It’s Just Too Easy
Ridiculing Bernard-Henri Levy is usually more Michael’s hobby, but I’ll take a crack at it. Citing reasons why Obama is likely to win, he had this howler in his new article:
In Florida, another swing state, he [Obama] is already campaigning against the prospect of offshore oil drilling, which has been imprudently supported by his rival.
Perhaps BHL is unaware of this, but a majority of likely Floridian voters supports offshore oil drilling and, perhaps not entirely coincidentally, McCain leads fairly comfortably there. There are many other things he seems to be unaware of as he delves into American presidential politics. He writes breathlessly:
Not to mention the setting up of a special committee (partly presided over, if you please, by Caroline Kennedy!) to help choose Obama’s future vice president. Will it be the former governor of New Mexico [bold mine-DL]? Governor Strickland, in a nod to blue-collar voters?
Bruce King has made Obama’s VP short-list, and no one told me?! Ahem. Bill Richardon is, alas, still the governor of New Mexico and, for our sins, will continue to be until early 2011. As most people following the election closely in this country know, Strickland very clearly took himself out of the running. Obama should hope that BHL is no more accurate when he describes Obama as a “meteor,” since these are things that burn up in the atmosphere or crash to earth.
Are you sure BHL didn’t mean Gary Johnson? After all, Obama is postpartisan, or something.
(true confession – I have absolutely no idea how Johnson did or did not perform as Governor – I know of him pretty much only for his willingness to call the War on (certain) Drugs the failure that I also think it to be, though I believe he also endorsed Dr. Paul. I’m interested to know your take on his overall performance.)
Re “meteor”: according to Wikipedia, “The meteor is simply the visible event rather than an object itself.” I leave the potential ironies in that definition to your own enjoyment.
I’m pretty sure he didn’t mean Johnson. He was actually not a bad governor, though I didn’t agree with his support for the lottery and Indian gaming. If Obama picked Johnson (who endorsed Ron Paul), that would scramble a lot of my calculations.
Good point re: meteor.
That was a joke about Johnson and BHL. I’m quite sure BHL somehow forgot that Richardson is still governor (I’m sure you wish you could too). Thanks for the info about Johnson, though. I didn’t know (or remember, at any rate) about the lottery and gambling stuff.
Still, I would have liked Johnson not to have fallen complete off the radar. Oh well.