{"id":1933,"date":"2008-03-04T09:36:18","date_gmt":"2008-03-04T14:36:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wanna-know-why-i-gave-up-writing-about-politics-politicians\/"},"modified":"2008-03-04T09:39:30","modified_gmt":"2008-03-04T14:39:30","slug":"wanna-know-why-i-gave-up-writing-about-politics-politicians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wanna-know-why-i-gave-up-writing-about-politics-politicians","title":{"rendered":"Wanna know why I gave up writing about politics & politicians?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Because it’s all incredibly depressing bullshit. Need examples?<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

A Canadian buddy of mine was freaked out that Obama and Clinton\/B both spouted off about trashing NAFTA recently. I explained to him, “They don’t mean it; they’re just pandering to voters in Ohio. If either wins the election, they’ll repudiate all that based on ‘the realities of the office’ or something.”<\/p>\n

Lo and behold, in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal<\/em>, there’s a short article<\/a> on how both candidates are assiduously avoiding any mention of NAFTA<\/em> in their speeches in Texas, where the economy is doing just fine, there’s job growth, and border towns are benefiting from the free trade pact.
\n* * *<\/p>\n

NYTimes writer (and St. John’s College alum!) Danny Hakim writes about how Gov. Eliot Spitzer is circumventing his own limits on political donations<\/a> so that he can get enough funds together to knock out the Republican majority in the state senate:<\/p>\n

The governor could not have been more emphatic when he initially announced his policy. On Nov. 30, 2006, before even taking office, Mr. Spitzer held a news conference to unveil a number of reforms he intended to undertake, with the $10,000 limit the most eye-opening proposal — well below the $55,900 that statewide candidates can accept.<\/p>\n

“I think this is unprecedented,” the governor said at the news conference. “I do not know of another instance where others have acted unilaterally.”<\/p>\n[. . .] “The reason we do this [limit donations to the governor, but redirect much higher donations to the governor-controlled party fund], and the reason it’s a priority, is so that we can achieve a majority in the Senate to accomplish the necessary reforms,” Mr. Toohey said. “We’re never going to get the kinds of reforms that people want on a range of issues if we don’t have a Democratic Senate.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oh, and the other reason<\/em> they do this is because the investigations into Spitzer’s unethical behavior<\/a> will also be harder to shut down if his party doesn’t control the state senate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Because it’s all incredibly depressing bullshit. Need examples? * * * A Canadian buddy of mine was freaked out that Obama and Clinton\/B both spouted off about trashing NAFTA recently. I explained to him, “They don’t mean it; they’re just pandering to voters in Ohio. If either wins the election, they’ll repudiate all that based … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Wanna know why I gave up writing about politics & politicians?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-explicit"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-vb","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":159,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/the-dialectic-of-politics","url_meta":{"origin":1933,"position":0},"title":"The Dialectic of Politics","author":"Gil","date":"March 29, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Nice piece on BusinessWeek.com about how presidential administrations invariably reject the policies of their immediate predecessor.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1406,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/parking-as-a-bloodsport","url_meta":{"origin":1933,"position":1},"title":"Parking as a bloodsport","author":"Gil","date":"March 25, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"George Will on anger exhibitionism: The politics of disdain -- e.g., Howard Dean's judgment that Republicans are \"brain dead\" and \"a lot of them never made an honest living in their lives\" -- derails politics by defining opponents as beyond the reach of reason. The anger directed at Bush today,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics (explicit)"","block_context":{"text":"Politics (explicit)","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/politics-explicit"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2343,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/the-deadliest-pick","url_meta":{"origin":1933,"position":2},"title":"The Deadliest Pick","author":"Gil","date":"August 30, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I don't venture into politics too often on this blog, but here's my prediction for the Sarah Palin effect: it backfires on McCain because women will actually want to vote against her the more their husbands point out how hot she is.","rel":"","context":"In "Politics (explicit)"","block_context":{"text":"Politics (explicit)","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/politics-explicit"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1810,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-dec-7-2007","url_meta":{"origin":1933,"position":3},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Dec. 7, 2007","author":"Gil","date":"December 7, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Another Friday, another collection of quirky links, dear readers! As far as I know, my wife did not bring these with her from Louisiana. * * * I guess this would constitute the meta-version of college kids wasting their time with Tetris. * * * The world's most gorgeous bookstore.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Architecture"","block_context":{"text":"Architecture","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/architecture"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":17874,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-666-morten-hoi-jensen","url_meta":{"origin":1933,"position":4},"title":"Episode 666 – Morten Hoi Jensen","author":"Gil","date":"December 9, 2025","format":"audio","excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show 666: Morten H\u00f8i Jensen \"Part of what The Magic Mountain is about is the sense of having lived through a really major rupture in time, of living through a moment in which an old order is falling apart. And that's the way in which it most speaks\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/mortenjensen2025comp.jpg?fit=1055%2C800&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/mortenjensen2025comp.jpg?fit=1055%2C800&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/mortenjensen2025comp.jpg?fit=1055%2C800&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/mortenjensen2025comp.jpg?fit=1055%2C800&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/mortenjensen2025comp.jpg?fit=1055%2C800&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1917,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/sofa-so-bad","url_meta":{"origin":1933,"position":5},"title":"Sofa, So Bad","author":"Gil","date":"February 23, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"NM Governor Bill Richardson may be a kingmaker in Democratic party presidential politics, but I hope the eventual winner doesn't promise him a position in the Department of Interior Decorating: Seriously: that's some terrible upholstery (and I'm pretending not to see the \"GOV\" fur blanket behind him). Good thing Bill\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics (explicit)"","block_context":{"text":"Politics (explicit)","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/politics-explicit"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1933\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}