On the way to work the other day, in the rain, glancing at the covers of the papers on the newstands – the NY Post, Daily News, AM New York – the headlines showed a bombastic and smartass and altogether manufactured corral of attitude against Obama, in reaction to the Republican “shellacking” of the Dems in the midterms the other day.  It serves politicians very well that America is a country that often never employs history to activate the future, but is instead a fanatical masochist for the making of the same mistakes over and over and over again.  “It would be hard to argue that we’re going backwards,” said President Obama after the polls closed. “I think what you can argue is we’re stuck in neutral.”

Republicans are bullies, and Democrats are pushovers. George W. Bush’s dimwitted high noon sheriff boosterism unleashed super opposition on the left, but he also alienated the far Christian right – the creationists and such types – which in turn instigated both Obama’s 2008 win and the Tea Party’s reactionary mutant gonzo rallying.  A wave of victory for one party is yet just a set-up for the next wave of victory for the opposite party.  As if things will change…  Obama, the first black president, pushed through health care and Wall Street reform, while announcing the “end of combat operations” in Iraq, and jacking up the War on Terror in Afghanistan.  His panache, smooth elocution, oratorical confidence and comportment of physical and intellectual command, constitute a supreme threat to Americans who find it more comforting to be fear-mongered than treated like a thinking adult.  Still, Obama is a politician, and we can only hope is more staunch a man than when Gore wussed-out in 2000 and conceded to Bush after the recount showdown in West Palm Beach, Florida.  Someday voters will realize that there are in fact more than two parties listed on the ballot with an empty circle next to it.  If, from the TV show Lost, The Man in Black and Jacob ran for governor, I’d go and vote for the third party: trickster survivalist megalomaniac Benjamin Linus.  I mean, in New York City, Rent is Too Damn High!

And is it a coincidence that George Bush has released his presidential memoir, Decision Points, just as this rehashed threshold of right-wing fever is sweeping the polls?  Here at Campus Whits, I will make a decision point to read the new Keith Richards autobiography, which should prove a wild and cerebral ride….

Meanwhile, the below pic is allegedly the earliest known photograph of Abraham Lincoln, taken of Young Lincoln on a visit to Louisville, Kentucky.  The authenticity was determined by Biometrica, a company that applies identity recognition technology to help gambling casinos nab con-artists on the gaming floor….