Like Dan Conner said to Darlene's beau, David, "it doesn't matter."
If that's true, then I'll drink to Kool-aid.
Friday morning at 5:00am I will leave for Ohio, where I intend to do my level best to convince Buckeyes that it matters that one candidate has spent eight years as a leader of the most successful White House in memory. That it matters whether or not we one candidate has endured 35 years of 24/7 scrutiny without a macacaw moment; that it matters that one candidate had the gravitas to cause the leaders of her adopted state to step aside for her candidacy rather than just the good fortune to have the Republicans import a ideologue from out of state to run against him.
Which may not matter in the final analysis. My best efforts, Hillary's best efforts. It may not matter. The pundits and pollsters say there's little that can help her, now.
In the Rosesanne episode "Playing with Matches," Dan is advising David regarding his fight with Darlene, and he tells David what he must do: apologize and promise it will never happen again.
"But I don't know what I did!" says a bewildered David.
"It doesn't matter. Apologize and promise it will never happen again."
"But I didn't do . . ."
"It doesn't matter."
" . . . anything. I don't know what . . . "
"It doesn't matter."
" . . . I'm never supposed to do again"
"It doesn't matter"
And so it seems to go with Obama.
"He makes rookie mistakes like promising to pump up all the world's posturing tyrants by inviting them to the White House for a photo-op."
"It doesn't matter."
"But there is no evidence at all that he will be able to move the Old Bulls of the Congress"
"It doesn't matter."
"But he hasn’t found time to convene a single hearing of the Senate Sub-committee he asked to chair."
"It doesn’t matter."
"But we have no idea how he will respond when his powerful allies are at each others' throats; he's never been in a situation like that!"
"It doesn't matter."
"But his 'beautiful rhetoric' is not really "HIS" at all."
"It doesn't matter."
"But he promises one thing, like accepting public money in the general election, IN WRITING, and now he needs to sit down and see if it makes sense to keep his promise"
"It doesn't matter."
Because nothing matters. Because it's not about him.
It's about the image of him. It's about a blank screen upon which the country can project an image of a leader who fills the bill. Fits the suit. Reads the script. His job is to stand in front of the screen and try not to line up with all of the projections from all of the angles so as to not block out anybody's projection from reaching the screen. And this works better if you're so small as to not be there at all.
From our angle, to the side of the screen, it seems perfectly ludicrous that anyone thinks the image on the screen is cast by the man standing in front of it, but that's because of our angle. And because we have not yet sipped the potion that enables us to see Abraham Lincoln come Franklin Roosevelt come Jack Kennedy when staring at this nice young man from Hawaii come Illinois.
The question that seems likely to be presented if nothing matters, is, will I, too, drink the potion served to me by those who have called me "liar" and "stooge" and "throwback"? Those who say that any reference to Jesse Jackson is a racial slur. Must I help put THEM in power?
Well, I say yes.
Like "Pascal's Gambit," in which Blaise Pascal concludes that it is better to believe in God than not because of the four choices —
God is real and you believe; you go to heaven.
God is real and you don't believe; you go to hell.
God does not exist, but you thought He did; eternity is unchanged.
God does not exist, just as you thought; eternity is unchanged.
--- only one has a happy outcome. So better to believe, whether or not there is evidence.
So are the choices on Obama if he is our nominee:
We Hope he can do it and We're correct: The Left has its Ronald Regan.
We Hope he can do it and we're wrong: He fails and the Dems go back into the wilderness; us, them, the whole party, unified.
We remain skeptical, but He has the mojo and we were wrong. Happy days are here again but Hillary's crew is sitting over there in the corner, sulking.
We remain skeptical, and, sadly, we are right. Limbaugh is proven right. Depending upon how soon he collapses, either John McCain is elected and we continue the 100 Year War, or Jeb Bush comes in after one failed term. Obamiacs say its our fault, we say its theirs. The problems confronting working moms are addressed with tax cuts. Global warming is addressed with tax cuts. The deficit is addressed with tax cuts. The problem of peeling paint is addressed with tax cuts.
So, like Pascal said, there is only one happy choice: Obama is everything he hopes he is. Whether or not there is any evidence. We march out like Ted Kennedy and John Kerry and announce that we are sure that in the three years since he was a state senator, Barack has risen to the challenge. We see his image up there on the screen, and it looks like just what we always wanted and needed.
'Cause what good would it do to say we saw anything else?
But there is one more weekend. So I'm off to Cleveland, just in case it matters.