I'm a contributing editor to a nationally syndicated pet feature, and one of two lead bloggers at one of the best known and most popular pet blogs, Pet Connection. I’ve had an account here since the last presidential election, and did a lot of blogging here during the pet food recall, covering it from a political and regulatory perspective.
And if you read my personal blog or my comments here, you also know I am as crazed a supporter of Barack Obama as anyone has ever been.
But that’s not what this post is about. It’s about the Kentucky Derby, and the horse race of politics, and how disappointed I am that some of Obama’s supporters here on Daily Kos don’t seem to share his vision for a new kind of politics in this country, because they’re willing to use what happened to Eight Belles at the Kentucky Derby today as some kind of cheap political metaphor.
I said "some" of his supporters, because when it started happening, I was far from the only one objecting. A number of diaries were actually deleted by their authors when the commentors complained, and many, many commentors made sharply critical comments on every single diary guilty of this. But for every diary deleted, another one sprang up in its place.
Some of the offending diarists were gloating at the obvious metaphor of "Big Brown" beating out the first filly to start the Derby since 1999, who not only came in second (with Colonel John out of the money entirely) but broke her legs and had to be put down.
Some didn’t gloat, just observed, but didn’t seem particularly troubled by their observation. Quite a few claimed, in a dazzling leap of illogic, that Sen. Clinton herself had somehow "invited" their use of Eight Belle’s death in this way by betting on and rooting for the filly before the race began. One person made a comment so ugly I gave it a hide rating, something I almost never do or even believe in.
I will never as long as I live understand how people can be so heartless as to use the pain and death of a beautiful, living creature to make a transient political point. It makes me sick.
Politics and sport should bring out the best in us, not the worst. I don't object to horse racing, but beautiful young animals shouldn’t be raced so hard at two years old that they break down. The death of a living creature shouldn’t become fodder for scoring points in Internet debates. It’s shameful, and for those who claim they support a new politics in America, doubly so.
Crossposted from Pet Connection.