Thursday, August 28, 2008

Party Unity My Ass, My Ass

I will be taking a little break from politicswatching to do my World Civ homework, but before I do, I'd just like to join the chorus of voices commenting on the supposed rift between Hillary supporters and Barack Obama.

The media has this little narrative by the throat: Many Hillary supporters are disappointed, disillusioned, unhappy with Obama, and perhaps unwilling to vote for him. And the McCainiacs are gleefully encouraging this superficial assessment of Democratic disunity (perhaps to draw attention away from their own problems along that line?), hoping it will flare into real disunity, presumably.

Now, if you had looked at the backgrounds of the broadcasting booths for the various 24-hour news channels, you would have seen lots of these self-proclaimed "PUMAs", which stands, as the title of this post indicates, for "Party Unity, My Ass." This unfortunate acronym has led to far, far too many horrible little abbreviations and such based on things that large cats have, like paws and claws and the like.

The thing is, the PUMAs at the convention were rare cats (aagh! I've succumbed to bad-humor-silliness!). The ones around the broadcast booths were practically the only ones, by all accounts. The PUMAs, of course, are no fools, mediawise. They know that if you make a lot of noise in front of a camera, you will look a lot bigger than you actually are. This sort of tactic is something frequently used by pufferfish, politicians, and (you guessed it!) cats. In all cases, it is deceptive, nothing but a load of hot air.

There's a story going around about when the PUMAs tried to organize a little get-together at a five-star hotel in DC. They sent out a cheery-sounding note that basically said "send in the money and we will give you a ticket to this big gathering of like-minded annoyances." They needed 250 PUMAs to be able to hold it at the five-star hotel. It turned out that they were only able to get 60 to fork over the dough, and had to shift it to a Holiday Inn (definitely not five stars) near Dulles.

It should be well known by now that the media, in general, are usually fairly easy to lead by the nose. Show them what appears to be the reality, and they will probably decide that it must be true. Leak rumors of your VP pick, and they will practically vet him/her for you. Loudly shout about sexism, and the good folks at CNN, MSNBC, Fox Noise, etc. will echo it back to you. Unlike some people, I don't fault them (much) for that. They're human, they screw up.

At any rate, here is my final thought, before I read the stuff for World Civ and go to a pool party, and later, a convention watch party. I once read a story told by a man who had gone to Afghanistan. He told about meeting some Afghani adolescents and young men while he was there. He started discussing things with them, and asked how life was. They complained about all of the problems of the Taliban, all of the onerous burdens placed on their lives by the fundamentalists. Then he asked if they would support an American invasion. Instantly the young men were staunch defenders of the Taliban, saying they would fight the Americans to the death, etc. I think most Hillary supporters are a bit like that- I won't say "all bitch, no action," which was my first impulse, but just a little sore over having lost like they did. Understandable, really. But come November, I doubt most Hillary supporters will mark the box for McCain.

For a more succinct expression of what I just took a very long time to say, click here. The top and bottom ones are what I'm talking about.

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