly — I would imagine — because the state’s population is so small, and probably also because it’s a given that, come November, our electoral votes will go to whoever the GOP nominates.)
I myself voted in the Democratic primary this morning. (I couldn’t have voted on the Republican side even if I’d been so inclined — which I’m not — because they have a closed primary, loyal members of the club only, please.) For the record (and at risk of kicking off an argument here on my humble little corner of the Internet), I voted for Barack Obama.

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I really don’t have much to say about the speech — what I heard of it sounded like the same old stuff — I just enjoy typing the phrase “President Bush’s final State of the Union address.”

Michael May says something beautiful about Dr. King that bears repeating:

He may not have searched for lost treasure, discovered ancient civilizations, or killed aliens in outer space, but he was one of the bravest men this country’s ever known.

 

And he did fight monsters.

Bravo, Michael. Very nice…

…why you won’t be getting any snail-mail today:

If you’ve never heard the entire speech, you owe it to yourself to watch this clip. It’s a little long, but it’s powerful stuff. And it’s quintessentially American: injustice identified and loudly denounced, over and over, until change is wrought. This is what I was talking about last night, the progressive spirit of the early ’60s that among many other, far more important things, fueled the philosophy behind a little TV show I grew up loving. I admire it. In my cynicism, I can’t help but wonder if it’s still there somewhere in the American character, just sleeping, or if it’s been washed away by complacency and fear and all the shiny baubles that distract us. I also wonder what Dr. King would think of this brave new world of the 21st century. Have we come far enough yet on matters of race to satisfy him? How would he have reacted to 9/11? Would he have spoken out against the horrors of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo? And would people still listen if he had?

As I mentioned the other day, this is the time when everybody starts recapping the previous 12 months, trying to gain some perspective on the year just winding down or at the very least remember just what exactly has gone on lately. In that spirit of recollection, have a look at this:

***VIDEO MISSING***

Love those boys at JibJab. Extra credit to them for playing off Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” a song that I always loved because I knew what more of the events referenced in the lyrics actually were than my friends did. (I’m all about establishing my own intellectual superiority.) In fact, I think Billy ought to revisit that tune once a decade or so, to keep it all up to date. Think of it, Billy Joel, the keeper of recent American history! That’s a much more impressive title than mere musician…

I tend to be pretty anti-authoritarian by nature, and I’m deeply troubled whenever I hear about those who have power abusing those who do not. Even so, I just can’t seem to work up too much outrage over that incident that’s had the InterWebs buzzing for the last week or so, the one in which a University of Florida student got tasered after disrupting an appearance by Senator John Kerry.

The video evidence plainly shows that police had no good reason to zap him, considering he appears to be handcuffed, on the ground, and surrounded by about a half-dozen uniformed officers. But it also looks to me like this kid was going out of his way to make a scene and was egging on the blackbellies by acting like Dennis the Constitutional Peasant in Monty Python and the Holy Grail (“Help! Help! I’m being repressed! Come see the violence inherent in the system!”). I’ve also heard that Andrew Meyer, the student in question, is a known provocateur who butted his way to the front of the line so he could harangue Kerry, and that he had arranged for someone to film him in hopes (presumably) of getting his 15 seconds of YouTube fame (Warhol overestimated the country’s attention span, in my opinion).

I think Jon Stewart probably nailed the situation when he called it, “An unfortunate combination of police over-reaction and what appears to be student douche-baggery.”

Still, whatever Meyer’s true motivations and regardless of where you may stand on the question of whether his civil rights were violated, he did get his moment on YouTube:

These days, that seems to be about all that matters, doesn’t it?

Sorry about the offensive title, but I myself find the behavior that provoked it about a thousand times more offensive than that common vulgarism. If you haven’t heard, a trio of Christian whack-jobs disrupted the opening prayer on the floor of the Senate yesterday because they thought having it delivered by a Hindu — a historical first, by the way — was an “abomination.” Now, leaving aside any personal beliefs or questions of theology or “truth,” this sort of thing is quite simply rude; shouting down a soft-spoken man who’s just trying to say a few nice words that he was invited to say is a rotten thing to do, and no amount of bone-headed posturing about “gross idolatry” can excuse that. If you watch the video of the incident, the poor Hindu guy looks absolutely mortified, not to mention a little bit scared. These moronic fundamentalist protesters — who strike me as the moral and would-be practical equivalent of the dreaded Taliban — are entitled to their opinions and beliefs, of course, but their actions are totally unacceptable under those circumstances, little different than walking up to some guy who’s minding his own business and poking him in the eye. Their actions are also, in my book, bigoted and un-American.

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Andrew Sullivan reminds us of the way things used to be:

“Victory means exit strategy, and it’s important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is,” – George W. Bush, April 9, 1999, criticizing President Clinton for not setting a timetable for exiting Kosovo.

 

“I think it’s also important for the president to lay out a timetable as to how long they will be involved and when they will be withdrawn,” – George W. Bush, June 5, 1999.

Interesting how people change their tune, isn’t it?