Spanking the Donkey

In the midst of tearing Klondike Barbie and her flock of knuckle-dragging troglodytes yet another new one, I forgot to smack Biden around for a few of his more reckless assertions. Occasionally we can be equal-opportunity pimp-slappers.

• Biden's and Obama's statements regarding "energy independence" leave me somewhat nonplussed. Both talk a great game on "alternative" energy sources, as if we're all going to be buzzing about our economically desolate exurbs on soybean-oil-powered hovercars with just a half-decade or so of commitment, wind turbines and solar panels humming in every backyard. I have heard neither one even so much as mention conservation, driving smaller and smarter, especially since we just silently bailed out the American automakers, rather than letting them sink into the tar pits of their own irrelevance. Or at least reinstating the CAFE standards.
  
  It's more than just sheer waste of gas that takes place every second of every day, it's the commensurate repair to a decaying infrastructure, having to invest in the renewal of a withering paradigm. I think we're all for creating a happy sunshiny green economy that doesn't rape the planet quite so much, but nothing would have quite so immediate and meaningful an impact as even slight modifications to personal habits.
  
  Indeed, many people were forced into that by high fuel costs earlier this summer, and the drop in demand has impacted oil prices. But if Americans hadn't gone stone broke in the last couple months, they'd just take that as a signal to start driving their grocery schooners again, carrying nothing to nowhere. Availability of resources is only part of the problem; sheer waste and excess is by far the easiest part of the equation to address. Yet no one even bothers to bring it up, though impending economic hardship has a way of wiping away the condescending sneer of conservation being a "personal virtue".



• Biden (and again, Obama) fails to make a convincing argument on Pakistan. I find it very difficult to believe that an Obama-Biden administration will make cross-border incursions into Waziristan a priority, and it would be a very bad idea if they did. Even a "surge" in Afghanistan is unlikely to provide the desired outcome. Afghanistan needs roads and schools and infrastructure and a more powerful centralized government. Pakistan needs to keep its ISI out of its incessant meddling and subterfuge, and help seal the Durand Line more efficiently. Some continued bribery will no doubt be necessary, and in this context acceptable.
  
  But to hear Obama and Biden talk about it, it's a chance for that muscular diplomacy talk that they hope will peel off a couple of points from the flag-waving demo. Look, guys, anyone still seriously thinking that the McPalin ticket has anything but pure grief in store for the country and the world is probably beyond convincing. They cannot explain themselves, and you cannot explain anything to them. Their politics are a direct projection of their psychological problems. You are not going to out-crazy their political crushes, and life (and the rest of the campaign season) is too short to suddenly have to become a special-ed teacher for these people. Just give 'em the pitch and move on. Half of them can't find Pakistan on a map anyway.



• Are we seriously intervening in Darfur? Only if we're prepared to enter into a dangerously adversarial relationship with our biggest creditor, and if one thing about both political parties is true, it's that money always trumps morality. Hell, Palin couldn't even tell the truth about divesting Alaska's state funds from Sudan, which means she's just okey-doke about using genocide as a political prop, doncha know.
  
  This sort of tedious moralizing always brings out the worst in politicians, because they always overextend on their idealistic happy-talk. They never actually mean it enough to follow up on it, and they never want to talk about the obvious constraints to doing so. You want to help out the Darfurians? Stop buying products from China. Most of it seems to be saturated with melamine anyway. But we're not fooling anyone with this "something must be done about Darfur" schtick. George Clooney has done far more about Darfur than either Joe Biden or Sarah Palin will ever do.